Taste for Trouble (16 page)
When
Wyn had recovered his composure, he patted his mouth with a napkin, pretended to
consider for a moment, then said, “They’ll do, I suppose.”
“Very
good,” Bel said, her eyes downcast and humble. “I’ll have the staff begin
plating then?”
“Fine,”
he said.
“Fine,”
his mother said and cast a regretful look at her empty champagne glass on the
counter. “Now let’s just hope your lovely bride gets here in time to appreciate
them.”
“She’ll
be here,” Wyn said.
“She
was supposed to be here twenty minutes ago.”
Drew
poked his head in the kitchen door. “The guests are beginning to arrive.”
“She’ll
be here,” Wyn told his mother again.
“Of
course, dear.” Mrs. Quist arranged her face in appropriately placid lines,
though naked hope lit her eyes. James almost felt sorry for her. She pressed a
kiss to Wyn’s cheek and said, “I’ll just go greet at the door until your
fiancée...”
figures out how to be a decent wife to a man of your stature
“...arrives.”
She
sailed out of the kitchen and into, James assumed, her native habitat: the
primitive, blood-thirsty, unforgiving land of DC Ladies Who Lunch.
Wyn
snapped his fingers at James, whose attention had, to be fair, wandered. “Serve
the champagne,” he said.
“Yes,
sir,” James said smartly, earning himself a sharp look from Bel. But mockery
from invisible people turned out to be invisible as well. James had suspected
as much. He followed Wyn into the dining room and gave Drew and Will the okay
to start pouring.
Then
he headed back into the kitchen where Bel deftly dished up a plate with a
little smattering of all the hors d’oeuvres she and James had stockpiled over the
course of the week. It was gorgeous. She held it out to James and said, “Just
like this, okay?”
“Sure.”
He started slapping food onto plates. “Hey, what did you say these were again?”
“
Boulettes
catalanes
.”
“Which
means?”
She
flashed him a grin. “Meatballs. In French.”
“Why,
Bel. Aren’t you the naughty one?”
She
rolled her eyes at him, though dimples fluttered in her cheeks. James shook his
head. “Tell you what, if I were the bride, I’d be late, too. Really late. Like
whoops,
I forgot and married somebody else
late.”
“I’m
sure she knows what she’s doing.”
James
snorted. “I don’t know. Aside from the fact that he’s really, really rich, I’m
not seeing the appeal.”
“You’re
not a woman,” Bel said. “He’s actually really good-looking.”
James
poked an egg roll into place. “He’s a jerk, Bel. A hundred bucks says he
couldn’t pick either of us out of a line up right now.” He handed the plate to
Bel and she applied an artful twirl of pale green sauce to the edge.
“So?”
“So
it speaks to a basic meanness of character. Geez.” He wagged his head in
sympathy for the tardy, unknown bride. “Poor thing.”
“I’m
sure she has her reasons,” Bel said again.
“Yep.
And I bet not one of them has to do with his sterling personality. He’s not
what you’d call a loveable kind of guy.”
“There
are better reasons to get married than love,” she said, her mouth prim.
“Better?”
James stared at her. “Name one.”
“Security,”
she said. “Trust. Affection. Compatibility.”
“Well,
sure. If you’re marrying your lawyer.”
She
flinched almost imperceptibly, then finished swirling sauce onto the plate
James had just handed her.
He
closed his eyes. “Please tell me Ford wasn’t your lawyer.”
The
silence was damning. He touched her sleeve, and her arm was warm and vital
inside it. She always looked so cool. It constantly surprised James to find her
so alive under his touch. “Bel—”
I’m
sorry
, he wanted to say. Not that
he’d done anything to be ashamed of. He still felt no guilt over being the
catalyst Bel’s fiancé and her assistant needed to act on their emotions. But
until just this moment, he hadn’t realized that Bel might’ve been hurt. She’d
taken the whole thing so stoically, and argued with such eloquence for keeping
her heart out of big decisions.
Before
James could think of just what he wanted to say, Drew poked his head into the
kitchen again. The combination of joy and panic on his thin face had the plate
in James’ hand clattering onto the countertop.
“Good
lord. What?” James asked, his stomach tight.
“The
bride,” Drew breathed, eyes wild. “She’s here.”
Bel
breathed a sigh of relief. The bride had arrived. Thank God. The last thing she
needed right now was another wedding-related disaster on her résumé. She was
going to get a reputation. Plus the Quist family had owned most of DC and a great
many seats in both the House and the Senate since time immemorial. If there was
going to be a family kerfuffle, Bel wanted no part of it. When giants fought,
little people took shelter.
“Great,”
she said. “I’ll go see about the—”
James
put his hand on Bel’s arm, and she dutifully ignored the slow roll of awareness
that moved through her. God, she was tired of that. Hadn’t she made a rule
about touching?
She
gave the hand on her sleeve a pointed look but James’ eyes were fixed on his
brother with an intensity that had Bel looking back to see what she’d missed.
“Drew,”
James said. “Who’s the bride?”
“You’d
better come see.”
Five
seconds later, the three of them were stacked on top of one another like the
Three Stooges, one eye each to a crack in the kitchen door. Bel, by virtue of
being the shortest, was on her knees with James’s body curved over her own, his
chin all but nestled in her hair. She could feel his breath as it fluttered the
strands behind her ear. She suppressed a delicious shiver.
“I
can’t see anything,” she whispered.
“Me,
neither.” James’ voice was an intimate rumble and at such close range it sent a
zippy little vibration through her. She squeezed to the side, putting another
precious inch between her traitorous body and temptation.
“Patience,”
Drew said. As the tallest guy in the room, he was the top of the totem pole and
Bel envied him with her entire heart.
She
watched the glittery swirl of DC matrons for a few more ticks, then said,
“Seriously, I can’t see anything. I’m going to—”
And
then the crowd broke and Bel caught a glimpse of moonlight colored hair. She
saw a demure suit over an eye-popping set of curves and a pale, vulnerable
expanse of inner wrist, terribly thin and oddly exposed, when the woman reached
out to shake hands with somebody.
Bel’s
entire world constricted to that image, that single slice of the whole picture
she’d been provided.
She’d
seen that hair before. Those curves. That thin, fragile wrist.
“Oh
my God,” Bel breathed, easing back from the door.
“Exactly,”
Drew said.
“What?”
James asked.
Bel
sat on her heels and tried to think. Tried to force her brain to deliver some
alternative to the disaster before her. “Where’s Will?” she asked Drew.
“Serving
champagne.”
“Has
he seen her yet?”
James
shifted his gaze to Drew. “Seen
who
?”
Drew
ignored him and answered Bel. “Don’t think so.”
“Has
she
seen
him
?” Bel asked.
“Has
who
seen Will?” James asked, through his teeth this time.
“She
hasn’t screamed the place down yet,” Drew said. “So probably not.”
“Good.
Get him in here.”
Drew
disappeared and James planted himself in front of Bel, arms folded. “Bel. Who
the hell is the bride?”
Bel
sucked in a deep breath, closed her eyes and sent up a little prayer that Drew
was both fast and lucky. Then she opened her eyes and said, “Remember that
little waitress Will harassed out of a job at your big underwear shindig last
weekend?”
James’
brows disappeared into the sunny mess of his hair. “No way.”
“Way.”
Drew
burst back through the kitchen door, dragging Will by the sleeve.
“For
God’s sake,” Will said. “What?”
“Blake
brother powwow,” Drew informed him. Will lifted one sandy brow and turned his
attention to James. James nodded toward Bel. Bel clasped her hands together and
prayed for guidance.
“We
have a small situation,” she said. “The bride has arrived.”
“Good
for her,” Will said. “I understood there was some danger of a no-show.”
“Well,
that’s not a problem anymore. Now the problem is that you’ve met her before.”
Will
turned an unsurprised gaze on James. “Ah. The bride’s a former, ah, fan of
yours?”
“No,”
Bel said. “Nothing like that.” She checked the event sheet on her clipboard and
said, “Her name is Audrey Bing. She’s the waitress you got fired last weekend.”
Understanding
dawned on Will’s sharp face and he glanced toward the door, as if he could see
through it to the scene on the other side. “Ah,” he said softly. “Interesting.”
James
frowned at his brother. “What does that mean?
Interesting
?”
Will
lifted his shoulders and managed to make even a vinyl tux look elegant. “The
girl’s got balls,” he said. “I’ll give her that.”
Drew
stepped forward. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning
she took a hit last week—lost her job, lost her shot at James. But I’ll give
her credit, she didn’t back down, did she? She got right back on the horse. And
now—” He nodded toward the kitchen door. “—she’s hooked herself a real golden
goose. And not just temporarily, either. She grabbed the brass ring this time.”
He smiled. “Or should I say the gold ring? Hell, if everything I hear about the
Quist fortune is true, she’s probably in for several carats on a platinum band,
easy. Hats off to you, Aubrey.”
“Audrey,”
Drew said.
“What?”
“Audrey.
Her name is Audrey.”
“That’s
what I said.”
“No,
you didn’t.”
Will
shrugged easily. “Okay.”
Bel
considered him. “You’re all right with this?”
“With
what?” Will asked. “It’s her call. She’s the one who’s going to have to sleep
with Mr. Important for the rest of her life. Why should I care?”
“You
had a pretty big problem with her the other night.”
“That
was different.” Will’s smile was sharp and dangerous. “The other night she’d
insulted one of my brothers. And you know what we say.”
“Family
first,” Bel said. “Yeah, I’ve heard. But just so we’re clear, you’re going to
go back out there, pour champagne and pretend you’ve never laid eyes on that
girl before in your life?”
“Yes,
ma’am.” He snapped her a smart salute. “Now if that’s all, my audience awaits.”
He flipped a crisp white towel over his forearm and disappeared into the dining
room to wield a bottle of champagne.
Drew
turned troubled eyes on Bel and James. “She wasn’t wearing a ring last week,”
he said.
“So?”
James asked.
“So
Wynton Quist is an ass.”
“Again,
so?”
Drew
shook his head. “
So
, what if she doesn’t want to marry this guy? What if
she’s doing it for the money?”
James
lifted his shoulders. “That’s not our business, Drew. She’s a grown woman. It’s
not our place to tell her what to do with her life.”
“It
is if she’s doing it because of us.”
James
stiffened. “What?”
“James
is right,” Bel said quickly. “She’s a grown woman who makes her own choices. There’s
no reason to think—”
“Seriously.”
Drew cut her off, spoke to James. “What if she’s marrying this guy not because
she’s some heartless gold digger but because she’s desperate? I mean, we
already know she’s working at least two jobs, right? The strip club and the
conference hall? Who does that if they aren’t desperate? What if she was just
making it and Will’s little scene last week was the last straw?”
“Drew,
come on,” Bel said. “This isn’t some marriage of convenience romance novel. This
is real life. Women in tough financial straits have options. They don’t have to—”
James
cut her off this time. “You’re really worried about this?” he asked his
brother.
“Yes,”
Drew said, his mouth set in a stubborn line Bel hadn’t seen before. “I am.”
“What’s
it going to take to ease your mind?” James asked.
“We
need to talk to her,” he said.
