Maid for Each Other(16)

“You mean you didn’t get to ask her twenty questions while my back was turned?” Declan asked.

“Exactly,” she said, laughing. “I was going to hit Abi up for the details of who you really are as a boyfriend. When no one else is around.”

“Gross,” Declan said, and I laughed out loud at his tone.

He was kind of funny when he wasn’t exuding untouchable, rich, and powerful.

“So are you looking for a cute anecdote that shows how romantic your son is?” I asked, doing my best not to grin like the cat who ate the canary as I looked at Declan.

His face gave away nothing, but I knew he wasn’t amused. It was one thing for us to share a quick moment of collusion while in our act, but it was another thing entirely for me to tell lies to his parents.

I knew I should probably care, but I was so powerless in our situation that I felt the need to grasp this tiny little morsel of power.

The only power I had.

The power to mess with him.

“Yes, please,” she replied, smiling. Then she turned to a lady in a long silver dress and said, “Come over here, Barb, you need to hear this.”

The woman came over and Declan’s mom said, “This is Dex’s girlfriend, Abi, and she was just about to give us an example of Declan being romantic.”

I refused to look at Declan. I said, “There are so many great stories, it’s hard to think of just one.”

And I smiled like a lovesick idiot.

“Maybe don’t, then,” Declan muttered.

“I’ll start with my favorite,” I said, lifting a hand to brush fake lint from his jacket sleeve. “One day, he wanted to buy me a kitten because I said it was cute, right? It was so thoughtful of him, but I had to be honest because I’m deathly allergic to cats. I was all thank you, babe, but I like breathing.”

I beamed up at him, and he kind of looked like he wanted to murder me.

So I kept going.

“But instead of letting it go at that, he did all this research to find a hypoallergenic cat and surprised me with it—Little Dexxie—along with a bouquet of albuterol inhalers and EpiPens.”

“You’re kidding!” Barb cackled.

“She is kidding,” Declan said with a straight face. “That is not its name.”

“And the kitten was nice, Barb,” I said, feeling like a legend as the power went straight to my head, “but the bouquet is what really swept me off my feet. I mean, asthma medicine is not cheap.”

That made them laugh like he was the most romantic man in the world, so I gave him an eyebrow raise that said See? I know what I’m doing.

“And the things Dexxie says,” I said, unable to stop the chuckle that wrapped around my words when I saw him literally flinch at the nickname. “Whenever I’m working in Denver, he has flowers waiting for me at my hotel with love poems he wrote attached.”

“Poems?” his mom asked, looking surprised.

“The most amazing spicy poems you’ve ever heard,” I said, setting my hand over my heart. “He’s a legend with the desk clerks at the Denver Hilton, like a naughty Shakespeare. And sometimes when I get off the plane in Omaha, he’s just there at the airport, waiting for me, because he says he ‘missed me too much to wait another second.’？”

“What can I say? She’s easy to miss,” he said with a grin, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and pulling me closer.

I looked up at him like this was normal, even though I was a little shaken by the unexpected physical contact. I said, “You really are a lucky guy.”

His lips were still in a smile, but I just knew he wouldn’t agree. I’d seen in his eyes that the naughty poetry was too far. I was pushing too much and knew without a doubt that King Declan would never bow to me.

Instead, he used his elbow to pull me even closer, nearly putting me in a headlock as he moved his mouth to my ear. To anyone watching, it looked like he was telling me the dirtiest of secrets.

But he said in that deep, deep voice, “You really are a little shit, you know that?”

When he pulled back, I met his gaze and grinned. “I do.”

“They are so cute,” his mom said to her friend, and I realized that the two ladies were beaming as they watched us, like we were two adorable baby giraffes at the zoo, on display for their entertainment.

“Come on,” Declan said to me, grabbing my hand and leading me away from them and toward yet another curious onlooker.

“You think you’re pretty funny, don’t you?” he said as soon as we were out of their earshot, pinning a fake smile onto his face that would fool anyone.

Anyone but me.

I could see the tension in his face, and I could see the distrust that was still in his eyes when he looked at me.

“I’m just being the very best girlfriend I can be,” I said with a shrug. “That’s all.”

The rest of the cocktail party was smooth sailing. He introduced me to person after person, and I didn’t have to do anything other than look like I was enamored of him. I tried adding a few anecdotes, but he was onto me and shut it down really quick.

It was an exhausting couple of hours, but also a tiny bit fun.

I mean, how often did you get to pretend you were someone else? This was Cinderella territory, with Abi Green living the romantic life that was a world away from my actual life.