Blame It on the Bachelor

“Dad, please,” Mark protested as everyone chuckled.

“But I’ve never been prouder of him than at this particular time, when he takes the hand of this lovely young woman and leads her into their future together.” Richard started to choke up.

Kylie sympathized with him. She really did. Because the tide of emotion was back at her throat, too, and it rose steadily this time. There was no denying it, no pushing it back.

“So may I propose a toast now, to my son Mark and his beautiful bride, Kendra!” Richard raised his glass.

So did every guest in the room, including Kylie.

Then she excused herself politely and ran from the hotel.

5

AS THE FIRST NOTES OF the wedding march sounded the next evening, Dev stood with the other groomsmen, flanking a beaming Mark. The doors of the chapel opened wide to admit a white-clad, veiled Kendra, escorted by her father.

She looked beautiful in the dress, which had a V-shaped neckline filled in with some kind of fancy lacy stuff and short, poofy sleeves. Her waist looked tiny and the back of the dress dragged along the carpet, which women seemed to find romantic for some reason that he’d never comprehend.

Everyone in the church gave a collective sigh at the bride’s stunning gown and radiant face. Her mother, grandmother and even Great Aunt Mildred produced white handkerchiefs and began their eye-dabbing immediately.

As for Mark, his chest swelled and he looked as though he’d died and gone to heaven. His eyes even held suspicious moisture. Once Dev would have made fun of him, but today … today he swallowed a weird lump in the back of his throat.

As the bride made her graceful journey down the red-carpeted aisle, Dev searched for Kylie among the pews. There she was, sitting in the second row back on the groom’s side, with an odd expression on her face. It seemed loving and warm … and at the same time forlorn. Her hazel eyes held a regret that seemed out of place for the occasion.

Dev had noticed her sudden disappearance after the champagne toast the night before, and fought the uneasy feeling that he might be to blame—even though he’d been a complete gentleman. He, Dev, the artist formerly known as Gig, the idiot who’d taken pride in the bra-festooned chandelier over his dining room table, had done his very best to behave.

Kylie met his gaze for the briefest of seconds before she averted her eyes and stared fixedly at the black-robed minister who waited for Kendra and her father to take their final steps to the front of the church.

What, Kylie couldn’t even look at him? Dev’s mild indignation of yesterday grew. It was one thing to use him then deny him her phone number. But it was quite another to pretend now that he didn’t exist. He’d existed, all right, when she’d come for him in the supply closet.

And no matter what she might think, he had not given the guys a blow-by-blow description of what had taken place. So after the ceremony, he and Ms. Kent were going to have a chat, whether she liked it or not.

A naked chat would be better than a clothed one, truth to tell. As the minister droned on, Dev tuned him out and indulged some enticing memories of what Kylie’s smooth, bare thighs looked like. And what that sweet little derriere of hers felt like in his hands. And—

“We are gathered here today…” intoned the minister.

To have impure thoughts in church? To pop a woody in front of God and all the guests? Get a grip, man!

Mark and Kendra held hands as the familiar words of the traditional ceremony echoed throughout the nave. They looked into each other’s eyes. They smiled like a couple of drunk angels. It was—no other way to put it—sweet. And Dev had no doubt that the two of them would not lose that lovin’ feeling. You could tell with these two—they’d make it through anything life lobbed at them.

Dev wondered if one day a woman would look at him like that: as if she’d gladly put her soul into a stew pot and serve it to him with hot, crusty bread. As if nothing would make her happier than simply to make him happy.

And he wondered, too, if he’d look at a girl the way Mark did at Kendra: as if he’d slay any dragon, shoulder any mortgage and work five jobs just to keep her in designer shoes.

Aw, hell. He was getting all whatdyoucallit, that German word for sentimental—verklempt.

“Do you, Marcus James Edgeworth, take this woman …”

Dev found himself staring at Kylie again.

Her gaze flickered over him and she moved in the pew, uncrossing and recrossing her legs. She didn’t acknowledge him in any way, though.

Squirming, honey? If not, you will be soon. Because not only are you going to look at me before this night is over, but you’re also going to dance with me. Up close and personal.

“Do you, Kendra Lynn Kirschoff, take this man …”

He kept staring deliberately at Kylie until he could have sworn she blushed, but he was too far away to be sure.

Dev turned his attention to the ceremony just as the minister said, “I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss your bride.”

Up went the veil, down bent Mark’s head, and it was a regular smooch-a-rama up there.

“Easy, boy!” said Kendra’s father, and everyone burst out laughing.

Then bride and groom went traipsing down the aisle and out the door, followed by the wedding party. While people milled around, Dev lurked behind a partition in the musty-smelling hallway until he saw Kylie.

He greeted her affectionately as she passed him and slid an arm around her waist. “Need a ride to the reception?”

“No, I—”

“Fantastic,” he said, grinning amiably and hustling her out into the parking lot.

“I don’t want a ride from you!” Temper flared in those hazel eyes.

“Funny, you sure wanted a ride last night.” He continued to tow her along while she balked.

“Oh!”

“So I find it real interesting that you didn’t say goodbye, that today you won’t make eye contact with me and that you seem to want me dead.”

An ominous silence fell, until she finally retorted, “Alive. But in serious pain.”

“Why?”

“You know exactly why.”

“Nope. I don’t. If your nice-girl-gone-astray guilt is kicking in, you shouldn’t take it out on me. I didn’t make you do anything you didn’t want to do. I didn’t proposition myself, tease myself or screw myself in that closet, Sweet Pea. You were there for every step of the process.”

“This has nothing to do with guilt. It has to do with you being a jerk of epic proportions.”

“Thank you for the compliment. It’s true that my proportions have been described as epic. What I don’t get is the jerk part.”

“Oh, you get it, all right.” She tried to pull away from him again. “Let go of me.”

“No. We’re going to have a little talk,” he told her, stepping up the pace so that she tottered on her high heels and had to hang on to him for support as he towed her along.

“I have nothing to say to you, and if you dare try to manhandle me into your car, I will file kidnapping charges against you!”

“Don’t be melodramatic,” said Dev, unlocking the passenger door of his screaming red Corvette. “Now get in.”

“No.”

“What is your problem?” Dev asked, raising his voice on purpose as an elderly couple approached. “You practically raped me in the supply closet last night and now—”

Kylie whipped her head around. “Keep your voice down!”

The couple got a little bug-eyed but pretended not to hear as they shuffled toward their Buick.

“I’ll be glad to whisper if you’ll get in the car instead of behaving like the lead actress in a bad soap.”

With a look that would have reduced a lesser man to rubble, Kylie folded herself into the low-slung sports car, showing a lot more leg than she probably intended to—not that he minded.

Dev shut the door for her and rounded the nose of the ‘Vette to get in himself. “Now,” he said, closing his own door and starting the engine, “just what are you so pissed off about?”

“You know why I’m pissed! You’re disgusting. You’re a pig, McKee. I saw you telling your buddies all about us.”

“You saw nothing of the sort.”

“What, do you think I’m stupid? You were three tables away, your friends were falling over themselves laughing, and you were all looking at me!”

Dev shot out of the exit, took the corner on two wheels and watched, amused, as she flailed for her seat belt. The powerful eight-cylinder engine made her breasts jiggle under the prim dress. Pig or not, he enjoyed it.

“For your information, sweetheart, the guys were laughing because they were convinced that you’d blown me off. That I tried, and failed, to get into your pants.”

She finally clicked the tongue of the seat-belt fastener into the latch, then turned to face him. “Oh, but I’ll just bet you enlightened them, didn’t you?”

“No,” he said evenly. “I did not.”

“Then why were they all laughing so hard?”

“Because they loved seeing me strike out. It doesn’t—” Dev shut his mouth abruptly, as self-preservation kicked in. It was probably best not to call attention to his man-whore past.

“Doesn’t what?”

“Forget it.”

“Doesn’t happen often?”

Dev felt his face and neck get warm. “I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t have to.” Kylie crossed her arms over her chest and stared out the window as if she couldn’t get enough of the strip malls, gas stations and convenience stores.

“Interesting. So does that mean you think I’m hot?”

A low growl came from her throat.

Dev grinned, then cleared his throat. “So I’m waiting …”

“Waiting for what?”

“An apology.”

Kylie muttered something unintelligible.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, why should I believe you? It seems like an awfully convenient explanation.”

“Are you always this ornery, or do I just bring out the best in you?”

“Well, it does!”

Dev sighed. “Pete saw the tail end of our first encounter, okay? The one where you said I might do. And he saw you walk away from me and out the door, while I stared after you like a brain-damaged sheep.”

Her lips twitched.

“So he assumed that you blew me off, and he told the other guys, who thought it was hilarious that the one-time chick magnet crashed and burned.”

“Chick magnet?”

“Look, give me a break. I was the lead singer in a popular band. Women threw themselves at me.”

She tossed him a look of distaste. “Maybe I should have sprayed your epic proportions with the Lysol in the closet.”

Stung, Dev said, “I used a condom!”

“Yeah. Maybe I should have made you use duct tape, too.”

“Listen up, Miss Bee-yotch. As I recall, you were begging for it, and weren’t too particular about whether I had protection with me or not!”

Her gasp of outrage was satisfying. “I went to the closet to cry, not to have sex with you.”

“And I went to the closet to see if you were okay. Seems to me you’re on some kind of emotional roller coaster this weekend.”

Kylie shrugged.

“So what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“C’mon, tell Father Dev all about it.”

Kylie kept staring out the window.

“Unless you’re just a garden variety psycho?”

“That’s it. Stop the car and let me out.”

“No.”

“I’d rather walk to the reception than ride with you.”

“The drama queen returns,” muttered Dev, without slowing down.

“Stop the car!” she shrieked.

He rolled his eyes, made a last turn into the grounds of Playa Bella, the luxury hotel, and squealed to a stop under the portico, where a valet immediately came toward them. “Feel stupid yet? Would you rather I’d left you at the stoplight a block away?”

Kylie erupted from the passenger side of the Corvette like a blond hurricane, without waiting for the valet to hand her out. Dev was treated to the delectable view of her ass swinging furiously from side to side as she teetered up the carpeted steps and into the hotel without him.

He shook his head at the valet and shrugged his shoulders. “She had to get to the ladies’ room, quick.”

The valet’s eyebrows shot up in clear disbelief.

“Okay, fine. She’s late for a homicide,” said Dev, scooping up the evening bag she’d left on the ‘Vette’s floorboard in her haste to get away from him. “And she really likes to be on time for her bloody murders. Pictures at eleven …”

6

KYLIE MUGGED A waiter the instant she was inside the grand ballroom. She snatched a glass of wine off his tray, almost unbalancing the poor man in the process. She drank it dry on the way to the buffet table, where she stabbed five Swedish meatballs, six mini-quiches, three triangles of spanakopita and an entire school of shrimp, which she drowned in cocktail sauce.

She stalked with her plate to the darkest corner of the ballroom, which happened to be where the huge amplifiers for the band clustered. Kylie maneuvered herself behind one that was almost her height and attacked her food like a starving goat, in the subconscious hope of filling the awful hollow inside her. She was four meatballs into the meal when she realized that she’d left her purse in Dev’s ostentatious Corvette. Which meant she’d have to speak to him again. And worse, she’d have to do it politely.

With this realization came the full volume of the speaker as the band broke into “Endless Love,” which presumably the bride and groom had chosen as the song for their first dance. She couldn’t help it; she rolled her eyes.

Eardrums shattered, flushed from her hiding place, Kylie stumbled out from behind the monstrous black box only to run straight into Wilton Grubman, her older sister’s best friend’s son.

The two women had once forced Kylie and Wilton out to an eighth grade dance together, with disastrous results. Disastrous because Wilton had had a crush on her ever since then, and had been caught in the junior high boys’ room doing unspeakable things with her class picture in hand.

“Kylie!” he enthused, his oddly triangular but puffy face beaming.

“Wilton,” she said, trying desperately to dredge up a smile. “Long time no see.”

Poor Wilton still looked like a possum. He had a broad forehead, long sharp nose and narrow chin which sat directly over plump shoulders as if God had forgotten that he needed a neck. Those shoulders transitioned into a barrel of a torso set on tiny legs. Wilton had small, pink, plump hands, too, that were always clammy.

“Care to dance?”

She was insanely grateful for the plate of food she still held. “Oh, um, maybe later? Thanks, but I’m starved.”

“Here, let me hold that. You two run along and have fun,” Dev said helpfully from behind her as he snatched the plate. She whirled to find him standing there with her purse tucked under his arm and an unholy smirk on his lips.

“Oh, no,” she said sweetly. “I can’t expect you to—”

“Of course you can! Listen—the band just struck up ‘Shout.’” He popped her last meatball into his mouth and slapped her on the butt. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

She plotted Devon McKee’s murder as Wilton grasped her hand in his pudgy, sweaty one and towed her out onto the floor, looking as if he’d won the lottery.

Kylie was taller than he was. At every repetition of the chorus, he threw his arms up and hopped, morphing from possum to seal trying to snatch fish from the air. And her breasts were the fish, since with every “Shout!” they popped up, despite her best efforts to harness them.

That rat-bastard Devon laughed from the sidelines while consuming her shrimp.

Shout! Kylie decided to dismember him alive with a hacksaw and feed his limbs to a shark while he watched.

Shout! Better yet, she’d knock him unconscious, tie him up, smear canned tuna all over him and feed him to a herd of starving feral cats.

Shout! Or maybe she’d toss him into a mosh pit of violently vengeful women whom he’d spurned over the course of his career.

As the song got faster and sweatier and Wilton’s enthusiasm for her even more oppressive, she contemplated the virtues of alligators, pythons and piranha, any of which were readily available here in south Florida and would satisfy her bloodlust.

Finally, the song was over. She dodged Wilton’s determined attempt to slide a sweaty paw from her waist down to her ass, and thanked him for the dance. Then, through a series of dodges and feints, she lost him in the sea of people now filling up the room and made her way to Dev the Devil and her purse.

Her plate, she saw as she approached him, was a lost cause. It was littered with shrimp tails, quiche crumbs and flakes of spanakopita.

He waggled his eyebrows at her—for all the world like Belushi in Animal House—then popped the last corner of the only remaining savory Greek pastry into his mouth. He chewed, swallowed and smirked at her again. “Enjoy the dance?”

“I’d like my evening bag, please,” she said icily.

“Are you going to hit me with it?”

“I reserve the right.”

“Of course you do. So under the circumstances I think I’ll hang on to it for a while.”

“I’m not going to play juvenile games with you.”

“Excellent,” he said heartily. “Then can we move on to the adult ones? Triple X?”

She turned on her heel and walked away from him, toward a roving waiter. Somehow in three long strides, Dev got to the waiter first, commandeered a glass of wine and thrust it at her. “Drink?”

She ignored him and took a different glass off the waiter’s tray. Then she continued walking while the waiter gave a mock-shiver. “Brrrrr. That was cold,” she heard him say. “Why the hot girls so cold, man?”

“One of life’s mysteries,” Dev told him. Then, to her disbelief, he came up behind her again and touched her shoulder. “Don’t you want your purse?”

“Of course I do, but I won’t beg for it. I don’t beg for anything, Devon McKee, not ever, no matter how you like to delude yourself about last night.”

“Fine. Here.” He extended it to her. “By the way, I put my phone number inside.”

She snatched it from him and then hit him with it, hard, on the arm.

“Ow!”

“That’s for eating the food on my plate.” Then she hit him again, even harder.

“What the fu—”

“And that’s for making me dance with Wilton Grubman!” She glared at him.

He said nothing. He didn’t even laugh. He just evaluated her.

“What?” she yelled.

“Do you feel better, now?” Dev asked. There was actual concern in his eyes, and something appallingly like kindness in the curve of his mouth. It was horrible, unfair, the last straw. The convenient target of her hostility was being nice to her and that blew all her defenses.

“N-n-no!” And Kylie’s face crumpled despite her very best efforts on behalf of Grace Kelly poise. Forget the minor leakage in the supply closet—now the waterworks started in earnest and great, wracking sobs overtook her body.

This should have been her wedding. She’d held in her emotions for eight long months, and now they wouldn’t be denied.

“Oh, honey,” Dev said, and folded her into his arms. “Oh, my poor little psycho … it’s okay … whatever this is all about, it’s gonna be okay.”

His arms felt so good, so comforting, so right. How long had it been since a man had held her? The thought made her sob even harder as Dev walked her backward and to the left, and then backward again. She heard a ding and then they were inside an elevator.

“Not s’posed to be nice,” she howled into his jacket. “S’posed to be a d-d-d-dick.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Dev said, with just a quiver of humor in his voice. “I do my best.”

“S’posed to be a d-dick so I can yell at you!”

“I can see how my behavior frustrates you, then. I’m sorry.” He smoothed her hair, which disarmed her further, which produced more sobs, except they sounded like wild hog snorts on the inhale. Which was even more mortifying, if that were possible—which it wasn’t. But it was.

“So,” Dev said, his chest rumbling under her forehead. “Is it me in particular that you want to yell at … or will any old dick do?”

She only cried harder. He couldn’t possibly understand how painful the long months of withdrawal and rejection by Jack had been. How he’d changed under her very eyes from the man with whom she’d wanted to spend her life to a drug-addled internet-porn potato.

“I’m going out on a limb, here,” he continued, “but I’m going to guess that you’re very upset with some guy who isn’t here right now … so you decided to use me as a stand-in punching bag?”

“I’m sorry,” she wailed, punctuating the words with a great deal of mascara and—worse—snot. “I’m so sorry. You don’t deserve this.”

He actually kissed the top of her head. “If it makes you feel any better, sweetheart, I probably do. At least in terms of karma.”

She began to laugh, then, on top of the sobs, because she figured he was right, but that didn’t make her behavior any better.

She felt his hand cover hers, then take the purse back.

“I assume that you’re staying here in the hotel?”

She nodded, smearing more makeup onto his jacket.

“And that you have a key card to a room in here?”

She nodded again.

“If you’d care to tell me the number, then I can push the relevant elevator button and take you there.”

“Six-twelve,” she mumbled. “Thanks.”

He hit the button, keeping one arm still around her. She was amazed and grateful.

The elevator rose, thankfully without anyone else trying to get on. They stepped out onto the sixth floor and her room was only a few short steps away.

Dev slid her card into the slot on the door and opened it for her. “There you go.”

She stepped out of his arms, feeling suddenly bereft, and went inside.

“Can I suggest a hot bath?” he asked.

Kylie smiled wanly.

“And maybe a bottle of wine from room service?”

She nodded.

“Okay, then.” He stepped forward, took her chin in his hand, and dropped a quick kiss on her mouth. “Whatever this is all about—this emotional storm—it will pass. You’re gonna be okay, Kylie. I promise.” Then he turned and headed for the door.

The spiked hair with the gel in it that she’d thought was too Miami-stud yesterday suddenly looked right on him. His shoulders filled out the black tuxedo jacket to perfection, and the posture that she’d dismissed as cocky … well, who’d have known that it disguised real empathy?

“Dev?” she asked tentatively.

He stopped. “Yeah.”

“How would you like to share that bottle of wine with me?”

He turned to face her, one eyebrow raised.

“Please?” she added.

He hesitated.

Perhaps it was underhanded, but she really didn’t want to be alone. So she fixed him with one of those you’re-the-only-man-who-can-save-me-from-certain-disaster looks.

“Hmm,” he said. Not yes.

“I swear not to hit you with anything.”

He grinned at that and seemed to relent. “Will you promise not to yell?”

She swallowed and pushed her hair out of her face, then struck a mock-sexy pose. “No. But I’ll save it for when you get to … you know … the good parts.”

7

DEV CLOSED THE DOOR behind him and leaned against it, shoving his hands into his pockets. “The good parts, huh. And what might those be?”

Kylie was, truth to tell, a woeful sight. Her nose was pink and shiny, her eyes red and ringed with black. But her mouth was still sexy, even under the smeared lipstick. And her vulnerability, especially after the whole ice-princess routine, did something funny to the male protective streak in him.