Unfortunately Yours (A Vine Mess, #2)

Denial hit her like a truck. Oh . . . no. She’d left him to deal with that alone?

“Then I’m sorry, too, August.” Was everyone in the restaurant staring at them? How could they not be? But with their prying eyes shielded by the wall of August’s body, she was in a little I-don’t-care cocoon. “It’s hard to focus on that when you’re wearing this suit.”

In her periphery, she saw his eye crinkle at the corner, lips twitching. “Even better than my wedding tux?”

She sucked down another breath of grapefruit, then pushed him away slightly. On second thought, she tugged him a tiny bit closer.

I’m losing my mind.

August took hold of her indecisive wrists without a word and dropped his mouth to the space right above her ear, rumbling, “Babe.”

It was the equivalent of putting a pin in a balloon. She just unloaded. “I don’t think I’m going to get the investment and . . . instead of business, it just feels like another man using money to make me dance, you know?” She watched the lump move up and down in August’s throat. “Everyone is staring at me. They think I’m a joke. And Morrison just arrived out of the blue with his future wife, sitting at the bar, making me the live entertainment for the evening.”

August stiffened at the mention of her ex. “How do you feel about seeing him?”

He’d made himself vulnerable by giving her the truth when he walked in. She couldn’t do anything but return the favor now. “I don’t feel a thing.”

His chest shuddered up and down, tension ebbing from his burly frame. “And when I walked in?”

“I thought . . . you should have been here all along.”

A gruff sound left him, throat muscles shifting in a pattern.

He opened his mouth to say something, but they were interrupted by Savage.

“And who might this be?” asked the potential investor. Was it her imagination or had he intentionally dropped the register of his voice several octaves?

“Mr. Savage, I would like you to meet my husband, August Cates.”

“Husband?” The man reared back a little and he traded a glance with a few of the men behind him at the bar. “It must have been a whirlwind romance.” He put out his hand for August to shake. Her husband didn’t seem thrilled about letting her go long enough to conduct the greeting. “Call me William, please. Good to meet you. Sorry you couldn’t make dinner.”

August nodded. “Nice to meet you, too.”

Savage studied her husband. “Are you some kind of athlete or something?” he asked, rolling a shoulder.

“I’m a SEAL. Been retired just over three years.”

“You’re shitting me! A Navy SEAL.” The man dropped his drink onto the bar, with no awareness that it splashed onto the jacket of the closest patron. “When I was a kid, I wanted to be a SEAL. Talked about it until I was blue in the face. My father even set up obstacle courses in the backyard and called it toddler training. I’d love to hear some battle stories.”

Her husband looked down at her. “I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of them tonight from Natalie already, though, right? I don’t know a lot about the financial world, but a woman on Wall Street would have to fight harder than anyone, I imagine.”

Savage laughed. “Harder than a SEAL? I’m not sure about that.”

August’s eyes seemed to darken a shade. “It’s a different kind of fighting. And she has fought her way back here with almost no support. No one encouraging her to do it. God only knows where her inner strength comes from, but I’ll tell you something, it’s more than I’ve got. It’s enough to keep putting herself out there with no reward and I feel sorry for anyone who doesn’t take someone with that much bravery seriously.”

It took everything inside of Natalie not to burst into tears. He was right. She’d been kicking ass and clawing her way back and that effort had gone unacknowledged. By anyone. And she wasn’t the only woman who went about her daily grind only for people to expect more, so she liked to think all of womankind celebrated with her in that moment. When her husband finally got it. When he finally saw her.

The investor had gone from jocular to thoughtful during August’s speech. He turned his attention to her now. “If I trust you with my money, what’s your first play?”

Natalie took a deep breath and let it rip. “Obviously we’re going with a classic long/short equity strategy. We make the smart investments that put us ahead and give us room to play and then we short technologies, pharma, oil based on bold predictions and market trends. And I’m not just talking about the United States. We’re going to monitor markets and how consumers respond in every geographical location on the face of the earth, taking everything down to the fucking weather patterns into account. If your money isn’t tripled in the first quarter, I’ll give you back every cent of your initial investment.”

A muscle hopped in Savage’s cheek. August’s pride was evident in every line of his body, but she couldn’t risk looking at him or she’d lose her cool.

“I’ll move some numbers around and call you on Monday,” Savage said finally, holding out his hand for another shake from August, then he traded a shake with Natalie one more time and rejoined his friends at the bar.

“Holy shit, that was incredible,” August whispered to her out of the side of his mouth.

“Be cool. Pretend I go off like that all the time.”

“Done. But let’s get out of here, princess,” he exhaled. “These pants are too tight in the ball region.”

Natalie shook her head to hide the creeping amusement, breezing past her husband and beginning the journey toward the exit. “Only you would make the romantic gesture of flying across the country and ruin it with ball talk in, like, eight seconds.”

August followed so close behind her, she could feel his body heat through the clingy material of her dress. “Eight seconds is a lifetime when a man has no testicular circulation.”

“Is this a ploy?” she asked over her shoulder. “When we get to my room, you’re going to tell me you’re medically required to get your pants off as soon as possible?”

“Well, not now, since you’ve called me on it. I’ll have to save that idea for next time.”

“Next time?”

He grunted.

They were passing by Natalie’s ex and his fiancée. Both of them sipped their drinks and looked coolly at Natalie and August as they passed. Or maybe they were just wary? If she recalled correctly, she and her partner’s daughter had gotten along great at company functions. The situation itself was simply awkward. Just not for Natalie. For some reason, she felt totally comfortable stopping beside the couple, laying a hand on both of their backs, and saying a heartfelt congratulations. She’d never really loved Morrison, so what was the sense in begrudging the fact that he’d found love elsewhere?

Her ex smiled at his intended. She smiled back. Simultaneously, they thanked Natalie.

Then she took August’s hand and after a little tugging—August clearly wanted to say something to her ex—they continued toward the elevator that would bring them down to street level. “What were you going to say to him?” she asked as they stepped inside, the gold doors snapping together in front of them.

“I don’t know. All I could think of was Julia Roberts’s line in Pretty Woman. You know? ‘Big mistake. Big. Huge.’ But then you decided to be mature about the whole damn thing. Kind of caught me off guard.” He shrugged those big shoulders. “That’s probably a good thing. I’d rather be remembered for quoting something like Rambo. Or Happy Gilmore.”

“Wow. You really just summed up your whole personality in two movies.”

He grinned over at her. “Your turn.”

Natalie let her head tip back. Gone was the stiffness that had been building since she boarded her flight. Fun. She was having fun. Did she always have fun with this man, even when they were arguing? “Wall Street. And Bridesmaids.”

“Bam. Beautifully done.”

“Thank you.”

Without warning, August backed her up against the wall of the elevator, his mouth stopping just a whisper above hers. “You know I’m trying to follow your lead and be mature, but I actually wanted to punch your ex in the face, right?”

Deep down, she had. She’d known that like she knew her own name. “Yes,” she breathed.

“Good. Just so we’re clear.”

“Hmm.”

Her brain said, Sex. Sex right here and right now.

Unfortunately, the elevator doors opened to reveal a dozen people staring back.

With a muttered curse, August took her hand and led her through the throng of people, toward the street. “Where are you staying?” he asked, guiding her through the glass door of the building and out onto the sidewalk. It was a Friday night in a part of town where not a ton of bars were located anyway, so most of the pedestrians were working stiffs who’d stayed late at the office. But traffic roared by at its usual breakneck pace, horns bleeping expletives, music drifting out of car windows, passersby holding conversations on their phones.