“The consequences of disobeying her and Dad.”
Mrs. Royce returned to the elegant foyer accompanied by her husband, a reed-thin, mustached man.
“I’ll be damned,” Mr. Royce said, turning to his wife. “She looks unrefined.”
“She’s been living like a vagrant since she left the Academy, dear.”
Gabrielle jerked her hands in the air. “She is standing two feet away from you. I have not been living like a vagrant. I was in cooking school and researching and working my way up in the culinary world. You both are fully damn aware of it.”
Her mother winced at the word damn.
“Watch your mouth,” her father warned. “We open our home to you and you come to us speaking like that? If you want your place in this family back, understand that I won’t tolerate that.”
“Dad, I don’t want ‘my place’ back. All you and Mom want to do is put me in what you think is my place. I don’t fit. I don’t fit in a family that spits on self-expression and tries to dash the hopes of someone who wants more out of life than to follow your orders. I have a real life in Belleza. I have someone now.” She pointed to Geoffrey. “This is Geoffrey Girard. He’s a music producer.”
“An entertainer?” Mrs. Royce wrinkled her nose. “Oh, Gabrielle.”
“I own a company I built from the ground up, Mrs. Royce,” he said. “I can afford to buy your house and turn it into a strip mall. But I don’t use money for vendettas. I can, however, take care of your daughter. And I intend to.”
“Take care of her? By letting her serve people food for a living? That’s not the life we want for her. My lord, just look at her hands!”
Gabrielle raised a brow at her simple, clean hands. Sure, there were scars from kitchen accidents over the years, but she didn’t regard a hand neglected of an expensive manicure to be an offensive one. “Nail polish and false nails are no good in my line of work, Mom.”
“That’d change if you’d stop being silly and move back home,” her father said.
“Earning my own living isn’t being silly, Dad.”
And soon she was like a tennis ball sailing over a net. First her mother would launch a verbal attack. Then her father. Back and forth. It came to the point that she’d prefer to hunker down and cover her ears, but maturity demanded that she face them coolly and clarify her position. “I have no intention of moving back into this house. I brought Geoffrey here to show him how little I have in common with my family.”
In minutes they were outside again, and she was shut out of her family’s world again. It was unfortunate but didn’t hurt as much as she’d feared it might.
“That was brave as hell, facing them like that,” Geoffrey told her as they began to put the Royce family estate behind them.
“That back there? That’s where I come from. It’s not who I am, Geoffrey.”
“I know.” He edged closer and slowly, easily kissed her under the sunshine and blue skies. “I love you for you. I want to be your family. I want to marry you, Gabrielle.”
Marry. You.
“Marry me?” she cried. “Oh, God. Then I’d officially be off the shelf.”
“The day we met at the Pearl, that was your last day on the shelf.” Winking, he slipped something from his pocket and lowered to one knee. “I want to do this right. I want to marry you, Gabrielle Royce. I don’t care if it’s a huge wedding or if we elope. And I wouldn’t care if you wore Chuck Taylor high-tops under your dress.”
She laughed. Then tears welled and she didn’t know whether to blot her eyes or lean down and kiss him stupid.
“Swear you’ll laugh every day we’re together.”
“That might be a long time.”
“I’m hoping it’ll be forever.”
She gestured to her parents’ silent estate. “I come with those people. They probably won’t ever welcome you to the family. How do you feel about that?”
“I’m marrying you. If you say yes.” He opened a deep blue crushed velvet box and the sunshine beamed down on a breathtaking diamond that lacked a band. “I was thinking you’d want to customize the band, so to give you a blank slate, I bought the diamond.”
She sobbed and laughed. “When did you do this?”
“When you weren’t answering my calls. I’d hoped you would forgive me.” He took her hand, kissed each finger and lightly bit the ring finger. “So, do you want to do this? For better or for worse, with me?”
“Yes,” she whispered, bending to kiss him. “For better or for worse.”
*
Gabrielle stepped into the Ruby Retreat to find Robyn, Kimberly and Jaxon already there. They’d agreed to meet for drinks and wedding planning. “Sorry I’m late!”
“You’ve been late all week,” Kimberly commented good-naturedly. She turned to smooch her man on the lips. “I know what it’s like to have someone keeping you awfully busy.”
“I’m not going to comment on that,” Jaxon said, but he returned her kiss with zest that the entire room could likely feel.
“Shame on y’all,” Robyn said with a smile.
“Geoffrey and I have been sort of celebrating something all week,” Gabrielle said gently. “We’re engaged.”
“What?” Robyn and Kimberly shrieked. “You’re getting married?”
“Yes! He bought a stunning diamond but I’m Gabby-fying the band. His suggestion.” She held out her arms wide for a hug. Kim and Robyn flocked to her, squealing congrats. “You get over here, too, Jaxon. I want all the love!”
Within minutes they had drinks on the house and the congratulations were beginning to filter in. Someone had alerted the Pearl and in shifts the staff were coming up to hug her and remind her of her embarrassing misadventures in casual dating. She slipped away from the craziness to text message her fiancé. She’d left his bed to shower and drive here. She was only a little bit guilty that in the back of her mind she was counting the hours until she’d be back in that man’s bed…back in his arms.
Your place tonight?
Geoffrey responded straightaway. I have natural spring water ice and a big bucket.
Gabrielle smirked naughtily as she tapped her reply, already imagining what she’d do when she got her hands on the ice and on him. I’ll bring a grapefruit.
As she was putting her smartphone in her bag, she noticed Robyn several feet away leaning over her own phone before pressing it to her ear and whispering. Gabrielle wanted to move, but her sneakers wouldn’t go. She was still standing there when Robyn turned, saw her and lowered the device.
“Everything okay?” Gabrielle asked, feeling a prickly chill she didn’t like.
“Oh, that? Yeah. Yes.” Robyn scoffed. “Wrong number. C’mon, let’s get back. Now there are two weddings to plan.”
Gabrielle let her friend precede her, and she glanced around the room, not quite sure what she was looking for. So strange, things were new, and yet still familiar. She still loved this place and these people.
“I still don’t believe in the curse of the Belleza,” she said under her breath as she returned to her friends and their celebratory drinks. “But I believe in love.”
*
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ISBN-13: 9781460384558
Hot Summer Nights
Copyright © 2015 by Lisa Marie Perry
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