Burning Down the Spouse (21 page)

Authors: Dakota Cassidy

Tags: #Separated Women, #Greek Americans, #Humorous, #Contemporary, #Women Cooks, #General, #Romance, #Humorous Fiction, #Fiction, #Cultural Heritage, #Love Stories

BOOK: Burning Down the Spouse

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“And look at us now,” Frankie commented wryly.

Jasmine smiled into the cold night, her grin filled with mischief. “Yeah. Ain’t it a bitch when you find yourself after your life’s already half over?”

“I think I’m still in the finding process.”

“Well, hurry up. It’s damned cold out here.” Jasmine rubbed her hands along her arms to emphasize the raw wind blowing down the cheerfully decorated sidewalk.

Yet, discovering she’d subconsciously avoided Mitch, thus totally blocking out any sign of his extracurricular activities when, had she been more interested, she might have been more aware, brought with it the sting of Nikos’s admission. “Nikos should have told me.”

“Yeah, but he’s a man. He wasn’t thinking long-term repercussions. Hence teenage pregnancy and the clap.”

Frankie giggled at Jasmine’s joke. “He sucks.”

“I don’t either,” Nikos denied, hauling a limp, passed-out Marco out the restaurant door. “I just wasn’t thinking ahead.”

“Because you didn’t think you had to,” Jasmine shot back. “You were procrastinating. Very typical. I’m disappointed.”

“Grrrrrr,” Simon purred, pulling up the rear behind his friends. “I love it when you’re saucy.”

The roll of Jasmine’s eyes was meant to show Simon her irritation, but there was also something in them that said Simon didn’t trouble her nearly as much as she’d have everyone believe.

“I promise to bow and scrape accordingly, but first, we have a problem,” Nikos stated.

“Oh, you bet you do, Antonakas,” Frankie muttered.

Nikos ignored Frankie’s comment. “We need a lift, ladies. I walked from the diner. Simon has no wheels, and Marco isn’t going anywhere unless it’s to detox. Plus, we can’t find his car keys, just the keys to his apartment. Can you give your boss a lift? Marco doesn’t live far.”

“You mean the boss who potentially could have created more drama for me and my fragile instability?” Frankie asked, all sweetness and light.

He rolled his tongue in his cheek in impatience, but his expression turned sheepish. “Yes. That’s the one.”

Jasmine sought Frankie with her eyes, sending another girlfriend question.

Frankie nodded her head. “Fine. But I want next Tuesday off to Christmas shop, and there better not be a single joke about kelp wraps and seaweed facials or it’s on.”

Jasmine dug in her purse, pulling out her car keys, and whispered in Simon’s ear, “Catch, quarterback.” She jingled the keys before lobbing them at Simon, whose hand shot up, following the direction of the jangle of metal. “You drive, superstar,” she said on a giggle.

Simon was one step behind her. “I love a woman who isn’t afraid to take risks.” He cackled, obviously pleased.

Looping her arm through his, Jasmine led him to the edge of the sidewalk. “You break my CRX, and you’ll find out just how far I’m willing to go. I saved for a year to buy it.”

“You have a C-Rex? Jesus, they’re like a thousand years old.”

“So am I,” Jasmine snickered. “We’re a match made in heaven.”

Their voices trailed off, leaving Frankie with Nikos and the boozed-out Marco. “Wait here. I’ll get the car, and if he unloads his misery in my backseat, then I want Tuesday
and
Wednesday off.”

Nikos grinned. “You just want Wednesday off because Nails by Noreen’s having a twofer special. She told me when she was in for lunch and dropped off flyers.”

Frankie chuckled her way into the parking lot. “Perfect. I can have my upper lip waxed and get my nails done. It’ll be like Christmas and my birthday.” She beeped her car, jumping in and cranking up the heat with a hard shiver.

Pulling up to the curb, she got out to help Nikos get Marco into the backseat. He slumped against the door with a drunken murmur. Getting into the driver’s side, she shook her head at Nikos, wrinkling her nose. “He’s snockered. Tomorrow’s going to totally suck for him.”

“Among other things,” Nikos agreed as she pulled out of the parking lot. “Look, Frankie. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Marco, but it wasn’t to protect him as much as it was to keep one more stress off your plate.”

She caught a glimpse of his profile in the dashboard lights, angular, sharp, so sexy, and forced her eyes back to the road. “I appreciate your looking out for me, but I don’t need to be treated with kid gloves. Was I surprised Bamby wasn’t Mitch’s first foray out into the land of the infidel?” Frankie shrugged. “I guess not as much as I thought I’d be once I got used to it. But Marco’s your best friend. That’s way too close for comfort. I can only imagine what you must have thought when Maxine brought me in for that interview.”

He pointed a finger toward the windshield. “Turn left here—this is his apartment complex, and truthfully, I forgot all about Marco until after our notorious interview.”

“Because I wowed you with my culinary resume? No, wait. It was my serial-killer glam, right? You know, the crazy hair and baggy clothes?” she teased.

His hand brushed hers, making her pulse thump. “It was just you,” he said into the quiet hum of her tires.

Frankie’s stomach jolted, stupidly wishing he meant her and not just the nuttiness that had been her on that day. “I’m an awesome first-impression maker.”

Nikos’s laughter made her tingle. “First building straight ahead. And you definitely made a first impression.”

Frankie swung her car into a slot and shifted into park. “Do you need help?”

He turned to her, his eyes a deep black. “Nah. I got him. If you don’t want to wait, I can always call Cos to come get me.”

She gulped at the thought of her and Nikos in the close confines of her car—alone. All alone. “No, don’t wake him. Chef Boyardee’s cranky enough. When he’s tired, he’s the pits. I’ll wait.”

Nikos slid from the car, popping open the rear door and grunting when he dipped his head inside to pull Marco out and launch him over his shoulder, fireman style. “Be right back.” He kicked the door shut with his foot and made his way into the complex, walking with an easy gait despite the fully grown man on his back.

She flipped on the radio while she waited, settling on a station exclusively playing Christmas music. Her head fell to the cushioned headrest as she closed her eyes and pondered the loyalty Nikos showed not only his family but his friend, broken by the end of his marriage. Maybe he wasn’t as much like Mitch as she’d first thought. Maybe his magnetic charisma sprang from genuine feeling.

Maybe.

The questions she had about the where and when of Mitch’s hooking up with Carrie drifted off when she sank farther down in her jacket, comforted by the strains of “Silent Night” and her Nikos musings.

A hand, callused and warm, flitted across her cheek. “Frankie?”

A small sigh escaped her lips when her name was called, breathy and content. “Hmmm?”

“Do you want me to drive?”

Her eyes popped open, her hands gripped the wheel. “No. I’m okay. How’s Marco?”

“Trashed. I put him to bed and left him a note. He’ll be fine.”

Frankie started the engine as Nikos clicked his seatbelt into place. “Sounds like you’ve done this a time or two,” she said, backing out of the parking space, fighting to forget Nikos’s fingers on her cheek and the tremble it wrought.
Composure, composure, composure. Find some, girlie.

“Like I said, he took the breakup pretty hard. He’s been boozing it up off and on ever since.”

Her nod was of understanding. She knew all too well the acute pain a betrayal of trust created. It hurt your bones to move. For her, it had stripped away every shred of her identity. Took her purpose and smashed it to smithereens. “I get it. Some people drink the depression away. Some people, like
me
people, sleep it away. Whatever it takes to dull the pain.”

Nikos’s jaw hardened, but she caught a glimpse of his eyes, and they were soft. “That doesn’t excuse his behavior, Frankie. He can’t keep this up. He’ll lose his partnership at the practice. I really thought a few months away from here would help.”

“I’m not saying that to excuse how he behaved tonight, Nikos. He behaved badly in a public place, and that’s not okay, especially because he’s sort of a public servant. Riverbend’s a small town. I’m saying it from a place of understanding, from sympathy. I’m also thinking if Maxine can drag me out of bed and make me suck it up, maybe Marco should call her and see if she can help him, too. I know he wasn’t a trophy wife, but there must be a male version to the ‘suck it up, princess’ technique.”

His jaw relaxed, and his tone took on a smoky quality. “You’re a really good person, Frankie Bennett.”

She chuckled with a nervous twitter, pulling into the diner’s parking lot to come to a stop. “This from a man who watched my kitchengadgetry meltdown. It takes guts to label me anything but certifiable.”

Nikos turned in the passenger seat to lean into her, placing one arm on the dashboard. His eyes were no longer playful, but serious. “I mean it, Frankie. Marco made a real scene in there tonight with you right in the middle of it. To find a common thread with him because he’s in self-pity mode instead of flattening him with a good right hook makes you a decent woman.”

Frankie’s throat tightened, but she couldn’t tear her gaze from his. “Contrary to the impression I created during my last television appearance, I’d never hit anyone.”

His smile lit up the interior of her car, the grooves on either side of his mouth deepening. “You kinda suck at accepting compliments.”

“Looking the way I do, they’re pretty few and far between these days,” she quipped, low and shaky, unable to move away from the draw of his luscious lips, the tangy scent of his cologne. Her hormones awakened with a fierce flame in her lower belly.

“I was complimenting your character.”

“Which could be the only thing I have left to compliment.”

“That’s not true,” he responded, his voice suddenly a whisper, a whisper that left her mesmerized, transfixed on their close proximity. The car became nothing more than the two inches of space between them.

Her breathing shuddered, hitched, then almost entirely subsided while she tried to think of something to refute his words. “No. I know what the truth is. The truth is, I’m a hot mess—a shadow of the woman I used to be.”

Nikos tilted his head, his jaw covered in dark stubble. “Maybe you’re still in the discovery process of finding the woman you’ll become.”

God, she really hoped there was truth to that statement. After all the shit, she was due some awesome. “May . . . be.” Somehow, her eyes had drifted half-closed, Nikos’s cologne surrounding her with its heady undertones, making her head swim. The heat of his body, bulky, strong, encompassed her while Johnny Mathis sang “O Holy Night.”

“I’d be very interested to see who you turn out to be on the other end of this mess you’ve been in,” he murmured, inching closer until, from hooded eyes, she saw that his eyes were drifting shut, too.

Her heart began to crash when he husked out a breath of air, fanning over her face with the scent of wine and something minty.

Frankie’s stomach muscles tightened like a clenched fist.

This was it. All her nighttime fantasies come true. Every hot Greek second of them.

Fear, excitement, and more fear swelled when Nikos moved so close to her his lips all but grazed hers. Wait. Did she really want him to kiss her? Maybe the buildup was going to be far better than the payoff.

But then Nikos took care of any misgivings she had when he let his forehead fall to hers while her heart slammed against her ribs and her hands itched to reach up and drag her fingers through his thick hair and tug him back toward her.

Okay, so yeah. She really did want him to kiss her. And if it dispelled a myth or two—so be it. At least she’d know. Plus—bonus—she’d finally get a restful night’s sleep.

Disappointment, heavy and stinging, settled in her belly.

He huffed out a breath she couldn’t decipher as regret or irritation. “I won’t do this. Not this time.” The arms that had bracketed either side of her moved away to the tune of her puzzled frown, leaving her cold even with the heat in the car on.

Nikos sat back, his hand on the door, his face granite hard with a determination Frankie didn’t get. “Thanks for your help tonight, Frankie. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The passenger door clicked before Frankie had the chance to so much as blink.

But not before some serious regret set in.

What. The. Hell had just happened?

You just experienced your first almost kiss, Frankie. Delicious, no?

Her cheeks were back to flaming again while questions swirled in her head.

What exactly wouldn’t Nikos do “this time”?

And why, why, why wouldn’t he do it the hell with her?