by Foster, Lori
Chloe was relieved to find that the second shot didn’t hurt as much. They followed Keith past a human-size vase of flowers and into the gorgeous, glass-walled room that would house her sister’s evening ceremony, with the city of Buffalo all lit up and blanketed in snow as a backdrop.
Everything was beautiful. Her mother would have made sure of that. From the shimmering blue ribbons on the chairs to the string quartet playing Pachelbel, Fiona Masterson’s style was stamped all over this wedding. Unfortunately, Chloe couldn’t appreciate the details, because from the moment they’d stepped foot in the aisle, the bride’s side of the room had erupted in whispers and covert glances, like a tsunami of gossip moving toward the front of the room.
Chloe’s steps stuttered.
She shouldn’t have come.
This was a huge mistake.
Ben gave her fingers a reassuring squeeze—which was incredibly sweet considering her skin had gone from zero to sweaty in two seconds flat.
Then he let go of her hand.
Her heart banged painfully against her ribs and her scalp prickled with sweat. The whispers around her swelled into a deafening roar. Startled at the betrayal, Chloe’s glance shot to his.
He winked at her and put his hands in his pockets.
And that small act of faith that she wasn’t going to run again, that she was strong enough to face the viper pit on her own, steeled her resolve. The roiling nausea that had overtaken her stomach calmed to a simmer.
Ben was right. She wasn’t the coddled twenty-year-old girl who’d been drowning in luxury and despair anymore. She was a twenty-six-year-old woman who was making it in the world on her own terms. Just as she’d always wanted. So she pulled her shoulders back and kept walking forward. On her own.
Ben slid into the seat beside her once they reached the front row. “That was intense. You did great, though.”
“Thanks to you.”
“Nah, you did all the hard stuff,” he assured her, glancing around the room. “So that’s the rift?” he asked. “The reason you don’t get along with your parents? Because you didn’t marry some Ivy Leaguer?”
Chloe glanced behind her at the reference to Patrick. She hadn’t noticed him during her long walk of shame. Of course, she hadn’t noticed much. It was all kind of a blur. If she wasn’t sitting at the front of the room with sweaty armpits right now, she might not actually believe she’d done it.
“That’s the reason I don’t get along with my mother. That and the tattoos,” she added. “I don’t get along with my father because I dropped out of law school.”
“What?” Ben’s cry of disbelief came out far too loudly for her peace of mind, and she felt all the attention in the room shift back in their direction. “Sorry,” he said, lowering his voice. “But what? You were going to be a lawyer?”
“According to my father I was.”
The music in the room grew louder, signifying things were about to get underway, and people’s eyes shifted toward the rear of the room where the mother of the bride was reveling in her walk down the aisle.
“Anything else I should know about you?” Ben whispered. “Have you ever killed a man just to watch him die?”
“Not yet. But if you talk during the ceremony and get me in trouble with the mother of the bride, I’d suggest you sleep with one eye open tonight.”
* * *
THE CEREMONY WAS BEAUTIFUL, even Chloe had to admit it.
Her sister was radiant—not because of the makeup, although it looked great, even from a few feet away—but because she had a kind of deep-down radiance that made Chloe believe that she and Dalton had found true love.
After the wedding, she and Ben took the elevator up to the penthouse atrium. Unfortunately, as the sister of the bride, Chloe was expected to be in a couple of family wedding photos.
They’d barely stepped in the room before her mother pounced. “Chloe, there you are! ”
“Mom.” Formal air kisses. “Dad, hi.” She hadn’t seen him in four years, but from what she could tell, not much had changed. He still wouldn’t look her in the eye. Ever since the awful evening when she’d sat beside him at the dinner table and told him that she would not be returning to law school, he’d developed a habit of looking everywhere but at her.
“Chloe.” Her name sounded stiff on his lips. “Good of you to come.”
She tamped down her disappointment as she and her father exchanged an awkward embrace.
He’d probably said the exact thing to every single person he’d greeted tonight. He didn’t even have the courtesy to make it sound sarcastic because of her late arrival in Buffalo—at least that would have personalized it a little. Then again, he probably didn’t even know she’d arrived late.
Desperate to keep the festivities light, her mother lunged into the fray. “Benjamin! How lovely to see you again.”
“Thank you, Fiona. The pleasure is all mine. You look lovely. And what a beautiful wedding. Chloe tells me you had a hand in the decorations.”
He was smooth, she’d give Ben that. Judging by her pleased preening, he’d just nailed second contact with the alien being that was her mother.
“Let me introduce you to my husband, Daryl Masterson. Senior partner with the law firm of Masterson, Grosvenor and McQuaid.”
“Ben Masterson, sir. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Masterson, is it?” her father asked, shaking Ben’s hand.
“Really? No one mentioned that earlier.” Chloe winced at the look her mom shot her before she turned back to Ben. “Where are you from?”
“Born and raised in Seattle, ma’am. Fiona,” he corrected, and she smiled.
“I don’t believe we know any Mastersons from Seattle. Daryl, do we know any Mastersons from Seattle?”
“None are coming to mind.”
Ben smiled easily. “I’m sure you wouldn’t be acquainted with my grandparents. And my father was adopted.”
“How interesting. Isn’t that interesting, Daryl? And what is it you do for a living?”
“Advertising. I’m with Carson and McLeod.”
Her father nodded in approval. “Good firm, good firm. And what is it you do there?”
“Dad, seriously. Ben didn’t come here for a job interview.”
“I’m just checking that he’s employed.”
Ben placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She couldn’t help but be impressed at how gracefully he was dealing with the inquisition. “Actually sir, I’m being considered for account director.”
“A man who picks a career and follows through. I like it. Chloe could use more of that in her life.”
Chloe did her best not to roll her eyes.
The buzz of his cell phone stole Daryl Masterson’s attention, and he pulled it out of his breast pocket to glance at the caller ID. “Excuse me, I have to take this.” He threw a, “Nice meeting you, Tim,” over his shoulder as he stepped away from them.
“Don’t go too far, Daryl. This won’t take long and the photographer will be ready for us any minute!”
In reality, it was another half hour before the photographer was ready for them, and another hour after that before her mother finally dismissed Chloe from family wedding-picture hell. She grabbed Ben by the elbow and hauled him into the waiting elevator.
“Let’s get out of here before she changes her mind!”
He hit the button for the lobby, and Chloe was relieved to be speeding away from her mother, toward the food. “Thanks for being so patient. I didn’t think there were that many photo combinations for a family of four.”
“And you were smiling in almost all of them. So good job.”
“Hey, I can fake it with the best of them.”
“You’ll never have to fake it with me,” he said.
Ch
loe shot him a sideways glance. “Are we still talking about taking pictures?”
“Oh, I’m very open to the idea of taking pictures,” Ben assured her. Chloe was laughing as he grabbed her hand and they strode out of the elevator and toward the ballroom.
The room was a profusion of white flowers and fake icicles and baby-blue satin. Chloe supposed it looked like a magazine spread, but it was waaay too much for her. She might have a dramatic flair and heavy hand with the eye makeup, but if she ever got married, she was going to steer clear of spectacle.
“Wow. This is...a lot,” Ben said beside her as they walked under a bower of flowers.
“I’m just thinking of it as a magical land I have to walk through to get to the food.”
However Ben planned to respond, he was waylaid by the sudden appearance of a generously proportioned woman wearing a poufy yellow dress that made her look like Bo Peep’s jaundiced grandmother.
“Chloe, darling! You’re as lovely as your sister. I haven’t seen you since...” Her aunt trailed off as she realized exactly when they’d last seen each other. Four years ago on a night that hadn’t ended as happily as this one.
“Since my wedding day, Aunt Eileen.” The reminder still stung, but Chloe felt much more equipped to deal with the inevitable stares and whispers now that she’d conquered that solo walk down the aisle.
“I...I didn’t think you’d come.”
“I knew you’d come,” interjected Eileen’s husband as he trundled up to them. “I just didn’t think you’d stay ’til the end!” The portly man punctuated the joke with a wheezing guffaw.
“Hilarious, Uncle Phil.” Chloe leaned forward for the obligatory cheek kiss. “If you two will excuse us, I see people eating bacon-wrapped shrimp and I want to be one of them.” She grabbed Ben’s hand and tugged him farther into the ballroom, doing her best to avoid more prying relatives as they approached a white-suited waiter carrying a silver tray laden with champagne flutes.
“You do want a drink, right?” she asked, dropping his hand and snagging two glasses of bubbly. He accepted the one she held in his direction.
“I probably just lost one of the most lucrative contracts my agency’s ever bid on, and this is an open bar. You’re damn right I’m having a drink.”
Chloe stopped with her glass halfway to her lips. “Oh, my God! Ben! I’m such an ass! I was so caught up in my own drama I didn’t even ask how your meeting went.”
“It was less than stellar,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Burke was not buying into the Masterson charm. He’s old-school and he doesn’t seem to have much respect for Carson and McLeod. And he thinks I’m a child playing at a man’s job.”
Chloe was outraged. “He said that?”
“Not in so many words, but I’m fluent in subtext.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
“Nope.” Ben clinked his glass against hers before he brought the champagne to his lips and took an impressively long gulp.
Chloe mirrored his actions. Liquid courage always helped when she was dealing with her family and the looming threat of running into Patrick. She took another fortifying sip before she and Ben headed out in search of the bacon-wrapped shrimp.
When they arrived at table one, as per the seating chart, her parents were already there. Her father, much to no one’s surprise, was on his phone again.
“There you two are!” Her mother gave her a stern look when she saw Chloe’s fist-full of shrimp skewers.
“Take a seat! I wanted to finish the conversation we started before the wedding photos. How old did you say you were again, Benjamin?”
Ben held out Chloe’s chair before taking his seat beside Fiona.
“Thirty, ma’am.”
“Thirty. That’s very young to be up for such a big promotion. Chloe’s twenty-six and has yet to settle on a career path. It’s nice to see her with someone who’s so focused.”
Chloe’s mother flashed him a beaming smile that was usually reserved for the benefactors of her charities—and for sharks circling bleeding disaster victims treading water miles from shore. Chloe could feel a tiny drop of fear trickling along the back of her neck, heading for her spine.
Fiona Masterson was about to try and talk Ben into making a down payment on her eldest daughter. Upgrading from boyfriend to fiancé.
Chloe could not have been more relieved when the emcee just then took the stage to announce the arrival of the happy couple.
Amidst the applause and catcalls as Mr. and Mrs. Van Allen made their way toward the head table, Ben slung his arm across the back of her chair and leaned toward her. His breath was warm on her ear and, combined with the champagne bubbling in her empty stomach, made her feel a bit woozy in the best possible way.
“I have no idea what your problem is with your parents. They seem nice.”
Chloe laughed at the devilish glint in his eye. He was teasing her. “Of course they seem nice to you! They love you!”
Ben’s modest grin let her know she’d reacted appropriately to his bait. “Well, I do give good parent.”
“You sure do. My mom was practically swooning and my dad stayed off his phone for almost four minutes. That’s a new record, Tim. Which reminds me...not to brag or anything, but I totally nailed you.”
Ben cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah, you did. And I liked it, so if you want to do it again later, I’m in.”
“Gross! No!” She punched him in the arm. “I meant I nailed your job. I guessed right on the plane. You’re in advertising.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Ugh. No law references around my parents, please.”
Ben leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to her lips.
She tried not to blush. “What was that for?”
He shrugged. “Because you’re doing great. And because I get it.”
“Get what?”
“I get why you didn’t want to come here. I think a hundred people have made the same joke at your expense by now. But they don’t understand that what you did took guts. The thought of quitting my job makes me nauseous, even though I occasionally feel like it’s stifling me. Like it’s not what I’m supposed to be doing.”
Chloe leaned forward and kissed him back.
“What was that for?”
“Because sometimes, Masterson, you’re really good at knowing exactly what to say.”
* * *
BY THE TIME they’d eaten, listened to lame wedding speeches, and witnessed every conceivable variation of fathers and brides, mothers and grooms, and bridesmaids and groomsmen sway together to sentimental pop drivel, Chloe was actually enjoying herself. Most everyone with a runaway-bride comment had delivered their joke, and people were finally focusing more on the party than on her past.
And Ben had been an amazing wingman, guiding her through the night with very little damage. Plus, he was pretty freakin’ cute. And so good in bed. Like, really, really good, she decided as she watched him fend off the advances of one of her cousins on his way back from the bathroom.
“Your cousin Amber says hi.” He folded himself into the chair beside her.
“Yeah, right.” She glanced over to where her cousin stood, her eyes still glued to Ben. Not that Chloe blamed her. Ben had loosened his tie and popped the top button on his shirt, so he was looking pretty damn sexy right now. Chloe raised a hand to her cousin and wiggled her fingers in a wave that earned her a glare before Amber stomped off to try her luck with some other target.
“Excuse me. Can I have your attention please?” Her sister’s fiancé, no, husband, Chloe reminded herself, had grabbed the DJ’s mic and a hush settled over the crowd. “Hey, everyone! Are you guys enjoying the party?”
Applause and catcalls answered the question.
“Before we hand this
dance over to DJ Spinnicus,” more applause and catcalls from the younger attendees, “I wanted to take a second to tell my beautiful bride how much I love her, and how glad I am that our lovely mothers, who sit on the Children’s Hospital board together, set us up on that blind date, because I can’t imagine my life without her.”
Cue the obligatory romantic “awwwww” from the crowd.
“And I also want to wish her a very happy birthday! So to honor what has become a bit of a Masterson family tradition—”
“Oh no.” Chloe shook her head.
“—I thought you might all help me serenade the birthday girl on her wedding day. You know the words!”
“Nuh-uh. This can’t be happening.”
“What? What’s happening?” Ben asked.
A familiar riff filled the ballroom, and the wedding guests went crazy as the screen behind Dalton lit up with a slideshow of the happy couple, and everyone began singing along.
“No way!” Ben exclaimed, but she was already laughing at herself, at the situation, at the expression of incredulity on Ben’s face. “Is this why you hate the song?” He laughed, shaking his head. “You’re jealous of your sister? Pathetic, Masterson. I expected better of you.”
“You were never, ever supposed to know about this,” she gasped through her giggles. Her crying sister ran up onstage to kiss Dalton, who was manfully belting his way through the lyrics with no attention to whether he was in tune. Chloe would never admit it aloud, but it was all kind of sweet and romantic.
Ben drained his beer, and placed the bottle on the table with a thunk that she could hear even over the sing-a-long.
“Come on,” he said, standing and holding out his hand to her.
“Are we leaving?” she asked, wiping her eyes, hoping that her tears of laughter hadn’t tracked mascara down her cheeks. She grabbed his hand and he yanked her to her feet.
“Oh, hell no! We’re going to dance, Masterson.” She yelped as Ben twirled her, startling another peal of laughter from her before he tugged her onto the dance floor.
