by Nancy Warren
Maybe her dress was more traditional than she would have chosen, but she was here, engaged to an amazing, fun-loving guy, and she’d won the nose-stud argument.
People who had never taken any notice of her before were making a point of coming up and congratulating her, offering her smooth , scented cheeks to be kissed. Eric looked like a prince from a fairytale, his blonde hair glowing in the moonlight like old gold. He had trimmed his beard and put on a tuxedo she hadn’t realized he owned. When he gazed at her, she felt like they were sharing a secret joke. Like it was them against the world.
He took her hand loosely in his. “You look beautiful.”
She grinned at him. “Thanks. I feel like I’m playing dress-up in my mother’s clothes, but at least I got to keep my nose stud.”
He leaned in. “I would never have recognized you without it.”
There were plenty of business acquaintances of both the Carnarvons and the Van Hoffendams, but there were also plenty of Ashley and Eric’s friends. Whitney and Bradley arrived and Whitney whispered to Ashley that Bradley hadn’t wanted to come. He was terrified she’d put pressure on him to get married.
Sienna arrived with her parents, who were friends of the Carnarvons. “Great party,” she said, scooping a glass of champagne off a tray. “Anybody interesting and single here?”
She glanced around. “Over sixty or under?”
“After a few more of these I probably won’t care.”
Melissa and Douglas were there, holding hands as though their palms had been welded together and to ever separate them would cause permanent damage. They were getting married next summer. Melissa said, “I am so happy to have someone else to go through this with. Isn’t being engaged the best?”
She pinned a bright smile on her face. “Absolutely.”
Donovan and Kylie arrived soon after. Both squealed when they saw her and ran over to give her hugs. Kylie said, “I can’t believe you and Eric are getting married. I didn’t even know you were going out! I thought you were like, you know, friends with benefits.” Coming from another woman those words could have been considered catty. But Kylie was one of those people who blurted out whatever she was thinking. She was impossible not to like. “I’m crazy about Eric,” she said, glancing toward where he was standing in front of the closest bar joking with some of his cronies.
“Who wouldn’t be? He’s gorgeous and rich,” Sienna said. “Nobody ever thought he’d settle down.”
Melissa glanced significantly down at her stomach. “You’re not…” She waved a hand up and down her own abdomen. “You know.”
Ashley’s face wrinkled in horror. “Pregnant? No. I should change my Facebook status to Not Pregnant.”
“You should at least change it to In a Relationship.”
“I know, I keep forgetting.” In fact, she was waiting for Eric to change his.
Melissa was still looking at her strangely. “It’s just that we saw you and Eric at a party on, what, Friday? And then Tuesday, there was an engagement announcement in all the papers. It seemed kind of rushed, like maybe there was a reason?”
“I promise you I am not pregnant. I think the Van Hoffendams are just super organized people. Honestly, they practically had the entire thing organized at our first dinner together.”
“I wish they’d organize my wedding,” Kylie said. “The wedding coordinator is a nightmare. Honestly, she wants everything her way. Like she knows best, or something.” She blew out a breath. “Next time I get married, I’m eloping.”
Sienna laughed. “And only in LA does that line sound normal.”
Melissa said, “I totally think the three of us should have a joint bachelorette party. How fun would that be?”
She giggled, “Amazing.” Especially since Whitney and Sienna hadn’t got around to organizing anything. She loved those girls, but she suspecting downloading the wedding planner app was as much as they’d manage to do.
“My dad says we can use his boat; we could go on a harbor cruise! He’d crew the boat, and send over their personal chef to make dinner. Of course there’s a full bar, and then we can go clubbing somewhere. What do you think?”
“Yeah, sure. I guess.”
“So? Have you got a venue yet?”
“I think we’ll probably have the wedding here.”
“Yeah. This place is amazing. How about your dress? Have you picked anything out yet?”
She could not tell these legitimately rich girls that she was going to be wearing a hand-me-down, so she said, “I’ve been looking but I haven’t completely decided yet. How about you?”
Melissa’s pretty face drooped into a frown. She lowered her tone, “Okay, you can’t tell anyone this, but my mother phoned Evangeline. You know, the one who designs the gowns for all the celebrities? She got me an interview. I have never been so scared. I spent the whole day in the salon getting my hair done, a facial, manicure, pedicure, make-up professionally applied. The works. I even had some kind of body wrap that was supposed to sweat off pounds. And when I got to her studio, after making us wait for half an hour, she had me stand in front of her and turn around in a circle then walk up and down. And then she said, ‘Call me when you lose 10 pounds and we’ll talk.’”
“My God, she did not.”
Melissa nodded, “She totally did. Now, on top of the stress of the wedding, I’m on a diet.” She screwed up her face. “I hate dieting. It has the opposite effect on me. All I do is think about food all the time. I’ve gained two pounds since I saw Evangeline.”
She tried not to laugh. Melissa had always been on the plump side but it suited her. “Get another dress. Douglas loves you the way you are. He doesn’t care if you wear an Evangeline gown.”
“I now, you’re right. It’s more my mother’s dream than mine anyway. She wants the bragging rights,” she sighed. “You look great by the way. Nice pearls.”
“Thanks.” Ashley thought that Wallis Simpson must have had a much smaller neck than she did since the pearls felt as though they were choking her. But, she knew how much Millicent was enjoying the evening.
Ashley mingled. She made polite small talk with people she barely knew and spent time with her own friends. Eric spent more time at the bar than by her side, but she was used to that.
She stood there, in this fairytale garden, in a dress that seemed to float around her when she moved, and glanced down one of the candlelit paths. A man stepped out of the shadows and moved toward her. For a moment her heart skipped a beat. He seemed like he’d appeared out of nowhere, a mysterious and fascinating figure, and then he stepped into the light and she recognized Ben. He wore a crisp dark suit, and his hair was neater than she’d ever seen it, but his eyes caught hers and burned like a wild animal’s in the jungle. He stepped toward her and she stood there waiting for him. When her heart bumped her ribs and Wallis’s pearls felt like fingers squeezing her throat, she realized that her teenage crush wasn’t completely gone. He still affected her.
“You’re late.” She put her hands on her hips and tilted her head. “Trouble finding the place?”
“Wasn’t sure I’d make it at all. I was in meetings.”
“No problem. Everything okay?”
“Yeah, everything will be. You look great by the way. Congratulations.”
“On looking great or getting married?”
“Both, I guess.”
She put a hand to his sleeve and her engagement ring winked. “Come on, I’ll introduce you around, and let’s find you a drink.”
For a moment he resisted the pull on his arm. “Don’t introduce me. I only came to see you and to make an appearance for Duncan and Millicent.”
“Right. I forgot that you’re hiding out here. If anyone asks who you are I’ll just say you’re an international man of mystery.”
“If you weren’t wearing a pretty dress I’d throw you in the pool right now.”
She snorted. “You’d be doing me a favor.”
“Cinderella doesn’t like her
ball gown?”
“I feel like I’m playing dress-up.”
“Those are some very nice pearls.” She had no idea if he made a habit of studying pearls or whether he was making fun of her, but she suspected the latter.
“Thank you. They were last worn by a woman who pulled a king off his throne.”
“She’s an amateur compared to you.”
She raised her brows, giving him a silent, What?
“She wasn’t a trained marksman like yourself. You’d have put a bullet through his heart.”
“Well, wouldn’t have, but could have.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself.”
Their gazes connected and she experienced one of those topsy-turvy moments where she wondered, is he attracted, or is he only teasing? And how she wished he’d shown a millionth of this much interest in her when she was a teenager and would have loved it. “I’ll try not to.”
He looked as though he were going to say something when she heard Grace Van Hoffendam calling her name. “Ashley, there you are. I’ve been looking all over for you.” At her side was a very pretty blonde woman about Ashley’s age. Someone she was sure she’d never met. They did the half smile thing, while Grace glanced significantly at Bennett. He’d said he didn’t want to be introduced, but what choice did she have? She stuck to, “Grace, this is Ben, he’s a family friend.”
She didn’t tell her future mother-in-law that Ben was one of the hottest young male writers in the country or that he was living in a pool house on the property.
“Nice to meet you,” he said. Then, obviously realizing Grace wanted him gone, said, “I need to go and find Duncan.”
Grace smiled regally at him. “I just left him. He’s in the conservatory discussing grain futures with my husband.”
“Thanks,” Ben said, and strode off as though he couldn’t wait to get the inside scoop on the grain business.
When he was out of sight, her future mother-in-law stepped closer. “Ashley,” Grace said, smiling her most winning smile, “I have such a favor to ask of you. This is Tasmine.”
The blonde smiled, a smile that would make an orthodontist proud, so straight and white were her teeth. “Like Jasmine, with a T.”
“Got it.”
“Tasmine is a cousin of Eric’s and it would mean so much to our family if you would consider inviting her to be a bridesmaid. She’s been a bridesmaid at quite a few other weddings and she’s a very experienced planner.”
“Wow,” Ashley said, feeling completely trapped, as Grace must’ve known she’d feel when she made the request right in front of Blondie. “I’ve already chosen my bridesmaids.”
“Well, if you could squeeze in one more, I so hope you’ll consider including Tasmine.” She smiled at the pair of them as though it were done deal. “Now, I’ll leave you two to get acquainted.”
After Grace moved away, there was a moment’s awkward silence. Tasmine broke it. “I’m sorry, I know Grace can be a little forceful, but I’d really love to be involved if I could be of any help at all. Eric and I used to play together when we were little, and it would mean a lot to me to be a part of his wedding.”
“I’m not trying to be rude, but I’ve known Eric for more than ten years and he’s never mentioned you.”
Tasmine didn’t seem insulted. Or even surprised. She laughed. “Eric was always more memorable than I was, even when he was a little boy. My family moved away when I was eleven, but you never really forget your first crush.”
Behind Tasmine she saw Ben sip something that looked like a gin and tonic while he chatted politely with Millicent. “No, you never do forget your first.”
“Well, what do you think? Am I a contender?”
If nothing else, she liked Tasmine’s clear communication, so she tried some of her own. “How many times have you been a bridesmaid?”
The woman tilted her head as though thinking deeply. “Ten. No, eleven.”
“Wow, you really are experienced. So, would you be any good at, say, running interference between me and my future mother-in-law?”
“See, here’s what’s so great about me as a bridesmaid. I can be the one who tells Grace to,” she paused for a second to glance right and left and then lowered her voice, “let’s say, back off, if she gets a little too involved in the planning.”
“You could do that?”
“Absolutely. I feel that it is the job of the bridesmaid to make certain that the bride’s life runs smoothly up to and including the wedding day. I don’t have to be part of Charles and Grace’s immediate family after the wedding, but you do. So, it makes perfect sense for me to be the bad guy, assuming of course that a bad guy is necessary.”
“How many times have you had to play bad guy in one of your weddings?”
Those big blue eyes twinkled at her. “Ten. No, eleven.”
Ashley couldn’t help but laugh. “You kind of sound like the perfect bridesmaid.” Whitney and Sienna had been happy to be asked, but they’d never offered their services as guardians. She kind of liked the notion. “What else would you do?” She had never thought before of bridesmaids as being anything but her closest friends who got to stand up with her on the big day. The idea of a bridesmaid who actually did something useful was novel and kind of exciting.
“Oh, lots of things. At the last wedding where I was a bridesmaid, we had a lot of people with food allergies. It was a strangely allergic family. I took on the job of liaising with the caterer. Let’s see, I also coordinated all the bridesmaids’ schedules so that we could shop for bridesmaid dresses together, and then I made sure that the dresses were all finished on time and all delivered to the correct bridesmaids. I also organized the hen night.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder. “As you can see, I like to organize things. To me it’s not work, it’s fun.”
As much as it irked Ashley that Grace had put her in such an awkward position by asking her to include Tasmine in the wedding party right in front of her, she had to admit Eric’s childhood playmate sounded like a dream bridesmaid. “You’re not one of those people who comes across as really nice and then turns psycho are you?”
“I don’t think so. I could give you the phone numbers of some of the brides I’ve stood up for, I’m sure they’d vouch for me.” Then her eyes lit up. “Oh, there’s Eric. I haven’t seen him in so long. Do you mind if I go and say, ‘Hi.’?”
Chapter Eight
BEN WAS ACCUSTOMED TO FANTASY. He worked in the movie business and walked on sets all the time . But he’d rarely experienced such a feeling of unreality as he did at Ashley Carnarvon’s engagement party. He couldn’t put his finger on why, but the entire event felt staged. More than simply staged in the sense of hiring a caterer to prepare foods no one usually ate, or dressing in uncomfortable clothes, or putting a load of candles up in the trees. There was an undercurrent of unreality. The whole thing fascinated him, and so he stayed longer than he’d planned. Also, he realized he’d been working too hard lately with too few breaks and it was probably good for him to mix with other humans.
He chatted with Millicent over a drink, and then, since Duncan had last been seen in the conservatory, followed a line of twinkling lights around a secluded path. He’d made an appearance tonight mostly out of respect for Duncan and Millicent Carnarvon who had been nice enough to let him stay on the property and hide out. He also wanted to cheer Ashley on and get an idea of the man she was marrying.
He entered the conservatory and was struck, as always in such places, by the smell of wet earth. As soon as he got all the way inside, his skin felt sticky with humidity. There was no one in there as far as he could tell. He wondered if Grace Carnarvon had told him he’d find Duncan in the conservatory just to get rid of him. But, as soon as he took a couple of steps inside, skirting around a profusion of blooming orchids, he heard low male voices and recognized one of them as Duncan’s. Grain futures was a serious business, he realized, as he heard the note of fierceness in Duncan’s tone. Then he made out the words a
nd frowned.
“Judge Bailey had better drop all charges—and completely—or this deal is off.”
“I can assure you that all the arrangements have been made. You’ve got absolutely nothing to worry about.”
“This is my family. Nobody messes with my family.”
A hint of irritation entered the voice of the other man, whom he assumed was Charles Van Hoffendam. “She’d never have achieved a match like this if it weren’t for these extraordinary circumstances. Trust me, nobody messes with my family either. This is a case of you and me helping each other and our families. Let’s be honest here, we’ll both profit.”
There was silence for a moment. Ben stood completely still, knowing he’d walked in on something that was nothing to do with the stock markets and not quite knowing how to leave without drawing attention to himself. He heard a scraping sound that he thought might be one of the men, Duncan probably, adjusting the location of a flowerpot. Neither Duncan nor Millicent spent much time in this conservatory as far as he could see. It seemed like they hired someone to potter around with their orchids and their exotic plants just as they hired people to do all the other mundane tasks in their lives. He felt that Duncan was moving the pot around to give himself something to do. At last Duncan said, “All right. I trust you to take care of this efficiently and quietly. And that there will be no further incidents in the future.”
“Of course.”
“What about the papers? The media?”
“Don’t you worry about that. It’s being taken care of.”
In the dim light he saw the men shake hands. “Well, I suppose we’d better get back to our guests. You know, we’ve offered to pay for this wedding. Melody is a very nice woman and of course she wants to do the right thing for her daughter, but, well, we have a quality to the way we do things. Our guests, some of whom are my business associates, have certain standards that must be upheld.”
