by Sey, Susan
Then he noticed her mouth. That plump, bee-stung mouth that had surely been created with a man’s pleasure in mind. A mouth that, given the rest of her face—hell, given her entire vibe of crackling, practical energy—was a searing shock. Blatant, flag-waving evidence of a sweet spot just waiting to be discovered. He stared, arrested.
Drew leaned in again. “Belinda?”
Will cracked a fresh beer. “Who else?”
“Not what I expected,” James murmured as she reached the cool shade of the eaves, propped the flat of her hand to her forehead and squinted into the shadows toward the happy couple.
“I love you, Annie,” Ford said, staring down into the dazed face of the woman he’d just kissed senseless. “Marry me.”
Belinda froze. “Oh,” she said. “Oh my goodness.”
Annie jerked away, horror filling her big green eyes. “Bel. Oh my God, Bel. I’m so sorry. I didn’t, we didn’t—” She broke off to cast stricken eyes up at Ford. “I mean, we never would have—”
Ford put an arm around Annie’s shoulders and cut in gently. “I’m sorry, Bel,” he said, and James had to give him credit. The guy did look genuinely sorry. “I wish to God I’d said something sooner. But I didn’t know myself until just now.”
Bel pressed the heel of her hand to her chest, seemed to put all her concentration on forcing some air into her lungs. The camera man shifted around her for a tighter shot of Ford and Annie.
“I tried, Bel,” Ford went on. “Please believe me, I tried. You’re everything I wanted in a partner—smart, ambitious, independent, successful. But we just never...” He looked down at Annie, his eyes soft. “We never had this.”
Annie closed her eyes and made an agonized noise. Ford gave a helpless shrug. Belinda stared at them, pale and wordless. “I’m sorry, Bel,” Ford said again. “I know the timing is awfully inconvenient for you. I wish there were something I could do, some way I could make this less...” He glanced at the camera’s avid eye. “Awkward.”
“Awkward,” Bel said slowly. “Yes, it is that.”
The curly red-head seemed to shrink inside that flower-petal dress of hers. “I never wanted this, Bel,” she whispered. “Please believe me. I fought it so hard. We both did. Neither of us would hurt you for the world. We love you, Bel. But you can’t fight your heart. It’ll only make you crazy in the end. And my heart—” She broke off, turned an adoring face up to Ford’s, squeezed his hand. “—our hearts belong together.”
Bel stared at them, that strong, angular face so bloodless that James rolled up to the edge of his chair. He wasn’t about to let her crack her head on his pavers in the event she passed out. She looked like the suing sort.
“We discussed this,” she said to Ford with a cool self-possession that had James reconsidering the existence of that sweet spot. “The possibility that one or both of us might at some point be attracted to somebody outside our marriage. But we concluded that our partnership was worth more in the end than gratifying a short-term attraction. So please forgive me for speaking so bluntly, but in the interests of clarity and closure, I need to know. Are you making this decision with your heart, Ford? Or with your libido?”
“With my heart,” Ford said without hesitation. “I’m in love.”
“Are you?” She didn’t sound surprised. Just tired.
“I know this is hard for you to understand,” Ford said. “Hell, it’s hard for me to understand. Because until Annie, I was exactly like you. I had no idea what it was to feel this way. I know you think—we thought—that love was nothing but a myth. Now I understand that my life is nothing without love. You and I, we were great friends and kindred spirits. We got along. Enjoyed each other. It was comfortable and predictable and easy. But this?” He snugged the girl into his side and she melted into him. “Annie and I? We just sing, Bel. We flow.”
“And that,” Will said, saluting James with his beer bottle, “is why you should have shut up twenty minutes ago.”
The woman—Bel—flicked her gaze toward James and his brothers. She took them in, their lawn chairs facing the action like seats in a theater, then zeroed in on James.
“You did this?” she asked.
James rose slowly, palms out. “Easy now. I didn’t do anything.”
Will smiled at her. “Except tell your boy Ford that life ought to flow and sing.” He wiggled his empty bottle at her. “Care for a beer?”
James gave Will a killing look, then turned his attention back to the woman staring icicles into his chest. “Bel, right? Your name is Bel?”
“Yes.” She advanced on him, and he noticed the hint of a pair of delicious dimples carved deep into the softness of her cheeks. “Pleased to meet you.”
Impressive, he thought. The way she turned a simple pleasantry into something so chilly and sharp. “Now, Bel, be reasonable.” James gave her his best aw-shucks-ma’am face.
“I have been reasonable,” she said in that same deadly polite voice. “I have been imminently reasonable. But this—” She waved a hand in the air, a tight little circle that James understood encapsulated the whole distasteful scene she’d just endured. “This is not reasonable. This is ridiculous and immature and impulsive. And apparently your suggestion.”
James glanced at his brothers as Bel advanced on him, cold purpose vibrating in the air around her. But it was the touch of panic shimmering underneath the purpose James found most compelling. And he’d thought Ford was unhappy. This woman was so unhappy she didn’t even know she was unhappy.
No wonder Ford couldn’t find her sweet spot.
“It wasn’t a suggestion exactly,” he told her. “It was more like—”
“Unsolicited advice,” Will supplied when James paused to grope for a word.
“A philosophy,” James said with a dark look for his brother. “Sharing my personal philosophy about life.”
“What I don’t understand,” Bel said as if nobody had spoken, “is what you’re even doing here.” She closed the gap between them to poke a finger into his chest. He could feel the sharp bite of her nail through his t-shirt. “I read the papers, Mr. Blake. I know that the DC Statesmen paid an ungodly amount of money for your services. For your golden boot and your physical presence on the field or the pitch or whatever you call it in soccer. You have an away game today. In a series of away games. You’re supposed to be playing soccer in California, not playing golf off your patio. Not talking my groom into following his bliss. Certainly not sabotaging my career. What are you doing here?”
James weighed his options. No answer seemed really palatable.
“He got his ass suspended,” Drew informed her with the unholy cheer of an adored youngest child. “Fighting.”
“It wasn’t really fighting,” James told Bel, then gave Drew a black stare.
“No, that’s true,” Drew admitted. “You totally cold cocked the guy. Kind of unsporting, now that you mention it.”
“There was an incident,” James said to Bel. “A particularly heated match and—” He trailed off. This wasn’t going well.
“I don’t care.” She brushed one elegant hand through the air between them, shooing away all his pathetic excuses. “I don’t care why you’re here. I don’t care about matches, heated or otherwise. I don’t even care what you said to Ford. But I have three hundred and forty three people sitting in folding chairs on Kate Davis’ lawn at this very moment. I have duck canapés circulating and fifty bottles of a very nice ’96 Moët chilling for the champagne toast. I have a four-tiered cake with pink polka dots and my new monogram sitting on a cake table beside a Waterford knife. I have ice sculptures.” She said this last bit as if it were the clincher. Had to get married if there were ice sculptures on the line.
“So I don’t care about your fights or your philosophy. All I want you to do is fix this.”
She stabbed a finger toward Ford and Annie. Or at least toward where they’d been. Because Ford and Annie were gone.
“Oh no,” Bel said.
; Drew made a noise of deep satisfaction. He did love a good scene, especially one with a happy ending. Will snorted his disgust and James turned sheepish eyes on Bel.
“You, uh, want that beer now?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Four hours later, Bel stood outside the door of Kate’s Hunt House office and wished she’d taken James Blake up on the beer. The end of her career—hell, the end of a life-long dream—was bound to sting. A little alcoholic anesthesia might’ve been nice.
But no. She’d never taken refuge in alcohol before. She wouldn’t do it now. She’d fallen, but not that far.
She hiked up her chin and tapped softly on the doorframe.
Kate, perched on a French provincial lady’s chair behind the Queen Anne table that served as her desk, waved her in without looking up.
“I’ve dealt with the last of it,” Bel said, looking at the ruler-straight part in Kate’s ash blonde hair.
“Have you?”
“Yes. The caterer was gone over an hour ago. The tent’s broken down, the tables and chairs loaded. The leftovers were boxed and sent to St. Joan’s shelter. Gifts were returned to the appropriate givers. Your lawn is back to normal.”
Kate glanced out the enormous window behind her. “Aside from my denuded rose garden, yes.”
Bel winced. “Kate, I’m so sorry. If I’d had any idea this might happen—”
“That’s just it, isn’t it? You should have had an idea, Belinda.” Kate finally looked up, and Bel’s heart sank at the grave finality in the older woman’s face. The Mood-o-Meter had never failed her before and it wasn’t failing her now. This wasn’t a dressing down. This wasn’t don’t disappoint me again. This was The End. Waterloo. Utter disaster, prettied up in an Ann Taylor sweater set.
“I’m sorry, Kate,” Bel said quietly.
“As am I.” Kate set aside her pen and rose, tall and statuesque against the arching window. “But weddings do fall through, Belinda. Grooms elope with assistants. Flowers suffer grievous accidents on the beltway. These things happen, so please don’t misunderstand this. I’m not punishing you for bad luck.”
Oh God. Bel’s stomach cramped and she clamped down on the urge to check her watch. What, did she want to mull it over later? How many minutes it took Kate to deliver her career a killing blow? Compare it to the number of years she’d spent building it?
“What I object to isn’t your luck, or lack thereof,” Kate continued, a rueful half-smile on her patrician face. “It’s your lack of attention to the details.”
“The details?” Bel echoed, astonished.
“Yes, dear. The details. Oh, you have a fine sense of fashion, of taste. And I’ll be honest, I’ve never seen or tasted a cake to equal one of yours. But the simple fact is, your two closest companions engaged in an inappropriate love affair over the past year right under your nose. They battled against it, but eventually, at the worst possible moment for all of us, lost that battle. And you didn’t see it coming.”
Kate clasped her hands in front of her neat linen skirt. “You’re a fine baker, dear. Gifted, even. But an error in judgment this egregious, a lack of awareness this persistent? I’m afraid you simply don’t have the vision I require in a partner, let alone a successor.”
Bel absorbed the shock, the bitter sting of failure. It bowed her shoulders, sent shameful tears rushing to her eyes. She dropped her gaze and waited miserably for Kate to finish her off.
“You’re fired, dear,” Kate said, and even now Bel had to admire the woman’s style. She delivered the blow firmly enough to discourage unseemly argument yet with just enough compassion and regret to take the edge off. Kate Davis wasn’t the queen of etiquette for nothing.
It steadied her somehow, this small demonstration of the values Kate represented on TV every day. The values Bel herself had absorbed like plants absorbed sunlight, and would have practiced with pride had she been found worthy. Tact, graciousness, and calm conviction.
Bel bit back her tears and steadied herself. Maybe she was a failure but she wasn’t a coward. She forced her spine straight, lifted her head and, with clear eyes, met Kate’s gaze.
And found it filled with...relief? Kate was relieved to be rid of her? After three years of grooming Bel as her potential successor, after countless other mistakes she could have easily parlayed into legitimate grounds for dismissal? Why on earth would Kate wait for a screw up of epic proportions to give her the boot? And why would she be happy about it?
“I’ll give you two weeks to vacate the Dower House,” Kate said gently.
Bel closed her eyes as a rush of panicked sorrow drowned out everything else. Of all today’s losses—and they’d been staggering—it was losing the Dower House that finally drove her to her knees. She’d loved that tiny cottage behind the rose garden, the third spoke of what had once been the single enormous estate surrounding the pond. Kate’s Hunt House. James Blake’s Annex. Bel’s Dower House. Her home.
No, she thought. Kate’s Dower House. Kate’s show. Kate’s vision. Not mine. None of it mine.
“I’ll...” Her voice broke, and she cleared her throat. “I’ll start packing.”
“I regret this, dear,” Kate said as she seated herself at the desk once more, tucking her skirt properly under her thighs.
You do not, Bel thought. But, distasteful chore dispatched, Kate had already returned her attention to the endless work of being Kate Every Day. Bel walked silently out of the office.
Two weeks later, her entire life squashed into the back of her catering van, Bel drove away from the Dower House. She didn’t look in the rearview mirror. She couldn’t bear to see it behind her. But it didn’t matter if she didn’t look. She knew it by heart.
A story and a half of pink Virginia brick personally stomped, shaped and fired by Hunt House’s own masons over two hundred years ago, the Dower House was a sturdy little white-shuttered island in a sea of hollyhocks, ivies, and climbing tea roses. A weeping cherry tree shaded the porch and every year sent the smell of spring wafting through Bel’s tiny, beloved kitchen, through the heart of her house. The heart of her.
Looking in the rearview mirror, watching it grow smaller until it disappeared would be like having that heart torn out by tiny, torturous degrees. So she didn’t look.
She focused instead on the pretty twist of macadam road unspooling across the lush green countryside of northern Virginia. She drove as if it required every ounce of her concentration, blanking out the sorrow and focusing instead on the loose ends she couldn’t stop tugging.
Because something wasn’t right. She knew it in her gut. There was more behind Kate’s decision to let her go than a spectacularly failed wedding. But despite two solid weeks of turning the problem around and around in her head, despite gnawing at it from every possible angle, she couldn’t figure out what had happened.
There was hope, however. One person who knew more about the myriad plans, plots and machinations in Kate’s head than Bel did. Her own personal Wizard and Bel was, however reluctantly, on the yellow brick road. Which led, in this case, to the heart of DC. To the man who’d plucked her and her cakes from obscurity and plopped them on TV next to Kate Davis.
She was going to Bob Beck. To her and Kate’s mutual agent. And possibly to yet another firing. But maybe she’d get some answers before he let her go, too.
Bel hesitated, her hand poised to knock on the frame of Bob’s open office door. With his Italian loafers propped on a polished barge of a desk and a cell phone glued to his ear, her agent looked more or less the same as he had for the past five years. But something made her pause.
He’d always been a square, craggy kind of handsome, but the silver at his temples had taken over some serious real estate since she’d seen him last. His shoulders were still total-eclipse broad and the crease in his shirt sleeve could slice butter, but Bel had the oddest impression that he was somehow wilted inside all that starch. Like lettuce left out of the crisper.
Then he looked up and that faint weariness
evaporated. He waved her in, then pointed to his phone, rolled his eyes and made a yak, yak, yak motion with his hand. “Uh huh. Yeah. I’ll take care of it.”
Bob ended the call and tossed the phone onto his desk. “So, Bel. You haven’t been answering my calls.”
“You’d have only wanted to talk about the hideous death spiral of my career.” She plunked a pretty pie box into the center of his desk. “I was depressed enough without that conversation, thanks.”
Bob lifted the corner of the lid with his pen, a solid gold Mont Blanc that had to weigh two pounds. He sniffed at the pie. “Cherry?”
“Sour cherry with an almond crust.”
“Nice.”
She smiled. “This pie takes nice out back and steals its lunch money.”
“I believe you.” He picked up the pie box and deposited it on the credenza behind his desk. “So, you’re ready to talk about the hideous death spiral of your career now?”
“Sort of.” Bel sank into the watered silk chair across from him. “I want to know what’s going on with Kate.”
Bob’s brows inched up over granite colored eyes and he leaned back until his leather chair creaked. “Your groom ran off with your assistant on live TV, Bel. Your wedding—not to mention the Kate Every Day season premiere, usually a testament to good taste and high-brow entertainment—went down in melodramatic flames. And you want to talk about Kate?”
Bel bore up under the weighty truth of that one. “Yes,” she said. “I can’t do anything about my wedding. I clearly misjudged Ford. Annie, too. And in a highly public manner. That was my mistake. A bad one.” She fought to keep the sick humiliation in her stomach from seeping into her voice. “One that reflected as badly on Kate as it did on me. She’s perfectly within her rights to fire me over it. I won’t argue. Not with that.” She leaned forward. “But I do have a problem with the fact that she was relieved about it.”