by Nancy Warren
When Wolf Dixon was ushered into her office she rose, and stepped forward gracefully. At six foot one, she was a tall woman and Wolf Dixon, she was pleased to see, barely came up to her shoulder. He did not look like a wolf, he looked like a gerbil. Covering his receding chin with one of those foolish partial beards only made him look more like a rodent. She shook his hand, knowing she’d scrub it with hot water and harsh soap the minute he was gone. She froze as a camera crew came in behind him. “What’s a film crew doing here?”
“I thought you knew.” His feral eyes lit up with nasty triumph. “I also string for a national entertainment show.” He gave her a phony sympathetic glance. “You don’t mind, do you?”
What could she say? Not only would he print even more vicious lies if she refused to be filmed, but she might lose face with the employees who had already seen the camera crew arrive. And these days, Evangeline could not afford to lose face with anyone. So, she pasted on the dazzling smile that had helped make her famous and rich. “No, of course I don’t mind.”
He settled in one chair, gesturing to her to take the other. As though this were his office. While minions attached lapel mics to both of them, her brain was seething. She wished she could make excuses to call her PR consultant. In fact, she wished she hadn’t been quite so quick to tell Sarah Marsden she could handle this herself. Why had she not realized that Wolf Dixon would pull a fast one?
When the camera was set up he said, “Let’s start with a few warm-up questions.”
Oh let’s.
He glanced down at a pad of paper and said, “You used to be a famous model.”
“I was.”
What kind of a question was that? Was he trying to paint her as a has-been?
“And on your next birthday, you’ll be how old?”
She smiled at him. “Mr. Dick, I’m sure you know that a woman never tells her age.”
“It’s Dixon,” he snarled. “And, unless you’ve been lying about your age all this time, you’ll be forty years old on your next birthday. How does it feel, when you always made your money as a fashion model, to be turning forty.”
It felt as though hot embers were embedded under her skin. In fact, she tried never to think about her advancing age. But, years of training in the fashion world had taught her never to lose face. She might lose a lot of other things. Her temper for instance, but her face was her fortune. And she didn’t let a wrinkle show now as she said, “As I’m sure you know, I no longer model. Instead, I run an extremely successful wedding gown and lingerie design business.”
“Right.” His eyes glittered as he leered at her. “And how would you describe very successful?”
“I’ve gowned top celebrities, politician’s daughters, and royalty. The Evangeline brand is world-famous. That’s how I measure success. A woman’s wedding day is the most special day in her life.” She was quoting from the talking points that she and Sarah had gone over. She was glad of the practice because the words rolled smoothly off her tongue.
“When a woman walks down the aisle to meet the man of her dreams, wearing one of my gowns, I like to think I share a little of the magic of that special day.”
“And yet,” he said, “Business doesn’t seem to be quite so booming these days. There are rumors flying around that your business is suffering. Brides have canceled their orders. My sources tell me that your empire is crumbling.”
She put her hands in her lap hoping the camera wouldn’t catch the way she fisted them, digging her professionally manicured fingernails into her palms. She breathed in once, as Sarah had suggested she do, so as not to let rip at this nasty little rodent. She said, because she’d also been coached not to lie, “Every business goes through cycles. But I’m very confident in our prospects. My team and I work very hard to make sure each gown is perfect.” The PR consultant had also coached her to use the word team instead of employees. Load of nonsense. What were they, a sports team? They were her designs and she paid people to make them and sell them, that was all there was to it.
“Inside sources also tell me that your business, you personally, and one of your very famous wedding gowns, are cursed.” He drew his lips around the word cursed as though it were a sweet he could suck on. Oh how she wanted to poke that nasty pointy nose and those beady ferret eyes. Instead, as she and Sarah had practiced, she broke into a delicious, tinkling laugh. And she had been working on that delicious, tinkling laugh for many years now. The old Gabby Brock guffawed like a horse.
She looked at him as though he were a simpleton, and let his camera crew catch that. “This is the 21st century. You don’t really believe in curses, do you?” Shunting the stupid question back in his silly face.
He also laughed, it was a nasty unpleasant sound. “It doesn’t matter what I believe, it matters what your customers believe. I hear there’s one dress in particular, the very dress, in fact, that was cursed by a seamstress you publicly humiliated, and at least three brides tried to wear it and not one of them has made it down the aisle. What do you have to say about that?”
She would not lose her temper, she would not lose her temper. She parroted Sarah’s words. “I can only design a perfect dress. I can’t be responsible for the personal lives of my clients.”
He abandoned any pretense of looking at his notes now. He leaned forward, like a jackal going in for the kill. “Come on, don’t you think it’s kind of suspicious that the very dress that was cursed has never been worn down the aisle?”
“No. I don’t.” They had not been able to track down the seamstress. So she had to be very careful what she said.
Her head began to ring, a warning sign that she was about to fly off the handle. She dug her fingernails into her palm once more.
Before she knew what she was about to say, words that had not been scripted by her crisis management expert came out of her mouth. “And I can prove that dress is not cursed.”
The weasel appeared startled. “You can? How?”
Before she could stop the words, they came out of her mouth. “Because I’m going to wear that dress myself. When I get married.”
Oh, she had him now. He went scrambling back to his questions the way his brethren would scurry down the sewer. “You’re engaged?”
She sent him her most perfect smile. “I am.”
“Any clues on who the lucky man might be? You’ve never been married, have you?”
“No. I’ve never married. But now, it’s time.”
“And who are you planning to marry?”
“Why, the love of my life of course.” She mentioned the first person who came to mind. “Wade Davenport.”
Chapter 3
Wade Davenport sat in his office, contemplating the complexities of a proposed merger between one of his telecom companies and a rival outfit. Since he didn’t much like the idea of merging, he suspected he’d buy the rivals out, which might be their plan in suggesting the deal. When his private phone rang, he glanced up in surprise. Very few people had the number, so he stopped what he was doing and checked the call display.
His eyebrows rose. Gabby? He hadn’t heard from her in more than a year. The usual mix of eagerness and disgust at his own foolishness pulled at him. For a moment he contemplated not answering the call, but he’d never ever been able to resist the woman who had turned him inside out and then abandoned him. He wasn’t going to do it now. “Gabby,” he said when he took the call. “What a surprise.”
“Hello, darling, how are you?” Her voice was like an evocative perfume, it teased a man’s senses and once he’d experienced that headiness he could never forget it.
“I have a feeling it depends on what you’re about to tell me.” He knew that tone; it was half wheedling, half apologetic.
She laughed softly. “No one knows me like you do.”
That, unfortunately, was true. He’d known Gabby Brock for a very long time. He didn’t answer and so she continued after a moment. She said, “Wade, I’ve done a rather foolish thing.”
If he wrote a list of the foolish things that woman had done it would wrap around the Earth about three times. “Could you be more specific?”
“I’m afraid it involves you.”
“Now, that is a surprise. What exactly have you done?”
“Oh, Wade. It’s such a long story.”
“I’ve always found the best place to start a long story is at the beginning.” The beginning, for him, had been the moment he’d caught the uncertainty in those sapphire blue eyes. She’d been a hired model at some tedious fundraiser. Hired to wear some designer’s gowns and to mingle with the guests, bringing a touch of glamour to a very dull evening.
She’d been nineteen. He’d recognized the fear in the toss of the head bravado she used to cover up her nerves. He’d been drawn to her from that moment. Moth to a flame? More like an iron filing to a super-magnet.
Once again that soft laugh. “The beginning. I think my story begins so long ago that almost no one alive knows all of it but you. I think you know even parts that I’ve forgotten.”
“Are you asking me to ghost write your autobiography?” He said it sarcastically. You could never tell with Gabby.
“Of course not. But, if my life was a book, I would have to say I was opening a new chapter.”
“You’ve got news, haven’t you?” Even though they hadn’t been close for a long time, he knew she would tell him if something big were afoot. He had an awful feeling he knew what her news was and he braced himself to hear it.
She said, “Wade, darling. I’ve decided to get married.”
He closed his eyes briefly. Even though this was exactly the news he had expected, it was as though someone had dragged him into a frigid lake and was holding him under. He couldn’t seem to breathe, or move, and his limbs were starting to stiffen.
He managed to say, “Congratulations. Who’s the lucky man?”
“Well, this is where it gets slightly complicated.”
“What exactly is complicated about marriage?” And then he thought about it. “Oh, Gabby, he’s not already married is he?”
She sounded genuinely horrified when she said, “Of course not. Whatever do you think of me?”
He couldn’t possibly tell her all the things he thought about her. If the groom wasn’t married, there had to be something else wrong with him for her to talk about complications. “Does he run some sort of dictatorship?”
“Really, Wade.”
Now that the shock had worn off a little, he was starting to enjoy himself. She’d called him, hadn’t she? “Is he, perhaps, in prison?”
“No. That’s not the problem.”
“He’s engaged in some sort of nefarious trade? Lucrative but illegal?”
She began to chuckle. “Stop it.”
“I know, he’s royal, and you being a commoner is the stumbling block.”
“Any prince would be lucky to have me,” she snapped. God, he missed her.
“Well, when a woman as famously anti-marriage as you decides to get married, there has to be something very special about the gentleman in question.”
“Oh, Wade. To be perfectly honest with you, I was trapped into announcing my engagement.”
A truly shocking thought crossed his mind. “You’re not pregnant?”
“Of course not. I see you don’t follow the LA gossip blogs.”
“I barely have time to read the Wall Street Journal.”
“It would be easier if you knew what was going on.” She let out a huge sigh. “The truth is, I’ve been cursed.”
He shook his head. “I think this line is bad. It sounded like you said you’d been cursed.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the line. I have been cursed.”
She’d always been so careful about what went into her body, even as she’d craved things like chocolate and tobacco that were bad for her. But he hadn’t seen her in a while, maybe things had changed. Very gently, he said, “Have you been drinking?”
“No! It’s true. This horrible seamstress put a curse on me and one of my wedding dresses. Right in front of the bride.”
He rolled his eyes. This woman should really not employ staff. “What did you do?”
“Nothing. Honestly. It was entirely her own fault. The foolish woman stabbed my client with a pin and got blood on a brand-new dress. Naturally, I lost my temper.”
He could read between the lines. “Let me guess, you screamed at her in front of the client, and said a lot of things you probably didn’t mean.”
“Oh no. I meant every one of them. And, if I had known what she would do, I would have added a number of other things.”
“And she cursed you.”
“She did. I think she might be a Gypsy. Anyway, she shouted in some other language, and then pointed a horrible bony finger at me and announced that she had cursed the dress, cursed me, and cursed my business.” A slight waver in her tone was the only thing that stopped him from laughing.
“Gabby, surely you don’t believe in something as foolish as a curse?”
“I didn’t. Until three brides attempted to wear that beautiful gown and not a single one of them got married in it. Nasty rumors have been circulating and this poisonous reporter has been making snide insinuations and spreading evil stories about me, and now my business is suffering. Honestly, I feel like I am cursed.”
He came back to the reason she’d called him. “You can’t be very cursed if you’ve finally found a man you want to marry.”
The pause was so long he thought the call had dropped. Finally, she said, “Well, that’s a rather amusing story. You see, this horrid reporter backed me into a corner and, well, before I knew what I was doing, I told him I was getting married. And that I was wearing that wretched dress myself down the aisle. And, when he asked who I was marrying, the only name I could think of was yours.”
His phone slipped out of his nerveless grasp and hit the floor with a thud. He stared down at it. He heard Gabby’s voice coming from far away. For many seconds he stared down at that phone, stunned, and then gingerly reached down and picked it up again.
“Wade?” she asked sharply. “Wade?”
“Let me make absolutely certain that I heard you correctly. Did you say that you announced in some public forum that you and I are getting married?”
“I did. Is that a problem for you?”
“Not for me, precisely, it might come as somewhat of a shock to the woman I’m dating.”
“Oh, Wade, you’re not. Well, you’ll simply have to ditch her. I need you.”
He passed over how self-involved she sounded and got to the heart of the matter. “Are you seriously suggesting that you and I get married?”
“Of course not,” she snapped. “You and I were disastrous together.”
He smiled a little in memory. The time he’d spent with Gabby were two of the most amazing years of his life, but they hadn’t been able to make it work. He sometimes thought, with Gabby, that love wasn’t enough. She had always seemed so frightened that she didn’t deserve love that she made it true. But, he wasn’t a psychiatrist, only a man who’d loved her and been crushed. “So, what are you suggesting?”
“Well, obviously, you’ll have to tell your lady friend to take a sabbatical. It would be lovely if you could come out here and be seen with me in public a few times. Just until this nonsense dies down. We’re trying to track down the horrible Gypsy woman. My damage control consultants say I have to pay her some obscenely large sum of money, and get her to sign a nondisclosure agreement. Anything to shut her up. Once that’s done, the story dies down, and no one will even notice that we didn’t get married.”
“And why exactly would I do this?”
There was a pause. Even she must realize she was asking a lot. Finally, she answered softly. “Because you loved me once. And I loved you.”
He supposed there were worse reasons to turn yourself inside out.
“So? Will you do it? Please, darling.”
A sane man would say n
o. A sane man would issue his own press release distancing himself as far as possible from the temperamental Evangeline. Wade’s problem was that it was Gabby, and those two amazing years they had spent together. He said, “I’ll see what I can do.”
She’d known him as long as he’d known her, of course, so she knew he was saying yes to her outrageous proposal. “Oh, thank you, darling. I knew I could count on you.”
When they hung up, he sat for a moment, staring at the phone. Finally, he shook his head. “Oh, you poor sap.”
Chapter 4
Gabby had been avoiding taking her damage control consultant’s phone call. Which was ridiculous, since she was paying the woman a huge amount of money, but she knew she’d flubbed the interview with Dixon terribly and the last thing she wanted was to hear about it from a professional.
However, when Salvador announced that Sarah was at reception and would like to speak to her, she knew she had to face the woman. “Bring her to my office.”
Sarah strode into the room in a superbly cut cream-colored suit. Her first words were, “What were you thinking?”
Gabby rose from behind her desk and stepped forward. “I didn’t lose my temper. That was the most important thing, remember? That’s what you told me. No matter what I did, I wasn’t to lose my temper. That weasel Dixon kept insinuating that the curse had ruined me. I could feel my temper coming on and then suddenly, I knew what I had to do.”
Sarah pulled out the speaking notes they’d practiced and peered at them. “Where does it say in your speaking notes you are to announce your engagement?”
“I was winging it,” she said lamely.
The woman shook her head. “No. I gave you fall back quotations. To field a difficult question, all you had to do was deflect it with generic feel-good answers about how love conquers all, and how happy your brides are.”
“But you weren’t there. You don’t know what it was like.”
“Of course I know what it was like. This is my job. I offered to be there with you, and you refused.”
