Page 63 of Café Diablo

Still, I don’t think I’ve smiled this much in months. And it’s been nice to be doing something normal and comfortable and safe—to be in my normal habitat and not adventuring to some sexy hidden cove that’s going to turn me into a barbarian. Yes, Oliva swears like a sailor, and she doesn’t exactly “fit in” on the golf course, but she surprisingly humors me in my attempts to teach her how to hold a golf club and have good form.

After we finish eighteen holes of Olivia chanting “I’m an artist. I don’t do sports,” we head to the clubhouse restaurant for some grub. We sit at a table in the main dining room near a window, where Olivia sits across from me and nurses a Bloody Mary. She orders an entire head of celery on the side, and I think she’s under the false-impression that her drink is some sort of salsa, because she keeps nibbling on the stalks covered in vodka-flavored tomato drippings like it’s taco time.

Before our golf game—if you can even call the last few hours a game—I made Olivia change into proper golfing attire (a country club polo and golf skirt) so she wouldn’t draw so much attention to herself. There wasno wayI was letting her on the green in that flowy strappy beach-wrap of a dress, despite how good she may have looked in it. She may have appeared like an old pro, but truth be told, Olivia was an absolute mess.

And to be clear, when I say mess, I mean she was full-bore Olivia: radiant, foul-mouthed, grab-life-by-the-balls, and make me laugh so hard my chest feels like it’s splitting in half. Sure, she was grating on my last nerve most of the time, but I still loved every minute of it.

Thiskind of mess I can handle.

A loud snicker comes from a group of ladies three tables away from us, and I look over my shoulder to see four older women in their sixties frowning in our direction. I recognize one of them as the wife of Mr. Wright, one of my father’s friends. I have clout in this community, but it’s my father who owns Voss Associates and holds all the political and social cards. He’s the one who built his empire and wants the world to know it. The firm—which I run and manage and practice law in—isn’t actually mine, as Olivia seems to think. My name is on the door, but it’s just the Hawaii branch that I oversee; my father holds all the purse strings in the business. The main hub of Voss Associates is on the mainland, back in Arizona, where Connor and I grew up.

Those women are a coven of gossip, and if there’s one thing my father won’t tolerate, it’s negative talk about him, or his business, or anyone associated with Voss Associates. My father likes looking good, and if you don’t make him look like a king, well, get ready for a reckoning.

Just ask Connor.

The whole reason Connor doesn’t even talk to our father is because he took the family name and ran it over with a stolen vehicle—almost literally. Andthatgroup of ladies are the type to talk—talk to their husbands, talk to their friends—till the gossip tree runs all the way home to my father on the mainland.

I eye Olivia nervously. It probably wasn’t a stellar idea to bring her here, even though I just wanted some semblance of normalcy between us and to take her somewhere that’s comfortable for me.

It really shouldn’t matter what my father thinks—a fact that Connor made perfectly clear when he told our father (in no uncertain words) to fuck off before he decided to go all in with Arie at Flambé. After which, he told me I should stop kissing my father’s ass like it’s made of precious sterling. It’s not advice that I’ve taken. Connor’s the one who can say F-you to my father and act like it doesn’t bother him. He’s spent half his life being the black sheep of the family and I’m, well, not. There are some things he can get away with, or not care about, that I can’t.

I try to shrug it off, smiling at Olivia and pretending the women aren’t looking at us and whispering. Surprisingly, Olivia doesn’t make any witty quips about them, even though I can tell she’s overly aware of their unsavory glances each time she does something less than perfect, like knocks a piece of silverware on the floor or—god forbid—laughs at a decibel level those women probably can’t even hear without their hearing aids in.

A completely irrational part of me—and no, I’m not going to indulge in it—wants to go over there and ask those women how many sticks they’ve got up their twats. Which is exactly the kind of blasphemous salt Olivia would lead with, making me realize I’ve spent way too much time with this woman if I’m losing my impeccable sense of self-regulation. Honestly, I’m surprised she hasn’t marched over there and given those ladies a piece of her overzealous mind herself.

“Do you want me to say something to them?” I ask quietly and her eyes cut to me like I just stuck my finger in an open wound.

“No!” she shoots back, her tone almost hoarse. “Of course not! This istheir country club and I’m just a—” she bites back her words and gives me a tight smile, turning her attention out the window and rolling back her shoulders like she’s above them.

I watch her quietly and get the sickly feeling she’s putting on a show right now, pretending to be something she’s not. She was all sass and inuendo when it was just the two of us alone, or when we’re onherturf. But here, something else takes over. She quiets every time the waiter comes over, or those women snicker, or one of the staff members greets me by name and hardly acknowledges her. There’s a distance in her eyes that’s weary and unsettled.

“You realize you’re absolutely shit at golf,” I say, trying to lighten the mood, and reaching across the table to replace the celery stalk in her drink with an actual straw. “Drink more alcohol,” I whisper under my breath, which makes her eyes soften, but only for a second.

“You knew there was no chance in Hell I was going to surprise you on the golf front,” she tosses back, attempting to put the sass back in her stride, rejecting the straw I put in her drink and plucking it out. She slops the straw on the white tabletop in a splatter of tomato juice carnage. “This experiment of yours was doomed from the start.”

“The golf or—?” I try my best not to cringe at the splash of red staining the tablecloth. “Or the one where I learn you have absolutely no sense of manners or etiquette.” I nod to the orange splotch.

It’s a bad joke, because Oliva’s jaw immediately tightens and it’s clear I’m throwing alcohol into whatever open wound she’s hiding.

“You bring a peasant into the palace and what do you expect?” she snips. She means it as a joke but it also falls flat, a glimmer of something serious sitting under that comment. Her eyes cut away to look out the window.

“You’re not a peasant,” I say carefully, and she gives me that restrained smile, her eyes flitting through the room like I ought to look around. The club’s dining room is fancy. It’s the kind of luxury ballroom you hold expensive weddings at, with white wainscoting and peach wallpaper and tall arched mirrors that line the hall.

For the first time, Olivia looks small.

Her world is made up of mini-scooters and tiny-houses and things she can inhabit in full—but this, this room with all its opulent richness makes her seem mouse-like and insignificant, like it’s swallowed the part of her that is loud and obnoxious and a flaming-hot-ball of petite-woman-on-fire.

“Hey, you work at Flambé,” I say, trying to salvage the sourness in the air. “That’s much fancier than this place.”

“Flambéisn’t fancy,” Olivia snaps, looking at me like it’s a crazy comparison. “Flambé is sexy and innovative. It’s—” She trails off and avoids looking at me like she’s afraid she’s going to insult my whole world. My neck heats, not liking the implication, and she shifts in her seat, clearly not wanting to talk about it.

“Are you—?” I start, but I’m interrupted.

“Ned?!”

Both of us look up to see an older gentleman standing next to our table and greeting me.

“Ned, I thought that was you!”

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