Live For Me (Blurred Lines #2)(20)
Author: Erin McCarthy

The whole thing seemed like a bad idea to me. “What if I wreck your car?”

“I have insurance.” Then he reached over and tucked my hair behind my ear. “Come on. There’s nothing you can even hit out here. It will be fine.”

His casual touch had me willing to do just about anything. “Fine. Whatever.”

“I’m striking that word from your vocabulary. It goes to the graveyard of words right along with selfie.” Though he sounded more amused than annoyed.

“Fine?” I teased.

He rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

I laughed. When I got out of the car and moved around the front of it, he passed me. Shifting so we wouldn’t touch, I turned one hip toward the car. But Devin actually dropped his hand down onto my waist.

“Remember not to panic,” he said. “You’ve got this.”

Suddenly the driving seemed less dangerous than Devin himself. There was something about the way he looked at me, like I was important, that I mattered. Like he wanted to spend time with me.

“If I drive us off a cliff I promise not to say I told you so.”

He laughed. “Thanks. That’s big of you. But don’t worry. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

I shivered, but not from cold. He squeezed my waist. “Step one. Get back in the car.”

He was actually a patient teacher. He pointed out all the important parts to the car and had me turn it on. Then put the car in drive and ease off the brake. We rolled forward.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” I said, gripping the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles turned white. “This is the weirdest feeling.”

“Now push the gas.”

I did and we shot forward so fast both our heads snapped. I screamed and slammed on the brake, jerking us again.

“Whoa. It’s okay. Don’t stomp on the gas, just slowly press it down.”

My heart was racing. “Okay. Okay, I’ve got it now.” I took a deep breath and moved my foot, slowly accelerating this time. We crawled forward on the driveway. “Holy shit, I’m driving.”

“You’re driving. I told you it would be fine. You can probably stop making that sound now.”

Huh. “What sound?”

“You’re going ‘oh, oh, oh.’”

My mouth snapped shut. God, he was right. I was. It was a weird little sound of distress.

“It’s not really a sound I want a woman to be making when I’m with her.”

“No?” I wasn’t taking the bait. I was not discussing his sex life with him. It would only make me jealous.

“No.”

I brought the car to a stop in front of the house and put it in park. I gave a sigh. One of relief and satisfaction.

“That’s the sound I want a woman to make. Or at least one of many.”

“Make up your mind,” I told him, turning his sports car off and fingering the keys in my palm in exasperation. “Am I a kid or am I a woman? You can’t have it both ways.”

“You’re an oxymoron, that’s what you are.”

Or just a moron.

I wasn’t in danger of falling for him. I already had.

Chapter Seven

Two days later I went upstairs to ask Devin when he wanted dinner. I was having some weird sort of domestic high, cooking and cleaning for him. Sure, I was being paid for it. But I took total feminine satisfaction in watching him pack away whatever I cooked based off another Internet recipe. He ate all over the world in expensive restaurants and yet he had practically motorboated the biscuits and gravy I had made. It was never something I thought I would enjoy, but when you took care of someone who expressed gratitude for it, it was actually damn satisfying.

Cat had always encouraged me to pursue nursing, had said it came naturally to me. I had always figured it was just the only thing I had any experience doing. But now I was growing more confident in that choice because I liked the nurturing and orderly tasks of taking care of a household. Caring for patients would be even that much more satisfying.

It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that it was Devin.

Or so I told myself.

But I knew I was lying.

He was in his studio and I could hear his voice when I went down the hall, raised in anger.

Pausing near the doorway¸ I wondering if I should let him know I was there, or just come back later. But then his words gave me pause.

“I’m not doing this with you again,” he said.

His tone was disgusted. “The f**king tears aren’t going to work. You were totally out of line attacking Brooke like that.”

So it was Kadence, his ex-wife, on the phone.

“It has nothing to do with her. I didn’t get involved with her until after we split, you know that. I was never unfaithful to you.”

Though anyone could say that, I believed him. It just seemed that while Devin was many things, cheater wasn’t one of them, despite what those pictures said. It made sense to me that they were sent by his ex. Who else would have?

There was silence while he listened to her response, then I heard Devin give a sigh. “No. You’re not throwing that in my face again. I don’t believe you.”

His voice was cold. Remote. “Prove it.”

Trying to school my features so he’d think I had just gotten there, I put myself in the doorway, mouthing “sorry” that I was interrupting and backed up again to leave. He held up a finger to indicate I should wait.

“Of course I’ll answer your call. I’ll always answer your calls. But I’m not going to be manipulated.” He was sitting at his desk and he had headphones around his neck. Yanking them off, he tossed them down. “I have to go. I’m not in New York and an issue has popped up.”

Apparently I was his issue.

He said goodbye and hung up the phone. “Can I help you?”

Well, that was friendly. Not. “I just wanted to know if you wanted dinner soon.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said.

“Like what?” I tried to neutralize my features, not really sure what my face was expressing. I considered myself pretty good at not showing my hand to anyone, yet Devin always seemed to read me really well. He knew when I was upset or nervous, or ticked off.

“Like I’m disappointing you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I didn’t. I wasn’t surprised his conversation with his ex was contentious. How many people had awesome relationships with someone they had divorced? But he had seemed kinder to her on the video I’d seen, though I hadn’t been able to hear what he was saying.