“It is real, and no man warns of a proposal. Hear that?”
The audience was chanting something, but Casey was still staring at the ring. “Real as in how? Diamonds?”
“They’re saying ‘Lizzy! Lizzy!’ They want you.”
Casey didn’t know what he meant.
“Go! Take your bows. You earned them.” He pushed her back onto the stage.
By herself, Casey walked to the edge. It was hard to believe, but the audience really was yelling for Lizzy. For her. Emmie ran across the stage, nearly outweighed by an enormous bouquet of pink roses, and handed them to Casey. The child, smiling hugely, started to leave, but Casey took her hand and they both bowed to the applauding audience.
Emmie, young but an old pro, stepped back, her arms extended, and looked toward the curtain to her uncle. In the next moment she started running and Tate caught her. He picked her up and walked out with her to stand beside Casey. The applause, the whistles, shouts, and horns were deafening. It was a long while before they left the stage.
What greeted them offstage was a bewildered Devlin in handcuffs. “I didn’t know she was so young, and she wanted to stay with me. And now she’s saying I held her against her will?” He was sputtering. “I can’t be held responsible for her lies. If she’d told me the truth I would have helped her—which is what I was trying to do in the first place. How was I to know she was a pathological liar? She should be in handcuffs. Not me! I was trying to—”
He broke off because the crowd was calling for him and Lydia. “You have to remove these! They want me.”
Rowan gave a snort of derision and clamped down on Devlin’s upper arm.
r /> But Kit stepped forward. He said nothing, but he gave his son a glance that said everything. Rowan released Devlin—but he didn’t remove the handcuffs.
When Devlin, with Lori beside him, appeared onstage in handcuffs, the audience went into peals of laughter and cheers. The villain was being punished. They all thought it was part of the play, and they appreciated the twenty-first-century slant on the story.
Devlin’s face lost its sulky expression and he played to the audience, even to chasing Lori around the stage, before finally disappearing behind the curtain. Rowan lost no time in grabbing him, but he stopped when Devlin paused near Tate.
“So who won?” Devlin’s voice was a sneer, and it said that there was no doubt that he was the winner of the Great Acting Challenge, something that everyone else had forgotten about.
“You did,” Tate said. “I concede to you.” With that, he gave a formal bow to his ex-brother-in-law.
Devlin put his chin up and was led off the stage, his hands in cuffs.
Tate and Casey were in her bed and he was nuzzling her neck. She could feel the ring on her finger, and as soon as her senses were her own, she planned to ask him about it. But right now all she could think about were his lips on her body, his skin against hers.
Last night they’d returned from the play full of energy and hunger, for food and for each other. In between lovemaking and talking, they’d eaten whatever they could find. The play, Devlin’s fate, what awaited Lori, and what was going to happen with Kit and Olivia, had occupied them so completely that Casey didn’t ask about the ring. But she certainly didn’t take it off!
They didn’t get to bed until after three A.M. and had fallen into a deep sleep, wrapped around each other.
The clock on the bedside table said it was now ten A.M., and Casey needed to get up and start cooking. Everyone would be wanting breakfast.
When Tate’s cellphone began playing Katy Perry’s “Roar,” he immediately rolled over and picked it up. “Emmie?”
“No, it’s me,” Nina said, and Casey could hear her. “I have her phone. She said she was on her way to you. I was just checking. My usual smothering.”
Tate sat up, the covers falling away from his bare chest. “When did she leave?”
“About a minute ago.” Nina drew a breath. “Emmie is upset because she thinks you’re going to be mad at her.”
“What has she done now?” He was watching Casey as she got out of bed and pulled on her clothes, which she’d discarded on the floor.
“That’s not the question,” Nina said.
“Let me talk to Nina.” Casey took the phone as Tate pulled on his boxers under the sheet. “Tell me what happened.”
“Josh took Emmie home right after the play, but when I got there, she was still awake. She was saying that Uncle Tate is going to be really mad at her.”
“Do you think it’s because of her father?” Casey asked. “Emmie must have seen him in handcuffs.”
“I don’t think so. She’s never expected much from him. Tate is everything to her.”