Shoot me, somebody just shoot me now, I think silently as she links our arms and tows me inside. I shoot a fulminating glare at the street, only to see that he’s gone without so much as a hello for his fiancée.
“Good morning, welcome to Blushing Brides. How may I serve you today?”
I look up to see a greedy-eyed saleswoman coming our way, and I thank God when her approach allows me to step back, breaking the arm link.
“Hi! We’re here for a dress. Oh, and bridesmaids dresses. Hannah is in charge of the color scheme, so she’s choosing most of it.”
What?
“Er, no, I, um, this is your wedding. Wouldn’t it be best if you choose your own color schemes? And…I really don’t think—”
Jesus, this is so goddamned awkward. I can’t believe he’s done this.
“Oh, don’t be silly, Hannah. Your input is vital!”
By the time I’ve selected an off-the-shoulder, lavender, cocktail-style dress for the bridesmaids, I’m ready to pull a runner.
“Now the wedding dress. Oh, Lord, I am so excited. Can you just see Greg’s face when this dress comes walking toward him?” she asks, holding up something my nana wouldn’t wear to her own funeral.
“Hmmm.”
Be tactful, Han. Remember that not everyone has taste.
“No?” she asks, giving the dress a more thorough inspection.
“It’s a little…” I pause and grimace. “Too traditional?”
More like ugly, with enough lace to cover a Victorian lady’s bed, and the off-white — oh sorry, champagne — is not the color I’d go for either. It reminds me of something the YaYa Sisterhood would wear.
“No?” she asks.
“No.”
“Well, then what? Why is this so hard?” she cries, flopping down on the sofa by the dressing room, her shoulders drooping dejectedly. “Greg will be so disappointed if I can’t do this.”
When she says that scumsucker’s name, something inside me snaps, and I start ripping dresses from the rack to hurl them at her.
“We have the same build, and I can tell you now, burying yourself beneath a boatload of lace won’t work. My nana made me a dress for my sweet sixteen that will haunt me forever, so I’m telling you, lace is totally out. Here, try the off-the-shoulder sweetheart neckline. Yo, lady,” I yell, whistling the saleswoman over.
“Ma’am?” she asks fearfully, and I almost grin at her trepidation.
“Get this woman a glass of champagne, will ya? And I want everything without lace in a size six,” I order, pulling Selena to her feet. “Try that one on and let me see.”
It takes less than an hour for us both to agree on a strapless snow-white sheath that hugs her from breast to knee and flares out subtly to fall in a soft whoosh to her feet.
“You’ll need to get that fitted across the bust.”
She looks down at her boobs and then looks at mine.
“You’re so lucky you have boobs.”
I snort and consider my just C’s. I wouldn’t call them great, but they’re a sight larger than her A’s —something I feel spitefully great, yet guilty, about.
“All right then,” I sigh. “Anything else before I skedaddle back to the salt mines?”
She stops and considers me, her head tilted at an angle.
“Flowers?”
Is this chick not a socialite? I thought they were born and bred to do this shit.
“Roses. Weddings and roses go together like Forest and Jenny. Definitely roses. Maybe white?”
She nods, and I find myself outside on the sidewalk a few minutes later, waving at her retreating back as I wait for Gregory to roll around.
This is most definitely one for the history books. Mistress helps bride choose wedding dress.
Have I lost what little is left of my mind?
When he stops beside me, I get in and buckle up, studiously ignoring his questioning glances.
“I’ve arranged a helper to come by this afternoon.”
I ignore him and purse my lips.
“For Nana,” he clarifies.
I want to gasp in shock and lay into him at the temerity, but I don’t, knowing he’s trying and currently failing to get a rise out of me.
“Han.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Have you stopped sulking yet?”
I keep my face expressionless and pick at the non-existent lint on the knee of my jeans. I’d kept all communications strictly business for the rest of the work day, going so far as to blatantly ignore his lunch invitation and his request for coffee.
At this point I hope he fires me and lets me leave. Before I slap him into a goddamned coma. It doesn’t bug me much that I actually enjoyed my morning of ‘shopping’ with Selena, after I’d let go of every scruple I own and pretended I am not a raging liar.
He doesn’t need to know anything about the fact that I’m not mad or angry or anything that would be much of a threat to him. At least, I’m not angry at him. I am pissed at myself for wanting to cry and bawl like a big cry baby.
Now it’s seven, and I’m in his car, headed for his ‘apartment’. I say it that way because what he considers a little place in the city is probably big enough to fit my entire childhood home. With room to spare.
We’re headed there, and I know he wants to talk more than he wants sex — I’m waiting for the sky to fall because of that one — and the truth is, I am incapable of saying anything that won’t humiliate me.
Do I love Gregory Lucas? No. It’s way too early to even consider anything of the sort, but I like him, a lot, and I don’t want him to know it.
He sighs at my continued silence and steers the car into an underground structure that just happens to be valet. When I scramble out instead of waiting, he scowls and grabs my elbow impatiently, steering me toward the elevator.
“You have to talk to me, babe,” he says softly when the doors close, leaving us alone. “Come on, darlin’, scream at me, hit me, do something!”
I wait until we’ve gotten off and he’s let me into a huge apartment that, yup, is decorated to perfection, before facing him to drill a finger into his chest.
“You wanna know what I hate more than lying to that woman?” I ask, digging my finger into his pectoral. “Lying to myself. I spent over an hour convincing myself that what I was doing wasn’t wrong. I spoke to her like we were best friends and watched her try on wedding dresses, and when she couldn’t choose a favorite, I told her which one to take!”
Shit. Now Selena Jeffries is going walk down the aisle in my dream dress and marry the man I’ve fallen in lust with.
“You chose the dress?” he asks. “The one you like?”
I roll my eyes and shove at him, taking delight in the fact that he stumbles back slightly.
“Yup. And you wanna know what she said?” I ask, not letting him answer. “She said it was perfect and that she hopes one day I get to wear something just like it! And that I find a guy just like you!”
And then she’d cried and hugged me, and I’d felt slimier than a can of worms as I hugged her back and pretended not to be jealous.
“You’re such a sadistic A-hole. I can’t believe I’m still attracted to you.”
His mouth curves in a sly smile, letting me know he’s zeroed in on the fact that I’ve just admitted to being attracted to him. Not ‘I can’t believe I liked you’. Not ‘I can’t believe I found you sexy’. No, I am attracted to him. I’ll probably want the guy till I’m dead and buried, and now he knows it.
“Hannah, darlin’, come on over here,” he drawls, allowing his thick Southern drawl free rein.
“No. I’m still spitting mad at you, Gregory Lucas. How could you do that to me?” I breathe past the lump in my throat. “That was worse than the time I told my sister her ass didn’t look fat in tights. Everyone’s ass looks fat in tights. I lied then, and I lied now. To that sweet woman.”
He pulls me into his arms, ignoring my feeble struggles till I stop and burrow closer,
finding comfort in the heat and scent that I know as well as my own.
“Hannah, darlin’, Selena knows exactly what she’s getting into. Trust me,” he murmurs, kissing the top of my head. “Now stop fighting with me, and let’s talk about Josey.”
He leads me into the kitchen, where a pizza box and bottle of cola stand waiting. When I have a slice and a glass, we move to the breakfast bar and sit, turning to face each other.
“Gregory.”
“Greg,” he insists for the millionth time, glaring at me.
“Greg, I can’t afford her, and we both know it. I’ve called the agency, and they’ll send someone less…costly…over tomorrow for me to interview.”
I’d have to work two jobs and sell an organ to keep up with rent and groceries and the qualified Josey Barnes.
“I hired her when you looked so impressed,” he says, and I feel myself going icy.
“Look—”
“Don’t argue. We both know Chrissie can’t mind her all the time, and I don’t want to have to drive you home every night. Once in a while I’d like for us to fall asleep together.”
Me too, but that’s not in the cards. Besides, I’m vain, and I don’t think I’m ready for Gregory to see my morning face just yet.
“Gregory.”
“Greg! Goddammit, stop trying to put so much distance between us. We’re together, deal with it and move on already. And the goddamned helper stays!”
I rear back, shocked that he is taking such a small thing so seriously, so…personally. Gregory is usually an easy-going guy. You’d assume that since he’s so controlling and domineering he’s got a stick shoved up his ass or something, but that is far from the truth.
He’s easy to be around, when I’m not focusing so much on my guilt and the wrongness of something that feels too right. Some nights we eat and watch television, cuddled up on the sofa, before he even touches me suggestively.
One time he’d been so comfortable I’d been forced to make the first move.
“Greg, look…”
“I mean, why can’t you just let us be happy together?” he asks softly, in a voice so unlike him I feel guilty for starting this argument. “We’re good together, Han, and you know it. We enjoy the same things, we both work hard — and well together — and we’re both in love with your nana. Just give this enough of a chance that I’m not yelling at you half the time. Please.”
He says the words, and my immediate response is to fling his engagement in his face. But that is so old news already, and I can only use it so many times before even I know it’s old.
The truth is that I do want to give in and let go and just be happy for however long we have together. He’s getting married, when, I do not know, but when that happens I know what we have will be over.
I’ll likely never see him again or get to look into his eyes, touch him, kiss his lips as he strokes my hair. It’s wrong, I know it, but as I look at him and feel the pain of the coming loss, I make up my mind to let go and take whatever it is I can while he’s still mine.
“I want to,” I admit, closing my eyes on a sigh.
“Good. That’s good,” he says, and I hear his relief. “It’ll be great, Han, you’ll see. We can spend more time together—”
“Greg, I can’t leave her alone with the helper all the time. She’s old. She’ll want me around too.”
“Yeah, I know that. We’ll bring her and Josey out to the house with us on weekends.”
And now I see exactly what his angle is. He wants me to accept Josey without a fight because, I’d bet my toes, he intends to pay for her, and he knows I’m not going to like it.
I mean, it’s one thing to be a man’s mistress and still be independent. It’s another thing entirely when he’s paying for more than dinner and the odd lunch.
This is a milestone, a point of no return in the screwed up ‘relationship’ we have, and I know that crossing that line is a one-way street with no return option.
“You can pay for it if, and only if, you swear you’ll hand Amber back her bakery,” I say.
It’s a hard bargain, and I know it. I’ve spoken to Amber about her ‘investor,’ and I know that Greg invested quite a substantial amount of money in the failing bakery. To just give it up isn’t good business.
“Darlin’,” he sighs heavily. “I’ll make you a deal. Give me a year to get that place out of the fire and hire on a decent manager, and I’ll consider it. You have to understand, Amber is a terrible manager, and she’s not exactly accurate with her books.”
Not accurate.
“You mean she’s skimming off the top?”
God, I can so see her doing that, even to the detriment of her business, if she wants something. Amber is about as trustworthy and straight as a crooked tire.
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Okay, one year, and you promise not to blackmail me anymore. I can’t go on wondering if you’d kick her to the curb if I leave. Even if she does deserve it,” I say.
From now on we have to be honest, and to do that I need to know I can walk away without the consequences falling on someone else’s shoulders.
“Deal. But Greg?”
“Yeah, darlin’?”
“Do not ever make me choose wedding stuff with your fiancée again. Ever.”
He smiles with such a supreme look of arrogant victory before pulling me into his arms for a kiss that I’m left wondering if I’ve just been manipulated.
Chapter Eighteen
By Thursday I am having serious withdrawals, and I consider calling Greg just to hear his voice and prove to myself that this is real and not a dream. Monday night, after our first real talk, ever, we’d made love — yes, that’s what I’m calling it now — before he’d taken me home. Tuesday morning I’d walked into the office to a message that he’d gone away on business and wouldn’t be back before Friday.
Three days without him have been shockingly difficult. I’d fought so hard, and yet I am in exactly the place I didn’t want to be. I’m smitten with him.
That first Greg-free morning had been the arrival of the first gift, a bouquet of roses so red I’d checked to be sure they were real and not like the plastic ones Nana keeps on her bureau.
Wednesday it had been a pair of silver hoop earrings to replace the one I’d lost on the subway. Today I am staring and blushing at the contents of the Victoria’s Secret bag sitting on my desk.
There’s no way in hell I would ever buy underwear that skimpy for myself, and obviously he knows it. The phone rings, and I drag myself out of my daydreams to answer with a crisp and hopefully not breathless “Hello?”
“Hannah! Hi!”
My eyes close and I force myself not to put the phone down in reflex, knowing she’ll only call back. While I’ve been walking on clouds and loving it, I’ve also been bombarded with wedding arrangements by Selena.
“Hello, Miss Jeffries.”
“Oh, don’t be so formal, Hannah. We’re friends now! Call me Lena. Anyhow, I’m calling to find out where we should have the reception. I looked at Starlight and The Carlton Grand, but they’re both so great I can’t decide which one I like best,” she laments, and I grind my teeth to keep from cursing.
What difference will it make what I think? I’m just a lowly PA with a huge secret that makes us natural enemies. Not best friends.
“I can’t say. They’re both great. Go with Starlight if you intend to leave for the airport the same day,” I say, willing myself to speak without sounding as if I’m in pain. “The Carlton if you’re staying over and catching a flight the day after.”
Please let that be all, I beg silently as Lucy walks in, giving me a probing look. Selena trills happily, and I’m relieved when she rings off with a squeal of delight instead of another task for me.
“You look like you just swallowed toxic waste.”
“I’m fine. What can I do for you?” I ask, avoiding that can of worms.
“Oh, nothing really, I’m just bored. Jack and Owens left
for that conference in Chicago, and what with everything in the packing stages I’m at loose ends,” she sighs, flopping onto the sofa.
I wish I could say the same, but apparently Gregory Lucas is a machine, and our office is pumping with correspondence and phone calls. The only reason I’m not a phone-answering zombie by now is that his other PA, Kimmy, is handling stuff on her end while I handle the agency and travel arrangements.
“What happened to you this morning, anyway? You look like you got hit by a train when you walked in.”
Only because, if it hadn’t been for the guy standing beside me on the platform, I would have been. Hit by a train, that is. The platform had been crammed this morning, and I’d been jostled just as the train was pulling in.
When I’d realized I was falling…well, let’s just say I will be forever grateful to that stranger for his reflexes. I’d been a second away from falling straight onto the tracks when he’d grabbed me.
Unfortunately, my momentum had not been ideal and I’d fallen flat on my ass and now sport a scraped elbow, what I suspect is a goose egg on the back of my head, and an ass that hurts to sit on.
I am not what you’d call graceful, so I am not unscathed. Alive, thank God, but a little banged up.
“Some asshole on the subway decided he couldn’t stand still. I almost did a header onto the tracks,” I say as I check my inbox and fire off a quick email.
“Jesus, some people are animals. You all right?”
“Eh, I’ll live.”
She stands when the conversation is stalled by my preoccupation and wags a finger at me.
“You’re no fun lately.”
“Yeah? Go see how much Taz likes being disturbed, and you can call me a stick in the mud,” I challenge.
Taz is like a madwoman lately. Even I am not going anywhere near her if I can help it. When Lucy walks off with a wave, the phone rings, and I groan before answering.
“Mr Lucas’ office.”
“Oh, darlin’, I sure do appreciate the way you say that,” he drawls, sending shiver down my spine. “How’s my girl?”
It’s corny and weird, but just hearing him call me his girl makes me happier than I should be. Seriously, who gets this giddy about a dumb phone call?
JACE (Lane Brothers Book 3) Page 41
