by Jackie Braun
Marnie’s lips quirked again. ‘It’s pricey, but totally worth it.’
‘Done.’
Marnie blinked. ‘What do you mean, done? We haven’t gone through the other options.... And don’t you have any venues you want to put forward?’
‘I had a couple.’ Gina shrugged. ‘But none of them are as perfect as the TriBee,’ she said, giving it the nickname it had acquired in the foodie press. ‘You nailed it in one. Why shop around?’
The waiter arrived with Marnie’s toast and tea and made a bit of a production about asking Gina if she had everything she needed. As he left Gina noticed Marnie’s gaze follow him, before she concentrated on buttering her toast. There was no censure in the look, just a simple acknowledgement. But Gina could still hear the words running through Marnie’s head even if the well-mannered woman would rather bite off her own tongue than voice them.
There goes another of Gina’s conquests.
Ten years ago, Gina would have played up to that assessment and enjoyed it—and quite probably taken full advantage of whatever the young waiter had to offer. But not any more.
Placing her coffee mug back on the table, she waited for Marnie to stop buttering. When the bright blue eyes finally met hers, she could see the tension around the edges of Marnie’s mouth and realised that—while she still had a low-grade urge to throttle Reese—their mutual friend had been right. They needed to get this out in the open, if they were going to have any chance of getting past it and repairing the friendship between the four of them the rest of the way.
Marnie and her would never be best friends, Gina had already screwed that up for good, but surely they could be more than just civil to each other. A bit more warmth between the two of them would also take the pressure off the other two—and as both Reese and Cassie had weddings coming up, she couldn’t think of a better gift to give them both.
‘I’m sure we both know why Reese didn’t show this morning,’ she said evenly. ‘And for once I’m not convinced it has anything to do with her inability to leave Mason’s bed first thing in the morning while he’s still in it.’
Marnie’s eyes widened a fraction. She raised her napkin to her mouth to remove an invisible crumb. ‘Reese has always been a peace-maker.’
She put the napkin down, folded it carefully.
‘But I’m confident she’ll stop trying to be Mother Teresa when we turn up at Amber’s Bridal tomorrow having booked an awesome venue for Cassie’s party without having gotten into a catfight in the Grand Central Diner.’
Gina’s lips curved at the droll statement. ‘True, but funnily enough...’ She took a deep breath, fortified by the odd feeling of connection between them—because right about now it seemed they both had a low-grade urge to throttle Reese. ‘I think I can probably go one better than that.’
Wariness crossed Marnie’s face. ‘How?’
‘By apologising for all the crappy things I said to you on our last night together—which were cruel and juvenile and totally unnecessary.’ She huffed out a steady breath when Marnie remained silent.
Now for the biggie.
‘And more importantly by apologising for seducing your brother the week beforehand—which was equally cruel and juvenile and totally unnecessary.’ Even if it had felt very necessary at the time.
‘My only excuse is that I was in a bad place at the time.’ A bad place that had got a whole lot worse in the months after that night. ‘And I did bad things as a result—including being a heartless, reckless, selfish, philandering tart. And although I can’t promise that I won’t do bad things again—because if there’s one thing I despise more than a heartless tart, it’s a hypocrite—I’m trying a lot harder not to.’
Marnie’s face remained unnervingly impassive, before she gave her head a little nod. ‘Thanks for the apology. But if you were being cruel and juvenile, I was too. And...’ She paused. ‘While I could have done without such a graphic description of my brother’s...’ she coughed, clearly struggling to get the word out ‘...assets, you didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.’ She looked down at her hands, which were mangling the carefully folded napkin. ‘Carter was the one that cheated, Gina. Not you.’ Her eyes met Gina’s, disillusionment clouding the blue depths. ‘And after seeing his marriage die a slow, painful death and seeing what a player he’s become since his divorce—I don’t think you should take all the blame.’
A player? Carter?
Gina’s throat constricted as the memories she’d filed carefully away in the ‘biggest disaster of my life’ box had a coming-out party.
Yes, he’d been devastatingly handsome, and moody and magnetic and sexy enough to make any woman salivate uncontrollably, even an accomplished flirt like her. But beneath that potent machismo had been a man who, like Marnie, had been determined to do the right thing—who had been honourable and sensitive and touchingly reserved, despite the hunger burning in those cool blue eyes. How could that man be a player?
Nobody could change that much. Even in ten years....
‘Reese told me Carter had got a divorce,’ she said. The guilt she’d worked hard to mask ever since Reese had told her the news throbbed in her belly like a lump of radioactive waste—alongside an inappropriate rush of heat, which she studiously ignored.
‘I’m sorry about that too,’ she said. It would be conceited of her to think she was wholly responsible for the failure of Carter’s marriage, but she still had to shoulder her share of the blame. She’d slept with an engaged man and then tried to push the blame onto the only innocent party in the whole thing, Carter’s fiancée, Missy.
‘You don’t need to apologise,’ Marnie remarked with sober certainty. ‘The divorce wasn’t your fault—they had a lot of other...’ her voice trailed off ‘...issues.’
‘It’s nice of you to say that.’ And nicer still to see that she actually meant it. ‘But I was there when it happened, and I know how hard he tried to resist me.’
Marnie shot her hands out in the shape of a T. ‘All right, time out, because you are straying back into “things I will never need to know about my brother” territory, here.’
Gina huffed out a laugh at the look of horror on Marnie’s face. Maybe the Southern Belle had grown up, but it seemed she still had the same demure sensibilities when it came to discussing her big brother’s sex life.
‘The point is...’ Marnie put her hands down ‘...I’m ashamed of the things I said that night too.’ She drew a circle on the table. ‘I wanted to put all the blame on you, because blaming Carter would mean admitting he didn’t belong on the pedestal I’d put him on.’ She sighed. ‘We’re not close these days.’
Gina felt the renewed stab of regret. ‘Oh, Marnie, I’m so sorry. Did I do that too?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Marnie said, sounding adamant. ‘It would have happened anyway once I got older and wiser and realised what he was really like.’ The wry smile on Marnie’s lips did nothing to dispel the thoughtful expression. ‘You know, I don’t remember you having such an overdeveloped guilt complex.’
Gina chuckled at the observation. ‘Unfortunately, it’s the end result of believing everything is about you.’
Marnie sent her a quick grin, the unguarded moment a reminder of the easy friendship they’d once shared.
‘Look, I hope we’re good now,’ Marnie said. ‘Because my relationship with my brother isn’t as important to me as my friendship with y’all.’
‘Yeah, we’re good,’ Gina said, but felt od
dly deflated as Marnie excused herself to go to the restroom.
Maybe they hadn’t had a catfight, and maybe she’d finally got out the apology that she should have given Marnie ten years ago... But somehow it didn’t feel like enough.
Maybe her thoughtless seduction that night hadn’t been the only reason Carter’s marriage had ended, but it had definitely helped to screw up his relationship with his sister. And Gina couldn’t quite shake the thought that Marnie had fallen back on her perfect Southern manners to smooth everything over, but didn’t really mean it.
The buzzing of Marnie’s phone jolted Gina out of her guilt trip, and made coffee slosh over the rim of her mug. She mopped up the spill and made a grab for the phone as it vibrated towards the edge of the table. Then nearly dropped it at the photo that flashed up in the viewfinder under the text message.
Arrive @ The Standard 7pm 2nite. In NYC til next Fri. Txt me. We need 2 discuss yr allowance. C
Her heart leapt up to bump against her larynx and the swell of heat that she’d been busy ignoring flared. She pressed her thumb to the screen and ran it over the darkly handsome face that had hardly changed in ten years. His hair was longer, the brutal buzz cut now a mass of thick waves that curled around his ears and touched his collar. Those hollow cheeks had filled out a bit, the electric blue of his eyes looked colder and even more intense, and there were a few distinguished laughter lines, but otherwise Carter Price looked even hotter than she remembered him. She touched the tempting little dent in his chin—biting the tip of her tongue as a blast of memory assailed her. The rasp of stubble and the nutty taste of pistachio as she licked a rivulet of ice cream off his full bottom lip.
Stop fondling Marnie’s phone, you muppet.
The sharp rap of metal on wood rang out as she dropped the phone on the table. Carter Price’s unsettling gaze continued to stare at her, so she flipped it over—moments before Marnie appeared at her shoulder.
‘Your phone was buzzing,’ she offered, as nonchalantly as she could manage, while blood coursed up her neck and pulsed at her temples.
‘Right, thanks.’ Marnie picked up the phone and slid back into the booth.
A frown formed on Marnie’s forehead as she read the text. And Gina wondered for one agonising moment if Marnie would mention the texter—and then wondered how she was going to conduct a conversation while having a hot flush. But Marnie didn’t say anything, she simply frowned, keyed in a few characters, pressed send and then tucked the phone into the pocket of the briefcase.
‘Shall I go ahead and book the Tribeca Terrace?’ she asked, her voice clear and steady and businesslike, the frown gone.
Gina’s shoulders knotted with tension and the sinking feeling in her stomach dropped to her toes.
So Marnie had lied—maybe she wanted to pretend that they were both past what had happened ten years ago, that it didn’t matter any more. But how could it be true when she couldn’t even bring herself to mention Carter’s name?
Marnie didn’t trust her. And frankly who could blame her?
They made arrangements to meet up the next day for the bridesmaids’ fittings at Reese’s friend Amber’s bridal boutique in the Manhattan Bridge Overpass District before Marnie—who seemed more than a little preoccupied—rushed off to get to her office in Brooklyn.
Gina watched her leave, and realised that there was only one way to win Marnie’s trust—and prove to herself that she deserved it. And that was to finally make amends for everything that had happened ten years ago, on the night she’d thrown herself at a virtually married man.
She gulped down her lukewarm coffee as goosebumps prickled up her spine. Unfortunately that meant apologising to more than just Marnie.
ISBN: 9781460318546
GREEK FOR BEGINNERS
Copyright © 2013 by Jackie Braun Fridline
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com
