by Nancy Warren
Ted took her to Truffaut, a trendy bistro whose décor was heavily influenced by French cinema and California colors. The menu featured dishes like escargot with artichoke, but also offered more traditional fare, which was why Ted liked it.
“Thank for you for suggesting a dinner for the two of us. I feel like I’ve barely seen you with your crazy work schedule and the wedding madness,” she said as they walked in holding hands.
Ted turned heads. She doubted he even knew it, but at 6’3 with his dark good looks and a commanding air about him, no doubt bred in the Carnarvon genes over the centuries, people noticed her fiancé. She felt good on his arm, safe. Maybe he wasn’t the most exciting man she’d ever known, but he loved her. He understood her family pressures because he had so many of his own. She believed they would help each other, form a bond and build their own family.
She’d been both surprised and delighted when Ted suggested a dinner only for the two of them. In the midst of all the black tie and watch-your-language-and-your-step events, this evening was an oasis where they could spend some time with no one but the two of them. With only three weeks to go before the wedding, and his busy work schedule, this would be one of the last times she’d really have him alone before they were married.
“I thought we should spend some time alone before we get swept up in the craziness,” he agreed.
She snuggled against his arm. She was in good hands with a man who thought of everything. “You’re so smart.”
He smiled down at her. “Smart enough to marry you.”
The waitress seated them at one of the best tables, but Kate was used to that. Ted was one of those people who always got good tables. It was as though an invisible crier marched ahead of him everywhere announcing his status.
When they were seated, he pulled out his reading glasses to choose a bottle of wine. She perused the menu, but, in spite of her mother and the dress designer telling her to eat, she wasn’t very hungry. Stress stomach was the culprit. She’d suffered from it on and off since college. When she was stressed her stomach burned and she didn’t feel like eating. She was the fundraising coordinator for the after school program for at-risk girls, and money was tight. On top of writing grant proposals and trying to find funding to keep the lights on, she suffered the guilt of knowing the cost of her wedding dress could fund the entire program for several months.
She loved those girls, and while the salary wasn’t much, at least it gave her enough to pay her rent and eat. Although she was from a wealthy family, Kate herself didn’t have money. Her father had died when she was a teenager, suffering a heart attack on the golf course. Fortunately, he’d left her mother well provided with a trust fund, and he’d already set aside money for Kate’s education. After college ended, she was on her own. Fortunately, Kate could manage money better than her mom and she had a small nest egg saved as well as a paid-off car.
One of their major funders had been rethinking their commitment to the program. She was working to keep their enthusiasm high as well as scrambling for other funding just in case. Plus, there was the stress of getting married. She’d never realized how much was involved in a wedding. As soon as the ceremony was over and she and Ted were relaxing on their honeymoon, everything would be fine.
She glanced up at Ted. Kate had no plans to divorce. This was it for her. There were moments when she wondered how you could possibly know what someone would be like twenty or thirty or fifty years hence. Then he turned his attention on her and reached for her hand. “What do you think? Found anything that looks good?”
She thought maybe soup and salad. The burning was too uncomfortable for more. It was the prenup of course. She’d had two appointments today. First, she’d been invited to visit the law firm that handled Ted’s family’s business and sign the prenup that her family’s lawyer had already approved. Then she’d gone straight from there to her final wedding dress fitting. She understood intellectually that Ted and his family were worth a great deal of money and the lawyers had to protect the family assets. But it still felt as though something died inside her when she’d signed that cold, legal document setting out exactly what she’d receive in the event of divorce.
She wasn’t even married yet and already they’d prepared for divorce.
“The leek and potato soup looks good, and a spinach salad, I think.”
He glanced at her in concern. “That wouldn’t fill a sparrow.”
She decided to be honest. If you were planning a lifetime with a man you should be able to be honest. Not that she’d ever witnessed much of that in her own family but she firmly believed in the principle. “That prenup kind of upset me,” she admitted. “It’s like we’re talking about divorce before we’re even married.”
Ted put down the menu he’d been studying and removed his glasses so he could give her his full attention. “If it was only me marrying you I wouldn’t have consented. But I have a commitment to my family. I didn’t earn the assets, I merely manage them.”
“I know. But I’m not marrying you for your family assets.”
“And, since we’re never getting divorced, who cares? It’s a piece of paper.” He kissed her hand.
Okay, she was being foolish. Everything was going to be all right. Of course it was. They loved each other.
She glanced around the restaurant. It was a busy Friday and the place was packed. Tables of two catered to the romantic set like her and Ted. There were a few groups of couples dining together. Her attention was drawn to a table of young women laughing, a pitcher of margaritas on the table in front of them.
At the bar one couple seemed to be waiting for a table and beside them was a single guy drinking a beer.
When the waitress came for their order, Ted said, “The leek and potato soup and the spinach salad for the lady, and I’ll have the prime rib. Bring her soup to start, and I’ll have the foie gras as an appetizer.” He ordered a bottle of California Pinot Noir.
He tapped his fingertips against the tabletop while they waited as though he was impatient. The bottle of wine came and he tested it and pronounced it fine, then the waitress poured them each a glass.
She waited for a toast, in less than a month they’d be married, but Ted sipped his wine as though his mind was elsewhere. With an internal shrug she sampled her own wine.
He glanced around. “Busy tonight,” he said.
“Yes.” It was Friday night. She followed his gaze, noting the general atmosphere of fun and contentment that a good restaurant evokes. The couple at the bar rose and followed a waiter to a table. The lone guy watched and then he glanced at her and Ted and turned back to his beer. She wondered if he were waiting for a date. She hoped he hadn’t been stood up. She always wondered why people didn’t cancel. Why would you make a date with someone and not show up? It seemed so cruel.
Not that the man at the bar seemed like a man a woman would stand up. He was rugged, kind of tough looking. Hot in a slightly dangerous way. If she’d had to guess she’d have believed he was the kind of person who left a woman waiting, not the other way around.
Ted glanced at his watch. “Service is slow.”
His left foot was tapping, not just up and down, but back and forth like he was doing the Polka with one foot. Clearly he was stressed about the wedding too.
The starters arrived and she dipped her spoon into her soup.
Ted polished off a couple of slices of crusty bread with foie gras and finished off his glass of wine. He’d barely put it back on the table when a waiter appeared to top up his glass.
“Bernard said he’s stocked a bar fridge in his house in Hawaii for us and of course the housekeeper will remain in residence.”
Bernard was a Carnarvon family friend who had offered them the use of his Hawaiian estate for their honeymoon. She was thrilled, of course, but would have preferred something a little more intimate. “Do we really want a live-in housekeeper on our honeymoon?”
“His staff is well-trained. Don’t worry, we’ll have all the priva
cy we need as well as excellent meals and wine without having to go out for them. He’s being very generous.”
“I know.”
There was a pause and she felt the urge to fill it. “You’ll never believe what happened to me at the final dress fitting today,” she said.
She saw him jerk and flinch, probably the way she had when she’d been stuck by that pin. He pulled out his cell phone and she realized he’d had it in his pocket on vibrate. He glanced at call display and shook his head. “I’m sorry, honey. I have to take this.”
He answered discreetly. Mumbled a few things she could barely hear. Then clicked his phone off. “I’m sorry, darling. That’s Llewellen. The brewery deal is tanking. That’s a huge deal for our company. I’ve got to get back to the office for an emergency meeting.”
“What, now?”
He shrugged, slipping his phone back into his pocket. “The life of a junior partner. You’ll get used to it.” After getting his MBA from Harvard he’d joined the family firm. The first Edward Carnarvon had made fortunes in oil and lumber. Now the firm that still bore his name specialized in financing start up companies and real estate.
She doubted she’d ever get used to playing second fiddle in his life. “Can we finish our dinner first?”
“You go ahead. I’ll take care of the bill on my way out. Tell them to call you a cab when you’re done.”
He rose and came around the table to kiss her goodbye.
She put a hand on his arm, reaching for her purse. “Wait. I’ll come with you.”
An impatient expression crossed his face. “First, I don’t have time to drive you home. And second, you should eat. My mother often dines in restaurants alone.” He dropped his tone, snapped. “Don’t be needy.”
“But—“
“I’ll call you later. I’m sorry, but I have to go.” And he leaned down and kissed her swiftly before striding off.
Needy? She sat there feeling stunned. What was needy about not wanting to sit in a busy restaurant alone on a Friday night while your fiancé abandoned you for work? Ted wasn’t an emergency room surgeon needed to save lives. He wasn’t a security advisor that the president called when war was imminent. He was a junior partner rushing off for a brewery deal.
She wasn’t even hungry.
She pushed her soup away. Sipped her wine. She’d wait five minutes and then she’d call herself a damned cab.
The girls at the fun table were on their second pitcher of margaritas. She wished she were out with her girlfriends. She wished she could go over there, pull up a chair and tell them about her evening. They seemed like the kind of women who’d get her laughing and feeling better in no time. They’d commiserate over inconsiderate men, prenups and cursed wedding dresses. She’d never, ever push herself on a group of strangers like that but the fantasy was nice.
Of course, not one person in this busy restaurant was remotely interested in her. She could easily stay and eat her salad and enjoy people watching.
But she didn’t want to.
She had a million things to do, she wasn’t hungry, and she did not appreciate the man she was marrying in less than a month running out on her. Screw it. She was a grown woman. She’d leave if she wanted to.
“Did we both strike out tonight?” a male voice said as she was about to rise.
She glanced up. It was the lone guy from the bar. He’d come up so stealthily she hadn’t seen him move. He wore a cocky grin that combined both sympathy and devilry. She couldn’t help but return the smile. “Looks like it.”
And suddenly he was sitting in the chair recently vacated by Ted. “Can’t leave a beautiful woman sitting alone. Somebody might get the wrong idea and start bothering her.”
“I was about to leave,” she said, dropping her smile and pulling out her most frigid tone.
He narrowed his gaze and assessed her as though he were her GP and she was at her annual check up. “When is the last time you did something unexpected? Spontaneous?”
“Like getting hit on by a stranger? Please. I’m getting married in three weeks.”
“Congratulations. Look, I’m a guy who hates to eat alone and your date just left.”
“My fiancé.”
Again with that cheeky grin. “He’s a lucky man.”
“I really don’t think—“
At that moment a salad was slipped in front of her, while, at the same moment, a server appeared behind the stranger’s seat and placed Ted’s prime rib in front of him as though men playing musical chairs in Truffaut was a common occurrence.
“Can I get you anything else, sir?” the server asked.
The stranger sent her an amused glance. Then said, “A fresh wine glass would be great.”
“Certainly, sir.”
She had absolutely no idea what to do.
The man from the bar glanced at her. “Fate has a funny way of stepping in, have you ever noticed that?” He placed his napkin—make that Ted’s napkin—over his lap and thanked the waiter who appeared with a fresh wine glass and then filled it with Ted’s wine.
She thought it was the pushy guy from the bar who’d stepped in, not fate, but she also realized that there was nothing he could do to her in a busy restaurant, and there was a certain rakish charm to this guy. She’d seen a movie once where Cary Grant had swept a naïve heiress off her feet with moves something like this one. Since she wasn’t an heiress she didn’t figure she had too much to worry about. And having a gorgeous stranger as a dining companion was more interesting than eating in a crowded restaurant by herself.
Was there a tiny part of her that felt as though eating with a sexy stranger was a sweet revenge on a man who would dump her between courses? Oh, yeah.
“I’m Nick, by the way,” he said, cutting into Ted’s prime rib.
“Kate,” she said and stuck her fork into her salad. “I hope my fiancé’s prime rib is cooked to your satisfaction.”
Probably she was more angry at Ted than she’d realized but, she figured, if he was going to abandon his prime rib and his fiancée, he couldn’t blame another man for moving in.
“It’s perfect, thanks. Your guy has good taste.”
He sent her a sexy glance out of gorgeous hazel eyes and something about the way he looked at her, with sympathy and understanding as well as amusement sent a flutter of awareness through her. She’d better make it clear that she was not on the menu.
Chapter Two
