“Belle,” I rumble.
“Ooh, that’s hot.”
“Shh, Dolly,” Eve hisses, drawing my attention to where a cluster of women is watching us from the other side of the counter.
I have no idea where they came from and wish they’d go back to wherever they were before I showed up.
“What? I love it when guys growl.”
“Dolly.” The woman I recognize as Belle’s bestie slaps the tiny brunette’s arm.
I look at Belle. “Can we take this somewhere private, please?”
“I’m at work.”
Her blunt answer has me pursing my lips. “It’ll take five minutes.”
Eve snorts, calling out, “You think it’ll take five minutes to get back in her good graces?”
I grit my teeth because this sucks, but if this is what it takes to win Belle… Clearing my throat, I start, “I should never have let you come back here—”
Much like my sisters did, they boo and hiss at me.
“Let me finish—” I snap, skewering the cluster with a scowl. “I shouldn’t have let you come back here without talking about an end date.”
Belle frowns. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean, I asked you when you were coming back and you didn’t give me an answer.”
“Because there wasn’t an answer that you’d have accepted—”
“And that’s my point.” I aim a finger at myself and then at her. “This isn’t over, Belle. You know it. I know it.”
“I know no such thing, Cade. You can’t even tell me you have feelings for me after…” Belle glances around but the diners are gathered near the exit, not the counter, and no one apart from her friends can hear us. “…the murders and getting rid of bodies for me.”
“That is end-game material,” Eve concurs. “It’s not like that’s something you do for just anyone.”
Dolly grins. “It’s just so romantic, in a morbid way.”
Charlie pipes in, “It’d be even more romantic if he had nothing to do with why the dead guys were there in the first place.”
“She’s right,” I admit, wincing. “I manipulated things, manipulated you into being with me, and that’s why I let you come back here. Because I could see the sense in that, could understand why you’d need to find a new balance, but…” I suck in a breath. “My sisters told me that I’m a better guy around you.”
“See. He listens to his sisters. I love that!” Dolly whispers as she grabs ahold of Charlie’s arm. “I knew I was right to root for you, Cade.”
Belle ignores them. “How are you a better guy?”
“They said I was a jerk before, but with you, I’m different. I know why too—from the minute I set eyes on you, Belle, I won’t lie, I knew you were a walking disaster.” I dismiss the boos and hisses from the audience with a snarled, “I’m going somewhere with this. Give me a chance to explain.”
“Explain fast,” Eve says coolly. “No one talks to our girl like that.”
I raise my hand. “Look, you guys are not perfect. There are a lot of reasons she went with me to New York. She had her stomach pumped because she OD’ed. If that’s not a cry for help, I don’t know what is. Then her so-called BFF’s man fires her in the goddamn hospital.”
Charlie blanches. “I apologized for that.”
“Too little, too late,” I sneer. “She came back to L.A. because she thinks you’re her family, but all I can see is that you let her down as much as I did. Belle had a reason for being fragile, and maybe you guys didn’t know that reason—”
Slamming her hands on her hips, Belle argues, “Cade, you can’t say stuff like that. It’s called an intervention for a reason. You don’t know everything I put them through.”