“You okay?”
I looked over at Gage and forced a smile. “I’m fine. I just wasn’t ready for that.”
“They’re vipers, but that’s their job. If you think about it that way, it might be easier.”
Looking down at my left hand as it rested on top of my other one in my lap, I regretted ever agreeing to this. The finger where my engagement ring should have been looked like I felt. Empty.
“I guess. I want to go home.”
“We need to eat at Malone’s before we get to head home,” he said, sounding almost apologetic.
“Fine. We’ll do that, but then I want to go home.”
Chapter Seven
Nina
Malone’s was exactly the kind of place I dreaded and exactly the kind of place I knew Daryl would send us to. Small and intimate, it was dark even in the daylight and screamed romantic rendezvous. God, I wished Daryl wasn’t so good at this.
The hostess escorted us to a table near a window looking directly out to the street. I quietly protested, but Gage simply showed me his phone and a text from Daryl indicating this was exactly where he’d arranged for us to be seen.
Fucking fabulous.
I held the menu up in front of my face as a small group of photographers began to gather outside. Nothing on it sounded even remotely appetizing, but I tried to convince myself that as long as the bar could whip up a chocolate martini or two, I might make it through our latest performance.
“Nina, I understand you’re not happy, but hiding behind the menu isn’t really what Daryl wants, I’m guessing.”
“I don’t care what he wants,” I said from behind my menu.
The waiter arrived to take our order, entirely too chipper for my mood. I listened as Gage ordered his meal of a steak cooked medium and roasted red bliss potatoes with steamed asparagus dressed in parmesan. Ordinarily, that would have sounded good, but at that moment, just the thought of it nearly made me sick.
“What will Miss be having?” the waiter asked as he turned and looked down at me.
“Chocolate martini. Make sure the glass is sugared.”
He tugged on my menu, forcing it from my hand, and smiled fakely before turning away. I looked across the table at Gage and saw a look of pity on his face. I hated his pity. Self-pity I was all about, but pity from someone who barely knew me just felt wrong.
“Liquid lunch?”
“Yeah.”
We sat in silence as the waiter brought Gage’s soda and my martini, the crowd outside growing the whole time. What the fuck had Daryl told them? Did they think they would catch us having sex right there in the window of Malone’s?
Gage slid his hand across the table to touch mine. “Nina, I know this is hard, but we have to try.”
“I don’t want to try. I want to drink. I want to forget that I’m sitting here with people watching our every move and waiting for us to act like we care about each other.”
“Maybe if I tell you something about me and Angela that might help?”
“Sure,” I mumbled as I focused on the taste of my martini as it sat on my tongue, all chocolately goodness.
He didn’t move his hand away, keeping it on top of mine and giving the photographers something to snap away at, which they did. Every part of me wanted to take my hand back, but I kept it there as he began to tell the tale of the woman he’d loved.
“I remember the first time we knew we thought more of each other than just bodyguard and client. She was on location in Spain. We’d been pretending to be a couple for months, but one night, it all just came together.”
“Was it love at first sight?” I asked as I took a healthy gulp of my drink, enjoying the warming sensation it left in its wake as I swallowed.
Gage shook his head. “No. She was like a spoiled child when I first began guarding her. I don’t think we spoke our first words to one another for weeks after I was hired. Well, that’s not true. She snapped at me constantly in those weeks. When we finally began talking, I could see she wasn’t that diva I’d thought she was.”
“Sounds like that Whitney Houston movie, The Bodyguard.”
“Not exactly. She wasn’t that bad.”
I held up my glass to let the waiter know I needed a refill. “Well, it’s nice to know there was a happy ending,” I said as I looked around the restaurant for the missing waiter.
“Not really. She married someone else last March.”
Turning to look at him, for first time I saw emotion in his eyes. God, I was such a bitch! I placed my glass down on the table and rested my other hand on top of his. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so flippant about everything. You obviously cared about her.”