Romance: Dance with Me (California Belly Dance Romance Book 2) (16 page)

Then it hit her.

This was his ex-fiancee. The woman who had trampled on his heart.

Melanie flashed another questioning glance at Taz, all but begging him to ask her to stay.

He didn’t. He didn’t say a thing.

Okay. That was her answer. She turned back to Gina, her jaw set, every muscle tense. “Yeah,” she said, “let’s go.”

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32

Melanie walked beside Gina toward the bar, but her mind was still on Taz. Why hadn’t he said anything? He hadn’t even introduced her.

Why wouldn’t he even introduce her?

Maybe it was obvious.

She was a fool. Of course she’d fallen for him, just as Abby had warned. She’d thought she was so immune, so superior to all the other women who had fallen for him, and here she was, one of the many. She was just another notch.

The pain in her heart became anger—a cruel, raw animal that clawed away the fantasy she’d been living in this past week.

To think, she actually thought Taz cared about her. That he might be falling for her. What an idiot.

She tipped back the drink she’d been trying so carefully not to spill, drained the last of it then planted the empty martini glass on the bar.

“Another, please,” she declared to the bartender and turned to Gina. “You’re buying, right?

Amusement crossed the woman’s face. “I guess I am.” She ordered herself a chardonnay and pulled a few bills from her cherry-red clutch.

Melanie glanced back at Taz. He was still standing with Tamara, one hand on his hip, the other fidgeting at his side. She seemed to be doing the talking, but he must have been listening, because he wasn’t doing anything else. He certainly wasn’t looking for Melanie.

If he was going to treat her like trash, she wasn’t going to make it easy for him. She took a good, long gulp of her new atomic-green drink, and turned to Gina. “I think they’ve had enough time to catch up.”

She didn’t wait for an answer. Just tightened her grip on her drink and marched back to Taz.

She was so focused on Taz and his ex that she almost didn’t notice the furry, sandal-strapped foot that stepped in front of her. “Hey, gorgeous,” the gladiator wolf said.

Melanie looked behind her for Gina.

“You’re about the sexiest ghost I’ve ever seen.”

Melanie rolled her eyes. Really? This was his pickup line? “I’m not a ghost, Big, Bad, whatever you are. If you don’t mind, I have to get back to my—” She stopped. She was about to say “boyfriend,” but he certainly wasn’t that. “Forget it,” she said and walked away.

What she should have said was “fake boyfriend.” Because that’s what he was, right? He was fake. All of it had been fake. Every minute of it. She took another drink and hoped it would dampen the pain.

“So did I miss anything?” she snapped, her voice almost steady, when she plopped herself in the middle of their conversation. Now she had a plan. She’d show him the past week didn’t mean anything to her, either. She downed another long gulp and let it burn its electric-green courage into her. She was already feeling better. A bit dizzy, but better.

Now Taz was looking at her. His eyes narrowed. “Are you drunk?”

“No,” she said but found herself stumbling two steps backward. He grabbed her free arm to steady her and took the nearly empty glass from the other.

“Hey, you can’t do that,” she said and tried to grab it back but missed. “It’s not like you’re my boyfriend, you know.”

That got a reaction from him. Maybe it was surprise, maybe it was anger. Who cared? At least he was looking at her, paying attention to
her
, not this Fowl-Faced Barbie doll.

“Be careful,” he said, his voice low and menacing.

“Be careful about what? Telling your sister that this whole thing is a huge lie? Telling her we’re only pretending to live together so you can keep her off your back? Who would ever believe we’d be a couple? Hell, we don’t even know each other, right?”

“What did you say?”

The voice behind her made Melanie freeze. She turned around slowly and found herself staring into Gina’s wide and angry brown eyes.

Melanie felt the blood rush from her head to her feet and wondered how convenient it would be to faint right now. Oh, screw it. What good would that do? She’d already made a fool of herself with Taz. This was just icing on the cake. She straightened. Resigned but proud. “You heard me,” she shot back, leveling a stare right back at that woman. “We aren’t a couple. We barely know each other. The whole thing is a big fat lie, because you are such a—”

“Stop!”

The word burst from Taz. To say he was mad would be like saying the North Pole was cold or Mount Everest was tall. He was seething. His nostrils were flaring like a Spanish bull about to charge.

“Just stop,” he repeated, more calmly. “You’re making a scene.”

She looked around. He was right. Everyone around them was looking in their direction. Her rage ebbed… until she saw Blond, Built, and Feathered trying to hide her face behind her hand, looking as if this were some unfortunate episode in her otherwise ultra-glamorous life. And looking at her with pity.

That changed everything.

Fresh rage filled Melanie. “Yeah, I’ll stop,” she snapped back with venom. “There’s no need to get upset, right? That wasn’t part of the bargain, was it? That wasn’t part of our deal.”

She turned and stormed into the crowd. She didn’t have a direction, but somehow she ended up at the bar.

“A Sonic whatchamacallit,” she said to the bartender when she caught her eye.

“Oh, my God, are you all right?”

It took a moment for Melanie to realize the comment was directed at her. She looked over her shoulder, and the alien cantina twins were standing behind her.

“I’m fine,” she mumbled back, trying to sound like it were true.

“That must have been really awful for you,” the chattier one said.

“It probably looked worse than it was,” she replied. She paid the bartender, and took another gulp.

“If you say so,” the young woman said. “Losing Taz Roman to his ex-girlfriend—”

Melanie picked up her drink. “Don’t you get it? I didn’t lose anything. We had a deal. He said he’d help me with my Divas audition, if I played nice. That’s all it was.”

The two women exchanged funny looks. The chattier one said, “So it was an arrangement? Like friends with benefits?”

“Yeah,” Melanie said, but over their shoulders something caught her eye. “Yeah, something like that. I gotta go.”

She took her drink and walked up to the tall, furry gladiator who was watching her from beneath a potted palm. Maybe she could salvage something of the night. Maybe she didn’t have to go home alone and rejected after all.

She settled in beside him and said in her sexiest voice, “I hope this seat isn’t taken.”

“No way, sugar,” he said. “It’s been waiting for you all night.”

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33

Melanie was still on the couch, beneath a pile of borrowed blankets, when Abby returned from her Sunday morning class at the dance studio.

“You can’t sleep all day,” she said, pulling back the vertical blinds and letting the sunshine spill into the living room.

Melanie scooted farther beneath the blankets.

“C’mon,” Abby said, “I’ll make you some pancakes, and you can tell me what happened. You can start by telling me why you were with a guy dressed as a dog in a gladiator costume. I thought you and Taz were going to the Pandemonium.”

“We were. I mean, we did,” Melanie grumbled, pushing herself to a sitting position. She instantly regretted it. Hangovers were a bitch.

“So what happened?” Abby said between the incredibly loud and painful clanking of pots and pans in the kitchen.

“His ex-girlfriend showed up, and Taz’s sister found out we were faking the relationship.”

“His ex blew your cover with his sister? That sucks.” She walked out of the kitchen, holding a pancake box in each hand. “Blueberry or plain?”

“Plain,” she said. “She didn’t do it.”

“What?”

“It’s complicated,” Melanie muttered. The whole horrid ordeal was coming back, despite her efforts to wash it away with alcohol. “Can we talk about something else?”

“Of course,” her friend said. “But I’m curious. If his ex didn’t blow your cover, how did his sister find out?”

“It was me, all right? I did it. He was acting like an ass, like I wasn’t even there.” Oh, God. She regretted the words the instant they were out.

Abby didn’t say anything at first. But then she came out of the kitchen holding a plate full of pancakes soaked with syrup that she set on the coffee table, along with a fork and a knife. She dropped into the chair beside the couch. “So you were mad that he wasn’t paying attention to you?”

“Yeah, sort of. I don’t know. I guess.”

“You know what that means, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” she said, digging into the food in front of her. “It means he’s a class-A jerk.”

Abby shook her head. “It means you fell for him.”

“No, I didn’t.” Melanie speared a piece of pancake on her fork and then another. “He might not be as bad as I thought he was, but I didn’t fall for him. I’m not that stupid.”

Was she? Maybe for a minute, but not now.

“Okay, tell me what he did. Exactly.”

“Why? So you can tell me what I already know?”

“Just humor me, all right?”

“Fine,” she said and gave her friend the gritty details of the whole disaster.

When she finished, Abby stood and paced the living room, squeezing her lower lip in contemplation.

Melanie finished her pancakes.

Finally, Abby planted her hands on the back of the chair. “I hate to tell you this, but I think you’re wrong. I think all that alcohol, your jealousy, or whatever it was messed with your head. All he did was talk to his ex. You’re the one who left him alone with her. He never asked you to leave, did he?”

It
felt
like he wanted her to leave.

“Whose side are you on?”

“Yours! That’s why I’m telling you you’re crazy to give up over this. You obviously like him, and it seems to me—after everything you’ve said—that he probably has feelings for you too, because he had plenty of chances and plenty of reasons to tell you to get lost, and he didn’t.”

“Of course he did,” Melanie protested. “I mean, he practically did. When he didn’t—”

“When he didn’t what? Blow off that woman fast enough for you? Refuse to speak to her, even though his sister probably dragged the poor woman halfway across the state? I’m sure he felt sorry for her. Seriously, Melanie, put yourself in his shoes.”

Melanie opened her mouth to snap back another reply but clamped it shut instead. Her arguments weren’t making sense anymore, not even to herself. No wonder her love life was always in shambles.

“So what am I supposed to do?”

Abby softened and smiled. “You could start by talking to him.”

Melanie dropped her head in her hands and rubbed her eyes. “I suppose you’re going to say I should apologize, too.”

“I think you should start by just talking. The rest is up to you.”

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34

The streetlight in front of Taz’s house was out, making the cul-de-sac especially dark. Melanie pulled up along the curb. The gate was open, and she could see most of the windows were dark, except for one on the first floor. The Porsche was there, but the Escalade was gone. That was a relief. At least she wouldn’t be running into Gina.

She ignored the voice inside telling her this was a mistake. The voice that kept her on the couch all day, drowning her hangover in gallons of water and pain relievers. Maybe Abby was right. Maybe she had gotten it all wrong last night. There was only one way to find out.

She focused on what she’d say: that she was sorry, that she shouldn’t have stormed off. She’d tell him she’d been wrong and ask his forgiveness.

He could take it from there.

She walked up the pathway to the front door and spied him through the window, descending the stairs and turning toward the living room. He was gesturing, speaking to someone. Uh-oh. Gina was still there. That changed things.

That someone rounded the corner from the kitchen. Without her costume, it took a moment to recognize Tamara, looking fresh and clean. The gauzy pink dress she had on was even more flattering to her long, lean figure than that damn Big Bird Barbie costume.

Melanie stood still, her heart thudding like a jackhammer in her chest. She’d never be able to talk to him in front of Tamara. Hell, if that woman was here, there was no point in talking to him at all. She pinched her eyes shut. She should leave. She
wanted
to leave, but it was all she could do to stay on her feet. She closed her eyes and tried to get a grip on herself. If only every inch of her wasn’t on the verge of crumpling to the ground. All she wanted to do was curl into a ball and shut everything out.