Shopping for a Billionaire's Wife (12 page)

Good grief.

That was yesterday.

The wine’s gone to my head, because the orchid next to Amanda begins to dance.

“Yesterday,” I whisper.

“Does she routinely quote Beatles lyrics?” Andrew whispers to Amanda.

“Honey?” Declan doesn’t use many terms of endearment in public, so I know I must look a sight. “What’s wrong?”

“Yesterday. We fled the wedding
yesterday
.”

“Right.”

“It feels like a year. Mom found us this morning. We kicked her out of the room—”

“And us, too,” Andrew mutters. 

“Because we needed privacy,” Declan clarifies, his voice so full of warning that Amanda and I frown at each other in worry.

I look at Amanda’s arms, which are covered in a lightweight cotton crewneck shirt, three-quarter sleeves the shade of the wide-open blue sky above us. Angry red welts, swollen and raised, peek out above her wrists.

She looks like Wolverine did a number on her. Surgical tape covers the skin along her other arm.

“Your arm!” I gasp. “Is that from yesterday? In the pool with Chuckles?”

“And Muffin and Spritzy, yeah,” Amanda says, wincing. Andrew slings his arm around her shoulders and gives her a side hug, the two of them closing their eyes and sighing together.

“Too much,” I whisper. “It’s all too much. We’ve been through a lifetime in twenty-four hours.”

Andrew opens his eyes, brown gemstones glittering with a strange mixture of mirth, anger, and protective outrage. “You and Declan sure do know how to make an exit.”

Amanda laughs, reaching for the wine and refilling her glass, her stretch making the bandages show even more. I do the math. Somehow, they managed to leave the wedding, get her proper medical attention, fly five and a half hours to Vegas, check into their hotel room, sleep, and find us this morning.

All while managing Momzilla.

It really is too much.

For everyone.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, reaching across the table for Amanda’s free hand, tears making my vision blur. “You’re the ones we should apologize to.”

Declan flinches, his chin pulling back and eyes troubled. He gives me a look of compassion tinged with skepticism. “Apologize? To Andrew?” 

Ignoring the fact that he’s completely leaving Amanda out of this, I respond, “Yes. I know that apologizing in the McCormick family is a form of UN-prohibited torture, but normal people say they’re sorry when they’ve hurt someone, intentionally or unintentionally.”

Andrew gives me an appraising look. “She really does study us. Dad said he thought she did, but this proves it.”

“Is that true?” Amanda asks him.

“Is what true?”

“McCormicks don’t apologize to each other?”

The dual snorts from the men are her answer.

“Well,” I announce archly, “I am not a McCormick—yet—and I am going to apologize, deeply, to both Andrew and Amanda,” I announce, then chug the rest of my second glass of wine. “I am sorry that by escaping the wedding, we dumped so much of the responsibility off on you.” 

“Oh,” Declan groans, the sound one of relief. “That.” He waves his hand toward Andrew. “Right. I’ll apologize for that, no problem.”

Andrew’s eyes narrow. “What did you think Shannon wanted you to apologize for?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Declan’s clipped tones make my antenna go up, too.

“It matters,” Andrew argues.

“No.”

My eyes dart over to Amanda, who looks at me like,
You’re the McCormick men expert. Explain this
.

I shrug and cheer when the waiter interrupts us with salads. Andrew clearly ordered everyone’s meal ahead of time. Declan doesn’t seem to care about that.

“I’m not sorry for escaping,” I add, almost as an afterthought. Declan’s hand reaches under the table for mine, clasping it. Aha. That’s what he thought I was insisting we say, as if we should apologize for asserting ourselves and reclaiming our wedding.

Oh, no.

Hell
, no.

“You shouldn’t be.” Andrew’s words come with a healthy dose of laughter as he digs into his salad. “Your mom is nuts.”

Declan’s grip relaxes and he smiles at his brother.

All is well in McCormick Man Land.

They have a common enemy. And for once, it isn’t their dad.

Emotion wells up in me, and not just because the waiter arrives with shrimp cocktail the size of lobster claws. Amanda can sense it, and she reaches for my shoulder, giving me a sisterly touch.

“It’s okay, Shannon. You can breathe now. Really. Sure, it’s a mess.” She chuckles. “When isn’t life a mess? But the mess is back there. In Boston. And, really, it’s Marie’s mess. She made it.”

“I can’t believe James let her spend $700,000 of Anterdec corporate funds on that wedding,” I say.

Andrew starts choking. His phone buzzes at the same time, and the waiter delivers some sort of bacon-wrapped fig thing in front of him as Andrew fights to check his phone.

Declan’s stomach growls and he drops my hand. “Sorry. Food first. Affection later.” We grin at each other, and Amanda relaxes. This give-and-take between the four of us is casual and comfortable, weirdly familiar and blindingly new. Is this what adult life feels like? Are the four of us about to become a thing, with regular social time spent together and dinners out?

If so, it’s an exciting prospect. Dec and Andrew spar and compete, but underneath it all they’re each other’s best friend. Amanda and I are besties. In this foursome, the getting-to-know-you phase is strongest between me and Andrew, but then again, he’s seen me naked. I’ve seen him drunk.  

And we have that whole deadly bee-and-wasp-sting allergy in common.

We have a decent foundation here.

Andrew’s call is short but yields this nugget of information:

“PR says the value of all this free press is probably going to be more than the cost of the wedding.
Good Morning America
,
The Today Show
,
The View
, and Ellen Degeneres all want you on their shows.” He doesn’t even bother looking at Declan, zeroing in on me just as I shove a piece of shrimp in my mouth.

“Hmmmm?” He clearly thinks I’m the softer of the two of us, as if appealing to
me
to go on those shows will work. 

“No.” Declan’s answer is firm.

“I wasn’t telling
you
.” Andrew ignores Declan, eyes on me, charm turned on to the Nth degree. 

“Mmmmm mmmm mmmmm hmmm mfff,” I try.

I fail.

Amanda just shakes her head and leans in to Andrew. “I think they’ve had enough. Do they really need to go on major morning news shows and talk about what happened?”

“It’s them or Marie.”

“They’re trying to book
her mother
on those shows?” Declan asks, incredulous.

Andrew surveys the table with hawk eyes that make me realize I consistently underestimate him. “No. They think she’s too unstable to book.”

“They’re right,” Declan answers.

I kick him under the table. He reaches down to rub his ankle.

“You know,” he says tersely, “it would really be helpful if you wore a sign of some kind to indicate when it’s acceptable to refer to Marie as crazy, and when it is not. This is getting old.”

“Sorry. Habit.”

“Look,” Andrew says evenly, “it’s basic public relations. Anterdec’s getting great passive positive mentions in the traditional press, social media, and on podcasts.” 

“Podcasts?” I squeak.

“Oh, yeah. One of the wedding guests fed audio of Marie’s meltdown as you were leaving, and it’s epic,” Amanda says.

“One of the wedding guests? The initials wouldn’t be JC, would they?”

“Jesus Christ,” Declan mutters.

“Was he on the invitation list?” Andrew asks drolly. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Jessica Coffin,” Amanda says in a voice that makes me love her even more. “The Antichrist herself.”

Declan stares at Andrew, who suddenly isn’t making eye contact with anything not fermented. So many secrets between these two. So many. 

Too many.

My Spidey Sense is tingling. The subtext between them runs deep.

Bzzzzz.

My phone. My mom. The message:

We have to talk about this. What are you doing for lunch?

I look around, grab another giant shrimp, and drown my sorrows in shellfish.

“Marie?” Amanda asks, perking up. She turns her head just as Andrew leans toward her, and her dangling earring catches in his hair. Untangling it, she laughs, the sunlight shining on the gemstones.

I laugh and look at Declan.

Who is stone-faced, staring at her ear.

Then he grabs his phone and types quickly in a series of text messages.

“Did Mom text you, too?”

“What?” He seems distracted.

“My mom,” I repeat. “She texted me. Insists we need to talk.”

“She’s right.”

“I know she’s right,” I murmur as Andrew and Amanda start making out across the table. The shrimp cocktail is just close enough to their suckfacefest that I know I’ll be rude if I do a reach-over for another delicious piece, but—

“We do need to talk. Marie needs to apologize to you.” 

You know that moment in the movies where the record scratches and everyone freezes, because the director has the creative license to make the world stop for dramatic flair?

Yeah. That’s not what happens.

Andrew and Amanda start laughing until tears fill Amanda’s eyes and she huff-snorts, “Good luck with that.”

“Even I’m not
that
delusional,” Andrew adds.

There’s that word again.

Delusional.

Declan takes it all well, a triumphant grin covering his face while I tear into a piece of filet mignon the size of a casino chip, covered in a tower of edible colors and woven pieces of white greenleaf lettuce that look like a group of fiber arts majors at the Rhode Island School of Design spent their entire semester-long internship in the kitchen for this single dish. 

I cut it mercilessly with a knife, the Godzilla of culinary design.

Mmmm. Perfection in medium rare form.
Nom nom nom
. Sorry, RISD. 

“I don’t actually expect Marie to apologize,” Dec clarifies. “That’s like getting Dad to admit he’s wrong.”

This time, it’s Andrew who laughs until he cries.

The waiter appears, begins to ask about the food, finds four people in various states of apoplexy, and discreetly backs out, leaving a fresh bottle of white wine, which we devour in the next fifteen minutes. By the time the meal is over I am half drunk, stuffed silly, and blissfully happy to be among friends.

Life is good.

Even if we nearly required a SWAT team to escape my own wedding yesterday.

“I thought I’d have a sister-in-law by now,” Andrew says after the bottle’s been drained and we’re smiling at each other. 

“You will.” Declan’s hand caresses the spot between my shoulder blades, making me arch and purr like a cat in a perfect spot of sunshine. “Soon.”

“Are you eloping?” I can’t tell if Amanda’s question holds disappointment or excitement.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Uh, oh,” Andrew responds to our mixed answers.

“We’re still negotiating,” Declan says smoothly.

“He
thinks
we’re still negotiating.” I wink at Andrew.  

Bad move.

“Life is nothing but negotiation,” Dec answers, his jaw going tight. Whatever loose happiness we had a moment ago turns bleak. 

“Right,” I say, staying in neutral.

“Nothing is immutable.”

“Except for you,” I joke.

Just then, the waiter arrives with a cake. Silver sparklers protrude from it, the center covered in frosting that spells out,
I love you
.

He sets it in front of Amanda.

Declan looks like he’s going to kill his brother with nothing but a wine cork and a demitasse spoon.

“What’s this?”

“A celebration,” he says as the waiter lights the sparklers. “To new beginnings. To us.”

“To being outdoors at an orchid farm where there are loads of wasps,” Declan says under his breath. I jolt.

“That
is
a new beginning, for him, Dec. Please don’t do this,” I plead as the sparklers light, go out, and Amanda kisses Andrew, shooting me a
sorry
look. I shake my head, making sure she knows it’s fine. 

And it is. I’m not jealous. The rest of them seem to think I should be, but I’m really not. Andrew’s over-the-top gestures are adorable. Amanda’s eating it all up. Good for them.

“Don’t do
what
?” Declan hisses.

“Get competitive.”

“This isn’t about competition.”

“It isn’t? Then what’s it about?”

Before he can answer, the waiter has plated the cake and hey...cake.

You know how some men have this thing about breasts because...breasts?

Cake is breasts for women.

Bzzzz.

I’m halfway through my piece when I check the message. It’s not a text message, actually. Just a notification from an app Declan put on my phone, one that is for Litraeon, informing hotel guests of the day’s events.

It turns out today’s the first day of a three-day “adult products” trade show being held in the convention center.

I give Declan a hollow look and put down my fork, pushing the plate away.

“What’s wrong?” Amanda gasps in alarm, looking at my plate. Failure to finish cake is a full-blown catastrophe in our world.

I hold out my phone with the notification on the screen.

“I don’t think we have to worry about my mom for a while.”

Chapter Ten

After
zero
debate, Andrew and Amanda leave lunch to head back to their room, their amorous intentions all over both their faces. Declan, on the other hand, looks about as eager to go find my mother in a sex toy convention hall as he is to have a vasectomy performed by a crack addict with Parkinson’s disease.

“Timing is everything,” Dec jokes as he reads through his messages on his phone, following behind me just enough to make it clear he’s become a phone zombie, eyes tracking my feet so he can stay in line and multitask.