“I do not approve of virtually any relationship,” he said, cutting her off. “The age difference is a bit concerning, but if you’re insinuating that I don’t approve because she is the daughter of our staff, that is your mistake to make, not mine.”
“Wait—you don’t approve of any relationship? Aren’t you engaged?”
“Not anymore.”
Well, that cleared up her earlier suspicions. “But you were engaged.”
“How does that have any bearing on this conversation?”
Rosie stared at him for what felt like a full minute before she could find the right words. “Were you not in a relationship while you were engaged? Did you not love—”
“You do not need to love someone to be in a relationship or be engaged to them,” he cut in, and Rosie’s eyes widened.
“Wow,” she murmured, sitting back down. “Why would you do that to yourself?”
“Do what?” Confusion clouded his features.
“Marry someone you didn’t love? Why would you put yourself through something like that?” she asked, honestly curious. “Put another person through that?”
A dark shadow crossed his features, and Rosie knew almost instantly that she’d crossed some unspoken line with this man. Then again, she figured he had an entire city’s worth of lines to be crossed.
Devlin’s face turned to granite as he stared down at her. “I find it ironic that you sit there in judgment of my ended engagement, as if you’re a fountain of knowledge on such subjects, when you’re so obviously not married or engaged, living alone in an apartment with beaded curtains and books about ghosts.”
Rosie drew in a sharp breath that scalded the back of her throat. She may’ve tiptoed over a line with him, but he just dive-bombed over one with her. “I was married, you flaming asshole, and just so you know, we didn’t have a lot, but I loved my husband and he loved me.” Reaching around her neck, she tugged on the gold chain and pulled it out from underneath her shirt. “So, even though he no longer walks this earth, I still sit here on my fountain of knowledge, knowing exactly what it’s like to marry for love and then lose it.”
A flicker of regret widened his eyes and the line of his jaw softened just a bit. “I’m—”
“Don’t apologize. I don’t care,” she snapped, snatching up her mug. Lukewarm coffee sloshed over the rim, onto her fingers.
Devlin stared at her a moment and then turned away. The conversation came to a grinding halt right then and there. Devlin retreated to the balcony doors that overlooked Chartres Street and stared at his phone. Rosie turned on the television, and yeah, she purposely opened up her DVR and played an episode of The Dead Files .
Devlin’s heavy sigh once he realized what she’d turned on made her feel better about how messed up life could be.
As minutes ticked into an hour, Rosie checked in on her friend by quietly moving the curtain aside when she went to put her mug in the sink. The room was dark, but she could make out the shapes of Nikki and Gabe. He was holding her so close she could barely make out where one of them began and the other ended.
Seeing that got Gabe a step closer to being off the Boyfriends Who Needed to Get Their Shit Together list.
When she turned back around, Devlin was still standing quietly by the balcony doors. Her gaze drifted to her small kitchen and she felt like it was time for some rage cleaning. She was behind her sink, reaching for the door underneath to grab some cleaning supplies, when Devlin spoke for the first time in over an hour.
“You lied to me.”
Her head jerked up. “What?”
He was still standing with his back to her. “Yesterday. When you said you didn’t know who I was, you obviously did.”
Rosie’s mouth dropped open as she straightened. “So you do remember me.”
He was quiet for a moment. “How could I forget?”
Her brows snapped together. “Sure seemed like you did when you saw me.”
“I was surprised to see the woman who’d brought me flowers in a cemetery now standing in the same place one of my employees was,” he replied, and Rosie’s empty hands flattened on the counter. “The same woman who claimed she didn’t know who I was, at first.”
She tried to count to ten, but only made it to five. “I know it seems hard to believe, but I seriously didn’t know who you were when I saw you drop the flowers.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me who you were once you realized?”
That was a good question. One she really didn’t have an awesome answer for, so she went with the truth. “Because I figured I’d never see you again. Who I was didn’t matter.”
“But it does.” Devlin then turned to face her, and she almost wished he hadn’t. His intense stare unnerved her. “Because I know exactly who you are now, Rosie Herpin.”
Chapter 5
Rosie’s stomach took a tumble as a fine shiver skated across her shoulder blades. “Yeah. I think we just established that. I’m the woman who was super nice to you yesterday and brought you peonies.”
He stepped forward. “You’re also the woman who introduced Nikki to Ross Haid.”
Crap! That was true.
Damn it, if and when she saw Ross Haid again, she was going to straight up sucker punch the man in the throat.
She’d met Ross around two years ago, when he was doing a fluff piece on French Quarter ghost tours. He’d sought her out to do an interview, and they’d hit it off since she appreciated his quick wittiness and he found her snark humorous. She never in a million years would’ve thought he’d use their friendship in the way he did.
“A man who happens to be a journalist hell-bent on destroying my family.” Somehow, Devlin was even closer without her realizing it. “So, if you’re wondering if I for one second believe that you didn’t know who I was yesterday, you’d be mistaken.”
Rosie felt warmth swamp her face as she struggled to keep her voice low so they weren’t overheard. “Okay, let’s get a few things straight. I didn’t know Ross wanted to meet Nikki because of her working for your family or her involvement with Gabe. I would never do that to my friend.”
He said nothing as he tilted his head.
“Ross also knows better than to come anywhere near me now, because I was scarily angry when I learned that he used me to get to Nikki and you don’t want to see me scarily angry,” she said, stepping toward him. “And, for the last time, I did not know who you were until I saw you standing in front of the de Vincent tomb.”
Devlin was now so close that she caught the scent of his cologne. It was a crisp citrus scent mixed with the woodsy aroma of teak. In other words, he smelled really, really good and if he weren’t such a douche canoe, her lady parts would’ve appreciated the cologne.
There was a slight curve to one side of his lips. A smirk. “There’s something you need to know about me.”
“I don’t think there’s anything I need to know about you.” She unfolded her arms.
He let out a dry, sardonic sound that wasn’t much of a laugh. “Well, you need to know that I know everything and if I come across something I don’t, I find out. So, of course, I learned that Ross tried to go through Nikki to get to my family. It took nothing to discover that one Rosie Herpin was the connection between them. It was only your name I was given.”
Okay. That was officially creepy. The need to point out that his ego was about the size of Lake Pontchartrain faded. “Given by whom?”
He ignored that question as he dipped his chin a fraction of an inch. “I should’ve made sure that I knew what you looked like. That was my mistake, but now I know.”
“Who gave you my name?” she demanded.
Devlin smiled at her then, and it was a tight, cold one. “If you ever do anything again that jeopardizes my family, and that includes Nikki, you won’t just regret it. Do you understand me?”
That smile and those words were encased in ice and they should’ve scared her, but all they did was seriously piss her off. “Are you seriously standing in my house and threatening me?”