The Bouquet List: a Weddings in Westchester novel (Entangled Bliss)

by Barbara Deleo

  He didn’t smile much, but when he did, it was as if he’d been considering whether the moment was worthy enough to bestow one of his warm grins on it, and it sent little fingers of light through her body. She had to keep remembering that his aloofness was a big part of his charm, and a part of the challenge. There must be a way to burrow under that thick skin, a way to find a relaxed and fun-loving Lane within the buttoned-down exterior. She just had to work out a way to release him, and perhaps the buttons on that shirt he was wearing. There was no time like the present.

  “Do you think I’ve changed?” She realized she was interrupting his list of possible new menu choices, but if she didn’t get this seduction ball rolling soon it might never happen.

  He looked up, his fork poised in midair, and his eyes sparked. “Of course. The braids you had when you were ten weren’t purple.” He stabbed at something on the plate in front of him and held it up. “You haven’t tried this squid yet. The way they’ve braised it with currants and red wine is unusual, but it works. It’s probably not a great choice for a wedding, but it’d be a nice appetizer on the regular restaurant menu.”

  “Have I changed in a good way or a bad?”

  “Good, of course,” he said and continued chewing, but he frowned. “But I thought you were fine before.”

  Fine? God, she really wasn’t good at this.

  He pointed with his fork to the walls and furniture, completely oblivious to the first of her seduction techniques. “How do you think this decor works? I like the turquoise and silver color scheme to represent the colors of Greece, but I’d probably make it even more contemporary—use more glass and brushed metal but with the budget—”

  “I didn’t realize you’d noticed me before.” She did the slow blink thing that Genie had insisted would be guaranteed to get his attention. It felt like she was one of those openmouthed clowns at the fair, waiting for him to put a ping-pong ball in her mouth.

  There was that warm grin again. It was small and hard won, but it was worth the wait. “I noticed you when you followed Nick and me around, wanting to know how our toy guns worked, pleading with us to help you with one of your experiments.”

  She took another mouthful of the water and let her shoulders relax as the bubbles tickled the roof of her mouth. He’d been surprised when she said she wouldn’t have a glass of wine. She’d thought about disclosing her illness, but she still wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t tell her parents, or worse, stop her from being involved at all.

  “I noticed you all the time.” There, she’d said it. She held her breath.

  “Why, because you were wondering if I’d try to put a frog down your back?”

  She didn’t answer, just stared at him the way Genie had promised would have him begging for her to touch him. He looked up and the expression on his face changed and he gave a small cough. “Don’t tell me you had a crush on me.”

  Was his emphasis on “crush” because he was completely horrified by the concept, or because he’d been hoping for so long that she’d felt that way that he couldn’t believe she’d finally said it? She had a nasty feeling it was the former. And what a horrible word “crush” was anyway, sort of immature and desperate. Is that the way she was behaving now? Suddenly she felt very tired, and the warning her doctor had given her to take things easy these next few weeks rang in her head. But she’d started this now.

  The familiar sound of her mindfulness bell in her bag punctuated the air between them.

  No chickening out.

  “Of course I had a crush on you. You must have known that.”

  He chuckled, and when she didn’t respond, the smile slipped from his face.

  “I still do.”

  He stopped chewing but didn’t say anything. Then he swallowed and his face became even more serious.

  She placed the knife and fork beside her plate and forced words beyond the band tightening around her throat. “I had a wake-up call in Borneo. Being so far away from home made me reassess things.”

  “In what way?”

  “I’ve always been a careful person, Lane, someone who’ll weigh up the odds and always go with the completely safe bet, but I was denying myself a whole lot of life experiences. Since I was challenged overseas, faced difficult times, then overcame them, I realized I had the power to live my own life.”

  He was nodding slowly. “The purple hair. Taking time off your studies. You’re trying something new.”

  He smiled as if he completely understood what she meant, and the positive tone to his voice made her heart skip.

  “Yes, and the nose stud, and a whole lot of other things that I’ve always been too careful to try. I’ve made a list of everything I’ve promised to do for myself, and you’re on there too.”

  …

  He put down his fork and tried to hide his shock at what she’d just said. “You mean working with me on the restaurant renovation? I thought you only decided to do it when your mother went back to Greece.”

  She took another drink, but a rose tint blossomed on her cheeks and it was all at once sexy and sweet. “No, I mean seducing you. That was on my list.”

  He stopped moving…and blinking. In fact, he had to remind himself to take another breath.

  Her dark brown eyes were fixed on him. “Oh.” He put his fork on the plate and then carefully lined it up with his knife. “That’s not what I was expecting.”

  “Because you don’t find me attractive?”

  “Well, no, I mean yes, it’s…” He cleared his throat. He couldn’t tell her how he’d felt that first time he saw her, or what it was like sitting here with her now with her fresh face and her aura of fun. “We haven’t seen each other in years, Yasmin. I only really remember you as a little kid, and now your dad’s… Your father has asked me to be his project manager for this. He told me to keep…”

  She spoke more forcefully. “Dad told you to keep what?”

  He picked up his napkin, wiped his hands, then put it down again. “Your dad called me from the airport and asked me to keep an eye on you while he and your mother weren’t here.”

  Yasmin sighed hard. “I guess looking after myself for the last five years, working halfway across the world, and being self-sufficient and successful all happened by accident.”

  He rested his arms on the table. “Should I be worried about this list? That you’re going to start doing a whole lot of things that are out of character?” The glow on her cheeks suggested that’s exactly what she would do.

  “The things I want to do now aren’t out of character for me, they’re simply not what people expect. If I hadn’t made the commitment to go after the things I really wanted in my life, then I wouldn’t have dreamed of saying these things. I wouldn’t have had the courage. But the fact is I don’t want to live that way anymore. I’m going to do what I want rather than what is expected of me, go after the things I didn’t have the confidence to ask for. That includes you.”

  Lane kept his eyes fixed on Yasmin’s face. Listening to her explain in well-thought-out and logical detail why he should let himself be seduced by her would have had any other guy in this room on the edge of his seat or halfway out the door with her hand in his. She was beautiful and intelligent, and had a laugh that made people turn around and smile. But he wasn’t a regular guy, and the sooner she understood that, the better.

  For one thing, he didn’t want a relationship with anyone right now. He was about to build a brand-new restaurant in one of the most prestigious hotel chains in the world, he kept antisocial hours, and he didn’t need any distractions.

  Not only that, when there had been no one else to turn to as a kid, when Lane had been traded back and forth between his parents like a bad debt, he’d come to understand that you made only a few real friends like Nick Katsalos in your life. To say that Nick had saved his sanity when they were growing up might sound like the script from a soap opera, but it was true. Lane would do anything for Nick and his family.

  Lane was the guy wh
o’d been charged by Mano Katsalos to keep an eye on his daughter until he got back. Mano was his best friend’s father, and you did what he asked. It was one thing to disappoint a girl whose family he didn’t know, but when any relationship he might have with Yasmin broke down, as it surely would given how different they were, she’d still have her family, but he wouldn’t. And he couldn’t risk that happening.

  Yasmin was sitting across from him, her face flushed and her fingers knit together in front of her as if she were waiting for him to pass down a sentence. Her hair was pulled off her face and the tiny diamond in her nose twinkled under the restaurant lights.

  “Yasmin, I…”

  “I’ve embarrassed you, haven’t I?” She gave him a rueful smile. “Well, join the club, but I won’t apologize for going after something that I want, and I’m not changing my mind. I’m not unattractive, you and I have had some great laughs together, and we’re both going to be moving along in a few weeks, so what have we got to lose?”

  He scratched his head, as if putting his hand a little closer to his brain might give him some inspiration for getting out of this without hurting her feelings. Not unattractive? That was the understatement of the year. Yasmin had always been striking with her long black hair and her high Grecian cheekbones, but now, with her new hair color and the out-there way she was dressing, she was the sort of person you’d crane your neck to get another look at. What could a woman like her see in someone as focused and predictable as him?

  “Yasmin, I’m flattered, I really am. But I’ve promised your dad we’ll have an updated restaurant opening a month from now. That’s my priority.” He shifted the napkin from one side of his plate to the other. “You don’t really want a guy like me. Look at you. You should be with some artsy type, a poet or an architect at least. Someone who likes socializing. And I’m none of those things.”

  She touched the delicate butterfly at her neck. Damn if it wasn’t one of the sexiest things about her. A headache bit behind his eyes. Was he mad? Had the grinding hours of work and the lonely road of being in charge and making money fried every cell in his brain?

  She lifted a slim shoulder and her eyes twinkled. “Well, I guess you can’t blame a girl for trying.”

  “Dessert? We have pistachio ice cream or a delicious cardamom cream pie.”

  Oh God, not more whipped cream!

  The waiter stood in front of them and a smile slowly spread across Yasmin’s face. She looked back at Lane, and he’d never wished so hard that he could be someone completely different, someone who could live life on a whim like she obviously could. But whims were transitory and fleeting, and that wasn’t the way he wanted to live his life, or the way he’d treat relationships.

  “Well, the least you can do is be a gentleman and share a piece of cream pie.”

  He looked into her eyes and wondered, now that he knew what she wanted from him, how he could keep away from her for a month.

  …

  Yasmin sat in the Palace restaurant the next day, waiting for Lane to appear. She’d been making notes on her laptop getting ready for their meeting this morning, but now she stared at the screen as her thoughts wandered to last night.

  What a complete and absolute embarrassment she’d been to herself. Why had she intellectualized it all and tried to explain what she wanted? If she’d just done what most normal people do—find the right moment then make a move—things might have turned out differently. She picked up the remains of her breakfast, a piece of Leo’s warm olive bread, and chewed. And if Lane hadn’t been such a gentleman and tried to change the subject after she’d embarrassed him beyond belief, she quite likely wouldn’t have come out from under her rock this morning.

  They’d ended the night with him dropping her home, and she’d apologized for making him feel weird about her proposition, but told him she was glad she’d said it. He’d just smiled and said that he’d forget all about it.

  She brushed crumbs from her orange silk batwing top. Get your act together. Feeling sorry and embarrassed wouldn’t cut the mustard anymore. If her hair hadn’t turned out, she’d have just tried again, wouldn’t she? If her nose stud wasn’t quite right, she’d fix it. Just because her first choice of tall, dark, and way-out-of-her-league didn’t want her for now, then she’d either have to keep on trying, or find someone who would. In the meantime she was practicing Italian for an hour every morning.

  Suddenly, the Skype alert jumped on her laptop screen. Her mom was calling from Greece. They’d arranged to speak at noon, time for Yasmin to mentally prepare herself for seeing her mother for the first time since she’d changed her look, and time for her meeting with Lane to be over. Should she answer it or just let it ring? The thought of her mother sitting nervously in front of a borrowed computer, maybe desperate to talk, was too much to bear and she clicked to make the connection.

  For a minute everything was fuzzy and then her mother’s face came into sharp focus.

  But it wasn’t just her mother, it was her aunt Maria, her uncle Thassos, an old woman she’d never seen before, and a couple of kids as well. They all let out a simultaneous shriek.

  “Koukla!”

  “Mom! It’s so good to see you.” Yasmin laughed. “Yiasou Theia, yiasou Theio!”

  There was more shrieking in Greek, and then everyone behind her mother waved.

  “So it’s true,” her mother said, both hands at her cheeks. “You really are home, and your hair really is purple.”

  “Yes, I’m home. How are you? Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay. I’m going to Eressos to see Yiayia soon so I had to call early. Why are you home? Your father seems to have no idea. All he could say was that you had purple hair and you were wearing men’s boots.”

  “Mom, I can’t talk right now. I have a meeting with Lane in a minute. Why don’t I call you back after you’ve seen Yiayia? Tomorrow morning your time.”

  “Ah, Lane. He’s such a good boy. ”

  “So, you’re okay about us working on some changes here?”

  “Koukla, it’s not the renovations I care about, it’s the fact that your father won’t agree to having a proper life with me. He’s so tied up with vengeance for the O’Malleys and a need to prove himself that he has lost sight of our happiness. He can do whatever he likes with the Palace now. I have no interest in it. Your father thinks I’m coming home with him this week but I’m not going anywhere until he understands why I’m so upset.”

  “Morning.”

  Yasmin twisted to see Lane walk through the door. He wore dark pants and a checked shirt and tie, just as formal and together as ever. And just as always, her heart did a little leap when she saw him.

  “Is that Lane? Oh, where is he? Can I speak to him?”

  “Hey, Mrs. K.” Lane stepped into her mother’s line of vision, his face breaking into a broad smile.

  “Oh, look how handsome you are in your business clothes, Lane! I was only saying to Maria this morning how lucky Yasmin is to have a man like Lane Griffiths looking out for her.”

  “Yasmin’s the one who’s on top of things here, Mrs. K,” he said, throwing a smile at Yasmin. “She seems to know exactly what she wants.”

  “I like her new hair, do you?”

  “I’ll call you again tonight, Mom,” Yasmin said, desperate to get her mother off the call before she started asking Lane if he had a girlfriend.

  “Okay, koukla. Big kisses.”

  Yasmin tapped her mouse to close the window and turned back to look at Lane. It was only then that she noticed the person behind him.

  “Yasmin, this is Paulo. He renovated my SoHo restaurant a while back and still owes me a couple of favors, so he’s going to work with us on the refurbishment.”

  Paulo. Tall, dark, handsome. He was well-built and a little disheveled, his eyes hidden behind a pair of smart, dark glasses. He was definitely not a go-get-’em businessman like Lane; more hardworking tradesman with an air of his own sexiness.

  “Hey, Yasmin.” Paul
o took her hand and held it a second or two longer than was natural. He pushed the glasses onto his forehead and looked her directly in the eyes. “I bet this place has seen its fair share of romance, and with someone as beautiful as you in charge, how could it not?”

  That was a line. Yes, that was definitely a pickup line. Yasmin’s gaze skidded to Lane as she felt the heat crawling up her neck.

  “Well, it would see romance, wouldn’t it, being a wedding venue?” Lane said with a snort. He pulled out a chair for Yasmin, then sat next to her and indicated one on the other side of him for Paulo.

  “This is a great old building,” Paulo said when they were all seated. “I performed here once at a wedding.” He had the tiniest hint of an accent.

  “You’re a singer?” she asked. He was almost too beautiful, and although he kept eye contact with her the whole time, she found her gaze shifting back to Lane.

  “No, a dancer. I teach salsa in my spare time, and the bride and groom had come for lessons.” He winked. “The bridesmaids were all keen on a demonstration after the first dance.”

  Lane cleared his throat and was laying papers on the table in front of them.

  “Oh, I love salsa! Do you teach in town? I’ve been thinking about dance lessons.” Three birds with one stone? Her list raced through her head: learn a new language; tall, dark, and handsome; learn to dance.

  Paulo reached into his pocket and took out a card. “Please give me a call and we can arrange something.”

  She took the card and put it in her pocket.

  “We’re going to be far too busy in the next few weeks for there to be any dancing…or any sort of fooling around.” Lane didn’t look at either of them, just pulled his chair in and spread the papers wider, a small frown on his forehead. “I’d appreciate it if I could have your attention. I’ve been thinking that one of the first things we should do is change the floor covering. I’ve used good marble…”

  That comment about not fooling around was a direct result of her father asking Lane to look out for her, she was sure of it.