THE JUNIOR BRIDESMAID (10 page)

Hugh leaned over
his plate and took a bite while he seemingly contemplated an appropriate
response to my tirade. Either that or he was embarrassed by my outburst and
noticed that the people around us were trying to get a better look at my boobs,
which apparently also doubled as bowling equipment. I was just too focused
awaiting Hugh’s response to notice either way.

The longer it took
for him to respond the more I felt the desire to start fanning myself but I
knew that would be a dead give away as to what a pussy I actually was so I
refrained. Then as luck would have it, just when it looked like Hugh was about
to share the response he had formulated so carefully in his mind, one of the
waiters came by to refill our water glasses. I looked up at the poor soul who
was only doing his job and gave him a glare that screamed ‘take a hike.’ Hugh
sat back and waited for him to finish and then gave him a cursory ‘thanks’ as
he turned to go interrupt someone else’s critical conversation.

Hugh cleared his
throat before he began. Honestly, if I were him I wouldn’t have even known
where to start. “Well,
I
think your
staying in Virginia
would have
mattered a great deal,” he somewhat whispered. “At least it would have mattered
to me.”

I stared into Hugh’s
eyes trying to ascertain if his words and their meaning were the same. Then
when I finally decided what he shared was genuine, I let his answer settle
somewhere deep inside of me. I felt my heart begin to thump an entirely
different way and the color in my cheeks begin to turn from an infuriated red
to an embarrassed pink. “Really?” I asked with surprise in my tone.

“Really.” He
stared back at his plate.

Then I felt the
need to try to explain away my bout of momentary insanity. “I’m sorry, Hugh,” I
rushed. “I..I didn’t…If I was on your mind, well… you never led on that you
cared what happened to me at all. So, I just assumed…”

But Hugh
interjected with a response that was so unexpected I wasn’t sure if I heard him
correctly. He leaned his torso back and kept his voice low. “Yeah, well, at the
time I was keeping my distance in an effort to avoid jail time.” I watched as
his eyes strolled from my face down to my torso, which was as far as his eyes
could travel on my body and back up. Then he took a deep breath and continued
on. “You were on my mind quite a lot, Delilah. Like, all the time. But you were
under age and I...wasn’t.” He slid his hand palm down across the table until it
reached mine. “But I never stopped thinking about you. For years I admired you
from afar. Waiting. Then you left for college and I waited some more counting
the days till you would return.” His eyes rested on our joined hands and then
he continued. “I had a friend who owned a PR firm in Richmond so I asked if he
would do me a favor and offer you a job when you graduated. It was a way for me
to keep you around. Local. Within reach. Accessible. But you never returned
home. Then I heard through the grapevine, and by the grapevine I mean Julia,
that you moved to New York. Apparently,” he paused to make eye contact, “there
wasn’t anything in our… I think she used the word
hellhole
, worth returning to.” He pulled his hand from mine and
stared back down at his dish licking his lips and pressing them together. “So,”
he whispered lamely and gave a shrug.

I bit my lip in
response. I had said those exact words to Julia. At the time, the last place I
wanted to be was back in my hometown. That was where my life had fallen
apart…my personal hell, socially anyway. I wanted to go someplace where no one
knew me. Where no one covered their mouth and talked out of the side to share a
comment with their eyes trained on me. But it never occurred to me that Hugh
would care one way or the other if I returned or not.

“Gosh, it sounds
pretty awful when I hear you say it. I’m surprised you stopped by to see me at
all.” If I were he I wouldn’t have come looking for me. Hearing him recount the
circumstances around which he received the news of my relocation, even I
thought I sounded like quite the consummate bitch.

“Well, I wouldn’t
have if it wasn’t for Griff,” he revealed.

This information
shocked me. I barely knew Griff. Why would he suggest that Hugh stop by to see
me? “Why would Griff tell you to stop to see me?” I queried still not
understanding the connection.

“He’s marrying
Tiff,” he explained.

Uh oh. Not this
again. “I’m not following, Hugh.” I was fairly certain my eyebrows couldn’t
knit any closer together as I tried to unravel the tangled line of
communication that led to Hugh looking me up in New York.

“Tiff is friends
with Julia.”

Holy shit.

Julia? The Julia
who fucking crossed her heart with her friendship ring finger thereby promising
to keep my love for Hugh Rowen a secret until her ass was buried six feet
under? That Julia?

My heart began to
pound rapidly in my chest. “And?” I drew out the one word hoping he would
continue.

“And she told Tiff
that you…well, you know…” He pointed to himself and then shrugged unsure if he
should continue given the unreadable look on my face.

“Um. No. I don’t
know. Could you maybe elaborate a little more?” I wasn’t sure how much of my
secret Julia shared. I mean, did Julia tell Tiff in passing that at one point
in time I liked Hugh or did she give Tiff the complete ‘Delilah Welling is
madly in love with Hugh Rowen and has been for her entire life’ version? One
way or the other, I was definitely planning on having a little conversation to
reiterate the meaning of the friendship ring finger swear with my best friend,
Julia.

“She said you had
a…um…
thing
for me.”

A thing.

My face began to
flush with embarrassment. If Julia were in arms length I probably would have
involuntarily wrapped the fingers of my one hand around her neck and then
started digging a hole for her final resting place with the other. Maybe, all
this time, I had misunderstood the purpose of calling upon the friendship ring
finger swear. Because the way I had interpreted it, you called upon it when you
wanted someone to keep their fucking mouth shut until they were dead.
Naturally, thereby taking the secret with them to the grave. At least that was
the way I remembered it. And last I checked, Julia was alive and well. Thank
goodness, of course.

Suddenly, Hugh’s
voice cut through my murderous thoughts. “Junior, given the disturbed look on
your face, I’m thinking Griff was, um, misinformed. Maybe I shouldn’t have said
anything.” He stared at me for a few beats waiting for me to confirm or deny
the information Griff was given but when I didn’t respond quickly enough he
dropped his gaze, picked up his fork and stabbed a roasted potato. It looked
like he shoved it in his mouth solely to silence himself.

As I emerged from
the haze of anger from learning that Julia shared my secret, the look on Hugh’s
face finally registered. He looked disappointed, upset, embarrassed even. There
was a narrowing window of opportunity for me to quickly explain my reaction to
Hugh or I would lose him forever. “Hugh,” I began. But if there is one thing we
all know…timing is everything.

“Dessert?” The
waiter interrupted exuberantly handing out menus the size of business cards.
The wait staff in this restaurant quite possibly had the worst timing I had
ever witnessed in my entire life not to mention the smallest dessert menu I had
ever seen.

Hugh just stared
at me expressionless as my mouth bobbed up and down. When it didn’t look like I
was going to be able to respond to him or the dessert query, Hugh swallowed his
last bite, wiped his mouth with his napkin and sent the waiter away, “Just the
check.” Clearly Hugh had had his fill. Enough Filet Mignon, enough of the
disruptive wait staff and enough of wasting his time on Delilah Welling.

Not a single word
had passed between Hugh and me as we walked from the restaurant to my
apartment. He did hold my hand as we made our way through the streets, which
was surprising, but he kept his pace a little quicker than mine so I was always
putting in an effort to keep up. No easy task in heels while trying to match
Hugh’s long strides. I was still processing everything that Hugh had told me at
dinner but I had yet to formulate a response. I needed to say something. I just
wasn’t sure where to start. Hugh didn’t know it – couldn’t know it. But
everything he said at dinner, apart from my best friend throwing me under the
bus, had essentially answered every prayer I had ever made from the time I was
a teen to present. But I had spent a lifetime perfecting how to hide my
feelings for Hugh. I was an expert. Now, suddenly, I had been given the green
light to share the truth? At what point had the dream of Hugh Rowen become my
reality? Before I could make any headway in sorting out all of my thoughts and
fears, we had reached my apartment and Hugh was preparing for his farewell.

“Welp,” he exhaled
loudly, “it was nice to see you again, Delilah.” He guided my body with his
hand so I was facing him. He stared into my eyes looking for something. But
clearly he didn’t find it because when he bent his head, instead of placing his
luscious lips on mine, he momentarily lingered and then veered to the right
lightly placing a peck on my cheek. Damn. I realized in that moment I had been
hanging onto the hope that his lips would press against mine telling me that
everything was going to be all right and my silence hadn’t screwed up
everything. But my hope quickly faded when he whispered his goodbye, not
goodnight, closer to my ear. I actually felt my heart skip a beat. Then it fell
to the soles of my shoes. I watched in slow motion as he took a step backward
and then another before he slowly turned. As he gradually distanced himself I
snapped from my trance desperate not to let him go without sharing my feelings
in some way.

“Hugh!” I blurted
urgently.

I watched as he
slowed his pace and then seemingly chose to turn back around. “Hmm?” his head
tilted to the side in question while his hands slid into the pockets of his
slacks.

I stammered
because I didn’t know how to say what I so desperately needed him to know.
“I’m…I…uh…Griff…wasn’t…misinformed.” I swallowed the lump in my throat and I
could hear my heart begin to thud loudly in my ears.

I watched as one
beautiful side of his mouth tipped up before he answered. “Good to know. I’ll
see you tomorrow night.” Then he turned and walked down my street quickening
his pace.

Tomorrow night. My
client’s merger party. Business. Not pleasure. I ran my hand over my face in
frustration. It would seem that I was just as large a fucking idiot as Darcy
Strong.

Chapter 8

Psht. “Stacey.”
Psht. “Two O’clock. Over.” Psht. Logan, who chose to ignore his walking papers
again, had also chosen something else. That was to stick with me rather than
stay with Stacey. At first his loyalty supported my resolve that I was right in
distancing myself from Stacey because she was a back stabbing bitch. But only
hours after we had severed ties, Logan’s loyalty was becoming a liability. From
the moment I stepped into the office that morning I hadn’t understood a word he
said. And since Stacey had always been the translator, I realized that I hadn’t
ever had to worry about understanding him before. She would always beat the
explanation out of him verbally, physically if need be. But now, with Stacey
and me estranged, I had no one to explain what the heck he was trying to say.
So I pressed my intercom button and asked for more information with the hope of
figuring out what the hell he was talking about.

“Logan, what does
that mean exactly? Do I have a meeting with Stacey at two? Because if you are
saying two o’clock like she is coming from that direction in the office I can’t
see her.
I
am in
my
office with the door closed and
you
are outside of my office in a separate cubicle. There is a wall
between us remember?” I threw my head back and prayed at the ceiling hoping
that it would help me in some way, shape or form get through my day. As I
exhaled, I dropped my forehead on my desk chastising myself for praying to a
ceiling. As I momentarily contemplated my stupidity I heard Logan’s voice
again.

Psht. “Dive. Dive.
Dive,” he somewhat whispered into the intercom. “Watch my six, watch my six!”

His hand must have
been cupping the speaker while he spoke because it sounded like he was in a
dank, moist tunnel. I could almost feel his spit spritzing me through the
phone. Dive? What the hell did he mean by that? And why in the world would I
have to watch his six?

Sadly the significance
hit me a little too late. My office door flew open and cracked against the
wall. My head, which was still pressed to the blotter on my desk, snapped up at
the sound.

“Steven wants us
to brief him on what we plan on saying tonight at the gala. Did you prepare
anything?” Stacey, if nothing else, was always direct. I exhaled loudly through
my nostrils giving them a little flare. “Don’t start with the attitude,
Delilah, this is business.” Stacey threw out a hip and crossed her arms under
her boobs hoisting them while she accentuated her point. For some reason at
that moment I took the time to assess Stacey. She didn’t have much of a chest
but it was there. She was built like a runner. No fat. Lean muscle. All in all
she had a nice body and took good care of herself. By the time I was done with
my critical perusal and my eyes landed on her face I realized her eyebrows were
almost attached to her hairline. “Well?” She asked with annoyance waiting for
my response.

“I’m working on
it.”

I was working on it.
But I had only just started working on it.

“How far have you
gotten?” she pressed.

I looked down at
the notepad in front of me and read the first line silently. ‘Good evening
Ladies and Gentleman.’ Clearly I hadn’t gotten all that far but I wasn’t about
to share that with Stacey.