Page 33 of Filthy Twisted Devil

“We’ll try, anyway.”

I open the restaurant door for her. As we wait for the maître d’, Eden shrugs off her coat, revealing a black, off-the-shoulder sweater dress that reveals the creamy skin of her neck and shoulders.

Shit. As if I didn’t need another reason to be nervous.

It’s not like Eden’s never worn anything revealing in front of me before. It’s just that now I know how her lips taste, and that makes my body anticipate things. Things that can’t happen. Things like yanking the top of her dress down and dragging my lips all over her.

Please, let the patio heaters be broken so she puts her coat back on.

Unfortunately, the heaters are still burning merrily when the waiter leads us outside. Robert’s already sitting at the table, wearing a thick woolen sweater under a blazer, his square glasses high on the bridge of his nose. Next to him, his wife, Katherine, wears a high-collared dress with so many flouncy ruffles, I can’t make out what her body looks like at all. Short, tall, wide, muscular—she could look like anything. For a second, I wonder if Eden and I should have dressed up more.

No, screw that. Eden looks fantastic. I wouldn’t change a thing.

“Hello, Luke,” Katherine says in her high, nasal voice. “You look…clean.”

It’s as close to warmth as I can probably expect from her. Even when Robert and I were on better terms, she was never exactly warm to me. She’s very involved in the abstinence-only scene, and even before Peppermint’s article, my reputation wasn’t chaste.

It doesn’t help that their daughter, who’s close to my age, always had a crush on me. Thank god they didn’t bring Roberta—last time we were at dinner together, she tried to cop a feel under the table. Of course, Katherine would probably rather die than expose Roberta to a sex toy pervert like me.

“Thank you,” I force myself to say. “It’s been too long.”

Robert’s expression doesn’t shift. We usually get dinner during his quarterly trips to Toronto, but ever since the Peppermint piece went viral, he’s found reasons to skip them.

“This is my girlfriend, Eden Locke,” I continue.

Eden extends her hand to Katherine first. “Pleased to meet you. Luke has told me so much about you both.”

“He has?” Robert grunts.

“Yes, he was just telling me how you helped him manage the unexpected growth in Quebec when Twisted Devil first took off. Sounds like he owes you a lot.”

I'd expected to sit next to Eden tonight. Unfortunately, Robert and Katherine chose to sit on opposite sides of the rectangular table, meaning we’ll also have to sit on opposite sides. That’ll make the photo op complicated.

Last week, my publicist suggested that we should try to get some photos of Eden and I in the press, to help with my public image. She tipped off the Toronto Tea, letting them know to send a photographer. At some point tonight, my plan was to conveniently kiss Eden in front of him. It’ll be hard to manage that with a table between us.

I pull out the chair next to Katherine for Eden and take my own seat next to Robert. The waiter appears to drop off a basket of bread and take our drink orders. Eden snatches a piece of bread as he leaves.

“I can’t wait to find out if the bread lives up to the hype,” she says, grinning. “My mom used to bake a lot, so I’m picky.”

“Do you bake as well?” Katherine asks primly.

“Not nearly as well as Mom,” she says. “I spent a lot of time in the kitchen growing up, though. My family has a ranch in Alberta, and Mom needed some help feeding my brothers and staff.”

“Sounds like quite a traditional upbringing.” Katherine nods approvingly.

“Oh, yes. Extremely traditional. My parents were wonderful role models, and family is so important.”

For anyone else, Eden would be laying it on a little thick. Katherine seems to be eating it up, though.

“It’s good to hear young people talking like that,” she says. “Nowadays, all anyone seems to talk about is s-e-x.”

I almost choke on my water as she spells the word out, but Eden doesn’t flinch.

“Oh, I’d rather not discuss that at the dinner table,” she says. “Tell me about your family. Luke mentioned you had a daughter?”

“Roberta. She actually just got engaged!”

“Congratulations!” I say, meaning it. The sooner Roberta’s taken out of the dating pool, the safer the world will be for men everywhere.