When Honey Got Married (16 page)

A waiter approached with a spray of wedding programs folded into the shapes of fans and a tray of mimosas in tall glasses dripping with condensation.

Needing to do something, Pippa took one of each. Too late she discovered she needed to be some kind of contortionist to reach the drink with her elbow out of action, gripping her purse.

She looked around to see what other women were doing, only to find most had men hooked to their sides, men who held their drinks while they fanned themselves.

And then came an idea so brilliant it sparkled!

Pippa Needed a Man.

Not in the
forever
sense. Her capricious mom had managed to turn that concept into a four-letter word. But not just to hold her drink either. She needed a man to stand close. To deflect the stares and the scandal. To pretend to be her date. It was the only way the rumors would abate.

She’d barely started casing the crowd for a candidate when a man with a long white beard and an impressive girth moved to the top of the stairs and called in a booming voice, “Mademoiselle Honore Moreau and Monsieur Brenton Delacroix request the honor of your presence on the lawn for the commencement of their nuptials.”

The crowd bumped and bustled as they poured up the stairs and into the house, and Pippa’s possible saviors disappeared one by one. She began to panic. To sweat. To —

And then she saw him.

A man ambling slowly up the stairs holding a program that had been unceremoniously unfolded and curled back into a tube to be slapped against his left thigh. Better and better, his left hand was wedding-band-free.

Pippa slipped between guests until she was right behind him heading up the stairs. He was tall. She wasn’t sure how tall, because he was a step above her. Nice suit, though. A gray so dark it was almost black. Fit well, too, she realized as he bent over to pick up something someone in front of him had dropped, leaving her at eye level with very nice backside.

He straightened and her gaze snapped back up to the back of his head.

The niceness of his backside was beside the point. What
was
the point was that his thick dark hair was overlong, curling a little over the snow-white collar of his dress shirt. Her mouth tugged into a grin. No southern woman would ever let her man’s shirt collar hook under his jacket that way.

She hitched her skirt and took the last two steps. Saw her chance. Took it. Tucking her hand into the crook of his left arm.

When he flinched away from the contact she held on for dear life. She neatly rid him of his program and uncurled it, peering at its insides as though checking for something of great importance.

Then pressing up onto her toes as if she was about to bestow upon her knight a kiss, she whispered into the side of his neck, “I know this is extremely odd, and I can explain everything later, but if you would consider accompanying me into the house, and sitting next to me through the wedding, and pretending that we are”—she gulped—”together, I’d be forever in your debt.”

After a beat, then two, in which Pippa found she simply couldn’t breathe, the stranger pulled her arm in against his side. Relief poured through her and she began to breathe again, only to note that the air was tinged with a new scent. Clean, citrus, drinkable. It could have been the aftertaste of the mimosa, but something in the way it curled under her tongue and made her feel antsy and warm all at the same time warned her it was all about the man.

They shuffled forward within the now-tight press of the eager crowd, and she heard her name mentioned once. Twice. Only now it was with some kind of reverence.

Look who she’s with. What a surprise package that girl turned out to be! What on earth possessed her to wear that dress?

Feeling a high from her ingenuity, and a mite less fraudulent for it, she put on her best smile as she looked up at her savior.

The smile died on her face as she found herself looking into a pair of stunning blue eyes.

The eyes of Griffin Delacroix.

Chapter Two

Griff quite relished the gorgeously thunderstruck hazel eyes of Pippa Montgomery.

That the eyes were gorgeous had never been in question. It was the thunderstruck bit that had him feeling particularly satisfied.

It hadn’t happened often, that he’d seen her speechless. Never shy to offer her opinion, Miss Pippa, and usually one that was in direct opposition to his own. It had driven him mad at times. Among other things.

When she tried to snatch her warm little hand away, Griff simply placed his over hers and held it in place. It felt perfectly nice there. Quite the anchor as he negotiated the rapacious Bellefleur crowd.

“Now, now,” he drawled, “were you or were you not the one who claimed I’d be doing you a favor by accompanying you inside on this fine spring evening?”

Pippa gave up the tug-of-war as her eyes left his to flicker around the crowd. Her mouth twisted sideways as if her brain was fighting an internal war with her tongue. He let his eyes rest there a moment longer. It was, after all, a very nice mouth. Soft. Sweet. Hotter than Hades. He knew all too well.

With discernible effort he looked eyes front. Nice mouth, gorgeous eyes, and warm little hand aside, from the moment he’d heard she was on the guest list he’d resolved to find a moment for her. There were things that needed saying. Long overdue things.

A bottleneck awaited them in the double doorway as they hit the top of the stairs, causing them to pause. Griff had never been a particularly patient man, but the woman at his side took that flaw to a whole other level. She popped up on her toes, frowned some, mumbled a little under her breath, and wriggled as if she kept an eel in her purse.

“Something else I can help you with?” Griff asked.

Pippa bobbed back into her shoes, glared at his hand over hers, then through gritted teeth, stage-whispered, “You’re doing more than enough, thank-you. Why are you here, anyway?”

He glanced up at the doors, saw movement, but kept his place. Turned out he was enjoying the wriggling even more than the speechlessness. “It’s my brother’s wedding, didn’t you know?”

“I’m well aware. I mean, why are you
here
here?” She waved a hand between them, though there wasn’t much between them by that point bar clothing, as the crowd had shuffled them nice and tight. “Why aren’t you in the house somewhere, plying Brent with whiskey and making bad jokes about balls and chains.”

“Ribaldry’s not my style. Slapstick, on the other hand, with the occasional impression—”

“
Griff
.” It came with a tone of warning, like no time had passed at all.

“My tale of woe? He didn’t ask me.”

“Why on earth not?” She blinked up at him, luminous hazel eyes bright with indignation, long dark lashes that had always curled a little out of control now sweeping against cheekbones the years had honed
.
Well, that was a kick, Pippa sticking up for
him
. All five feet six inches of her. Especially when he’d never been all that sure she’d liked him at all. “I imagine it’s because it would have been a stretch for me to organize the bachelor party all the way from Boston.”

“What were you doing in Boston?”

“I live there.”

She blinked up at him some more. Gorgeous eyes now confused, and accusing. That was more like it. “A stretch to run Delacroix Development from Massachusetts as well, one would think.”

“I don’t run it. Brent does.”

More blinking. Less accusing. Intrigue now. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“But the family business. You were always—”

“Disinterested,” he said. “More paper-pushing and politics than I was cut out for. Run my own construction company now. Building Blocks. Train those who need assisted housing to build the homes they’ll one day live in.”

His eyes remained locked on hers as that news sank in. No denying he wasn’t immune to wanting to know what she made of it.

Only she looked at him like she was looking through him, back, perhaps, to the version of him she’d known then. The version who’d shocked Bellefleur when he’d turned his back on the bird in the hand for a bush he’d had to grow out of thin air.

Then, with a short sharp nod, she said, “Yeah, I can see that.”

Five pretty simple words, and yet they packed a wallop. The kind that came from a place he couldn’t even hope to name. Perhaps it was the shock that finally someone accepted as obvious what it had taken his own family a number of years to understand.

“Is
that
why you’re really not in the wedding party? Your parents—”

“Weren’t thrilled. Now that they’ve seen what I do, they are.”

“But Brent was never quite so
au fait
with shades of gray, was he? Boston schmoston. He didn’t ask because his hero turned out to have feet of clay.”

Feet of —?
The touchy-feely wallop dissolved right away.

Griff leaned in, feeling a mite better about things when her eyes widened in suspicion. “You’re the one with something to answer for, Miss Montgomery. What’s this about you trying to break up my little brother’s wedding?”

“I was invited!” she spluttered. “I came. That’s the extent of it.”

“Then what’s with the dress?”

“What’s wrong with the dress?”

Not a damn thing, from where he stood. It hung from her willowy frame like liquid satin, and left a man to wondering about the bow behind her neck, and how many moves it might take to slip the knot.

“It’s elegant,” she said.

“It’s black,” he said. “You in mourning?”

“I— No!” She took a moment to swallow. “Reese Witherspoon wore nearly the same thing.”

“To a southern wedding?”

“I think it was the MTV Movie Awards.”

It took everything he had not to laugh. But at the panicked expression on her face, he got the distinct impression she might yet flee. She knew how, after all. And there were still things to say.

He pulled her a mite closer as he said, “And don’t get me started on the amount of skin on show. I’m surprised I didn’t step over half a dozen women mid-faint on the way in.”

Pippa shifted closer, ostensibly to look around him at the rainbow array of colors the rest of the guest list sported, but that didn’t stop him from noticing the press of her breast against his arm. Noticing, feeling, liking a whole hell of a lot more than was in any way sensible.

“So much for going under the radar,” she near-mumbled.

“Sweetheart, with you that was never even a possibility.”

Her eyes cut back to his, and even he’d noticed the sudden gruff note to his voice. Yet she didn’t look away. Tough little thing. She looked him right in the eye even as her throat worked, and color rose in her cheeks.

Then, her small chin jutting skyward, she said, “Then
you
have good reason to pretend to, you know…
like
me. Do it for Brent.”

His willful gaze meandered back to her mouth. The kind of wide pink mouth that made a man think bad, bad thoughts. Do bad, bad things. Wish for more than they deserved to have. “I’ll try,” he said, his voice now no more than a rumble. “But only because it’s you, Pip Squeak.”

Her eyes narrowed at the use of the old nickname, one that had always made her look like steam was pouring from her ears. “Don’t overexert yourself, now.”

“Not possible. I’m a man of excellent stamina.”

“How wonderful for you. Now are we going to do this or not?”

He waited until her cheeks began to pink again before he said, “Let’s.”

Pippa nodded, then refused to even look at him after that. In the ensuing silence, the remnants of the mini-roller-coaster of emotions he’d just been forced to relive kept cooking away inside him. Giving off heat.

Or maybe that was just Pippa. Flinty little thing, she was. Hot-blooded. Warmhearted, too. No denying the affection in her eyes when she’d mentioned his folks. And as the silence stretched on and her bare arm remained curled about his suited one, the more her body heat became all he could think about.

When they hit the bottleneck at the top of the stairs, he was forced to move. He slid behind her, his hands on her hips. He half expected her to swat him away. In fact, she put her hands over his. Curling them about his fingers so they wouldn’t get separated.

She moved a step forward. Two. Sunlight reflecting off black satin, creating extra swish and sway with every little move, every breath, and heaven help him, each time her hip bumped against his palm, that same heat landed with a thud someplace else.

His thumbs pressed into the flat dip at the top of her tailbone, and the pulse in his wrists began to flicker wildly. He wondered if she felt it. What she’d think if she did.

When she glanced over her shoulder, he knew he’d find out. But she just shot him a toothless smile and glanced away. That was it? The feel of her flesh beneath his hands had him struggling to keep himself decent, and that was all he got?

Screw sensible. Since when had he ever been sensible?

Griff lowered a hand until it landed flush over one butt cheek.

Finally a reaction
, he thought as she leaped away from his touch and cried out, “Peter, Paul, and Mary! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Griff knew exactly what he was doing. He was calling in the favor. Making his hand comfortable right where it was, Griff leaned in until his mouth was an inch from her ear and said, “Too much? Not enough? Your problem, your call.”

Her eyes widened and her nostrils flared as if she’d only just realized she probably ought not to be feeling quite so
appreciative
after all. As if she remembered as clearly as he did the last time he’d held her.

She writhed in an effort to nudge his hand higher while not making a spectacle by physically removing it. Did the woman really have no idea that wriggling against a man who had his hand on her backside was a like flicking a lit match at a pile of kindling?

“Griffin?”

“Pip Squeak?”

“Would you be so kind as to get your hand off my ass?”

He gave her sweet backside a little tap before moving his hand back to the curve of her hip. He felt her relax. Funny, because for him it wasn’t any better. The soft give of skin and flesh, the rock of her body into his touch, tightened his lungs. Among other things.

When he lowered his head, her hair brushed his cheek as he said, “You only ever had to ask.”

Right then Lady Calliope—who looked five years younger than when he’d last seen her—hit the doorway the same time they did. She gave them both a quick once-over and her delighted laughter could be heard even as she disappeared into the breach.

Pippa glanced at him over her shoulder, her eyes dark, her brow furrowed, her mouth… Her sweet,
sweet
mouth. At that distance it’d take nothing for his lips to brush over hers. Considering they were playing “date” he might even get away with it. A light sweep. A quick taste. A secret touch of his tongue to hers. But even as he thought it, he knew he’d never be able to stop at just that.

He unpeeled her body from his and swept an arm through the gap. The smile she shot was all relief, before she sashayed through the gap, new grown-up curves swaying hypnotically beneath her sexy black dress.

Little brother’s girlfriend,
he reminded himself as he always had when he’d found himself lusting after Pippa Montgomery. Until he remembered that for nearly the first time since he’d known her, she most certainly was not.

Contemplating that, Griff followed her through the grand, double-story lobby and down the dogtrot straight back out into the last throes of spring sunshine, where a wide back patio led down onto a huge, immaculately tended lawn. Beyond lay lush gardens, a small forest, the river.

Between him and a luxurious tent closed off with big yellow bows sat rows upon rows of gilt chairs, and a pale-yellow velvet carpet led to a massive raised arbor dripping in wisteria, honeysuckle, and white roses. Dozens of pots overflowing with red and purple bougainvillea framed the staircase.

Griff muttered, “So this is where the flowers of Louisiana come to die.”

Pippa laughed out loud, and Griff looked down into her lovely face. As her laughter faded, a dozen different emotions flittered over her face. In the brief flash of time in which she’d lived in Bellefleur, she’d never mastered the finish, the poise, the polish of the other girls he knew. She’d had too much nerve. Too quick a temper. No southern mama to teach her how to dissemble before she even knew how to walk.

Before he could talk himself out of it, Griff took Pippa’s hand and placed it back in the crook of his elbow, and found himself excessively glad when she let him.

Walking down the stairs, someone sneezed from the left. Someone else sneezed from the right. Griff was a fast learner. He breathed through his mouth.

“The bride or the groom?” a snooty-voiced usher asked.

“Neither,” said Griff. “I am but a simple guest.”

The usher barely flared a nostril.

“I thought you said you didn’t do bad jokes,” Pippa said, as she dragged him down the groom’s side. And for the first time since the engagement was announced and the wedding party revealed, and it had become obvious that not all of his family had forgiven him for going out on his own, Griff thought that he might actually enjoy the day after all.

Pippa pointed out seats away from the aisle and near the back, but Griff knew enough about such events to know he ought to sit up front with his parents. He was about to mention as much when Brent and the other groomsmen ambled onto the grass, laughing and joshing as they took their places by the arbor.

Any thought of moving fled as Pippa grabbed his arm so tight he winced.

He glanced at her to find her bright eyes locked onto Brent. Her throat working. Her warm honey-colored skin glowing from the heat. Small dark curls stuck to her cheeks and neck. The swell of her breasts rose and fell beneath the soft folds of her dress as she breathed deeply.

And while he couldn’t quite stretch his imagination so far as to picture her tackling Honey as she walked up the aisle, he found himself unwilling to watch her watching Brent.