by Nika Rhone
As Amelia made a strangling noise deep in her throat, Lillian reached over and plucked the seating chart from Thea’s hands and flicked it down the polished dining room table. The heavy vellum spun crazily before coming to rest halfway down the twenty-foot length of mahogany, well out of reach.
“I was looking at that!”
“No, you were hiding behind it.”
Thea drew herself straight and stared her friend in the eye. “I was not hiding.” She held Lillian’s steady gaze for all of five seconds before she slumped back and mumbled, “Okay, maybe I was hiding a little.”
“A lot.”
“Don’t push it.”
“Someone has to.”
“I’m humiliated. I think that deserves a little compassion, don’t you?”
“We gave you two whole days to sulk. That’s all you get.”
“I was not…” Thea thunked her head back against the heavy wooden chair and glared at the mural-covered ceiling, since she had about as much chance of getting sympathy from the archangels painted up there as from her friends at the moment.
Especially since she knew she had been sulking.
“Fine. Whatever. Can we talk about something else now? Please?”
“We haven’t talked about this yet.”
“Mellie, how’s your dress coming?”
“Thea…” Lillian’s tone was pure exasperation.
“I already told you what happened. There’s nothing else to talk about,” Thea said, knowing even as she did that it was a futile fight. Once Lillian grabbed hold of a subject, she wouldn’t be happy until she’d wrung it dry.
“You gave us the ‘See Spot Run’ version of what happened and then refused to talk about it again.”
“More like the ‘See Doyle Run’ version,” Thea muttered under her breath, remembering with fresh pain the humiliation of watching him stroll out the door with that she-barracuda dangling from his arm.
“See, that’s the part I don’t get,” Amelia said. “You said everything seemed to be going so well up until he, well…”
“Bolted? Ran for the door? Dropped me like a hot potato?”
Amelia squirmed. “Well, yeah, that.”
“Well, I thought everything was going great. Obviously, I was wrong.”
“Maybe not,” Lillian said.
Thea shot her an incredulous look. “Hello, abandoned before the end of the date for another woman. I may not be a dating expert, but I’d say that qualifies as not great.”
“What were you doing right before Mountains showed up?”
Even through her depression, Thea couldn’t hold back an amused snort at the nickname Lillian had adopted for Margo. She’d said she had overheard her brothers calling the overly endowed redhead that once, adding that after so many men had scaled those silicone peaks, they wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a Sherpa guide or two lost somewhere in the massive depths of her cleavage.
But her amusement waned as she recalled the last few minutes of that painful night. “We were having dessert. I was teasing him about sharing his chocolate cake since he’d stolen a bite of my cheesecake, and, oh God, it was soooo good.” Thea closed her eyes and wallowed in the memory of the deep chocolate cake melting on her tongue and then gave herself a mental shake. Like then, she opened her eyes, and remembered what she’d seen.
“Doyle was…” She gave a shaky laugh. “Well, he looked like he wanted to dive into my mouth after the cake, to tell you the truth. And then he reached over and wiped a little bit of whipped cream off my mouth, and…” And I couldn’t resist tasting him.
But she didn’t say that. She couldn’t. She wasn’t even comfortable remembering that she’d been that bold, that impulsive. The flare of heat she’d thought she’d seen in his eyes had made it worth it, an acknowledgement that she was a desirable woman to his desiring man.
Too bad she’d thought wrong.
“And?” Amelia asked.
“And then Margo showed up.” It was like a dash of frigid water, ruining everything that had come before.
“And then?”
“And then he left with her,” Thea said, her voice flat.
“Just like that?” Lillian asked. “She showed up, and he just jumped out of his seat and ran off?”
“No, first she insulted me with a few catty remarks—which he didn’t do anything about, I might add—before rubbing herself all over him and getting him to agree to take her home.” The memory of Margo touching Doyle with the self-assurance of someone who knows they have that right cut deep in her chest.
“So, it wasn’t his idea?” Lillian sounded thoughtful.
“No, it was hers. She said her dinner date was a doctor who got called to the hospital, so she was stranded, and she just happened to see Doyle’s car in the lot, so would he mind giving her a lift home.”
“And he agreed?”
“Well…” Thea’s brow wrinkled as she thought. “No, not right away. He offered to send her with Rick. But as soon as she hinted she’d rather go home with him, it was ‘so long, Thea, you don’t mind, do you?’ And off they went.”
“Wait, he asked you if you minded?” Lillian asked sharply.
“Well, yeah, but—”
“And you didn’t say something?”
“Um, well, no. I mean, he’d already offered the ride. Asking me was just an afterthought. What could I say?”
“You could have said ‘hell, yes, I mind!’ and told him to let her either go with Rick or call a cab, but that no way in hell was he going to dump you in the middle of your date.” Shaking her head, Lillian gave her a disgusted look. “T, I am seriously disappointed in you.”
“He’d already made his decision,” Thea said, feeling defensive and just a little hurt at this sudden and unexpected lack of support. “I wasn’t about to get into a tug-of-war over him in the middle of a restaurant.”
“She’s right about that,” Amelia said. “It’s not likely Mount…er, Margo would have given up gracefully. Or quietly.”
Thea nodded. “She was on him like a barnacle, and I don’t think she was going to let herself get scraped off without a fight. Not that he fought very hard.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her words. “Besides, I shouldn’t have to beg my date to stay with me. He should want to stay all on his own. And Doyle didn’t.” She felt her composure slip a little as that painful reality settled on her chest like a boulder all over again.
“Maybe he had a reason,” Amelia said, her face soft with sympathy.
“Sure he did.” Thea blinked back tears that she refused to let flow. She’d done enough crying over her one-sided love for Doyle over the years. It was time for her to admit she’d been wasting her time. “He wanted to go off and play King of the Mountains,” she said with a sardonic twist of her lips.
“Or maybe it was more like hide-and-seek.” Lillian tapped a finger against her chin thoughtfully. Thea blinked.
“Well, that’s just an ick thought I didn’t need. Thanks so much.”
It was Lillian’s turn to blink. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant that maybe Doyle was feeling the need to retreat and regroup, and Margo provided a convenient excuse.” When both Thea and Amelia continued to stare at her, she sighed. “You said you were having a good time.”
Thea nodded. “Up till the end, yeah.”
“And you were trading desserts, which, even though you won’t elaborate, I’ll assume was more than just a matter of simple taste testing to compare notes.”
Thea felt her face flush, which was as good as an answer.
“Hmph.” Lillian tapped her finger on her chin again. “You said he looked like he wanted to dive into your mouth.” Thea nodded. “And maybe more than that? Like he couldn’t wait to get you into the car and tear your clothes off?”
Stifling a groan at the very thought of Doyle’s warm hands slipping the clothes from her body, a sensation it seemed less and less likely that she was ever going to experience anywhere except in her dre
ams, Thea said, “That’s what I thought, but it’s pretty clear I’m not the greatest judge of what a man is thinking. Maybe he was just thinking about whether or not to order a second piece of cake since I’d made him share the first one.”
“Or maybe you are. Don’t forget, the man in question has a nasty habit of running scared where you’re concerned.”
Like he had the first time he’d seen her in that embarrassing thong bikini. Like he had from their daily runs. Hmm. Thea turned the possibility around in her mind. Was it possible that she hadn’t misread the heat in Doyle’s eyes? Had he wanted her so much that he’d forced himself to take a giant step backward? It was an interesting theory, one which went a long way toward soothing her oh-so bruised feelings, but it was still just a theory.
“Think about it,” Lillian said. “If he hadn’t wanted it to be a date, he could have just told Rick to stay home and gone with you by himself, which would have made him your de facto bodyguard and on duty. He didn’t, so that means he wanted to be with you. You, not her.”
“True.” Thea tried not to read too much into that. “But if that’s the case then he should have said something instead of just letting me think he was being an insensitive jackass.”
“Oh, sure.” Amelia snorted. “He could have said ‘Thea, I have to take Margo home now because if I don’t, I’m afraid I’ll lose control and have my wicked way with you in the car.’”
“Wicked way?” Thea repeated with an amused grin.
“She’s been reading those Regency romance novels again,” Lillian said with a grin.
Amelia blushed but defended herself by saying, “It’s better than saying ‘I’m afraid I’ll strip you naked and do you in the backseat,’ isn’t it?”
Covering a surprised laugh with a cough, Lillian said, “You’re right. Wicked way it is.”
Thea was too busy reliving the horrible images of Doyle’s backseat that Margo had planted in her mind that night to be amused. She shook her head, trying to shed the disturbing images like a dog shedding water. Nasty gutter water.
“Whatever he might have said, he didn’t, and all of this is just supposition, anyway. He might have wanted to go, and he might very well have spent the night at her place after he brought her home.”
“The only way you’re going to know for sure is to ask him,” Lillian said.
That earned a disbelieving laugh. “Oh, right, that would be a conversation I’m going to run right out and have. ‘Excuse me, Doyle, can you tell me if you boffed dear old Margo after you walked out on our date last Sunday?’ Like that’ll ever happen!”
“Not that part.” Lillian slashed her hand through the air in annoyance. “The other part. About why he took Margo home and not you. You’re being dense on purpose.”
She was right. The very last thing in the world Thea wanted to do was ask Doyle that question. It was kind of like offering yourself up to the guy with the gun and just begging him to put that final bullet right through your heart. If she didn’t ask, she could hang on to that last slender thread of hope, deep down inside, where she could almost convince herself that Doyle had left her there for noble reasons, that he did care despite the evidence to the contrary, that she hadn’t entrusted her heart and soul to a man who could so carelessly trample and discard both without so much as a backward glance.
She was a coward, and she knew it. She didn’t like it, but she knew it.
It seemed her friends knew it, too, because they weren’t about to let the subject drop.
“Did you ever think that Doyle might have gone looking for you first thing Monday to explain and maybe even apologize?” Lillian asked.
“Yes.” But she’d also thought that maybe he wouldn’t. Which was why it was so much easier to hide out at Amelia’s and lick her wounds, rather than sitting at home listening to her heart shred a little more every minute.
“Or yesterday?” Lillian persisted.
“Yes,” Thea said again, this time with a bit more bite. “And before you say it, today too. I get it, okay? I’m in major avoidance mode.”
“Well, that’s about to change.”
“How?” Thea turned wary at the sight of both her friends rising to their feet in unison.
“First, we’re getting out of here.”
“But…but…” Thea grasped at desperate straws. “But what about the engagement party?”
“You mean the one that’s already been planned down to the last crudités?” There was dry humor in Amelia’s voice, but there was also an undertone of resigned hurt that made Thea feel like a jerk for wailing and whining about her Doyle issues when Amelia was going through worse problems of her own.
“Mellie, I’m sorry,” she said, but Amelia waved the apology away.
“I’m used to it. Besides, this is the first time I’ve been allowed to even look at the seating arrangement since it was finalized. How did you manage to smuggle it out of the War Room?”
Amelia’s nickname for the small home office that had been taken over by the two dragons for their wedding planning brought a snort of laughter. Between the phones, scanner, and seriously high-tech computer that Mrs. Westlake had had installed expressly for plotting…er, planning her only daughter’s wedding, the room had definitely taken on the air of belonging to a general marshaling for a major invasion.
Or, in this case, a Major Society Event. The only difference between the two was that the weapons of choice would be sharpened tongues rather than swords, although they could draw blood just as easily, and, in the case of Society, be just as deadly.
“Oliver slipped it to me,” Thea said.
“Oliver?” Amelia looked first surprised, then affronted. “The last time I asked to see it, he told me I’d have to apply to either Mrs. Davenport or my mother for permission. Can you believe it? Apply for permission? To see my own damn seating chart for my own damn party?” She seemed ignorant of the two jaws that had dropped at her double-damning and instead continued in an aggrieved tone, “But you, he lets see it, just because you asked. Well, that’s just…shitty!” With an annoyed huff, she dropped back into her seat, arms crossed over her chest.
Stunned that something as innocent as wheedling the seating chart from Charles’s personal assistant to justify her lingering presence at the Westlake estate could have produced such an offended outburst, Thea exchanged a worried look with Lillian. She, too, seemed surprised. Amelia was clearly more upset about having her engagement party shanghaied by the dragons than she had let on, but what could they really do about it now?
It was far too late to try and wrest control back, and Thea wasn’t sure that Amelia would have wanted to even if she could. She might have endured her parents’ never-ending political parties, but she had never enjoyed them. Thea worried that Amelia’s wedding had turned into simply another event that she had to struggle through and endure, rather than the start to the happily-ever-after she wanted and deserved.
Knowing that pity was the last thing Amelia wanted, Thea offered the only thing she could to take some of the sting out of the situation. “Well, ah, he didn’t exactly just let me see it,” she said. “I had to bribe him for it.”
That got Amelia’s attention, although her body remained rigid with anger. “A bribe?”
“Yeah, a bribe. Didn’t you try that when he first said no?”
“Of course not!”
Lillian snorted. “And your father’s a politician?” She blew an air kiss at Amelia in response to the glare she got.
“What did you use?” Amelia asked, half-curious, half-aggrieved.
“A dozen of Rosa’s homemade honey oatmeal raisin cookies.”
Lillian bit her lower lip, possibly to keep from drooling. “The ones that are big enough to use as Frisbees?”
Amelia was less enthused. “The ones that my mother banned from the house?”
“That was only because your chef got miffed that everyone liked them better than his prissy little petit fours,” Thea replied. It had been an ugly s
cene. Lots of yelling in French, followed by the threat of resigning if such déclassé foods were ever allowed into “his domain” again.
Choosing her status-symbol chef over common sense—it was only cookies, for pity’s sake—Mrs. Westlake had issued her ultimatum. Nothing from Rosa’s kitchen was ever to pass her hallowed doors again. Ever. Thea had rolled her eyes but agreed for Amelia’s sake. Her friend had enough troubles without getting involved in a war of the kitchens.
“Whatever the reason, she’s going to blow a blood vessel if she finds out about them.”
She couldn’t be sure, but Thea thought she detected a hint of glee in Amelia’s statement. “Don’t worry,” Thea said with a wink, “Oliver knows he’s carrying contraband. He’ll keep them out of sight.”
He’d grinned like a kid who’d just been given a much-longed-for present when she’d shown up at the office door with her baked offering, and he’d been as eager as she to keep their transaction a secret. After being appropriated more than once for party planning duty, it appeared he wasn’t any more enamored of the dragons than Thea.
Not that he’d ever said as much, but it had been clear in his quick capitulation and the conspiratorial, heads-together whispers as he’d covertly slipped her the chart. She found it hard to believe that he’d been such a hard-ass to Amelia.
Then again, Amelia hadn’t brought him cookies you could land a small aircraft on.
Wanting to get her friend’s mind away from her wedding woes, Thea stood. “So, where are we headed?” It was only after the words were out that she remembered that her friends had been about to drag her out of the protection of the Westlake estate and into the real world, where Doyle held the tattered remains of her heart and her pride in his large, strong hands.
She looked around the room, desperately wondering if she could manage to contract some hideously contagious disease in the next two minutes so that she’d have to be confined to one of the guest rooms for a week or three. Then she groaned when she heard the one thing she’d known she was going to hear, the one thing she’d dreaded and hoped for most.
“Where else? Swimming!”
