LITMIR.BIZ

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we have date night with a live jazz combo. I’ve been asking Selena to come, but she says she doesn’t go anywhere without her boyfriend. Whenever I ask about her ‘boyfriend’ she always says he’s busy. So after a while I started calling him her mystery man.”

      Bobby told Xavier more about Selena Yates in less than sixty seconds than he would’ve learned if he’d continued to come to her patisserie a dozen more times. She was single, wasn’t dating anyone and no doubt a very private person. He took several steps and put his arm around her waist.

      “I hope you’re not calling my woman a liar, Bobby.”

      “No, no, no, man,” Bobby countered, holding up his hands defensively. “It’s just that I didn’t know you were back in Charleston, that’s all. One of the guys from school told me about you saving three of your men after they’d driven over an IED and—”

      “We’ll talk about that later,” Xavier interrupted when he felt Selena’s back go rigid against his arm. He didn’t know if Bobby knew that her brother had served, as well.

      Bobby’s boyish round face softened when he winked at Selena. It was apparent Xavier didn’t want to talk about the war in front of her. “I’m going to have to pick up those trays and head back to the restaurant. The kid who usually does all the runs sprained his ankle playing football, so yours truly is standing in as temporary gofer. Am I going to see you two tonight?” he asked Selena.

      Xavier stared at Selena, lifting his eyebrows questioningly. “I’ll come, that is if Selena isn’t busy.” He felt conflicting emotions. On the one hand he had hoped she’d be busy, since he’d never liked being manipulated into situations. But on the other hand, he’d hoped she wasn’t busy, and going out with her would satisfy his curiosity.

      Selena felt the powerful arm around her waist. She also enjoyed the way Xavier’s body pressed against hers and the tantalizing scent of his cologne. She’d tired of Bobby Bell asking her to come to his family’s restaurant for date night, because there wasn’t any man she’d seen or met since moving to Charleston that she’d wanted to accompany her. It wasn’t that men hadn’t asked her out. But her involvement with a man who’d threatened her life if he couldn’t have her, made her overly cautious when it came to dating. However, there was something about Xavier Eaton that reminded her of her brothers, and there was never a time when they hadn’t protected her.

      The boys in her West Virginia town knew if they messed with Selena Yates then they had to not only deal with her father but also her brothers. If their father hadn’t been sheriff, there was little doubt either one or both would’ve spent several nights in the local jail. They’d protected her at home, but they were unable to protect her once she’d moved away.

      “What about it, Selena? Do you want to go?” Xavier said when she gave Bobby a blank stare.

      “Yes,” she replied as if coming out of a trance. Her eyelids fluttered wildly when she realized what she’d agreed to.

      Bobby’s head bobbed up and down. “Good.” He slapped Xavier’s shoulder. “Mama is going to lose it when she sees you.”

      Xavier smiled. “Let your mother know that I’m looking forward to seeing her again.”

      Selena plastered on a smile. “Bobby, your order is in the back.” She waited until Bobby made his way to the rear of the shop before rounding on Xavier. “Don’t you dare say anything until after he leaves,” she whispered.

      Narrowing his eyes, Xavier pushed his face close to Selena’s. “You have a lot of explaining to do, Ms. Yates.”

      Bobby emerged from the back, clutching four white shopping bags with Sweet Persuasions and the street address stamped on the sides. “Try to get there before seven, because Ma Bell’s gets real crowded around eight.”

      “You named the restaurant Ma Bell’s?”

      Bobby laughed, the sound coming from deep within his wide chest. “Ma is short for Emma. We were going to call it Bell’s, but my dad overruled his brothers. He said if his wife was going to cook alongside them, then the place would also bear her name. She cooks on Fridays and Saturdays, while they take over the kitchen from Sunday through Thursday.”

      Xavier nodded. “Good choice.” He’d lost track of the number of times he’d sat at Emma Bell’s table devouring everything she’d put in front of him. She was one of the best, if not the best, cook in the low country. He took his arm from around Selena, and opened the door for Bobby. “We’ll see you later.” He closed and locked the door, turned over the sign to Closed in the shop window, then turned to face Selena. “Please tell me why Bobby thinks I’m your mystery man?”

      Selena closed her eyes for several seconds. “You don’t have to go with me if you don’t want to.”

      He closed the distance between them, grasped her shoulders and steered her over to one of the bistro tables. He pulled out a chair for her, then rounded the small table and sat on the opposite side. “If there is one thing you should know about me, Selena, it’s that I’m not into playing head games. You tell Bobby you’re going with me, and now you say I don’t have to go. What’s it going to be?”

      Selena’s hands tightened into fists, her nails biting into the tender flesh on her palms. She welcomed the pain rather than stare at the man glaring at her. “It’s complicated, Xavier.”

      “How complicated can it be?” he countered. “Apparently you lied to Bobby about having a boyfriend, or do you really have a boyfriend stashed away somewhere?”

      Her gaze swung back to his handsome face. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

      Xavier leaned over the table. “You don’t have a boyfriend, yet you told Bobby you did. Why?”

      She breathed an audible sigh. “I got tired of him asking me to come to Ma Bell’s for date night, because he said if I didn’t have someone to go with then he would hook me up with someone.” Her delicate jaw tightened. “The last time someone hooked me up with a man it ended in disaster.” What she didn’t tell Xavier was that the relationship had almost cost her her life.

      “I don’t like being set up, either,” Xavier said. “How long did you think you’d be able to string Bobby along without him becoming suspicious?”

      Xavier’s query elicited a smile from Selena. “It worked, didn’t it?”

      “It did until I became your date.”

      “You didn’t have to go along with it.”

      A hint of a smile tilted the corners of his mouth upward. “But I did because I was curious to see how it would all play out. Now that I have a girlfriend I didn’t know I had when I woke up this morning, perhaps you can tell me a little about yourself.”

      Selena felt the invisible wall she’d put up whenever she discovered a man getting too close to her emotionally disappear. “There’s not much to tell.”

      Propping his elbow on the table, Xavier rested his chin on the heel of his hand. “Let me be the judge of that.”

      “Why are you going along with this, Xavier? I’m certain you’d rather take some other woman with you to Ma Bell’s.”

      His impassive expression did not change. “Perhaps you weren’t listening when I told you that I didn’t have a girlfriend—that is until a few minutes ago. Now, baby, please tell me what I need to know about you so we can put on a winning performance for my old college buddy.”

      Selena didn’t want to believe he’d called her “baby”. The endearment rolled off his tongue like watered silk. “I’m twenty-six.”

      “When will you be twenty-seven?”

      “October eighteenth.”

      “Are you a native Charlestonian?”

      Selena shook her head. “No. I’m originally from West Virginia.”

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