She wore a knee-length black sheath dress with a high neckline. Her makeup was light, her earrings simple silver hoops. She looked cool and elegant. Beautiful. Sexy. And her hair? Ponytail. He wondered how much effort it would take to liberate her—
He tore his mind away from the image and hoped his thoughts didn’t reveal themselves in his expression. This was a professional event. Margot was working. His inexplicable attraction was his problem.
When she reached the main floor, she crossed to him. “You look nice.”
“As do you.”
They smiled at each other. Alec wanted to say that something crackled between them, but he wasn’t sure. He hadn’t had a regular relationship with a woman since he and Zina broke up. While he wasn’t as much of a groundhog as his mother liked to say, he generally met women when he traveled on business and had brief but physically satisfying affairs. When he returned home, he was able to put his baser needs out of his mind for several months and focus on work.
It was a system that was successful. No messy emotional attachments, no risk of betrayal. But it left him woefully out of practice when it came to dealing with a woman like Margot.
“In keeping with the evening, I put a bottle of Dom Pérignon on ice,” he told her. “I hope that meets with your approval.”
She laughed. “It does. Very unnecessary, but lovely. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Edna said there’s a bottle of nonalcoholic sparkling cider for Connor, if he wants it.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him.” She pointed toward the dining room. “I want to check things one more time.”
“Because the wineglasses might have moved?”
“You never know.”
He followed her as she confirmed the table was as they’d left it. Exactly at six, his mother descended the stairs. Alec was pleased to see she wore a floral print dress with a full skirt. The neckline wasn’t too low, the skirt wasn’t too short and she seemed almost relaxed. Tension he hadn’t felt until now eased a little. In three hours, four tops, this would all be over, he told himself.
A few seconds later, the doorbell rang. Margot let in Declan, his son and a curvy, blue-eyed blonde who looked nothing like Margot. Introductions were made all around.
“Your garden is looking well,” Alec told him. “We should take a quick tour before it gets dark.”
“I’d like that. Connor, this is Mr. Mcnicol.”
“Oh, call him Alec,” Bianca said, joining them. She knelt on the floor in front of Connor. “Otherwise he gets far too pompous. And I’m Bianca. You must be Connor.” She leaned close and lowered her voice. “I hope it’s all right, but I asked if I could sit next to you at dinner. I think you’re going to be the most fun person at the table.”
Connor might only be eight, but he was still male, and Bianca’s personality had felled far more experienced men. Connor nodded eagerly.
“I’d like that.”
“Excellent.” Bianca held out her hand. “Come on. I’ll go with you and your father to see the gardens. We can talk about stuff that makes us happy.”
“I have a new ant farm,” Connor said proudly, slipping his hand into hers.
“Do you? That is fascinating. I’ve always wanted an ant farm. Did it come in the mail?”
“Uh-huh. The farm came first, then the ants. We had to put them in the refrigerator for ten minutes to make them quiet, then we poured them into the farm. Sunshine helped me.”
“Did she? That’s excellent. Hmm, the refrigerator. I wonder if I could put Alec there when he’s bad.”
“You can’t,” Connor told her, his expression serious. “A closed refrigerator can be dangerous for kids.”
“You’re right and I’m sorry I said that. Now let’s go into the garden.”
Alec glanced back at Margot, who was watching the exchange with great interest.
“She’s good with kids,” he said in a low voice.
“I see that. She’s very likable and talks to them in a way that makes them feel heard.” She pointed to the doorway. “Go take your garden tour. Sunshine and I will wait for Wesley. I’m sure he’ll be here any second, then we’ll join you.”
“You’re not going to check on the kitchen?” he asked, his voice teasing. Edna had arranged for a chef and a server for the evening.
“I don’t have to,” she said primly. “I know your housekeeper has taken care of every detail.”
“I’m surprised you aren’t double-checking.”
Amusement brightened her eyes. “You have to know when to trust people, Alec. It makes life easier.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Sunshine watched with interest. He had the feeling she was mentally taking notes and would later report all to her sister. What that report might be, he had no idea.
He glanced toward the garden where Connor and Bianca were skipping through the grass. “Into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred,” he said, quoting Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
“Or the one,” Margot murmured. “Fear not, I will join you shortly and all will be well.”
If only that were true, he thought, walking toward the storm that was his mother.
* * *
“Hey, you,” Margot said, hugging her sister. “You look great.”
“I look nice. You look fabulous. So, Alec. He’s hunky.”
A true factoid, but not one Margot was going to acknowledge. “I work for his mother.”
“All that means is you don’t work for him.” Sunshine grinned. “He seems like a very nice Dietrich distraction.”
I wish. “What about you?” she asked, hoping to distract her sister. “You never said Declan was all that.”
“It doesn’t matter what he is or isn’t. He’s Connor’s dad and my boss.”
“So off-limits?” Margot asked, just as the doorbell rang.
“In every way.” Sunshine sighed. “And the Baxter curse lives on.”
* * *
An hour later, Alec had to admit he’d been wrong. Bianca was on her best behavior. She was charming everyone, carrying most of the conversation and keeping the table amused with anecdotes from her acting days. Connor was mesmerized by every word, even when he didn’t understand what she was talking about. Wesley couldn’t keep his eyes off his fiancée, Sunshine seemed equally intrigued by Bianca, and Margot was keeping track of everything while, no doubt, taking mental notes. Only Declan seemed neutral about Bianca’s performance, instead surreptitiously watching his new nanny when he thought no one was looking.
With the salad course behind them, there was only the soup course, the entrée and dessert to get through. Alec glanced at his watch and wished they were already eating white and dark chocolate mousse in a pastry shell, according to the elegant menu that had been provided.
Bianca leaned toward Connor. “I have a secret.”
His eyes widened behind his glasses. “What is it?”
“The soup is going to be chilled.”
“Cold soup?” He sounded delighted. “Really?”
“Cross my heart. It’s delicious, I promise, but still... Cold!”
They both giggled at the outrageousness of the concept, then Bianca stood. “Why don’t I go get it right now so you can try it?”
Connor nodded vigorously.
Margot looked at Bianca. “I’m sure the course will be here in a moment.”
“Oh, I don’t mind.”
Alec knew Margot was trying to figure out if Bianca was simply interacting with a child or if she was looking for a distraction because she felt uncomfortable. As he had no idea, he doubted Margot understood the motivation, either. With his mother, it was often hard to tell.
Wesley watched her disappear into the kitchen. “She is a delight.”
“Very charming,” Sunshine said. “And funny. Margot, you must love every second
you’re here.”
“I do,” she said, catching Alec’s gaze and smiling. He smiled back.
Bianca returned, a large soup tureen in her hands.
The second he saw her, Alec knew the moment wasn’t going to go well. He didn’t usually have premonitions, but this one was unshakable. With each step she took, his sense of dread grew more powerful until he knew he had to do something to stop whatever it was from happening.
But he was too late. Even as he rose, Bianca’s narrow heel caught and she stumbled. While she didn’t drop the tureen, it tipped and the thick, creamy green soup sloshed onto the hardwood floor.
There was a second of silence, then Bianca started to laugh. “Well, that’s perfect,” she said, and kicked off her shoes. She set the tureen on the sideboard and held out her hand to Connor. “Come on. Take off your shoes and socks. It’s a Slip ’N Slide. I’ll bet you love those!”
Connor hesitated. He looked at Sunshine, who looked at Margot, who shrugged. No doubt she wanted to see how this played out. Wesley wasn’t the least embarrassed, if his beatific smile was anything to go by.
It only took a few seconds for Connor to pull off his shoes and socks and join Bianca in the green soup. They slid around the dining room for several minutes, laughing and shrieking and creating a massive mess that was going to make Edna give him a stern talking-to come morning.
When they were done, Bianca turned to Wesley. “Would you get us a couple of towels so we don’t track this everywhere?” She hugged Connor. “When it’s safe for us to walk, we’ll run upstairs to my bathroom and wash our feet in the bathtub.”
Connor looked at the floor. “What about the mess?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. Everyone else will take care of it.”
And there it was, Alec thought as he rose to get cleaning supplies. His mother’s life philosophy in a nutshell. Someone else was always around to clean up the mess.
* * *
The next morning Bianca kept Margot waiting an hour before she finally joined her in the guest lounge. Margot had already decided that her client was either going to be late or a no-show, so she wasn’t surprised. She’d used the time to think about how to handle the previous evening’s, ah, events.
After the soup incident, Bianca and Connor had returned to the table and the dinner had gone on as if nothing had happened. Despite everyone else pitching in to clean the floor, the faint smell of avocado and cucumber had lingered. Margot had left a note for Edna, explaining what had happened and then had tried to figure out what, if anything, had gone wrong.
She knew a case could be made that Bianca had turned lemons into lemonade by inviting Connor to play with her. While it wasn’t appropriate behavior for a formal dinner, it wasn’t as if she’d dropped her dress or given a visiting dignitary the middle finger. Still, it wasn’t exactly a normal reaction. What she didn’t know was how much normal was good for Bianca.
Now her client settled on the sofa opposite Margot and raised her eyebrows.
“Go ahead and yell at me,” she said, her tone light. “I can take it.”
“Why would I yell?”
“Oh please. I danced in soup. That’s hardly allowed.”
“Technically you used soup to slide around on the floor. I’m not sure that qualifies as dancing.”
Bianca didn’t smile. If anything her expression turned wary. “You think what happened last night is funny?”
“What do you think it was?”
“A moment of fun. The unexpected happened and I turned it into a party. That’s what I do. Everyone will remember last night and isn’t that the point? To be memorable? Connor loved it.”
“He did.” Margot kept her voice gentle. “He had a terrific time and he adores you. How could he not?”
Bianca wore a loose-knit sweater over a tank top. She had on leggings and her feet were bare. She drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. The defensive position could not have been more clear.
“But?” she asked. “Because there is an obvious but.”
“I just wonder what you were thinking,” Margot told her. “Not just with the soup, but before. You latched on to Connor immediately. You’re so good with children, by the way.”
“I wanted to make sure he was comfortable. Having dinner with a bunch of stuffy adults was going to be boring.”
“I think it’s great you were concerned about him. Your natural affinity with children is going to be an asset for you as you help Wesley socially.”
The arms stayed firmly locked around her drawn knees. “I know that’s not a compliment.”
“It is one hundred percent a very sincere compliment. However—”
“Here it comes.”
Margot smiled. “However, last night was about you and Wesley. We’ve talked about how you want to be an asset to him and his career, and how you’re concerned about being a liability. Our goal was to help you get comfortable with formal dining and an eclectic group of guests. It was about mastering the various forks and glasses and a long evening with different courses and following the conventions of conversation. We’d talked about that—we had a strategy.”
Bianca rolled her eyes. “I remember. Spend fifteen minutes talking to the person on my right, then switch to the person on my left. Or I can be like the queen and change with the courses. Whatever. I wanted to have a good time.”
“I appreciate that,” Margot said calmly. “But if you want to learn the rules, you have to study them and then practice until they’re second nature. When you’re comfortable with the rules, you don’t have to think about them and then the fun happens naturally.”
“Rules are boring.”
You’re boring. Bianca didn’t say it, but Margot would swear she heard it all the same. There were always difficult times in what she did, and she had just reached the first one in this relationship.
Bianca shifted so her feet were on the floor, then glared at her. “You don’t know what it’s like for me. I love Wesley and I want to make him happy, but none of this is easy. People have expectations and I’m not always going to meet them. In my regular life, I don’t care, but this is different. I want to get it right, but the rules are so arbitrary.”
“Of course they are.” Margot relaxed. “Everyone assumes formal place settings come from England, but they are in fact from Russia. Who would have thought? And how on earth did we decide it was important to have wineglasses in a certain order? What if you don’t drink wine or don’t like or want white wine?”
“Then what’s the point?”
“Rules and social conventions provide order. In diplomatic situations, when tensions are running high about a treaty or a conflict, conventions are a framework in which to work. Everyone knows their place and what’s expected. Rules help people avoid making mistakes. You’re thinking of all that I’m teaching you as a constraint to who you are as a person. But that’s not what they’re for. They’re meant to help you. Like railings on a staircase, or seat belts. If you need them, they’ll be there, even if you’re not paying attention to what’s going on.”
Bianca didn’t look convinced.
Margot got up and walked over to the small refrigerator in the bookcase and got them each a bottle of flavored water. “I think I mentioned before that my great-grandmother started a charm school back in the 1960s, in a tiny town you’ve never heard of. In a matter of a couple of years, she had gotten two of her girls into major pageants and they were making the finals.”
“I know all this.” Bianca sounded impatient.
Margot ignored her. “All she wanted her entire life was one Miss America winner. It was her dream and why wouldn’t it be? To have just one of her students win the crown would have validated her entire life’s work. Sunshine and I were her last hope.”
Bianca raised her eyebrows. “Sunshine, your sister?”
Margot nodded.
“She’s a beautiful woman but she’s not...”
Margot grinned. “Beauty queen material? It’s okay, you can say it. Sunshine wanted it, but she wasn’t the right height or body type. We could all see that. So it fell to me.”
Margot still remembered the sense of dread when her great-grandmother had told her what was expected. Margot had been thirteen and still growing. She was socially awkward and shy and the last thing on the planet she wanted was to be in front of any kind of crowd.
“The first time I got up on the practice stage, I threw up,” she said cheerfully. “It happened regularly for the better part of a year. I also fainted and broke out in hives more than once. I became incoherent, I had no talent and I couldn’t get the bathing suit walk. People think being in a beauty pageant is about nothing more than being pretty and having a great body. That’s just plain wrong. You need public speaking skills, a platform, goals, achievements and more determination than I’ve ever been able to muster in my life. I broke Francine’s heart. She kept saying if I really wanted it, I could do it. And she was right.”
Bianca looked surprised. “You were throwing up?”
“I was, but I probably could have worked through that. The thing is, I didn’t want it at all. It wasn’t for me. To be successful at something, you have to want it for yourself, not someone else. You have to be willing to do the work. You have to see the benefit in the hours of practice and you have to be willing to fail over and over again. You need determination and an iron will.”
She looked at her client. “Bianca, why are you doing this? You’re a beautiful, funny, charming woman who is beloved by everyone who knows you. Why on earth do you want to change?”
Tears filled her eyes. “I love Wesley.”
“I know you do and he loves you and he’s never once asked you to be anything but who you are.”
“You can’t know that.”
The Summer of Sunshine and Margot Page 14
