Chapter 31

What began as an easy—ifboring—day volunteering at the church quickly turned into a crush of people. Carter bought a cheeseburger he only took one bite of before tossing in the trash, but he utilized that one bite like a marketing pro—to take a posed picture of him and Chloe, then post it online with a call to all his followers to come on out to the church and support a good cause… plus, get to hang out with him, and score a chance at an autographed ball signed by the football team.
Boy, did they show up. We sold out of burgers and had only four hot dogs left by the time the last person had ordered and we could finally clean up. Carter also directed people to the baskets, so we ended up selling a lot more tickets than we expected to.
I’m hot, sticky, and exhausted by the time I’m done working. I tell Carter I have to swing by my house and take a shower first, and he takes Chloe home to change out of her ballet clothes before we go out to dinner.
Carter picks me up. I’m too tired and worn out from the heat of the sun beating down on me while I worked all day to even ask where we’re going, but before long, the Dallas skyline comes into view.
“We’re goin’ into the city for dinner?” I ask, finally sitting up and taking notice.
“Yep.” He misses a beat, then he says, “We’re going to Porter’s.”
Remembering he said his sister owns Porter’s, dread snakes through me. “Haven’t I met enough of your family members for one day? Give a girl a break, would ya?”
The corners of Carter’s mouth tilt up. “This is a make-up meeting. Since the one earlier went so poorly, I wanted to bring you to meet my sister. She’s cool, you’ll like her.”
“I wish you’d’ve told me that,” I tell him, glancing down at my outfit. I’m wearing jeans with a snag in the knee and a worn T-shirt. “I’m not exactly dressed to impress.”
“I’m taking care of it,” he assures me.
“What does that mean?”
He doesn’t answer. I’m growing accustomed to him outright ignoring me when he doesn’t want to answer, so I turn my attention out the window and watch as we drive into the city. A short time later, we arrive at a shopping mall and Carter parks the car. I’ve never been to Porter’s, but I know it’s not located inside a shopping mall, so I know we aren’t here to eat.
“Are we going shopping?” Chloe asks cheerfully, clearly delighted at the prospect.
“We’re just making a quick stop,” he tells her, taking her hand as he leads her around the car. “We’re going to buy Zoey a dress to wear to dinner. You want to help her pick it out?”
“Yeah,” Chloe says, nodding. “And I want a new dress, too.”
“We’re here for Zoey today,” he informs her.
“But please,” she drawls passionately.
After a brief shopping excursion, we head to the register with a pretty—though a touch sexier than I would have selected for myself—little black dress for me, and a new dress with Minnie Mouse on it for Chloe.
“This dress is so pretty,” Chloe announces, holding it up in the air so the red tulle doesn’t drag on the ground. “I’m gonna wear it all the time.”
Still feeling self-conscious about letting Carter buy me an outfit, I tell him, “I think I should pay for this myself.”
Carter slows down, falling into step beside me and letting Chloe take the lead. “No,” he says, simply.
“You can’t veto me,” I tell him. “You’re not my boss, Carter Mahoney.”
“You don’t have the money. I do,” he says, simply. “Besides, I’m not even using my own money. I’m charging all this to my credit card. The bill goes to my father. Technically, my dad is buying you a new dress, and don’t you think that’s the least he could do after being so rude to you at breakfast?”
I do dislike his dad.
“I mean, all that shit he said about your misunderstanding with Jake?” Carter continues, shaking his head. “Guy’s a dick. Let him pay for it.”
Even though he’s right, I recognize his techniques as the same ones he used on Jake when Carter was trying to persuade him to do his bidding, even in spite of Jake’s best interest. Shaking my head at his second nature manipulation, I envision Carter’s future. Without any training, he’s already a shark. What kind of man will he be after an Ivy League law school teaches him new tips and tricks?
“What?” he asks, since I’m shaking my head at him.
“I just can’t decide if I should be envious of or feel bad for your future wife.”
Smiling, Carter drapes an arm around my shoulder. “I’m gonna marry you, remember? You don’t strike me as the type to spend a lot of time feeling sorry for yourself.”
“I won’t. Not even after our divorce when you’re shacking up with a 20-year-old yoga instructor,” I tell him, exaggerated pride dripping from my tone. “I’ll just take half of your shit in the divorce—the good half. I think we should buy a vacation home somewhere with a beach, that way I can lounge by the ocean with a hot young thing of my own. Even up the score, you know.”
“Of course. That seems fair.”
“Even though it’ll be your mid-life crisis that causes it, I’ll win the divorce,” I inform him.
“I don’t doubt it. Give it a month, I’ll be so annoyed at how well you’re doing without me—not to mention I’ll miss you so much—I’ll come crawling right back.”
Grinning over at him, I ask, “Do you crawl?”
“Well, no,” he admits. “But I’ll stride in, throw you over my shoulder caveman style, haul you to the bedroom, and reclaim you as my wife. That’s about as close to crawling as I can get.”
“Will you at least slouch?”
“Probably not. Gotta show your dumb fucking boyfriend what an imposing man I am. After I reclaim you in the bedroom, I’m gonna drown him in the ocean for daring to touch you,” he adds, casually.
“That seems reasonable. Do I get to kill the yoga instructor for touching you?”
“I already did. Thought I might have to, in order to atone for being such a massive douchebag.” Leaning close, he murmurs in my ear, “Turns out, the make-up sex was sufficient. Oh well.”
He’s crazy, but that he even manages to charm me in this jaded, imaginary scenario where I should hate him is as exasperating as it is endearing. I wrap my arm around his waist so I can lean in closer. “That’s why you’re my favorite sociopath,” I inform him.
His arm tightens around me and he jokes, “I better be. I’m not afraid to take out the competition.”

When we getto Porter’s, I’m really glad Carter made me get the dress. I tug at the hem absently as I walk beside him and Chloe into the lavish dining area. A neatly coiffed hostess in a black dress walks ahead of us, clutching menus to her chest. I steal glimpses here and there as we walk past tables and booths full of patrons, most of them in attire ranging from business-casual to cocktail. Even the few open tables in the room are set with bone-white plates, folded cloth napkins, and spotless clear goblets, maybe for water or wine.
There’s a silver-haired man in a tuxedo playing the piano along the back wall. Behind him, an entire floor-to-ceiling wall of wine bottles, like the inside of a well-stocked wine cellar, but on steroids.
“This place is beautiful,” I tell Carter.
Carter stops where the hostess halted and lets Chloe climb into the booth first. Glancing around with the casualness of someone already accustomed to the setting and unable to see its charm, he nods his head. “Yeah, it’s a nice place.”
“I want banana pudding,” Chloe informs us, her little brown eyes lit up with anticipation.
“For dessert,” Carter says. “As long as you finish your dinner.”
“But the pudding is the best! We should have dessert first, just in case we run out of room,” she informs him.
He shakes his head at her but doesn’t bother arguing. Instead, he looks back at me and catches me checking him out.
Carter is still wearing jeans, but before he came to pick me up, he changed into a black button-down shirt, since he had the advantage of knowing where we were going. The sleeves are rolled up to his elbows since it’s hot outside, and the pronounced veins in his strong, lean arms… well, they do things to me.
My cheeks warm up since I’m caught, but I don’t back down when he smirks at me. Instead, I shrug. “What? You’re gorgeous. This isn’t news.”
He smiles and leans back a step, wrapping his arm around me and drawing me against him so he can give me a kiss.
“Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in.”
I break away and turn, startled, at the sound of a woman’s voice. A stunning woman with dark hair and classic red lips stands there smiling as she looks from Carter to Chloe. Chloe climbs back down and runs the short distance to throw her arms around the woman.
“Hi, Caroline,” Chloe greets, squeezing her.
“Hey, baby,” the woman offers back, reaching a hand down and rubbing Chloe’s back.
“Carter said I can have pudding,” Chloe informs her.
“For dessert,” Carter reminds her.
“And he said we could have dessert first,” Chloe adds, optimistically.
“That’s not true,” Carter states.
Caroline grins. “She gets that from you, you know. You can’t even be mad about it.”
Given my earlier line of thoughts, I want to jump on that and pry, but before I can, Carter intervenes, telling Chloe to sit back down. Then he rests his hand on my hip and tells his sister, “Caroline, this is my lovely girlfriend, Zoey.”
“Girlfriend?” she asks with interest, looking me over before extending her hand. “Well, how about that? It’s nice to meet you, Zoey. You must have jumped through some high hoops to lock my little brother down. He’s a handful, this one,” she adds as she drops my hand, in case I didn’t already know.
“Oh, I know he is,” I assure her. “Don’t worry, I can handle him.”
“Most of Carter’s lady friends don’t get introductions, so I believe you. You two go to school together?”
I nod my head. “We’re in the same history class.”
“Are you a cheerleader?”
“God, no.” The words tumble right out before I can think better of them. I don’t know Carter’s sister, but since Carter is on the team, maybe she was a cheerleader in high school. Attempting to backtrack so as not to offend her, I add, “Not that there’s anything wrong with cheerleading. I’m just not a big fan of having more eyes on me than necessary. I’m not really the cheering on the sidelines type, I’m more the… stay home and read type.”
Caroline’s eyebrows rise like that’s the last thing she expected to hear. “Really? Not a social butterfly, huh? How did you and my brother meet again?” she half-jokes.
“It was an accident of fate,” I assure her. “I’m not his type.”
“You are now,” Carter assures me, putting slight pressure on my back to urge me toward the booth. “Anyway, I introduced her to Mom and Dad this morning and it did not go well. I thought I’d show her we’re not all assholes.”
Chloe shakes her head and passes him a pack of crayons wrapped in plastic wrap to open. “You owe me a dollar, Carter.”
Taking the pack and ripping it open, he tells her, “You already spent your dollar on cookies, rugrat.”
“You used a adult word,” she tells him, eyebrows rising. “You owe me another dollar.”
“You should really just give her a twenty and tell her it’s a down payment,” Caroline offers. “That’s what Chris does when we watch her. He knows he’s going to fail to clean up that dirty mouth, so he just forks down his penance and gets it out of the way.”
Chloe looks at me. “I make a lot of money off the boys.”
I bite back a grin as I slide into the booth across from her. “I bet you do.”
“I’m saving it up. I’m gonna buy a pony named Lucy and put a unicorn horn on her,” Chloe tells me.
“That’s not going to happen,” Carter informs her, sliding into the booth beside her.
“Yeah, it is. I’m gonna have a pet unicorn. I just have to save up a lot of dollars.”
“That wouldn’t be a unicorn, it would be a pony with a weird hat,” Carter tells her. “Why don’t you aim a little lower? Start with a pet fish.”
“I would name it Sharky,” she announces. Then she nods, already sold on the idea. “Okay, I want a pet fish. Can we go get one today?”
“You’ve gotta save up your money first,” he tells her, passing me a menu. “You’ll have to buy it a bowl and fish food.”
“Can it go places with us? We should get it a cage, like a dog. But that water will stay in, so we can bring Sharky.”
Sighing, Carter murmurs, “I’m already regretting this suggestion.” Glancing her way, he says, “How about instead of buying a fish today, we all watch The Little Mermaid when we get home?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she says, bouncing in her seat as she colors on her place setting.
Now that we’re all seated, Caroline says, “I’ll grab you guys a waitress. You’re actually in Marla’s section, but I’ll get you a different one.”
“Yes, please do,” Carter says.
As soon as Caroline walks away, I ask, “Who is Marla?”
“Number 19,” he offers back.
Oh. “Did you date, or…?”
“Or,” he answers, shooting me a little smirk and winking at me.
Shameless. Carter Mahoney is shameless.