Deacon narrowed his gaze at her. “The club? The Texas Cattleman’s Club? Are you serious?”
Cecelia frowned. “Of course I’m serious. Why wouldn’t I be serious? I’m a member. Everyone in town practically is a member now. What’s the big deal?”
With a sigh, Deacon sat back against the leather of the booth. “The big deal is that I’m not a member. They would never let me be a member. I don’t exactly relish hanging out someplace where I’m not wanted.”
Sometimes Cecelia forgot how hard it was for Deacon to live in Royal back when they were kids. He had never fit in with the others driving the BMWs they got for their sweet sixteenth and going home to their mansions at night. She never really thought about it, because none of it ever mattered to her. He had simply been the most wonderful boy she’d ever known. The fact that he’d driven a beat-up pickup truck and lived in a small, unimpressive house on the edge of town hadn’t been important.
But it had been important to him both then and now, gauging by his reaction. Even though he was successful, even though he could buy and sell half the people in this town, he still had a chip on his shoulder.
“You’re not seventeen and broke anymore, Deacon. Stop worrying about all those other people and what they might or might not think. Actually, most of them are so self-centered that they won’t be nearly as concerned with your being at the club as they will be about a million other things.”
She leaned into him and took his hand. The touch of his skin against hers made her long for the night they’d spent together with his hands gliding over her naked body. Cecelia really did want him to go to the party with her, and not just as a buffer from the ire of the town. She wanted to go back to his place afterward and spend all night relishing the feel of him against her.
Cecelia looked in his eyes, hoping they reflected her intentions and thoughts. She stroked the back of his hand with her thumb in the slow, lazy circles guaranteed to drive him wild and get her exactly what she wanted. “Come with me. Please.”
Jaw tight, his gaze dropped to his hand. With a soft shake of his head, he sighed. “Okay, you win. When is this engagement party?”
“Tomorrow night. Seven o’clock. Will that work for you?”
Deacon nodded. “I suppose. Will I get some sort of special reward for being your escort for the evening?” he asked with a grin lighting his eyes.
“You absolutely will,” she promised. “Do you have anything in mind?”
“I do.” Deacon took her hand and scooped it up in his own. He pressed his fingertips into the palm of her hand and stroked gently but firmly, turning her own trick on her. It was easy to imagine those hands on her body, those fingers stroking the fires that burned deep inside her. “What are you doing after work today?” he asked.
Her gaze met his, a small smile curling her lips even as he continued to tease her with his fingertips. “Nothing much,” she said coyly. “What do you plan to do tonight?”
Deacon leaned into her, burying his fingers in the loose hair at the nape of her neck and bringing her lips a fraction of an inch from his own. She wanted to close the gap between them and lose herself in his kiss. It was all she wanted, all she could think of when they were this close. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her lips. Her tongue snaked across her bottom lip to wet it in anticipation of his kiss.
Instead he smiled and let his fingers trace along the line of her jaw. “Why, I plan to be doing you, Miss Morgan.”
Seven
“So, are you friends with Wes or Isabelle?” Deacon asked as they slipped into the crowd mingling at the clubhouse.
Cecelia twisted her lips as she tried to come up with a good answer. “Neither, really. Wes and I are business rivals. We dated a while back, but that’s it. I don’t really know Isabelle that well, either.”
“Why would he invite his ex to his engagement party?”
That was a good question, considering she was also the reason he’d gone years without knowing he had a daughter. She still felt bad about misjudging that whole situation. She’d helped to correct it in the end, but Wes would never get that time back, and that was her fault. “Well, in a roundabout way, I did help bring him and Isabelle back together after they broke up a few years ago.”
“How’s that?”
She shook her head and reached out for a flute of champagne being passed on a tray by a waiter in the standard black-and-white uniform of the club. Cecelia hesitated to tell Deacon what she’d done. He still saw her as the sweet girl he’d dated in school, and she didn’t want him to see her any differently. “You don’t want to know.”
“Not good?” Deacon asked.
She shrugged. “Let’s just say it wasn’t my finest moment. But it all turned out well in the end, and since Isabelle invited me despite it all, I knew I needed to come and work on mending those bridges.” Leaning into him, she spoke quieter so others nearby couldn’t hear her. “I fear that before too long, I’ll need all the friends I can get.”
Deacon slipped a protective arm around her waist. “If anyone so much as says an ugly word to you tonight, I’ll punch them in the jaw.”
Cecelia smiled and leaned into his embrace. She wouldn’t mind seeing Chip sprawled across the worn hardwood floor of the club, but that would cause more trouble than it was worth. And she probably deserved some of those ugly words. “That won’t be necessary, but thank you.”
As they turned back toward the crowd, the people parted and Isabelle rushed forward to give Cecelia a hug. She looked radiant tonight in a shimmering bronze cocktail dress that brought out the copper in her hazel eyes. “Cecelia, you made it! I’m so glad.”
Cecelia accepted the hug and smiled as warmly as she could. Once she realized she’d been wrong about Isabelle’s gold-digging ways, she found she really did like her. Now she just had to fight off the pa
ngs of envy where Wes’s fiancée was concerned. Soon, Isabelle would have the family that Cecelia had always wanted. She shouldn’t hold that against her, though. It was a long time coming, raising Caroline as a single mother, in part because of Cecelia’s meddling.