“You’re marrying V-Vanessa?” Melanie’s eyes darted between Damien and the offending object in her hand.
Despite the coolness from the ring, a pool of liquid heated at the base of her stomach. Pressure built. Not slow, but fast. Supersonic fast. The pressure rushed up and seeped through long, jagged cracks that had formed across her chest.
She tossed the ring onto the table like dice. Rolling and spinning, the silver band toppled in front of Damien. “I didn’t know that … ” She cleared the large achy clump that blocked her throat. “I didn’t know that you and Vanessa were serious. Or engaged, for that matter. Oh, wait, that’s not right. You couldn’t be engaged because you haven’t asked her yet. But I didn’t know … didn’t realize you were serious about her.” She was babbling but couldn’t stop herself. Either ramble like a lunatic or cry like one.
“Mel, I know this seems abrupt, and I need to explain.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “That question I asked you earlier wasn’t hypothetical.”
“Gee, I kind of figured that out for myself.” Her laugh was cold and hollow, as if bouncing around in a tin can.
“Leslie called me this morning. Refurbished Dreams is in trouble. Long story short, we need a quarter of a mill to get us back in the black.”
Melanie nodded, encouraging him to continue.
“The bank needs the money in a month. Leslie was freaked out, and then I—”
“Did what you do best.” She shook her head and took a deep breath. “You promised to save the day and somehow roped Leonard and the agency into giving you the money. And he … Wait.” She balled her hands into fists. “Did he blackmail you into marrying Vanessa for the money?”
“No. It wasn’t like that.”
“Oh my God, he did, didn’t he?”
“Melanie.” Damien’s tone was powerful, disapproving, and deep-freezer cold. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m telling you—”
“Did he throw in an acre of land and a goat if you became betrothed to his daughter?” Her pitch went up two octaves. The heat of curious stares from restaurant patrons scorched her skin, but she was well past caring.
“He has cancer.”
Damien’s words sliced through the fog of anger. “Damien, I … I’m so, so sorry.” Her apology did nothing to thaw the coldness in his eyes.
“Will you listen to me now?”
And she listened. Leonard’s illness. Vanessa’s misunderstanding of him popping the question, and the current disaster of Refurbished Dreams.
She empathized with Leonard; hell, she even felt sorry for Vanessa. But Melanie absolutely would not sit idle while her friend made the mistake of marrying her for Leonard’s happiness.
Damien’s hands grabbed and squeezed hers firmly. His eyes lowered to their joined hands. Could he guess the real reason behind the sweat that made a soupy mess in her palms?
“I have to do this for Refurbished Dreams and Leonard. He could be dying.” His voice slipped and skipped like pebbles on a lake.
The lava-hot heat that had nearly caused her body to erupt cooled. “But that’s still no reason to marry Vanessa if you don’t want to,” she said softly, squeezing his hand. “There has to be another way.”
Grabbing her purse from the back of her chair, she rummaged through the clutter. “I’ll help you. Hell, I’ll even cut the check myself.”
“No.” His voice was firm and resolute.
She should’ve known he wouldn’t take the money. He hadn’t accepted a dollar for an ice-cream cone when they were kids, and he certainly wouldn’t borrow a quarter of a million dollars as an adult.
The other kids in the neighborhood hadn’t had that problem. Pretty soon, she’d developed a rep for buying snacks, and the kids would often ask her for money. After a few days of buying treats, Damien snatched the money from her hand and stuffed it back into her pocket.
He leaned down and whispered, “You don’t have to buy them over. Just be you, and they’ll love you like I do.”
She tried to swallow the sandpaper lump in her throat. What good was it to have a five-million-dollar inheritance if she couldn’t use it to help her friend? “Damien, please take the money.”
“No, Mel. I’m going to see this through, and I need you.”
Her heart sped. He needed her. That’s all she’d ever wanted but … not like this. He continued speaking, unaware of the dinghy that tossed around in her stomach as if lost in a storm at sea.
“Don’t do this, D. Don’t stand in front of friends and family and God and ruin your life.”
“Mel,” he groaned, resting his forehead on clasped fingers. “Getting married to Vanessa won’t exactly be a hardship. We’re with each other all the time now. She’s smart, sweet, and sexy as hell.”
Smart and sweet and sexy. How could Melanie get him to see through the veneer of Vanessa? Okay, so she could see the smart and sexy part, but sweet? Heck no!
In fact, Vanessa had been downright rude when they’d met late last year. Pretending to lock herself out of her apartment so that Damien could rush over in the middle of the night. Backhanded comments when Damien wasn’t around about Melanie dressing like a tomboy. Yes, Melanie needed to focus on the “sweet” because she couldn’t compete with the “sexy.” Especially sexy as hell. Vanessa’s sexy involved trappings like makeup, Botox, and a whole heaping of self-importance.
“Vanessa is not sweet, D. She was mean to me when you introduced us. She’s clingy and didn’t give us a chance to hang out.”
His shoulders and face relaxed. “We talked about this already. Vanessa just feels insecure because I always talk about you. We threw her off picking from each other’s plates, since I never let her share my food. She really is sweet.”
“All right, fine.” Melanie lifted three fingers, ticking off the list. “So she’s sweet and smart and sexy. But what about the most important thing?”
Damien leaned back and clasped his hands together. “And that would be?”
“Love.” She cleared her throat. “Do you love her?”
Damien shrugged. “I mean, I guess I love her. I’m not gonna lie and pretend I think of Vanessa every waking minute, but she’s a good woman. She’d make an exceptional wife and a wonderful mother to our future children. Plus, she has a great family, and we all get along.”
A tiny flare of hope stirred. Did Melanie still have a chance? Damien didn’t say he was in love. In fact, he’d rattled off Vanessa’s attributes as if she were a potential employee.
She released a deep breath. “All I’m saying is you don’t have to rush. If you explain to Leonard that you two are still getting to know each other, I’m sure he’ll understand. You don’t know someone fully after five or six months of dating.”
Damien grunted, crossing his arms across his broad chest. “You’re one to give me advice. You haven’t been in a long-term relationship since that boy broke your heart in college.”
Melanie dug her fingernails into her palms, so deep she broke the skin. “He didn’t break my heart. He never had it.” And Roy hadn’t. He was just one of her many failed attempts to get over Damien.
Using the lightest touch, she placed her hands on his forearm, mesmerized by the dark-brown eyes that reminded her of toasted Georgia pecans. “I’m just asking you to sit on this decision for a while. Vanessa doesn’t know about the conversation with Leonard, right?”
Damien shook his head. “Life is too short to wait. I know that. Leonard knows that. And if my father were alive, he’d say the same. I’m asking Vanessa at the company picnic this weekend.”
Her heartbeat tripled. He can’t go through with this. Even if he doesn’t end up with me. She inhaled to calm her panicked breaths. “Sounds like you’re staging the engagement like one of your PR stunts. The very thing you shy away from when you have to do it for your superstar clients.”
“It’s not a stunt.” His eyes flashed like a stormy Georgia night. “And I think it would be nice to ask in front of Leonard. What’s up with you? Why can’t you be a real friend and support me?”
Real friend? She jerked her face as if she’d been slapped. The volcano that had settled erupted again. “Because I’m a real friend, I’m not just gonna nod and smile. You deserve better. And you. Don’t. Love. Her. You love her father, and he loves you, and it scares you that he is seriously ill.” She stood and leaned over the table. “But it doesn’t mean you have to marry Vanessa. You shouldn’t marry her, because I … ” Melanie broke off her rant, eyes wide at what she’d nearly confessed.
“Because you what?” He grabbed her hand when she attempted to back away. “Just finish whatever the hell else you have to say.”
Eyes squeezed shut, she pressed trembling fingers to her temple to relieve the tension. With increasing courage, she lifted her head to meet hardened amber eyes brewing dizzily with emotions. Closely. Carefully. Cautiously. Lest Damien read her true feelings. Instead, she studied his face, which she knew better than her own. Many emotions flashed across his handsome face. The ones that were easy to identify were impatience, anger. But there was something else. And it pulled at her to understand the inscrutable emotions that flickered like a static-filled television monitor.
“Well … Say something.”
Lie. Lie. Lie. Telling him now would be too risky. Not with everything else lumped on his plate.
Melanie relaxed her shoulders, which had managed to crawl up by her ears, and gave him the smile she knew he expected, along with the only part of her truth she was ready to tell. “Because I’m your best friend, and I care about you.” She settled back into her chair.
Damien squeezed her hand again, this time with a gentle touch. He gave her an easy-like-Sunday-morning smile.
“I love you, Mel.” He rubbed her hand with his thumbs. “You know that, right?”
Just not the way she craved. The way she needed him like her next breath. “Love you too, D.”
“And that’s all that matters. We’ll work out the rest. But one thing I know for sure is that I need you to stand beside me at the wedding. I want you to be my best woman.”
“B-best woman?” She yanked back her hand. She couldn’t do it. Stand there, front row, and see Vanessa’s queen-of-the-ball sneer.
How could Damien ask her to be his best woman? She wasn’t really his best woman. The best woman got the ring, the last name, and his love. The dinghy tossing around in her stomach capsized. Digging her heels into the floor, she pushed back. The chair screeched in protest. From the silence that descended on the restaurant, there was no question that she’d become the center of unwanted attention. Again.
Melanie dropped her head and pulled on her reserve of patience. No confessions of love would happen today. Disappointing as it was, she knew when to retreat and rest.
“I’m sorry about my reaction. I-I’m in shock, but I want you to be happy. I want to help you.”
Damien’s tensed shoulders relaxed. “I knew I could count on you, Melly.”
Guilt nipped at her heels. She wasn’t used to lying to her best friend. She mentally swatted the foreign feeling and stretched her lips into a smile. No way would she stand by and let her friend make a terrible decision.