Seduced by Sunday

by Catherine Bybee

  “It’s not awful, and not abnormal,” Shannon pointed out.

  “I’ve spent so much time on the island I’ve forgotten how to foster friendships. How can Alonzo love that? I’m going to be a terrible wife.”

  “You’re not on the island now,” Meg reminded her. “And I’m right here. You haven’t forgotten how to foster anything. Now unless you’re letting something else fester inside of you that’s an issue, let’s find you the perfect dress.” Meg grabbed at one of the photo albums and pointed to the first slim-fitted strapless job she saw. “I think you’d look amazing in something like this.”

  Gabi still wasn’t convinced. She glanced across the room at the picture and offered a pout.

  Meg looked back at the photo album. “Didn’t your mother tell you that your face would stick that way if you kept it up?”

  When Gabi’s laugh met Meg’s ears, she knew she’d broken through the nervous bride’s fears.

  The thing was, Meg was still nervous for her new friend. Gabi might have told her that Alonzo made up for his assholiness the last night on the island, but the man had yet to pass her test. Now that she was back home, her test was rapidly moving forward. When Sam’s background check, along with her own, didn’t cut the man some slack . . . Meg would turn on the anti-Alonzo game full force.

  Gabi fell in love with the first designer they visited. His name was Marco and he catered to money. Since Val promised her the wedding of her dreams . . . she wasn’t thinking of the price tag on Marco’s designs. What Gabi didn’t know was that with every gown she put on, Meg was snapping a picture and chatting with Val via text.

  Sooooo, how much did you want to spend on your sister’s wedding gown?

  It’s a dress. How much could it possibly cost? Val, the poor guy had no idea.

  Marco wore something Bond would be fond of, with the exception of the purple fuzzy tie. “Marco, hon . . . where is the ballpark of that gown?” Gabi was wearing a strapless that had a princess waist and the most spectacular set of pearls along the bodice that even Meg, who didn’t know a pearl from a glass bead, was impressed with.

  “We’re talking price, Margaret?”

  The man liked full names. Telling him to call her Meg was like him calling the pope Dad. “Yeah.”

  “Economical . . . very economical.”

  Yeah, right. “Economical for Kate Middleton or Honey Boo Boo?”

  Marco was in the process of pulling Gabi’s breasts into submission, with his full hands, and tossed his head back with laughter. “Oh, dear. What is wrong with a country that let’s that . . . thing . . . on the television?” Marco placed his hands on Gabi’s waist and turned her toward the three-way mirror. “Lovely.” He slid his hand down Gabi’s waist as if he had the right and fluffed out the train. “I do think we should look at sleeker gowns. Less fussy, but you see how well this style fits the tone of your skin.”

  “All the dresses are white.”

  Marco tolerated Meg, but did so with a thin grin. “Bite your tongue. I have nothing white. Every shade is unique.”

  “I think it’s beautiful.” Gabi turned in the mirror to admire the beading up the back.

  “Marco . . . what are we talking . . . six figures? Five, four?”

  “Four? Goodness, I’m not Kmart.”

  Just what Meg thought. “So, six?”

  “No. I did say it was economical.”

  “Even after taxes?”

  Marco held no shame as he moved around Gabi, pulling and tugging. “This would need to be taken in here.”

  “Marco?”

  He waved her off.

  Meg sat in a plush white leather couch and watched as Gabi allowed Marco to remove every snap. All zillion of them.

  Meg sent the picture of the dress, Gabi in it, to Val. Stab a guess at the cost of this number.

  Is that Gabi?

  She’s stunning. Guess the price, moneybags.

  There was a delay with dot dot dot as her response. It doesn’t matter. My sister deserves whatever she wants.

  So I should tell her that a hundred grand for a dress she will wear once . . . for only part of one day, is good?

  Meg found a certain satisfaction in seeing dot dot dot blink on her screen for several seconds. Yes, Val was a giving, considerate person. But she didn’t think he was that far gone.

  The dot dot dot went on for a while, so Meg sweetened the pot. A veil, shoes, and jewelry are next, moneybags. Choose your words wisely.

  Dot dot dot . . .

  Divert.

  Nice word. “Gabi . . . hon, maybe we should see something with less beading. I can’t imagine that will wear well in the heat of the Keys.”

  Marco removed two gowns from his collection while Gabi slid behind the drape to remove the dress.

  “Marco?” Meg waved him over. “I work with a lot of brides, but let’s keep this one perfect with less cash, shall we?”

  Marco lifted a manicured, and if Meg had to testify the fact, painted, brow in the air. “Shannon said as much.”

  “Most of my brides can afford that little number with all the trimmings.” She pointed to the nearly six-figure dress. “Gabi will be walked down the aisle on her brother’s arm, not her father’s.” Not to mention that she’d be meeting a groom Meg had little faith in her keeping. But she kept that part unsaid.

  Marco removed one of the two gowns he had in his hands and found another. “Gabriella . . . we must try this. I think it will be perfect.”

  Meg tapped into her phone as Gabi walked out for the second sample. You owe me.

  Dot dot dot . . .

  Meg laughed and tossed her phone aside. “I like that one.”

  Samantha Harrison was what Meg referred to as a vertically challenged, feisty redhead that oozed poise and money as if she were born to it. In truth she was, but her role as wife, mother, and duchess polished what she’d been born with and made her a tour de force.

  Alliance was her baby. She didn’t need the money the business earned her any longer, but she kept the machine running for many different reasons. The least of which was she found her own husband through the service and needed two hands to count the successful marriages she or her employees had arranged in the time she’d been in business. If Meg had to guess, Sam enjoyed empowering women, both through the temporary marriages and the wealth it offered said women, and in working for them to push ahead in life. Meg knew her life had done a 180 when she’d gone to work for the lady.

  Combating her height with four-inch heels, Sam still had to reach over her head, on her tiptoes, to touch the coffee beans tucked on a top shelf in Meg’s kitchen . . . which was where Meg found her boss when she and Gabi returned from Marco’s.

  “Oh, good Lord, woman. Let me get that for you.”

  “I don’t know why you keep the coffee on the top shelf.”

  Meg pulled the bag of some of Colombia’s best off the top shelf and poured it into her grinder. “If it’s on the bottom shelf, I’ll make, pour, make more . . . and not sleep all night. Reaching reminds me to stop drinking the stuff.”

  Sam shook her head, leaned against the counter, and focused on Gabi. “You must be Miss Masini.”

  Gabi moved forward and shook Sam’s hand. “Gabi, please.”

  Meg made the introductions while she made a pot of coffee.

  “I hope you don’t mind me invading,” Sam told them.

  “It’s your house,” Meg reminded her boss. Not that Sam ever took advantage of the fact that Meg lived there for nearly nothing.

  Sam moved from the kitchen into the office off the living room. “I was searching the mainframe for a program I know I used at one point.”

  Sam sat behind the massive computer that held the data files and contacts of their many clients through the years. The security software included voice recognition and retina mapping.

  Meg thought it was overkill until she gripped the magnitude of the information inside the guts of Sam’s files.

  Standing behind her bo
ss, and aware that Gabi stood close by, she asked, “What program are you trying to find? Maybe I can help.”

  Sam cleared her throat and kept clicking around. “Income-to-debt program. It helped me crunch numbers for businesses I know very little about.”

  “I’m pretty good with numbers,” Gabi said from the doorway.

  Sam kept clicking. “I’m talking gross income from reported profit, to manufacturing cost and client expenditure. Complicated stuff that I’d rather not have my husband’s accountant look into.”

  “Yeah, numbers. My brother called me a mathematical savant growing up. It took me some time to realize he was putting me down. Then he realized it wasn’t a bad thing when he went into business.”

  Sam slowly turned in her chair at the same time Meg realized she was staring at Gabi.

  Sam folded one leg over the other and sat back. “OK. Let’s say I have an eight million six hundred and fifty thousand dollar loan on a house at an interest rate of four and a half percent . . . what are my monthly payments?”

  Gabi tapped her fingers in the air as if it held a calculator. “Fifteen-or thirty-year loan?”

  “Fifteen,” Meg said.

  “Thirty,” Sam managed at the same time.

  Gabi rolled her eyes. “Sixty-six thousand one hundred seventy two, rounded up for the fifteen and . . .” she paused. “Forty-three eight hundred and twenty-eight per month for thirty years.” She pushed away from the wall. “But the national average right now is what? Two and three-quarter percent . . . a little higher, actually. Let’s say two point seven nine. That would be about thirty-five thousand five hundred a month. Rounded up.”

  Meg didn’t stop staring. “Is she right?”

  Instead of answering, Sam twisted in her chair and started typing numbers into the calculator sitting on the desk. “Holy crap.”

  A peep from the kitchen diverted Gabi’s attention. “How do you like your coffee, Samantha?”

  “With cream.”

  Gabi turned from the room and slid away.

  “She was right, wasn’t she?”

  “Wow.”

  “I guess she can help you crunch numbers,” Meg said.

  “On her man?”

  Meg hadn’t considered that. “Keep it generic. Might be best for her to discover what this guy is on her own anyway.”

  Sam swiveled toward the computer. “I don’t like what I’m seeing. I would have passed up his application long before now if he were looking at us to hook him up.”

  “Anything concrete?”

  “That’s what I’m working on.”

  Meg patted Sam on the back. “Thanks. She needs us looking out for her.”

  Gabi walked in the room with two cups of coffee in her hand and sat beside the desk. “Here you go.”

  Gabi tipped the cup back and sipped.

  “What?” Meg managed. “None for me?”

  Gabi laughed. “You said you avoided coffee to sleep at night.”

  Meg shook her head. “I said I tried to avoid it.”

  The women laughed, and when Meg returned the conversation was already over her head. Sam read off a notepad and scribbled numbers in her margins. “So if the profit potential for the warehouse is twenty thousand per, let’s say one thousand square feet of operating space. And the cost to produce the product is four grand, that’s labor, supplies, the basics, there’s a substantial profit.”

  “Depending on the space, but yeah. Are you considering mortgage, insurance, taxes?”

  Sam shook her head. “That’s what I needed the program for. Seems to me this prospective client is spending a lot more than he can possibly make, and I can’t find an additional source of income.”

  “Family money?”

  “Can’t find it. But maybe I have something wrong. At first glance the income is several million a year, but I feel I’m missing something.”

  While Sam and Gabi pushed their heads together, Meg did something she rarely did. She left the office and called a boy.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A charge of excitement fueled Val’s energy level when he saw Meg’s number light up his cell phone. “Hi,” he answered with a smile splashed over his face. He felt like a kid again, even with all the stress in his day.

  “Hey, Moneybags.”

  “Hello, Margaret.”

  She laughed. “One of these days I’ll have to give you permission to use Meg.”

  Val moved away from the video monitors he was watching and leaned against one of the floor-to-ceiling windows. “Perhaps you will, cara, but I might not use it.” Her laughter was contagious. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m coughing at night, but other than that, perfect.”

  “Have you seen your specialist?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  Val lost his grin. “The doctor told you to find one.”

  “I will . . .”

  “When?” He wasn’t going to let this go. The image of her gasping for air would haunt him for some time.

  “Since when did you become my mother hen?”

  He sighed, could see the hair rising on the back of her neck if he squinted hard enough. “Please, Margaret. Next time you might not be so lucky.”

  “I’ve made a couple of calls, Val. There are channels one has to go through so the insurance company pays the bill.”

  The thought of her waiting for care because of an insurance company angered him. “Have the specialist bill you.”

  “Not all of us own an island, Moneybags.”

  “I’ll pay.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I can pay my own medical bills.”

  Correction: she could pay her copayments so long as the insurance company approved of the doctor. He knew the drill. He also knew that waiting for specialists sometimes resulted in delayed care that left people sicker than they should be. His head scrambled for a way to take care of her without pissing her off.

  Tightrope, that.

  “You’ll be happy to know your sister skipped the six-figure dress.” Margaret changed the subject with skill.

  “Was it really that much?”

  “Stupid, huh?”

  “Gabi is a practical girl. I doubt she would have said yes.”

  “A lot you know, women tend to get emotional about the outfit they’re getting married in.”

  “Had I known you were going to introduce her to designers offering hundred-thousand-dollar gowns . . .”

  She paused. “Yeah? You would have done what?”

  He had to admit, Margaret calling his bluff made him smile. “I would have told her to enjoy and be sensible.”

  “Then I should tell her to go with her first choice?”

  This was a test . . . the kind a woman placed on a man that determined their noble words versus their actions. Somehow, making both work in unison with Margaret was something he needed to do. Though he wouldn’t want his sister spending that kind of money on a dress, he wouldn’t deny her, either. “My sister deserves the best. She’s only going to marry once.”

  “Well . . .” Margaret released a sigh into the phone as if in disagreement. “Lucky for you, she liked the less expensive gown. You’re off the hook, Moneybags. I’ll be sure and help her pick out expensive accessories to make up for the dress.”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  He heard Margaret cough away from the phone a couple of times, bringing her health into question before she deflected again. “Anything new from the mystery photographer?”

  Without any new leads, or any new random photographs making their way into his in-box, frustration sat on the edges of Val’s nerves. “What do you know about spam e-mail?”

  “It’s annoying.”

  “There’s that . . . but do you have any idea how spammers find you, send you e-mail with your name and personal information?”

  “The piano is my instrument of choice, not a keyboard.”

  Val shook his head. “Me either. Rick and his friends have traced the e-mails as far a
s the Netherlands. Well, one of the e-mails that far, the other diverted to Japan.”

  “So we know nothing.”

  “Nothing. And nothing new is showing up on this end.” He rubbed the space between his eyes, hoping to ease his tension.

  “I know this isn’t going to come out right, but that’s not what I wanted to hear.”

  “I hear you, cara. If everything is silent . . . how do we know our photographer will keep quiet? What information does he have? How or when will he use it?”

  “Blackmail.”

  Exactly his thoughts. “I hope we’re wrong.”

  “I know Rick and his colleagues, even if the trail is cold, there’s still a trail. It might take time, but he’ll find the person behind it . . . eventually.”

  After two days with Rick Evans, Val knew the man was a bloodhound. Rick had nothing to gain by saving Val’s ass, but was deeply invested in his wife’s family. “Something will break.”

  “I hate that the person who took the pictures is in control.”

  Precisely. “If money is the drive, we would have heard something already . . . if in fact the photographer had something.”

  “What else could a blackmailer want other than money? None of us have a criminal record to uncover and extort.”

  “Even if one of us did, the end result would be the same.”

  “Blackmail.”

  “Yes.”

  “Which puts us right back at the beginning and the photographer has the control.” The conversation was frustrating, even to his ears. “What are you wearing?” The art of distraction took a lot with Margaret. And he didn’t want to discuss what neither of them could control any longer.

  “W-what? Wearing?”

  “Yes, bella, the clothes on your back. What are you wearing?” He couldn’t imagine her shopping for wedding dresses in her pinup dresses and red lipstick. He knew much of that was for show.

  “Jeans and a cotton shirt,” she said with a chuckle. “What about you?”

  He opened his mouth only to have her cut him off.

  “Wait, let me guess. Suit . . . your jacket might be off, depending on where you are on the island.”