The Other Man (18 page)

“You invited him to dinner?
 
Here?
 
With the family?

“Yeah.
 
I like him.
 
I think he’s good for you.”

Did my son have terrible instincts, and I’d just never noticed it before?
 
Poor judgement on a scale that was until now, unknown to me?
 

Certainly, where Heath was concerned, I knew I was operating at less than full capacity, as far as brain cells went, but that had everything to do with the fact that I couldn’t be in a room with him and form more than a few coherent thoughts in a row.
 

What was Raf’s excuse?
 
What did he see in Heath that made him trust the guy and want him in his beloved mother’s life?
 

I didn’t think Heath would ever hurt me.
 
Wrong or right, I
felt
he wouldn’t.
 
Felt it deep in my womb, the place where my deepest instincts were grounded.
 
But that didn’t mean I thought he was a nice guy or even a normal one.
 
I knew something was up with him.
 
I knew he was dangerous in a very fundamental and literal sense.
 
He’d told me so himself, and I knew there was plenty he hadn’t told.

And Raf wanted him to attend a family dinner?
 
Even the thought was ridiculous, for so many reasons.
 

“I don’t think he’d be up for that,” I told him, because it was the easiest, shortest way to end the conversation.
 
Because it was true.
 

“He said yes.”

Or not.
 

“What?” I asked, thinking I’d misunderstood.
 

“Tonight.
 
I volunteered to help you cook, but he called dibs as your sous chef.”
   

I honestly thought at first that he was messing with me.
 

Heath came out from the back of the house right then, fully dressed now and called out, “See you tonight, Raf,” as he walked out the front door.
 

Unless they were both messing with me, it looked like this was happening.
 
Tonight.
 

So much for spending the day in bed.
   

CHAPTER
 

EIGHTEEN

Raf left a while later, promising to be back for dinner at six.
 
I’m not sure if I was just being paranoid, but the way he said it sounded ominous.
 

I
am
being paranoid, I quickly decided.
 

I found myself in my closet, wondering what the hell a woman wore for a day like this.
 
I’d never introduced my boys to anyone I was dating, for obvious reasons.
 
Most of their lives, I’d been married to their father, and after that I’d been on only a few casual dates with no one special.
 

And now this.
 
What
was
this?
 
Boys, meet the man I’m sleeping with who, though I’m borderline obsessed with him, may or may not still be around a week from now.
 

Ideally, I could have avoided this altogether.
 
Well, maybe that wasn’t ideal because that would mean Heath was gone for good.
 
But certainly, if I had any luck at all, I wouldn’t be dealing with this quite so early on in a budding relationship with a volatile, unpredictable man.
 

I gave myself a pep talk.
 
At least the age difference thing hadn’t freaked Raf out
too much.
 
At least Heath had been on his best behavior.
 
Both of them had, so there was that.
 
And it was a lot.
 

And so, what to wear.
 
Casual?
 
Feminine?
 
Flirty?
 
Definitely nothing too sexy, certainly not for the first time my boys were meeting my—whatever Heath was.
 

I settled on a short, patterned tank dress in a soft nude and gray that set off the warm glow to my skin tone.
 
The sweetheart neckline hugged my collarbone in an appealing way, but didn’t reveal too much cleavage, and the pleated wrap bodice was fitted and showed off all of my curves, but could in no way be considered tight.
   

It was a touch sexy, but in a romantic, feminine way, which I thought (hoped) was the appropriate balance for the occasion.
 

I picked out some pale pink sandals to wear when we went to run errands, but stayed barefoot around the house, as I was always barefoot around my house.
   

I left my hair wavy and loose and wore minimal makeup—a soft pink lip, a touch of blush, mascara.
 

And then I set to work, planning in detail a meal to impress.
 

I had an extensive list made out when Heath returned in time to hit the market with me, just like he’d said.
 

“You don’t have to come to the store with me,” I told him.
 

He just shrugged and ignored the statement.
 

We took my car, but he drove.
 
He was not content to be a passenger, it was clear.
 
His car wasn’t around at all, and while I couldn’t figure out why or how he’d gotten back to my place,(aside from walking) I just went with it.
 

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” I asked him, studying his granite profile while he drove.
 

“Having dinner with you and your kids?”

“Yeah.
 
That.”

“I’m sure.
 
We need to face this head on.
 
It might feel a bit sudden to them, but there’s nothing to do for it but meet them now with the way Rafael found me at that hour and in your kitchen.”

And half naked
, I thought, still mentally wincing over that.
 

“Otherwise,” he continued, “your kids are going to think this is some casual hookup situation.”
 

Which clearly implied that . . . ?

“And it’s not that, and I don’t want your boys thinking that of me and you.”

Wow.
 
I had not a clue what to say to that.
 
But he was absolutely right.
 
We did need to face this.
 
If he’d met Rafael like that, and then looked to be avoiding my boys, they could well become hostile.
 

“You’re very sweet,” I told him finally.
 

He shot me a level look when he’d stopped at a red light.
 

“I’m not sweet, so if I said something that was, you should take it to heart.”

I did.
 
In spite of all of my reservations, I absolutely did.
 

Like all normal, mundane, everyday things I found myself doing with Heath, grocery shopping turned out to be much more interesting and strange than normal.
 

First of all, it was a Saturday morning, and our first stop was the best organic market in town, so it was a madhouse.
 
Eventually, we split up to get through the list faster.
 
The line for the meat counter alone was a good thirty minute wait, so Heath (sweetly, I thought) volunteered to wait for me.
 

I knew he was willing to do it because he said so, but he looked like he wanted to be anywhere else.
 
He was too restless and edgy to ever take waiting in stride.
 

Having this in mind, I tried to go through the rest of my list quickly, hoping to relieve or at least keep him company before he lost his patience, and oh, I don’t know, stormed the meat counter.
 

I caught glimpses of him as I perused the produce.
 
He had women on either side of him in line, and the redheaded one behind him seemed to be trying to get his attention.
 

Of course this had me peeking between shopping, watching in small glimpses as she inched closer to him.
 

She was young.
 
No surprise there.
 
And hot.
 
Again, no surprise.
 
Sin City was teeming with young hot things, all here to pursue a career in the seedier side of the entertainment business.
 

She struck me as a performer on an off day, her face scrubbed free of makeup, her clothes casual but revealing a shapely, lithe figure.
 
She had the body and looks that fit anything from an acrobat to a showgirl, or perhaps a cocktail waitress if she was really new to town.
   

And she just kept inching closer to Heath.
 
Every time I looked, she was a step further into his space.
 

Oh my God.
 
I was jealous.
 
Again.
 
Viciously so.
 
And I hated it.
 

Jealousy was more powerful of a thing than I’d ever given it credit for, I realized.
   

The idea of it was so much less volatile than the
feeling
of it.
 

The actuality of it, where before it had always been in my mind some sort of abstract concept, was quietly blowing my mind with how
awful
it was.
 

No wonder it was so destructive.

I wanted to do something
violent
and
mean
to that nitwit for so much as trying to get his attention.
 

It was insane.
 
I hated that woman.
 
She was my enemy the second she made a move on him.
 

Which was so out of character for me.
 

I was a girl’s girl.
 
It was kind of ridiculous how easily I made female friends on a regular basis.
 

I was a woman that bonded with other women, fast and easy.

I was close with every girl my boys had ever dated for any length of time.
 
Hell, I made new girlfriends nearly every time I went shoe shopping.
 

I racked my mind and couldn’t come up with a time in recent memory that I’d met a woman and had it even cross my mind to look at them as competition.
 

And here I was, hating on some woman at the grocery store.
 

I tried to shake it off.
 

The funny thing was, Heath did nothing on his end to provoke my jealousy.
 

His arms were folded across his chest in a standoffish manner.
 
His feet were planted far apart, and the closer forward she would edge, speaking to him now, the more he’d turn his body away from her.
   

He was not encouraging the woman.

He was not flirtatious.
 
Just the opposite.
 
Like at the gym, he was hostile to the woman for so much as speaking to him.
 
Brutally so.
 

But I remembered clearly how fast, how aggressively, he’d gotten me into bed.
 

And he hadn’t had to
flirt
to do it.

On the other hand, though, he had definitely been the one to approach me, so there was that.
 

He turned and said something to her briefly, then faced forward again.
 
The girl looked properly put in her place.
 

I didn’t have to hear a word to know what had happened.
 

She came knocking, and he slammed the door shut in her face.
 

I fucking loved it.
 

Biting back a smile, I continued my shopping.

It made me feel all warm and fuzzy as I realized that I’d never seen him show even a remote interest in another woman within my presence.
 

He made me feel good about myself, and the feeling seemed to be very mutual.
   

I approached him with a full cart when he was nearly to the front of the line.
 

I was just in time, it seemed.
 

The girl was still talking to him, still trying.
 
She must have been one of those pretty girls who’d never been told no before and didn’t know how to take it gracefully.
 

Heath pointed his chin at me as I moved closer.
 
“That’s a good question,” he was saying, his biting voice intimating clearly that it was
not
a good question.
 
“Why don’t you ask my
wife
?”

My eyes went wide, mouth drawing open into a surprised O.
 

“Your . . .” the girl’s voice trailed off as she got a look at me.
 

“Ask me what?” I spoke to him, playing along, because I thought it was adorable and kind of fascinating that he’d gone with
wife
instead of
girlfriend
in order to get this random girl off his back.
 

“What do I like to do for fun, honey?” he asked me, deadpan.
 

I bit my lip to keep in a laugh.
 
The wicked part of me wanted to say
Me
.
 
He likes to do
me
for fun.
   

Instead I said, “He
loves
movies.
 
Romantic comedies are his favorite.”
 

The silly girl didn’t say another word.
 

And Heath gave me a smile that was downright fond for that.
 

“Waiting forty minutes for some meat,” he muttered to me as I moved to stand next to him.
 
“Never seen anything like it.”
 

I grimaced.
 
“Yeah.
 
Sorry about that.
 
Saturdays at this place are a bitch.”