Regrets Only (Sequel to The Marriage Pact)

by Pullen, M. J.

  She smiled at him through gritted teeth. You little jackass. Clearly Dylan had picked up on her desperation to keep him as a happy client, and was now exacting his revenge for her behavior on the phone the other day.

  He threw his arm around a petite blonde in a pink baseball cap and impossibly tiny camouflage shorts. “See, Ms. Hamilton, you can’t always judge by appearances. Now look there.” He pointed at the field and squeezed the little blonde closer simultaneously. “That’s my buddy Jesse McCreary in right field. He has a six-million dollar contract, but he ain’t afraid to get his hands dirty. I’ve been fishing with him and he can clean a bass faster than you can fill up one of your expensive teacups. But I guess that wouldn’t mean much to you, would it?”

  He looked expansively around at the crowd, grinning smugly. They were eating it up. She wanted to kick him in the balls and storm out. Nothing was worth this.

  “No, I guess it wouldn’t,” Suzanne replied softly, feeling her face go red again. She refused to break eye contact, despite her embarrassment. The two thoughts most present in her mind were that she wanted desperately to smack Dylan in the face, and that she wished like hell she had not chosen to wear her mother’s pearls today. She’d been aiming for professional and refined, but to Dylan Burke’s circle she came off stuffy and aristocratic.

  Dylan was clearly enjoying his advantage. “See there? I sure hope you learn, Ms. Hamilton, that”—here he broke into a loud clear melody—“scruffy don’t always mean stupid.” A murmur of laughter and smattering of applause rippled through the box crowd as they recognized the lyric from one of his early hits. He winked at her and turned toward the field, the microscopic blonde in tow.

  Screw it. Let him fire me. “Actually, Mr. Burke,” she said, calling him back with the most sugary sweet tone she could manage. “The reason I am not impressed by Jesse McCreary’s fishing prowess is that it seems to detract from his performance on the field. No offense to your friend, but he’s way overvalued. Sure, his batting average will stay in the 300s until the end of May or so, but he’s not clutch. His stats go down every year the closer we get to October and his percentages with runners in scoring position is just pathetic. Those high-profile homeruns might be fun to watch, but they won’t be enough to get us to the World Series unless he can do it with runners on base. I admit I don’t know anything about bass fishing, Mr. Burke. But in baseball, runs matter.”

  The group in the box didn’t know how to react to this unprecedented speech, but she certainly had their attention. A few of them were smiling and exchanging looks of amazement, while others looked to Dylan Burke to gauge his response before reacting. With nothing left to lose, Suzanne went on. “And as long as we’re on the subject of appearances, perhaps you shouldn’t assume that a Southern girl with blonde hair and three-inch heels doesn’t know baseball, especially here in Atlanta.”

  Dylan said nothing, his expression momentarily frozen in surprise. The girl under his arm stared daggers at Suzanne. A sudden piercing giggle broke the silence as Yvette Olsen rushed over. “Oh, my! Isn’t she just a spitfire? Dylan just loves all this witty banter. Suzanne, could I steal you away to consult about the beverage service, please?” She put both hands on Suzanne’s shoulders and steered her firmly toward the bar at the back of the room. “Drink up, everyone! Enjoy the game!”

  Being hustled away by the squeaky manager, Suzanne managed a quick glance over her shoulder. The partygoers were all returning either to their previous conversations or to the game itself. She heard the loud pop of a bat and the corresponding gasp of the crowd, followed by a collective sigh. A pop fly, perhaps, or a close foul ball.

  At the back near the bar cart, Yvette was nearly apoplectic. She couldn’t, however, seem to find the words to express it. “Do you—how can—I’ve never—” she spluttered. Then finally, “Do you treat all your clients this way?” The khaki-clad bartender looked around uncomfortably and pretended to need something on the other side of the room.

  Keep smiling, no matter what, Suzanne’s mother commanded in her ear. She obeyed. “What do you mean, Yvette?”

  Yvette stammered for a moment, trying to put her finger on exactly what Suzanne had done wrong. In her mid-forties, Yvette had worked her way through the ranks of several B- and C-list singers, mostly Christian musicians with limited audiences, and landing a huge star like Dylan Burke a few months back had been the opportunity of her career. Hiring Suzanne had been one of her first major decisions since coming on as Dylan’s manager. She knew managers and agents who’d found themselves suddenly unemployed for much less than this kind of disrespect. How could she make this young, thin Steel Magnolias cast-off understand?

  “I think everyone is having a good time,” Suzanne offered, to fill the silence. She gestured at the room full of people talking, laughing, and most important, drinking. As she did this, she thought she saw Dylan glance her way with a smirk.

  “Yes,” Yvette replied tentatively, gazing around. Her beady eyes narrowed as she returned her gaze to Suzanne. “Just keep in mind, please, that your performance is a direct reflection on me. I take that very seriously. Okay?”

  Suzanne’s phone buzzed in her purse. Probably Chad—a glance at the clock reminded her she’d promised to check in half an hour ago. She flashed a final winning smile at Yvette. “Of course, Yvette, I understand completely. Could you excuse me, please?”

  She flipped open the phone on her way out the door. “This is Suzanne.”

  But it wasn’t a complaining Chad who greeted her. “Suzanne? It’s Rick.”

  Her heart sank. She let the door to the luxury box close behind her and kicked herself for not checking the number before answering. “Hi, Rick. How are you?” Her voice was an octave too high as she tried to summon dignified politeness.

  “I’m okay,” he said. “Listen, I feel kind of weird calling you about this, but I have…something you left in the hotel room the other day.”

  The panties. Suzanne felt suddenly, oddly vulnerable.

  “Oh, you can just—” she hesitated. Throw them out. Burn them. Whatever.

  “I thought maybe we could meet so I could get them back to you?” He sounded mildly embarrassed. Whether it was because of the undergarments or his transparent attempt to see her again, she couldn’t tell.

  “Oh, Rick, I’d love to but—it’s just I am so busy. The gala is a few days away, and—”

  “Of course. I understand. I’ll—”

  “Could you mail them?” she asked quickly. Asking him to throw them out left too much room for creepy doubts. Besides, they were her favorite pair of thirty-dollar underwear.

  “…hang on to them until—” he was saying simultaneously. Then, “Oh, right, mail them. Of course. I’ll be happy to.”

  “Thanks, Rick. My office address is on my business card. Do you still have it?”

  “Er…no.”

  “Well, it’s on my website. I’ll have my assistant send you a check for the postage, okay?”

  His voice switched from seemingly embarrassed to firm. “Suzanne, please don’t insult me. I’ll pay the postage. Take care of yourself.”

  Before she could respond, the line had gone dead.

  #

  The next evening, she and Chad sat on the floor of her apartment, sticking customized labels on five hundred auction programs and folding in a sheet with last-minute additions to the auction. A half-bottle of wine and a bowl of popcorn sat on a tray between them, and My Fair Lady was on the television.

  “I love this song,” Chad said, as Rex Harrison’s “I’m an Ordinary Man” resounded from the TV. “Pretty much sums up my whole philosophy. At least about women.”

  Suzanne snorted. “Just you wait, Chad Gwynn. Just you wait.”

  He laughed and took a gulp of wine. “I will say that if I were ever going to be with a woman, Audrey Hepburn would make the cut.”

  “Other than being dead, you mean?”

  “Hey, it’s not like we’re talking reality here anyway.”<
br />
  “True,” she said. “I don’t know, though. She seems like she’d be high maintenance.”

  “Well, that wouldn’t change my life much,” Chad sneered.

  His partner, David, who was—Suzanne had learned over time—actually a very sweet man, was a bit prone to dramatics. More than once Chad had slept on Suzanne’s couch or at the office after they had an argument, after which David would invariably whisk Chad away somewhere for a few days to make it up to him.

  For a while, when he first started working for her, Suzanne had worried Chad might be in an abusive relationship, but then when she spent time with them together, she decided it was just how they worked. She was pretty sure they’d been together since early college, which was nearly ten years. That was about a hundred and twenty times as long as Suzanne’s average relationship, so who was she to judge?

  “I’m going to open another bottle,” he said, getting up to go to the kitchen. “Need anything?”

  Suzanne shook her head. She took the opportunity to stretch her back, though. She and Chad often hung out at her apartment to do last-minute drudgery before a big event. It was more comfortable than the office, and if Suzanne provided the wine, Marci could typically be persuaded to lend a hand. But tonight Marci was too tired to join them. Jake had called at 7:30 to report that she’d fallen asleep on the couch after dinner and he couldn’t even convince her to move upstairs to the bedroom.

  Suzanne supposed it was just the beginning. With pregnancy now and children next, Marci’s time would no longer be her own—or Suzanne’s, for that matter—for a while to come. She remembered how long it had taken Beth to rejoin them socially after she and Ray had kids; when she did rejoin them, it still seemed to be on a limited basis.

  She and Marci had often joked about it, and sworn that they would have children at the exact same time of life, so neither of them would feel left out. Of course, that was before Marci had moved to Austin, and certainly long before Jake had cashed in their college promise to get married at thirty. Even now that they were having a baby and she saw them so happy together, she still found it hard to believe sometimes that the old promise had held out for so long. Maybe she was missing something.

  “Suze?” Chad was looking at her incredulously. “Are you going to get that?”

  The phone was ringing. She hoisted herself off the floor and checked the caller ID. Rick Sayers. Damn. “No, I don’t think I will. The machine can get it.”

  Chad shrugged and went back to labeling. Suzanne, too, returned to her pile of programs. Soon the voice echoed out into the living room. “Hey Suzanne, it’s Rick. Look, I wanted to apologize for being rude yesterday. It was kind of a stressful week at work, and that’s no excuse, but…anyway, I just wanted you to know that I really like you and when I found your underwear in the hotel room—”

  She sprang for the phone, knocking over her wine in the process and trying to ignore Chad’s rolling laughter behind her.

  “Hi, Rick…it’s fine. No, really, it is. Thank you. Yep, I appreciate it. Okay, no, I have to go. I’m sorry, I’m…working. I’ll call you.”

  Chad teased her as she sat back down. “Flavor of the month? Sweetie, you go through more men than Swinging Richard’s on a Saturday night.”

  She ignored him. “Ugh. That guy. He’s nice enough, but he doesn’t seem to know how to take no for an answer. I can’t shake him.”

  “What is it with you?” Chad asked. “Guys beating down your door, interns calling at all times of day and night trying to work for you. I’m pretty sure Barry Consuelo would leave his wife for you if you asked him—that guy talked to me about you for like fifteen minutes when I picked up the tickets. Just sad. No offense, but I don’t get it.”

  “Maybe if I looked like Audrey Hepburn, you’d feel the same way,” she teased.

  “Honey, no offense, but you’re no Audrey Hepburn. You’re gorgeous and I love you. But no Audrey.”

  “Fair enough,” Suzanne said, smiling. They went back to working in companionable silence, and she resisted the urge to ask Chad exactly what he meant.

  Chapter 5

  Suzanne’s Day-Before-Event ritual had been the same for years.

  She woke at 4 a.m., did her favorite yoga video, showered, and spent the rest of the morning at the office running through every possible scenario at the event. What if the keynote speaker didn’t show? What if the power went out? What if the big auction item or a key volunteer falls through? Her dad taught her this lawyer’s trick, back when he had hoped she’d follow his footsteps. Be brutal when you cross-examine yourself, sugar. Then nobody can catch you off guard.

  By the time Chad arrived to triple-confirm all the vendors and pack all the large plastic bins they would take tomorrow, Suzanne had a legal pad list of items for him to gather or handle, all in response to the imaginary catastrophes she’d created in her head that morning. They’d go over it, she’d hand things off to him, and head out for a massage and manicure, so she’d look fresh and rested the next day.

  Chad looked critically at the pad. “A hundred battery-powered candles?”

  “In case the lighting doesn’t work for the tents.”

  “Six bags of peppermint candy?”

  “Registration tables. Oh, and get three good-sized glass bowls to put them in. Nice bowls. No acrylic crap. Remember that volunteer at the car show with the horrifying breath?”

  Chad wrinkled his nose briefly to indicate that he did remember, as he scribbled “3 glass bowls” on the list. “Eight rolls of red and white duct tape?” he asked incredulously.

  “Well, it fixes everything, doesn’t it?” A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth.

  “Oh. My. God,” Chad said, staring at her, working something out in his head. “You like him.”

  “What? No,” she said quickly. Then, trying to sound more casual: “No. He’s a little too Hank, Jr., for me. And not especially nice.”

  Chad closed his mouth but still eyed her suspiciously. Suzanne flicked her hand at him in dismissal. “Oh, please. Like I need that train wreck in my life right now. I thought the duct tape might be cute around the centerpieces at the VIP tables, if I can do something artsy with them.”

  Whether the doubt in his face related to her ability to make duct tape artsy or to Dylan Burke himself, Suzanne couldn’t tell. But thankfully she had to run to her spa appointment, and she left Chad to his pile, waving her cell phone at him as she exited. She called Betsy Fuller-Brown at the High on her way to the spa, to answer any last-minute concerns. She ignored the call from her mother, which she knew was going to be whining that Suzanne wasn’t joining her at the League luncheon. Catch you on the way back, Mom, Suzanne thought. Her mother invariably called her after Junior League events to gossip about who was there, who was missing, who made what dishes, and who—gasp!—tried to pass restaurant food off as her own creation.

  Massaged, coiffed, nails painted, and gossip heard, Suzanne returned to the office at four. She ran down the usual lists with Chad and let him go home early to rest. She spent the next hour or so cleaning up the office, neatly piling the bins for the event near the door and then straightening, wiping, and polishing the rest of the space. There was nothing she hated more than returning after the excitement of an event had subsided to find that she had to spend the first day back reclaiming the office, instead of gearing up for the next project. She found that her nervous energy was better put to the useful task of cleaning now, so that she and Chad could start refreshed on Tuesday.

  As she wiped the granite counter in the studio’s modern kitchen—which served primarily as a place for coffee and extra storage—she noticed something hanging from the blown glass chandelier far above her. The chandelier was one of her most prized possessions, a smallish but colorful Chihuly piece with violet-red tendrils and horns escaping every which way, lit from within to display its beautiful form even while it served the function of lighting part of the room. She had saved religiously for more than four years to buy it,
after seeing a Chihuly display at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. It still made her cry sometimes with its beauty.

  But tonight there was something dangling into view on the far side. A string? She dropped her sponge and walked around the counter to the other side. It looked like a stray bit of blue ribbon—one of the pieces she and Chad had recently spent hours hot-gluing to tiny guitars for the goodie baskets. She debated for a moment whether she should bother with it, or just do the logical thing and wait for Chad to get it on Tuesday. It’ll be the last thing I think about before I go to sleep tonight, she thought.

  Shaking her head at her perfectionism, Suzanne went to the storage closet to retrieve her ladder, wondering how she or Chad had managed to fling a ribbon so far up. She tried to remember what they’d been talking about while they were hot-gluing. Chad was not usually one for dramatic gestures and elaborate hand motions, unlike his partner David, for whom telling a good story was aerobic exercise. It had just been the two of them working on the baskets this year, though, and she couldn’t remember anything in particular happening that day.

  Suzanne kicked off her shoes and started to climb toward the warm light of the chandelier, realizing she should’ve brought the feather duster while she was up here. She was almost at the top of the six-foot ladder, stretching to reach the ribbon, when she felt the aluminum step beneath her creak ominously. She had no time to react, and her feet refused to accept her brain’s panicked signals to move down to the step below. Yet somehow she was able to take in vivid and detailed pictures of everything around her—from a small dust-free patch on the chandelier to the brightly painted industrial pipes running across the ceiling—before the creak evolved into an unpleasant metal scraping sound and she plummeted backward toward the hard, painted concrete floor below.