Accidental Knight: A Marriage Mistake Romance(53)

He grins at me. “Mine weren’t.”

I lean closer. “Then I’ll just have to eat yours next time, hot stuff.”

Okay. I know this is getting dumb. But I want to see how far I can push the lines before –

Mother clears her throat, more like a snarl than cutting in. When I look up, she’s leaning across the table.

“What are you doing, Annabelle? You two appear awfully friendly. Don’t tell me you’ve lost your mind for this ridiculous man.”

I’ve lost something, all right.

But I don’t even care when Drake’s fingers tighten on mine. It’s working.

The only thing being lost over lunch is Mom’s bitter, bruising cool.





10





There Be Dragons (Drake)





I know full well what she’s doing, and it’s working.

Her mother looks like she’s just popped the world’s sourest lemon slice in her mouth.

Bella’s teasing plays havoc on me, too, in a completely different way. It’s an express ticket to hard-on city.

I have to shift in my seat to ease the tightness in my jeans. She’s too close, too playful, too good at putting filthy thoughts in my head by making me believe – if just for a hot second – that we’re a couple.

But I know it’s not true. Because if in some crazy universe it were, we damn sure wouldn’t be here arguing with Molly Reed.

We’d be back at the ranch, and I’d have her tied to the bed. Finding out how far we could push that old wooden frame before the damn thing snaps like a twig.

I get why she’s playing this game, to piss off her folks, but she doesn’t have a clue what kind of collateral damage she’s doing. I’ve got an ugly feeling my balls could rival a smurf, turning an angrier, deeper blue than my eyes.

“Of course we’re friendly,” Bella says to her mother. “Why shouldn’t we be? We live in the same house.”

“You hardly know each other,” Molly snaps.

Bella laughs. “Drake lived with Gramps for years. If he trusted him, so do I.”

Molly opens her mouth to bark back, but before she does, our waitress appears. Erin Cassidy today.

“Everybody trusts a Larkin boy!” Erin says, arriving at our table with four glasses of water. Her blonde hair is stacked high on her head and her lips are painted as ruby red as her fingernails. “Mr. Reed would’ve been plenty lost without this beefcake.”

I shake my head at her, smiling at the nickname she gave me years ago.

Her face softens as she recognizes Bella. “I’m so sorry about your loss, Bella. You know how much I loved your grandfather. How much we all did here in town.”

The shine fades from Bella’s eyes as she says, “Thanks, Erin. And I know that Gramps loved you all back just as much.”

Her ma lets out a not-so-subtle groan.

This woman is a royal bitch. I reach past Bella to put my menu away and make a point of gently brushing her cheek before I tell Erin, “Two orders of the usual. Less peppers for her.”

Erin nods, smiles, and writes on her notepad. “Cheeseburger, Mack style, crispy fries, and lemonade times two. Got it.”

“Yum,” Bella says. “Sounds perfect.”

“And the two of yo—” Erin shakes her head and does a double take on Bella’s father. “Well, glory be...are my eyes playing tricks or is that Gary Reed?” She laughs at her own joke. “I haven’t seen you since high school! How’ve you been, Gary?”

It’s the first time I’ve seen her old man’s face change in any meaningful way. The puppet actually smiles.

“Good, thank you,” he replies. “How about you, Erin?”

Amazing. He’s talking, too. I’d started wondering if he ever had a voice box installed.

“Awesome, Gary. Life’s been good to me. How’s...” Erin taps her pen on her pad. “Oh, what was her name?”

“Molly, and I’m fine.” For once, she sounds surprised, and actually a bit deflated that she wasn’t instantly recognized.

Erin levels a slow, thoughtful stare on Bella’s mother. “Oh, so it is you. Wow. You look very...different than I remember.”

Jonah told me about Molly’s non-stop train of surgeries and augmentations. They disgusted him.

I don’t have a problem with chicks doing whatever the fuck they want with their bodies. It’s none of my business.

But in this case, I wonder why the hell money couldn’t buy better surgeons. The kind that wouldn’t have made the changes look so obvious, so artificial, so off.

Her nose is half the size of a grown woman’s. And those lips? Let’s just say Mr. Botox isn’t kind in big enough doses to damn near mummify a human being.

I have to hide a grin because it’s obvious Erin knows exactly what she’s doing.

A little swipe of revenge, maybe, even if I hadn’t heard the backstory of how once upon a time Molly came between a couple kids named Erin Mackelmoore and Gary Reed.

Jonah didn’t hold back any secrets when it came to his son and daughter-in-law.

The mountain lion across the table realizes it once her shock wears off, too. Molly’s ears steam red and her thickly lined mascara framed eyes beam daggers at our poor waitress.