Charmingly Yours (A Morning Glory #1)

by Liz Talley

  “About as exciting as watching paint dry.”

  “That much, huh?”

  “Well, it is Sunday, so someone’s slip is bound to show at the Greater Galilee Baptist Church. I’ll let you know who as soon as the gossip trickles in.”

  “Definitely let me know. Have to stay up on the gossip,” Rosemary said, acknowledging her mother, who suddenly looked lost. She waved her hand and both Patsy and the waitress headed her way. “Well, I need to go.”

  “Me, too. I have to mark down some clearance stuff. And Margie’s gout is acting up, so I’m shorthanded. Have fun with tall, dark, and Italian.”

  “I never said he was tall,” Rosemary joked as her mother slipped into the chair and took the bill jacket from the waitress. “’Bye, E. I love ya.”

  “You, too,” she said, hanging up.

  “Who was that?” Patsy asked, sliding her American Express into the pocket and handing it back.

  “Eden.”

  “Poor child. Having to work at that horrible store.”

  “Mama, she can’t help her situation. At least she’s the manager.”

  “Well, if her mother hadn’t been such a whore. We were in the same class, you know. I could tell you stories that would freeze the blood in your veins. Running around with all kinds of men, marrying a common criminal and then leaving her girls alone—”

  “Mama.” Rosemary lowered her voice in warning. It wasn’t as though Eden chose to be born a Voorhees. After all, Eden hadn’t robbed a bank at gunpoint and ended up in prison. Her stepfather had. And Eden hadn’t twined herself around a stripper pole and fought a heroin addiction. That was her mother. Eden hadn’t done anything but fight, scratch, and sacrifice her whole life.

  “No, Eden has to pay for her mother’s sins. And her father’s. I don’t know how she manages it. Betty brought all that on them with her loose living.”

  “Eden’s mother had a stroke, Mother.”

  Patsy gave Rosemary a flat look. “You’re more than kind. You and I both know what a burden that poor girl carries in taking care of her mother and working at that dead-end job.”

  Rosemary didn’t want to talk about Eden’s issues. As far as Rosemary was concerned, Eden had achieved sainthood in their small town . . . but they didn’t have to discuss how terrible Eden’s mother was every time her friend’s name came up. “Why don’t we do a little window shopping? Bergdorf’s will be perfect.”

  “You’re changing the subject,” Patsy said, patting her ash-blonde bob. Rosemary could see her mother had powdered her nose and reapplied her favorite coral lipstick while in the restroom.

  “Of course I am,” Rosemary said, starting to rise.

  “Just a second, dear,” her mother said, reaching over to place a hand on Rosemary’s.

  “What?”

  “I shouldn’t have imposed my will on you by coming here. It wasn’t fair. I sometimes forget you’re a grown woman. That’s my fault. Not yours.”

  Her mother’s earnestness took her aback. Was this some new manipulation or was Patsy truly sorry for showing up where she was not wanted? She didn’t want to give in so easily, but again, Rosemary didn’t want to stack another brick in the wall of blame she’d started long ago with her mother. If she wanted her mother to treat her like an adult, she couldn’t hold onto grudges like a child. Even though the anger at her mother’s presumptuous stunt still lingered, she didn’t want her mother to leave believing Rosemary held the grievance against her.

  “Okay. You’re my mother and I understand you want what is best for me. But you have to let me make my own decisions—both good and bad—from here on out. If I want your help, I will ask for it.”

  Her mother took the bill from the waitress. Rosemary plopped down a few bills as tip and her mother started to pick the cash up and hand it back to her. She caught herself and instead stuck the money in the jacket and scrawled her name at the bottom of the receipt. “I’ll try very hard. You may have to remind me at times, though. Old dog and all that.”

  Rosemary nodded. “And you shouldn’t call yourself a dog. You’re a strong southern lady, a steel magnolia, a—”

  “—bossy britches?”

  “That, too,” Rosemary teased, stepping out into the New York City sunshine.

  Just as she turned onto the sidewalk, her phone rang again.

  Sal.

  “Hey,” he said, “I have to see you tonight. I just spent a miserable lunch with my whole family. Only a pretty girl can help me now.”

  “Where?”

  “Uh . . . let me think. Some place that is you. Oh, how about the Rose Club at the Plaza?”

  Rosemary smiled. “Absolutely.”

  “Eight?”

  “I’ll be there,” she said hanging up.

  “Was that him?” her mother asked.

  “Sal? Yeah. We’re going to meet there.” She pointed to the sumptuous Plaza, the hotel that had housed her favorite child heroine, Eloise.

  “So is that a booty call?” Patsy asked.

  “Oh good Lord, Mother.”

  “What? I watch TV.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Sal didn’t feel comfortable standing in the Plaza. He’d been there only two other times. Once when he was drunk with his buddies and they’d decided to go slumming . . . something they thought enormously funny at the time. And once with Hillary for high tea. It should be known that the concierge did not find him and his cohorts the least bit amusing and also that he didn’t know the difference between high tea and low tea and thought the whole thing was stupid.

  So, no, he wasn’t comfortable standing at the sumptuous bar in the Rose Club, sipping a gin and tonic. He didn’t really care for gin, but it was an easy enough drink to request. He’d showered and tugged on his best slacks and a button-down shirt that was not white but a nice light purple linen for her. He stood here because of her. Because somehow he knew Rosemary would like this place.

  Not because she was ritzy, but more because she had a romantic streak. And meeting at the Plaza and taking a ride in a carriage through Central Park would please her.

  And for the second time in his life, he really wanted to step outside his comfort zone in order to make someone happy.

  She walked in and a few heads turned.

  Rosemary wasn’t a bombshell, radiating sex appeal, stalking in too-high heels toward him. On the contrary, she was subtle and pleasing in her beauty. Her light auburn hair brushed shoulders covered by a white blouse that looked like something hippies had worn in the seventies. A smart skirt the same color of his khaki pants hit right above her knee. She wore another pair of sandals, along with a gold necklace with a single pearl nestled in a gilded oyster shell that sat under the hollow of her neck. Of course she wore a pearl.

  Spying him, she smiled.

  And his heart started thumping.

  “Hey,” she said, reaching him and setting down a small purse his sisters called a clutch with a fancy gold cross on it. “What are you drinking?”

  “Gin and tonic.”

  She wrinkled her adorable nose and then looked at the bored bartender. “I’ll have a white zinfandel.”

  The bartender raised his eyebrows and his lips might have smirked a bit.

  “Yeah, I know. It’s the opposite of what a wine aficionado would choose, but I’m a bumpkin from Mississippi, so humor me,” she said with a smile.

  Sal gave a bark of laughter. “She’s very honest.”

  “So I see.” The bartender smiled and poured her a glass of the sweet wine. “And it’s what my sister drinks, too. I can’t turn her on to anything else. Here ya go, Mississippi.”

  Rosemary took the glass and held it to his. “Here’s to two weeks without my mother.”

  He tapped his glass to hers. “I’ll drink to that.”

  She took a sip of her wine. “I have to say I’m relieved you wanted to see me again. After that fiasco in the hall of my cousin’s place, I wasn’t so sure. It was sort of horrifying.”

 
Not want to see her? Not a chance. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Yeah, but it was embarrassing, and my mother is not the most . . . subtle of women. I was afraid you’d wash your hands of my craziness.”

  “Are you kidding? That was nothing. Wait until you meet my mother,” he said.

  “You want me to meet your mother?” Rosemary sipped her wine, looking over her glass at him with gray eyes he couldn’t read.

  He knew why. He kept forgetting they were like a crazy camp romance or a cross-Atlantic cruise hookup. Because every time he was with Rosemary it felt more like the start of forever instead of a here-and-present sort of thing.

  They were from two different worlds . . . incredibly different worlds. Yet he felt so much himself when he was with her. No, he felt true to himself. That was what it was. Being with Rosemary made him feel like the man he wanted to be, the man who longed to blaze his own path, to choose his own life. One in which his father wasn’t having walls painted, counters mounted, and a new grill installed in a deli twenty blocks away. One in which his mother hadn’t picked out the future mother of her grandchildren. One not in Brooklyn. Or Manhattan.

  But that was crazy.

  He’d only known Rosemary for a few days. Besides, being impulsive about love hadn’t worked out so well last time. So why did he feel like saying the hell with a two-week verbal agreement? Why did he feel like scrubbing away all his family had given him? To prove a point?

  Vincent had once berated him for his stubbornness when he’d wanted to spend the money he’d inherited from his grandparents on a truck. The more everyone said the truck was a foolish idea, the more Sal wanted it. On the day he turned eighteen and received the lump sum, he went to the DMV and got a driver’s license. Then he went to a used lot and bought a Ford F-150 with shiny chrome and leather seats. But six months, a fortune in parking, and two fender-benders later, he admitted he’d made an unwise decision. His family was good at told-ya-sos.

  “What are you thinking so hard about?” Rosemary asked, jarring him back to the Plaza and the gin and tonic paused at his lips.

  “That you’re like a truck I once bought,” he said.

  “You bought a truck? Like a pickup truck?”

  He nodded. “Had her for six months before I realized parking in New York City comes with consequences—dinged doors, parking tickets, and a big-ass monthly garage bill.”

  “So you’re saying I’m dinged? Or that I’m going to run up a steep bill?” She laughed but her forehead crinkled.

  “Nah, I’m just thinking about how much I want you.”

  Rosemary’s cheeks pinked and she gave a nervous laugh. “Says he who was denied the final article of clothing.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “Well, maybe I can skip a few steps for you.” Her cheeks turned persimmon but her eyes sparkled. Her embarrassment was so cute it made him want to say all sorts of dirty things to her.

  Hell, made him want to do all sorts of dirty things to her.

  “Will you really?” he drawled, lowering his gaze to her breasts, which looked encapsulated in rayon or spandex or whatever bras were made out of. Going braless might be too in-your-face for Rosemary, but . . . “You have something in mind?”

  He ran a finger along the skin showing at her skirt hem.

  Rosemary’s intake of breath made him smile wider. He arched an eyebrow. “Yes?”

  “Maybe,” she said, mischief skipping across her face.

  He set his half-full glass on the bar. “So you need to go to the bathroom?”

  She looked confused.

  He looked pointedly at her skirt.

  “Oh,” she said, her cheeks growing even redder. “You’re suggesting . . . oh.”

  “But of course,” he said, once again stroking the sweet flesh of her knee. “You want to be a little bad, don’t you? Why not start right now?”

  She nodded, swallowing. Picking up the glass of wine, she downed it. “Would you excuse me for a moment?”

  Rosemary locked the stall and then leaned her head against the door. Her pulse skipped and something warm slithered through her belly. Sal liked sexy games, and damned if the man didn’t believe in extended foreplay.

  She reached beneath her too-tight skirt, cursing the Godiva truffles she’d eaten last month when she drowned her grief in chocolate, and snapped the elastic band of her shapewear. Yeah, she wore a veritable granny girdle beneath the skirt.

  What had she been thinking when she got dressed earlier?

  Well, she hadn’t, because she’d only been thinking of fitting into the skirt, looking sexy and sophisticated. Of course, taking the slimming shapewear off would pretty much save her the mortification of pulling them off later. If there was a later.

  But to go without panties . . .

  Without any more thought, she peeled the Lycra underwear down and wiggled to get out of it. Then she contemplated what to do with her drawers. The Tory Burch crossover bag had room, but it would look bulky. Why in the heck hadn’t she worn the cute thong she’d bought in Jackson?

  Taking a deep breath, she wadded up the underwear and shoved them into her purse, making the leather bulge. Stepping out of the stall, she caught sight of herself in the mirror.

  Her face was crimson and now the skirt revealed a small belly poof. Darn it. She should have joined a gym and done ab crunches or something. Obviously long walks down the back roads of Yazoo County weren’t cutting it. She sucked in her stomach and turned sideways and then nodded. Would have to do. Then she moved the undies to the side and fetched her smoky plum lipstick.

  The door opened and a well-dressed woman came in, startling her.

  “Oh, hello,” Rosemary said to the woman, feeling guilty for some reason. She set the tube of lipstick down so she could adjust the flipped-up hem of her skirt.

  The woman gave a quick and confused hello before moving to the nearest stall and slamming the door.

  Rosemary washed her hands, straightened her shoulders, and pushed back out the door.

  The Rose Club was decadent and red, perfect for seduction. Rosemary dug beneath all her insecurities to pull out her very seldom used inner vamp and sashayed across the room toward where Sal lazed at the bar. He looked dashing and dangerous. Made her feel too warm just by looking at him.

  “Ma’am?” someone said behind her.

  She turned to find the lady she’d scared with her friendliness in the bathroom.

  “I think you left your lipstick,” she said, holding out Rosemary’s tube of Elizabeth Arden.

  “Oh, thank you,” she said, taking it from the woman. She took the few more steps she needed to reach Sal, who’d dropped his gaze to her knees. Lifting his eyebrows, he silently asked her.

  She merely smiled.

  Opening her purse, she jabbed the lipstick in. But her fingers accidentally grabbed the girdle when she lifted the flap of her purse. The nude Lycra flopped out and before she could catch them, they fluttered to the floor, where they landed beside Sal’s shoe like a giant beached jellyfish.

  “Oh my God,” Rosemary hissed, kneeling to snatch them up.

  But Sal beat her to them. Lifting them between his thumb and forefinger, he raised his gaze to hers.

  She knew she was the color of the velvet banquettes lining the wall. Never should she have tried being naughty. This is what happened when she—

  “Kinky,” Sal drawled, his dark eyes teasing her as he handed the horrid shaper back to her.

  “And it hides flaws, too,” she tried to joke.

  Leaning toward her, he kissed her on the nose. “So why would you need it?”

  Rosemary closed her eyes and stifled a laugh. Only she would walk across a posh bar in the Plaza Hotel and drop her girdle on the floor. Big ol’ sexy fail.

  Sal downed his drink and pulled her to him. “Wanna go for a carriage ride?”

  Rosemary’s smile was answer enough.

  “I’m not too fond of studying the back end of a horse, but since you did su
ch a nice thing for me, I’ll manage. Let’s go.”

  Rosemary took his hand.

  The horse’s name was Buttercup and he was a gray dapple with a swayback. But Rosemary didn’t care. As far as she was concerned, Buttercup was a magnificent steed and the man next to her a dashing Italian prince. Such as fairy tales go.

  “Now over across the lake you can just glimpse the Loeb Boathouse, reimagined by Stuart Constable in the 1950s. Here you can rent a rowboat, a one-hundred-fifty-year tradition, or ride in an authentic Venetian gondola. Don’t forget to look for the many birds and native butterflies as you row across the lake,” Simon said. Simon was the fairy-tale coachman wearing the requisite frock coat and vest.

  “I wish he’d stop telling us about every damn stick in the park,” Sal whispered in her ear before sliding his lips down to that delicious spot on her neck that made her—

  She shivered. “Shh, I’m learning about Central Park.”

  Simon turned and gave them a look.

  “Sorry,” Rosemary said, pointing a finger at Sal. “He’s being rude.”

  “And handsy,” Simon said with a pointed look at the way Sal stroked her knee. Then the driver turned back around and started his scripted lecture on the flora and fauna occupying the particular section they rolled through.

  “Why did you tell him to give us the tour? I wanted him to just drive so I could violate you back here,” Sal grumbled and then nuzzled her neck. His hand stroked the side of her knee, making her blood heat.

  “Because I’m a tourist. I wanted to know about the dairy and the place where—oh,” she said as he slid his hand to the inside, rucking up her skirt.

  Sal wiggled his eyebrows. “Mademoiselle, I must request payment for this horrid exercise in patience. I care not about Union forces or blasted orioles.”

  Rosemary laughed and then said, “Shh! You’re going to get us in trouble.”

  “Did you say something?” Simon asked, cocking his head as he urged Buttercup on.

  “No, I merely commented on the lovely lines of the, what’s that tree?”

  “I don’t know,” Simon said with a shrug before picking up where he’d left off on his script, seemingly not missing a beat.