Private Relations

by Nancy Warren

  “Not as sucky a cliché as Peter pulled. The old leaving the bride at the altar thing is getting stale.”

  In spite of her misery, Kit laughed. Trust Piper to expect a trendier breakup. “You’re right. He should have sent me a bouquet of dead roses with a drop dead-o-gram.”

  “Or he could have had his matching tattoo removed.”

  “We never had tattoos.”

  “You were smart. Hurts like hell when you get them lasered off.” Piper seemed to wince.

  “I guess.”

  “You know, one reason we’re still friends is you never remind me that you warned me not to get Rock’s name tattooed on my ass. Okay. This is as good a segue as any. I sort of thought I was helping you get Peter out of your skin. Did it help at all? Seeing him again? Having a chance to talk about stuff?”

  “I don’t know. I feel really churned up right now. He made me so mad. He showed me a picture of me you sent him,” she glared at Piper. “Which you never told me you’d done.”

  “Bastard. I wanted him to see what he was missing.” She glanced up and opened her eyes wide. “He still has it?”

  “He keeps it in his wallet.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Sick. I tried to tear it up, but he wouldn’t let me.” She let out a breath. “So he showed me this picture and started apologizing again. I looked down at that picture of myself and suddenly it was like I was there again, you know? With the smell of roses all around me and two hundred guests all dressed up waiting for ‘Here Comes the Bride.’”

  “Instead, they got ‘There Goes the Groom.’”

  “Yeah. And I lost it. I told him what it was like. The humiliation. And you know what he said?” Her voice rose but she couldn’t seem to stop it.

  “What?”

  “He said he hated picking boutonnieres.”

  The phone on Piper’s desk rang but she ignored it.

  “You made him pick boutonnieres?”

  “Of course I did. They were for the groomsmen. I wanted them to be perfect. I wanted everything to be perfect.”

  “He said he didn’t show up because of some friggin’ carnation for his lapel?”

  “Rosebud. Cream, white or oyster. With a choice of greenery.” She shook her head. “No. That’s not why he left. He said he never saw me because I was planning the wedding and…oh, it’s stupid.”

  Piper slid off the desk and came to sit beside Kit. “Maybe he was trying to tell you something important.”

  “Piper,” she warned, “if you quote anyone who appears on daytime television…”

  “No. I’m not going to.” She grinned slyly. “But I did read this book where this—I don’t know—psychologist or psychiatrist or something said that you should say what you mean and mean what you say.”

  “That should change the future of self-help as we know it.”

  “No, but listen. If Peter was trying to say what he meant, you know, deep down, that serious stuff that guys can never say…maybe he freaked because of you planning the wedding so perfectly.”

  Kit got up and stalked across the room. “What are you implying? If we’d taken the bus to city hall some lunch hour that we’d be celebrating our leather anniversary?”

  “Leather anniversary?”

  Kit turned. “The third wedding anniversary. The traditional gift is leather. The modern equivalent is crystal or glass.”

  “You sure know a lot of weird facts.” Piper shifted on the couch. “But the point is that Peter was trying to tell you why he cut and ran.”

  “If he didn’t want to marry me because I wanted the boutonnieres to be perfect, then he didn’t deserve me.”

  “Of course he didn’t deserve you.” Piper drew a noisy breath, as if she had something difficult to say. “But you can get a little carried away sometimes.”

  Kit blinked at her.

  Piper stared back steadily. “Life isn’t perfect, Kit. I’ve screwed up enough of mine to know that. You know what I think?”

  “That I should say what I mean and mean what I say?”

  “Yes. But besides that, I think your parents’ divorce screwed you up more than you ever let on. You had this perfect life and then suddenly it blasted apart. It’s like your mom planned this perfect life and it blew up on her, so you are determined to do a better job so life can’t blow up in your face.”

  “But it always does.”

  “I read in this book that we either copy our parents’ marriage because that’s how we learned about marriage or we deliberately do something different. So my theory about you is that you wanted the perfect family life without the mistakes your parents made. You planned the wedding so perfectly, you forgot about what Peter wanted.”

  Kit felt a little sick, as though there wasn’t enough air in the room. If there’d been a window down here, she’d have opened it. “You’re my best friend. How can you blame me for my fiancé leaving me at the altar?”

  “I don’t blame you. I’m saying, maybe Peter’s trying to tell you something important.”

  “You think I try too hard.”

  “It’s a pattern. It’s the same with your job. Nobody does better promotions than you. Nobody in town has your imagination and flair. But sometimes you go a teensy bit overboard.”

  “The crocodiles,” she breathed.

  “Kind of a metaphor for your life.”

  “I don’t believe in dwelling on the negative things in my past.”

  “How can you learn from mistakes if you ignore them?”

  “Peter was the biggest mistake I ever made.”

  “Then learn from him.”

  Kit stared blindly at her friend for a moment. “I have to go.”

  “Call me.”

  She flapped her hand behind her, which she hoped Piper would take as a possible yes, but maybe not. She didn’t think she could handle any more pop psychology today.

  She paid no attention to where she was going, following the stream of traffic to the subway on Lexington Avenue. She made her way home on autopilot and stumbled into her apartment. She’d had barely any sleep in the last two days; that must be why she felt so peculiar.

  She got out her vitamins. The special health food store brand for active women, the extra B complex, and the calcium because she was already protecting her bones from osteoporosis.

  She wasn’t hungry, but she felt she needed something comforting, so she brewed some tea and put it in a pretty china mug.

  Then she sat down in her easy chair in her small living room. No music, no TV, no distractions of any kind. And she started thinking.

  Was Piper right? Had Peter been trying to tell her that she’d scared him away with her over-the-top wedding plans?

  So, he carried her wedding-day picture around and talked a good line about being sorry. His behavior was still inexcusable.

  Now he was telling her he loved her?

  What kind of man walked away from the woman he loved?

  What kind of woman was so obsessed with perfection that she drove her man away?

  Suddenly a mental image flashed across her mind of her as a child. She was trying to tell her mother about some minor accomplishment at school. She was having milk and cookies and in her excitement was waving the cookie around. Between reminding her not to chew with her mouth open and wiping up the crumbs, her mother had barely heard a word she’d said.

  At least her mom had been married for fifteen years before she drove Kit’s father away. Kit hadn’t even made it through the wedding ceremony.

  Okay, so Peter had done a terrible, unforgivable thing. But, for the first time in three years, she realized that she’d played a role in the disaster of her wedding.

  Was Piper right? Did she keep setting herself up?

  She reviewed some of her recent promotions. She was edgy, that’s all, she thought. People loved her promotions. But there was always that feeling that she teetered on the edge of disaster.

  15

  “I HOPE YOU ENJOYED your stay here at
Hush, Mr. Garson,” the front desk receptionist said to him when he turned in his keycard. There was a little smile that went with the comment—the sort that suggested he’d be a damned fool or a monk in training if he didn’t have a great time at Hush.

  “One of the best weekends of my life,” he assured her, startled to realize that was the truth. He’d wasted too many weekends and weekdays and years without Kit. Starting this weekend, he had really hoped he could convince her that he deserved a second chance.

  Naturally, the woman he wished to beg the second chance from was nowhere near the vicinity of the front desk.

  “Our limousine is available to take you anywhere in the city,” the desk clerk said.

  “Thanks. I may take you up on it, but I have something to do first.”

  “Certainly, sir. Let me know when you’re ready to leave and I’ll let the driver know.”

  He hooked his overnight bag over his shoulder and went back to the elevator. He wanted to say goodbye properly. He hadn’t done such a smooth job of it earlier. Maybe Kit was in her office.

  When he got to the lower level, though, it was pretty quiet. He walked by Kit’s office, but the lights were dimmed, her computer off. Nobody home.

  He was about to head back to the lobby when a female voice said, “Well, well. There’s a face from the past.”

  He turned and there was Piper, as gorgeous and sultry as ever. She was looking at him quizzically. Friend or foe? He couldn’t tell which she was right now.

  He decided to go on the assumption that she was his friend, until she kicked him in the balls or in some other very direct way let him know she was the opposite. He smiled broadly. “Hey, Piper. Looking good.”

  She let him approach, let him kiss her cheek and refrained from kicking him. So far so good.

  “Thanks for helping me get some time with Kit this weekend.”

  “As I told Kit, when she chewed out my ass for the same thing, I couldn’t have done anything if your fantasy hadn’t spoken to her.” Piper regarded him. “You got to her.”

  “Yeah. I know.” He puffed his cheeks and blew out his frustration. “But not enough for her to give me another chance at being part of her life.”

  “What did you expect?”

  He dragged a hand through his hair. “Honestly? I expected closure. And then I saw her again.”

  “And?”

  He glanced at Piper. She looked truly interested. “And I felt like somebody had let the air out of my lungs. She’s amazing, incredible, more beautiful than ever and—”

  “And you broke her heart.”

  “She pretends she’s over me.”

  “Of course she’s over you. Did you think she was going to sit by the phone for three years?” She laughed, but not unkindly. “But it doesn’t mean she doesn’t still have feelings for you.”

  “I’m ready now, in a way I wasn’t ready before. Kit is the love of my life, as corny as that sounds, but I guess I was too young to realize it.”

  “Poor timing.”

  “Yeah. The thing is, now that the weekend’s over, I don’t know what to do. She doesn’t want to see me anymore.”

  “Did she say so?”

  “Not in so many words, but the rejection was implied.”

  Piper turned. “Come on into my office.” She didn’t bother to see if he was following, but turned and walked with her model’s gait into a doorway farther down the hall.

  He followed and entered a comfortable but not exactly swank office.

  “You look surprised.”

  “I expected leopard skin rugs and a private martini bar,” he admitted.

  She laughed. “I keep all that stuff upstairs, for the paying guests. Down here, we work.”

  She settled herself in the chair behind her desk, loan officer-style, and he settled on a deep leather couch, which put him lower and at a definite disadvantage. He could stand up, but he had a feeling she enjoyed having the upper hand and right now he’d do anything for her cooperation, including looking up at her.

  “So,” she said, tossing her hair over her shoulder with one manicured finger, “you want to see Kit.”

  “Yes.” Not a real stretch there.

  “And she doesn’t want to see you.”

  “I don’t know that for sure. But it was implied.”

  Piper pondered the problem for a few moments then grinned and leaned forward. “She’ll see you if it’s about business.”

  “You think I should check into the hotel? I’ve already got an apartment.”

  “No, I don’t think you should check into the hotel. What good would that do? Kit’s not on the reservation desk. She’s not a chambermaid.”

  “Right. She’s in PR.”

  “Uh-huh.” She looked at him as though he were supposed to guess what was coming next. He couldn’t so she went on. “And Kit does all our in-house special events.”

  “Right.”

  “What is your new job?”

  “I’m sales director for a New-York-based international marketing firm.”

  “And, probably the sales director for an international marketing firm might want to put on—oh, I don’t know—some kind of big event to mark his arrival? Maybe a customer appreciation evening, or a launch of some product?” She leaned forward a little more. “You see where I’m going with this?”

  “You think I should create an event so I can use the services of Hush?”

  She smiled. “Seems like a swell idea to me.”

  “And the fact that your hotel would get a nice bit of business never crossed your mind.”

  “Let’s call it a win-win situation.”

  “You don’t think that’s a little manipulative?”

  She opened her eyes wide. “More manipulative than entering a contest to see your former fiancée?”

  He had to grin. “An event that would introduce me to a lot of movers and shakers. Kind of a splashy do that would be totally different from the usual. It’s not a bad idea. I’ll think about it.”

  He rose. She stood and walked around her desk to join him. “Here,” she said and handed him a folder with the Hush logo on it. “This outlines some of the corporate services we offer.”

  He had to hand it to her. She didn’t miss a trick. “Thanks. I hope to see you soon.”

  “I hope so, too, Peter.” And impulsively, she leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “You look way better than you deserve to look.”

  He grinned back at her. “So do you.”

  “LOOK, IF WE’RE celebrating crystal, I want everything crystal,” Kit insisted. “I want this ballroom to look like the palace at Versailles. Mirrors on every wall, Waterford chandeliers—” she calculated rapidly “—let’s say thirty.”

  “But the weight. I’m not sure…”

  “Figure it out. See what we need to do to support them.”

  She was typing notes into her PalmPilot. Cristal Champagne? Too obvious? Too expensive for the client’s budget? Still, when you unveiled a new romance collection of stemware, including an erotic collection designed for lovers and newlyweds, where else would you host the product launch but at Hush?

  She fingered a heavy crystal goblet with twining naked figures around the stem and thought suddenly of her and Peter sipping champagne in the jetted tub. She missed him with an ache that pierced her.

  Ridiculous. It was a weekend of sex with a man who needed to know he could be a casual sex buddy in a city where such relationships were commonplace, but he could never be a serious part of her life.

  He loved her, he’d said. She’d fallen for that line once before and look where she’d ended up.

  She turned and went back to her notes. Champagne in a crystal fountain. Was there such a thing? There must be, and if it existed, she’d find it; everything in this room was going to be crystal if she could rent, buy, borrow or invent it, from the serving trays to the lights, to huge vases they’d fill with flowers. She’d asked the florist to try and combine some of the crystal pieces into th
e arrangements themselves. He’d grumbled, as usual, but she knew he’d come through for her. She was concocting a laser light show that would be an artistic representation of the prism effects of crystal. It was expensive, and a little dicey in this ballroom, but it would have a great wow factor.

  Her cell phone rang.

  She smiled and answered, “Kit Prestcott.”

  “I miss you.”

  The arrogance of the man. No “Hi, it’s Peter Garson,” just “I miss you,” as though she’d know exactly who it was from the sound of his voice. Which, of course, she did. She wasn’t childish enough to play games and pretend not to know who was on the phone, even though she was tempted.

  “What can I do for you, Peter?”

  “Have dinner with me.”

  “Sorry, I can’t. I’m busy.”

  “I haven’t said what night yet.”

  “Oh,” she held the phone with her chin against her shoulder so she could gesture to the hotel maintenance guys trying to figure out how to hang thirty chandeliers. “I want them in three rows,” she yelled up at the ceiling, her arms gesturing to illustrate approximately where.

  “Too heavy,” Mario, the foreman, yelled down at her. “They’ll fall and break.” He was so negative. Honestly.

  “Experiment with something that doesn’t break.”

  She reshuffled the phone and went back to Peter. “Sorry, I’m up to my neck here.”

  “Would lunch be better?”

  She stood there, wanting to say yes, in the same way she wanted to believe in him again, but knowing she couldn’t. “I’m pretty busy this month. Why don’t I call you when I have some time?”

  There was a pause. Then he said, “The thing is, it’s business.”

  “Business?”

  “Yes. I want to plan an event at Hush.”

  Suspicion had her frowning into her phone—something she never did. “What sort of event?”

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about. I want a—spectacle, a party, a—I don’t know, a shindig—that will introduce our services to prospective clients in a memorable way.”