Gag.
Still, Blair couldn’t dismiss the fact that their wild and crazy love had put a crack in her belief that she had the perfect arrangement—a crack that was starting to spider web. She and Neil had separate apartments, and although Neil had begun spending more time at her place, he remained surprisingly stubborn about keeping his after they were married.
A memory from a couple of months ago intruded on her, tapping directly on that crack in the glass.
“My apartment is closer to the hospital, Blair,” Neil had said matter-of-factly, sipping his morning coffee. “It will be easier for the nights I’m on call.”
It was hard to argue with his logic—and his stoic logic had always been one of his more attractive traits—but it still seemed . . . wrong. If they were unifying their lives in other ways, why keep separate places? And she knew how it would seem to everyone else.
“But the money—”
“The mortgage on my condo is more than covered by my salary, and the neighborhood is up-and-coming,” he had said, his eyes still glued on his newspaper. “If I hold onto it for another five years, there’s a chance it will double in value. It makes financial sense to keep it.”
At the time, she’d wanted to point out that he could rent it, and anyway, her condo was only twenty minutes from the hospital. He’d already vehemently nixed the idea of sharing his place. According to Neil, the loft was a bachelor pad, and they needed to have a home worthy of entertaining their friends and colleagues. Not that they were known for their dinner parties.
But pointing out those facts would only have instigated an argument. And one of the best parts of their relationship was that they rarely argued. Her job was taxing and full of dissent; when she came home, she coveted peace. And if she were truly honest with herself, a small part of her approved of the living arrangements. Now that he was staying at her apartment on a more consistent basis, she’d begun to find his presence surprisingly suffocating and his previously cute quirks—like the precise way he chewed his food or how he had to have the remote control positioned a very exact way on the coffee table—irritating as hell. But that was normal. As a divorce attorney, she knew better than to expect that marriage would be a roller coaster of excitement.
In fact, if she’d learned anything from her work, it was this: the couples who ended up divorcing after just a year or two were usually the ones who’d been head-over-heels, drawing-hearts-on-everything in love when they approached the altar. Megan’s delirious happiness aside, there was no such thing as true love.
If there were, she would still be with Garrett Lowry.
She clanked her now-empty glass on the bar to get the bartender’s attention. “Another, please.”
He shot her a grin as he poured her drink. “Must have been some kind of Monday.”
She grabbed the glass out of his hands. “You have no idea.”
The deposition had run nearly two hours longer than planned, and she’d barely made it to LAX in time to catch her plane. Her feeling of relief had been short-lived; the severe turbulence had convinced her and most of the other passengers that they were about to meet their maker. By the time they landed in Phoenix, many of the connecting flights had been canceled or delayed, and Blair discovered she was stuck overnight in Arizona. The airline had sent her to this hotel, but there had been a problem at the check-in desk.
Half her whiskey was gone before she realized it. There were so many things she needed to do in Kansas City, and she wouldn’t get back until at least mid-morning, which meant she’d have to rush to get to her morning deposition. To make matters worse, the damn airline hadn’t even confirmed her on the six a.m. flight. They’d only made a vague promise to text her around four in the morning to confirm if she had a ticket.
So now she was well on her way to getting drunk in the bar of an Embassy Suites, playing another round of This Is Your Life, Blair Anne Myers Hansen, and she wasn’t too happy with what she saw.
Practical, pragmatic, sensible Blair wanted a heart-stopping, butterflies-in-her-stomach kind of love.
All that turbulence must have rattled her brains.
But she couldn’t deny the fact that she’d been thinking of Garrett a lot over the last two months—much more than the asshole deserved. Truth be told, he was the only man she’d ever loved. And look how that had turned out. Five years later, she could finally admit to the role she’d played in their breakup, but that didn’t make it suck any less.
The rift had formed the night Blair had received word of her estranged father’s death. Rather than share the news with Garrett when he came over, she had lashed out at him, picking a fight over some nitpicky complaint. Anger had always been her go-to reaction, and Garrett had weathered many a storm, but that night he’d responded with a fire equal to her own. The fight had spiraled out of control, and before she realized what was happening, Garrett had packed the toiletries and clothes he kept at her apartment into a duffel bag. And then he was gone.
She had spent the next day drowning in an emotional fog of dismay, grief, and loss, and even skipping classes—something she never did. After hours of stewing in her turbulent emotions, she had realized she felt an intense ache for Garrett. For the first time ever, she truly needed someone. She had decided to swallow her pride and go to him, ready to beg for his forgiveness and ask him to go with her to her father’s funeral. Never in a million years would she have guessed the surprise she had found in his apartment.
Jody Stewart, a fellow second-year law student, who’d made no secret of her lust for Garrett, had opened his door wearing cheap superstore lingerie. Neon green, to make matters worse.
Blair had turned around and never looked back, not even when Garrett had run after her. Or when he’d pounded on her apartment door for an hour begging and pleading with her to let him explain. Not even when he’d tried to approach her in class every day for two solid weeks.
When he’d begun to single-handedly plow his way through nearly every available woman in law school the next year, not to mention a couple of not-so-available ones, she knew she’d made the right decision.
Garrett Lowry was a player.
He may have taken a momentary side-stop with her, but he’d wasted no time before jumping back into the game. She was better off without him.
Still, the memories chafed.
Between Garrett’s betrayal and her father’s bad behavior, it had been easy for Blair to decide what type of law to practice. In fact, she should thank them both. Maybe she’d take daisies to her father’s grave when she came back from her honeymoon. He’d always hated daisies.
She was motioning to the bartender to bring her another drink, wishing the hotel staff would finally give her a damn room key, when she noticed him—the man standing in the entrance of the bar, his gaze fixed on her. She did a double take, certain the Embassy Suites was now including hallucinogens in their drinks, because standing in the doorway was the player himself—Garrett Lowry.
She stopped the bartender as he grabbed her glass. “I’m going to need you to make that a double.”
Chapter Two
Garrett Lowry wondered if he should just divorce his family and be done with them. Unfortunately, while he’d seen quite a few unusual divorce cases in his four years of practicing law, he’d never seen anyone divorce his mother and aunt.
All this fuss over a damned one-third carat diamond ring.
There was no disputing that his Great-Grandma Marie had bequeathed her engagement ring to her granddaughter. The trouble was that she hadn’t specified which granddaughter. Garrett’s Aunt Debra claimed that possession was nine-tenths of the law, and since she had possession of the ring, it was, ipso facto, hers . . . or rather, her son’s. She had given it to her son for his fiancée six months ago. Garrett’s mother felt otherwise, and so the colossal argument had begun. Though he had no real desire to contest his aunt’s stance on the issue, Garrett could think of half a dozen legal cases that disputed her claim. But even if he’d fel
t any familial connection to the round rock on the gold band, surrounded by multiple smaller diamonds, he had no present use for it. He hadn’t had a steady girlfriend since law school, when—in a moment of profound idiocy—he’d broken up with the one woman he’d ever loved.
Ever since, he had moved from one fling to the next like a water droplet on a hot skillet. It had been fun at first, but over the last year—with the big three-o on the horizon—Garrett had changed. He was ready to settle down with someone, but none of his relationships seemed to last longer than a couple of months.
The problem was simple, the solution less so: no one could live up to his ex-girlfriend Blair Myers. They’d shared a connection the likes of which he’d never found with anyone else, and he was becoming increasingly convinced that he wouldn’t find it with anyone else.
Garrett had to admit that it rubbed like hell that his cousin was getting married. The guy had to be the most boring person on the planet, not to mention the most annoying. Garrett assured himself that his bride-to-be was surely some milquetoast woman who was eager to settle with Dr. Neil Fredrick in their suburban house with two-point-five kids. He would come home from the hospital talking about which bacteria had given someone the squirts, and his wife would serve up pot roast and boiled potatoes.
But that didn’t make Garrett any more eager to take part in the War of the Ring, which had reached a boiling point now that the wedding was only a week away. Too bad Nana Ruby, the family matriarch, had taken it upon herself to assign him the role of peacemaker. Without bothering to consult him first, she’d arranged for him to be a last-minute groomsman in the wedding. He hadn’t even planned on going—he’d tossed the ivory invitation into the trash the moment it arrived, knowing he’d only received one at Nana Ruby’s behest—and he had plenty of work to do in San Diego. But Nana didn’t want excuses; she wanted to know that he would show up in Kansas City with a smile on his face and keep the peace.
And no one said no to Nana.
“I’m leaving the success or failure of this wedding in your hands, Garrett Michael Lowry,” the older woman had barked into the phone.
Garrett had snickered in response. “That seems like a huge responsibility, Nana. Are you sure you want to leave that to me? In case you’ve forgotten, I’m more of an instigator than a peacemaker.”
“Ain’t your high-falutin’ job all about making people come to some kind of agreement? You should be doin’ the same for your family.” Nana Ruby made no secret that she didn’t take much stock in higher education. Born and raised in the Ozarks, she’d gotten a ninth grade education and a doctorate at the University of Hard Knocks, a school she claimed was more beneficial than all those hoity-toity colleges. Garrett had always appreciated Nana’s unique charm, so he let her insults roll off his back. Neil, on the other hand, not so much.
“I don’t always help them come to an agreement, Nana. Sometimes the judge has to lay down the law.” He had paused for a moment before chuckling again. “Kind of like you, when it comes to Mom and Aunt Debra.”
“Don’t you try sweet talkin’ me, you devil child,” she’d grumbled.
“Sweet talk you? I’d be a fool to try. You’d rather have a cup of vinegar than a pot full of sugar.”
“You’re damn straight. Now get your ass to Kansas City, and you better have things under control by the time I drive up there on Wednesday.”
Garrett had hoped his mother would give him an out. He was her golden child, particularly after his sister’s recent out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Never mind that Kelsey was thirty-one years old and an executive sales manager for a national cellular phone service, making a six-figure income. In his mother’s eyes—or more importantly, his Aunt Debra’s—Kelsey had tarnished the Lowry side of the family. Frankly, Garrett thought Kelsey had dodged a bullet by not marrying her on-again, off-again boyfriend, who seemed incapable of holding a steady job. But all either sister cared about was whether Kelsey’s loser ex had put a ring on it.
While Garrett found it irritating that his mother would let his backwoods aunt’s attitude sway her, he was opportunistic enough to take advantage of his mother’s current desire to keep him happy.
Of course, she’d denied him, insisting that his inclusion in the wedding would be good for family unity.
“How will it be good for family unity? It’s only going to stir up more shit.”
“Language, Garrett,” she’d chastised. “You know your aunt can’t abide cursing.”
“See? All the more reason for me to stay away and not upset the carefully constructed apple cart.”
“If your nana wants you to be there, who are we to question it? She knows what she’s doing,” was all his mother would say.
His mother was up to something, all right, and it sure as hell wouldn’t help him play peacekeeper.
The only bright spot was that Neil was probably even more irritated about Garrett’s inclusion in the wedding party than he was.
Perhaps their mothers’ habitual animosity added fuel to the fire, but the cousins had never gotten along. While Garrett had always loved the two weeks a year he spent on his widowed grandmother’s acreage, spending it with Neil had added a partial dark cloud. Nana had taught both boys about the farm—from livestock to gardening—but while Garrett had soaked up the knowledge, reveling in it, Neil had whined so much, Nana had finally agreed to let him stay in the house with a book while she made the farm rounds with Garrett. But the annual visits had stopped in high school—which might have also coincided with Garrett playing a practical joke on his cousin involving horse dung. And while Garrett didn’t miss his mealy-mouthed cousin, he did miss his one-on-one time with Nana. So, while he technically could have told Nana Ruby no, he respected her so much, he would have done anything she asked of him. Not that he’d ever admit it. So he’d gone to work on Monday, told the senior partners he had a family emergency, and bought a late afternoon ticket to Kansas City.
Too bad Garrett had spilled the slightly amusing, slightly sad tale of what the emergency actually was, because as soon as he did, his boss decided to use it to his advantage.
Earlier that afternoon, Garrett had been packing his messenger bag when his boss walked into his office looking like he’d won the lottery.
“Since your emergency isn’t so emergent, you can do some work while you’re there.”
Garrett patted his bag. “That’s what I’m planning to do, Matt.”
Matt shook his head, his grin so wide it was a wonder his face didn’t split open. “Nope. Congratulations. You get to take the depositions on the Norfolk case.”
Garrett’s mouth dropped open. Could this trip get any worse? He shook his head in dismay. “No. Anything but that.”
His boss only laughed and dropped a huge file on Garrett’s desk. “Look at it this way. Now you don’t have to take vacation time.”
“I’ll take the week off without pay to get out of this.”
“Too late. It’s already been decided by the big guy upstairs.” He pointed his finger toward the ceiling. “He figures you’ll do a better job than Lopez has done. The client’s lost confidence in him, and you have a reputation of being a barracuda, so . . .”
Garrett groaned and picked up the file, flipping through the pages. “Dammit. I hear the attorney representing the wife is a real bitch.”
Matt laughed. “You don’t know the half of it.” He looked over his shoulder at the door, then turned back to Garrett and lowered his voice. “Rumor has it she made Lopez cry.”
Garrett started to laugh before realizing he was the one who had to fill Lopez’s shoes.
“Lopez’s assistant will email you more details about the case, but the file should be enough to get you up to speed. Your first deposition is tomorrow at ten and should get the week rolling.”
“First deposition?”
His boss laughed. “There are multiple people to depose in this case. The wife. The husband. The girlfriends. Plural.”
“I’m flying home o
n Sunday, Matt. And I supposedly have wedding activities on Thursday and Friday.”
Matt headed for the door and called over his shoulder, “Don’t come back until they’re all done.”
The wedding itself had begun to look like a cakewalk.
But now he was grounded in Phoenix for the night, and while he didn’t regret missing an early start to the wedding festivities, he didn’t want to delay the depositions. He had no desire to stay in Kansas City a minute longer than necessary, and he was pretty sure Nana wouldn’t see work as an excuse to get out of forced family fun.
But all thoughts went out the window when he ventured down to the bar at the hotel he’d booked. Because he recognized the woman sitting at the bar.
It was her, the woman who’d ruined all other women for him.
Blair Myers.
He blinked, certain his mind had given up and induced some type of psychosis, but the look of recognition in her own eyes proved she was real.
She was more beautiful than he remembered her. She still wore her blonde hair long, and it hung loose, though slightly mussed—totally unlike the put-together woman with whom he’d spent nearly a year. She wore a black skirt and a light gray silk blouse that clung to her breasts. Her four-inch black heels rested on the metal footrest attached to the bar. Her clear blue eyes were focused on him.
It took him a full three seconds to come to his senses and another couple to figure out what to do. Did he ignore her? Did he say hello? He knew what he wanted to do, but what did she want?
In the end, his feet made the decision for him. He found himself moving toward her, and he stopped only a few feet away, his pulse pounding in his head. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this nervous, and from the way she was clutching the tumbler the bartender had just handed her, so was she.
The Wedding Pact Box Set Page 34
