Regrets Only (Sequel to The Marriage Pact)

by Pullen, M. J.

  She found the clock face down on the floor. Almost four a.m. She crept into the bathroom and shut the door before finding the unpleasantly bright light. She splashed water on her face and breathed deeply. After a few moments with her hands steadying her against the sink, she looked in the mirror. Jesus, I look like crap. Mascara was smeared beneath her eyes, her formerly perfect hair was a rat’s nest behind her head, and the evening of cocktails had weathered her face like a sailor’s. Suzanne looked and felt much older than thirty-three. She made a mental note to have Chad schedule a facial before the benefit.

  Silently, she began gathering her things. The hotel room was pitch black, so she scrounged in her purse for the tiny keychain light, shaped like a pig, which Marci had given her years ago. The expensive pumps had been kicked off near the door. Skirt and blouse were in a heap nearby. After a few moments of searching, she located her bra hanging off the desk lampshade across from the bed. Her panties, however, had gone completely missing.

  She covered the room with the tiny pig several times, freezing periodically when she heard Rick shift or grunt in his sleep. Opening the blackout curtains a fraction gave her enough light to shimmy into the rest of her clothes and make one more sweep of the room. She kicked herself for wearing her favorite pair of La Perla underwear, as they were about to become a casualty to an early-morning getaway.

  Sorry, girls.

  She decided to add “Leave favorite underwear at home,” to her list of dating rules. The rules were sort of Suzanne’s cross between Emily Post and Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, mostly resulting from her own bad experiences: Never bring a man back your place. No emotional talk during sex. Never get naked with the lights on. Always undress yourself. No dating guys with kids or dogs. No sex in cars. And so on. She thought one day she could publish these rules and make a fortune.

  She closed the curtain and crept toward the door. She was nearly out of the room when she lost her balance and bumped against the closet door. It rattled loudly. Rick stirred behind her. “Suzanne? You okay?”

  Damn.

  “Yes, I’m fine.” Her voice was sheepish despite her best efforts. “I just need to get an early start today.”

  “But,” his voice in the darkness was slow and softened by sleep, “it’s Saturday.”

  “Yeah, I just have so much going on with this benefit; I really need to get home. Thank you for dinner and…everything.”

  She waited as she heard him fumble for the lamp and got it turned on. “Um, sure. You’re welcome?” he said, looking around, befuddled. In the sudden light, his bare chest looked a little pudgier, and furrier, than she remembered. He ran his hand through the thick brown hair standing up all over his head.

  “Okay, well…bye, Rick,” she said, as sweetly as she could. She turned back toward the door.

  “Wait,” he said softly.

  Please don’t make an ass of yourself, she willed him. Please just hate me and let’s be done with it.

  She didn’t have to worry. As much as he liked her, Rick the Salesman knew a simple, cardinal rule of all relationships: never beg. He simply asked the exact question to which he wanted the answer. “This is ending right now, isn’t it?”

  Suzanne noticed that there was neither hope nor despair in his tone. Obviously, he genuinely liked her, and yet the question only sought to confirm, rather than to convince or retaliate. She hesitated only for a split second. “Yes.”

  She hovered there momentarily, waiting for the usual barrage of questions or arguments to commence, but Rick just nodded slowly and said, “I’m sorry to hear that. It really was very nice to meet you, Suzanne.”

  Her face flushed. The stark contrast between this courteous ending and last night’s very primitive activities embarrassed her, as did standing in her professional clothes and heels with no underwear. “You, too, Rick. Take care, okay?”

  She hurried out, made her way down the stairs, and exited the side door. She had the phone number to the cab company on speed dial.

  Chapter 2

  “You look awful,” Chad said when she got to the office Monday morning, handing her a cinnamon latte. He was right. She’d barely slept all weekend.

  “Thanks,” she replied. “I would say the same for you but I have to say you actually look great in jeans. I didn’t know you owned any.”

  He pretended to be offended. “Hey, just because I don’t dress like a homeless person every day doesn’t mean I can’t pull off casual when it’s appropriate. You just never get to see me on my days off. Except today.”

  The snarl was tiny but hard to miss. Typically their office was not open on Mondays, because the nature of event planning required them to work so many weekends. But the gala was coming up in two weeks, and Chad had been bribed with the promise of a week’s paid vacation and several free dinners to work three Mondays in a row in preparation. It was a raw deal for Suzanne and she knew it, but Chad was indispensable to her and the thought of his being unhappy was more than she could handle. She considered it an investment in her own sanity.

  “Thank you again. Your sacrifice has been duly noted.”

  Chad gave her a tight smile and walked deliberately to his desk, about ten feet away from hers. They worked in a converted studio loft space in West Midtown, with floor-to-ceiling windows, brightly painted exposed pipes, and old red brick along the outside walls from the building’s days as a textile mill. Normally neat as a pin, today the office was cluttered with event paraphernalia. Two hundred goodie baskets with tiny guitars hot-glued to ribbons hanging from the top. Silent auction items ranging from original artwork to an autographed pair of boots. Piles of pop culture magazines and music industry trade publications from which Suzanne and Chad had tried to glean everything possible about Dylan Burke before the benefit.

  Suzanne took the latte to her workstation and began retrieving voicemail messages: seventeen since she’d checked in on Saturday. The routine questions and confirmations from vendors she forwarded to Chad. She’d have to handle herself the several semi-panicked messages from Dylan Burke’s squeaky manager, Yvette. When anxious, Yvette had the shrillest high-pitched voice Suzanne had ever heard. She groaned as she jotted things down on several sticky notes, lining them up in order of priority as she went through the voicemails. Yvette apparently never slept, never took a day off, and never stopped worrying about her young boss’s desires and reputation.

  Dylan Burke, twenty-six, was the quintessential small town Tennessee boy made good. Known for his gritty persona and anthem-style country-rock, he had become country music’s latest rising star. He’d had several chartbuster hits in the last two years, including “Country Rules” and “Sticking Up for the Sticks.” Each of these featured plays on words, guitar solos, and rhythms that seemed to have been designed with line dancing in mind. His most recent hit, “Duct Tape Fixes Everything,” was a cutesy ballad-type song that featured a young boy trying to repair his parents’ broken marriage. Suzanne, not a country fan, had never listened to it, but the mere mention of the song sent Marci weeping.

  Women loved Dylan Burke for his winning smile, tight jeans, and ever-present faded camouflage baseball cap. The mainstream media loved taking pictures of him with an acoustic guitar in beauteous settings, gossiping about his endless stream of busty young girlfriends, and chronicling his fairly predictable rebellious behavior. The tabloids loved his large and conspicuous family most of all.

  The Burkes were Nashville’s take on the Brady Bunch. Dylan’s rough, outspoken mother had moved to Nashville from a rural Georgia trailer park, hoping to make it as a singer and dragging her two young daughters with her. She had met and married Dylan’s father, a divorced music producer who had two teenage daughters of his own, while waiting tables at a diner. Dylan and his younger sister Kate had come along shortly thereafter. By the time Dylan was eight, Donna Burke had abandoned her own hopes of a singing career in favor of her talented only son.

  It seemed to Suzanne—as she and Chad pored over articles, resea
rching their famous client together—that after Dylan’s career began to take off, his family had a competition to see who could ride his famous coattails farther while embarrassing him the most. Every other week it seemed that his mother or one of his five sisters said or did something ridiculous, and nearly always there was photographic evidence to document it. Dylan must have a terrible publicist, because not only did their behavior never seem to faze him, he continued to be seen with them at even his most prominent award ceremonies and press opportunities.

  She suspected that the gala in Atlanta was designed to soften all of that—as well as to demonstrate Dylan’s more urbane side. Even before reading People, Suzanne knew that Dylan was making a foray into acting, having been recently cast across from Reese Witherspoon in a romantic comedy set in Atlanta. The benefit at the High was supposed to show his sophisticated side, while subtly promoting both the movie and his current album, Fireflies. A tall order, but Suzanne had every confidence she would be able to pull it off.

  The evening was a “cowboy meets culture” kind of event, and the biggest deal to hit the High in a long time. The guest list was loaded with an eclectic mix of celebrities—everyone from Travis Tritt to Gore Vidal, along with Dylan’s verbally uncouth mother, well-connected father, and the more attention-hungry of his five sisters. And of course, several other artists from country music’s freshman class of wild boys would make an appearance, accompanied by a gaggle of aspiring starlets. These last were mostly the stick-thin, silly types who wore sunglasses indoors and carried tiny dogs in their purses. It promised to be an entertaining evening.

  Naturally, several local and national media outlets had representatives attending, pretending to be focused on style or the arts, but primarily to await the inevitable spectacle bound to occur when black ties and boots met vast quantities of booze.

  This was why Suzanne had been hired, in fact. The High didn’t have the internal staff to handle all the intricacies of dealing with the event itself along with the press, agents, handlers, and celebrities. Suzanne’s insane dedication to perfection and diplomatic skills, along with her experience at the museum, made her the perfect choice. When Betsy Fuller-Brown had called Suzanne personally to request a bid, she’d suspected they were pretty desperate to hire her and put in for twice her normal project fees on a whim. To her shock, they had not batted an eyelash, much less tried to talk her down.

  Three months later, Suzanne realized she had already earned every penny of her fee and then some. Apparently, Dylan Burke and his staff knew he was the hottest thing going and planned to make the most of it by being the highest-maintenance celebrity entourage ever. Starting the first week after she’d taken on the project, Suzanne had received reams of faxes from Yvette every week detailing special requests for the event. A boot-shaped ice luge that dispensed Southern Comfort into chilled shot glasses. Mason jars full of live fireflies as centerpieces—promoting Dylan’s Fireflies album. Several large suites at the Four Seasons for Dylan’s family and friends, as well as a VIP lounge area at the museum. As Yvette enthusiastically described Dylan’s apparently very specific vision over a breakfast meeting, Suzanne thought, This is why I don’t do weddings. The brides.

  Today’s crisis had apparently been brewing over the weekend. Yvette’s high-pitched voice was especially shrill. “Suzanne, it’s Yvette. Listen, we are having some major issues here with the seating arrangement. Donna Burke is insisting that she needs a table near the stage, but you already have the VIP tables full for the major donors and the partner sponsors. I also need a press table on the right side of the stage so that the photographers can capture Dylan’s left profile for the pictures.”

  Suzanne dialed back Yvette’s number and, of course, reached her voicemail. If this is so important, she thought, answer your damn phone. “Hi, Yvette,” she trilled as sweetly as she could. “Suzanne here. Just got into the office and got your messages. I totally appreciate your concerns; thank you for voicing them so well. Why don’t you just buzz me back and we’ll talk?”

  “Ick,” Chad said, putting a file on her desk as she finished her message. “Just promise me you’ll never talk to me like that, okay? If I annoy you or something, just tell me. Don’t do the whole sweet Southern girl, smile-through-your-teeth-while-you-stick-the-knife-in-my-back routine.”

  “You’re annoying me,” she replied flatly. He grinned and turned back to his desk.

  “You told her about the problem with the press table?” Chad called over his shoulder.

  Shit. Suzanne knew she probably should’ve left that on the message so Yvette could talk to Dylan before getting back to her. Otherwise they’d have another long, exhausting conversation to come to a mutual decision that would then be overturned by Dylan anyway. She picked up the phone again.

  “Hello?” A man’s voice. She paused.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I must’ve dialed the wrong number.” Wait, didn’t I just hit redial? She was about to hang up when the voice returned.

  “Not if you were calling Yvette Olsen, you didn’t. Can I, uh, can I help you?”

  Suzanne thought she remembered Yvette mentioning that she had a new assistant. Maybe she had started trusting him with phone duty. “Well, is Yvette available?”

  “I’m sorry, she stepped out. Is there something I can do for you?” She heard voices in the background—other men—and for a second she thought she heard suppressed laughter.

  “Well,” Suzanne sighed. “I’d just left her a message a few minutes ago responding to some concerns she had about the benefit —”

  “We were actually just meeting about that, so your timing is great.” His voice sounded farther away now. Had he put her on speakerphone? Who else was in the room?

  “Okay,” she started tentatively. “I just remembered that I had an additional question about the press table, so if you’ll just have her call me when she gets back, that would be great.”

  “Why don’t you just ask me the question?” he said.

  “Well, it’s complicated.”

  “The question is complicated, or the reason you can’t ask me is complicated?”

  Wow. She thought Chad was a nervy assistant. This guy was bordering on rude. If this was what the music industry peons were like, she was going to charge more to plan their ridiculous parties. “The question is complicated. It’s about the press table.”

  “I don’t think we should have one. Let the vultures stand.” She heard more laughter in the background. Man, was Yvette going to be pissed when Suzanne told her about this.

  “Well, that wasn’t really the question. Obviously there are enough major outlets planning to attend—I think we have to accommodate them. It was just a question of how to keep them separate from the Burkes—”

  “Afraid one of those hillbillies will make a scene and ruin the whole event?”

  “Well, yes, frankly. Those are the kinds of things we have to be concerned about—the comfort of the attendees, the reputation of the museum…. You know what? Just have Yvette call me if you don’t mind.”

  “I do mind, as a matter of fact.”

  Suzanne was completely taken aback. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I realize, Miss Hamilton, that my family may not have the blue-blood heritage that yours does. We may not be conventional, exactly. But we’re good people.”

  “My family?” Holy shit. Suzanne collapsed into her chair, mouth gaping. Oh God, oh God, oh God. Tell me this isn’t happening.

  She now realized why the assistant’s masculine twang sounded familiar. She had a sudden—and belated—memory, crystal clear, that Yvette had mentioned her new assistant’s name was Lisa. She’d been talking to Dylan Burke. For the first time. Holy shit.

  “Mr. Burke, I—” she stammered, gripping the phone in panic. Across the room, Chad’s eyes went wide in shock as he put it together, too. “Please accept my apologies. I—”

  But it was too late. “Yvette,” she heard Dylan call to the murmuring room behind him. She heard a stat
ic rustle as he presumably tossed the phone to her. Yvette made a startled, squeaking noise as she fumbled it. From farther away, she heard country music’s golden boy say, “It’s for you.”

  Chapter 3

  “My career is over. Over. Ooooover,” Suzanne said, staring into the bottom of an empty martini glass. “That doesn’t even sound like a real word anymore. Over. Over…”

  “Over and out?” came a cheerily snide suggestion from across the table.

  “Shut up, Rebecca,” Marci said. “Can’t you see she’s upset enough?”

  It was the first time the four of them—Suzanne, Marci, Beth, and Rebecca—had been out together in months. Marci had been holed up with some major copyediting project for the last several weeks. Beth had been busy with her family: she was president of her kids’ PTA or something, and her husband Ray was starting his own car repair shop. Rebecca traveled constantly in her new job as a flight attendant; what’s more, she had basically been on friend probation for the last three or four years, since she had made a not terribly subtle attempt to become the next Mrs. Jake Stillwell in Marci’s place.

  Though she had done nothing overtly mean-spirited, Rebecca had flocked to Jake’s side when he and Marci had broken their engagement for a time. This would not have been so terrible except that she had very obviously relished the opportunity to get close to him, despite the pain it caused Marci. As a result, she had lost her position as a bridesmaid at their wedding and Marci had scarcely spoken to her for the first year she and Jake were married.

  As time went on, however, she had dogged the three of them with so many invitations and solicitations of friendship that they had let her back in the circle out of sheer exhaustion from the effort of keeping her out.

  Now, Suzanne glared at her with one eye through the distortion of the martini glass. “Is it me, Rebecca,” she slurred, “or has your head gotten really tiny since the last time I saw you?”

  “Suze, I think you’ve had enough to drink,” Marci said.