She took a step away from me, and I wasted no time in closing that distance and then putting my arm around her waist.

I let my hand rest on her hip, the possessiveness in the way I touched her impossible to miss, and I was certain Todd captured it all.

“You’re here with him?” Todd said, clearly talking about me but not acknowledging me.

As if I would allow that to stand.

“Of course, she is. Why wouldn’t she be out with her fiancé?” I asked.

He looked stricken, then looked at Kayla, confused.

“Fiancé?”

“Um…” Kayla started, then stopped, then looked like she wanted to be literally anywhere else.

“Your father said you were single,” Todd said, clearly not deterred.

“Gary didn’t know about our engagement. We were keeping it between us. But the secret’s out,” I said.

I knew he could hear the taunt in my voice.

I also hoped he knew how close I was to cutting him down where he stood.

And given the insult, I certainly wasn’t above rubbing a little salt in the wound too. “We’ll be married soon. Should we send you an invitation?”

“No, we won’t. We’ll have a long engagement,” Kayla said.

She was contradicting me, something I would discuss with her later, but I could see I had deflated Todd.

But I hadn’t convinced him that he needed to let her go.

When he looked at Kayla, I saw a man who was sure he was in love.

A man ready to fight for her.

Kayla had told me that what Todd felt for her was the nostalgia, the memories of what they had shared.

She was wrong.

He wanted her.

And just as importantly, he wanted to beat me.

I tightened my grip on Kayla’s hip.

That would never happen.

Thirteen

THIRTEEN

Kayla

“I’ve never felt quite so much like a socialite,” I said as we got back into the SUV hours after we’d arrived.

Elias shrugged and then gave me a smile.

“You should get used to it,” he said.

I chose to overlook those words and instead said, “Well, I thought I understood some of the inner workings of your business. But I didn’t expect glad-handing to be a part of it,” I said.

“I don’t know why not. Most of these families love to act like movie stars,” he said.

“That seems…counterproductive,” I responded.

He nodded. “You think that they would remember the lessons of old. That being in the society pages and out front only leads to indictment and death, but what can I say about people these days?”

“You sound like a five-hundred-year-old man,” I said with a chuckle.

“Sometimes I feel like one,” he responded.

I didn’t argue with that, so instead I said, “If you like to keep a low profile, why were you there tonight?”