Stand-in Groom

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Chelsea briefly closed her eyes. “I’m so sorry. You have every right to be offended.”

  “You can make it up to me—by letting me kiss the bride.”

  “John …”

  He took her hand, squeezing her fingers gently. “Chelsea, this may be the only time I ever get married. Yeah, I’m doing it for the money, and yeah, it’s weird, but please, let me at least do it right. And doing it right means when the guy says kiss the bride, I kiss the bride.”

  She gazed up at him. “It matters to you that much?”

  “Yeah. It does. Absolutely.”

  “One kiss, and then you’ll retire your lips—permanently?”

  “Are you sure you want me to?” He lowered his voice. “I can do an awful lot with my lips—without running the risk of consummating this marriage.”

  Chelsea felt her cheeks heat. “I can’t believe you just said that to me.”

  To her surprise, he actually looked embarrassed too. “I can’t believe I did either.” He took a deep breath. “Although, one thing my mother always taught me was, you can’t have what you don’t ask for.”

  “Please don’t ask for more than I can give you,” she said softly. “John, we talked about this when we signed the prenupts. No sex. Of any kind. Just this one last kiss and that’s it, all right?”

  Johnny nodded. “If that’s the way you want it …”

  It wasn’t the way she wanted it. It was the way she needed it to be.

  “Giovanni Anziano and Chelsea Spencer?” The justice of the peace was a little, wizened old man wearing a western-cut jacket and an enormous cowboy hat. “Please approach.”

  “I don’t know about you,” Johnny whispered almost silently to her as they moved forward, “but the hat works for me.”

  “Chelsea Jasmine Spencer, do you take Giovanni Vincente Anziano as your lawfully wedded husband?”

  Chelsea took a deep breath. “I do.”

  “And do you, Giovanni Vincente Anziano take Chelsea Jasmine Spencer—”

  “I do.”

  The justice of the peace gazed at Johnny from the narrow band between the top of his half glasses and the wide brim of his hat. “In a hurry there, are you, son?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He smacked the counter with a gavel. “By the power vested in me by the state of Nevada, I pronounce you man and wife.”

  Johnny looked at Chelsea in surprise. “That’s it?”

  “I asked for the short version. I hope you don’t mind.”

  He looked at the judge. “We’re married?”

  “You truly are. Go ahead, son,” the old man said. “Kiss your bride.”

  Chelsea braced herself, but Johnny didn’t move. He just gazed at her.

  “This time’s for real,” he told her.

  Chelsea nodded. Yes. This time it was real. This time they were really married.

  He moved closer then, drawing her into his arms before he lowered his mouth and then …

  He kissed her.

  This time, it was real. This time, he wrapped her in his arms as if he intended never to let her go. This time, his lips were impossibly gentle, his mouth impossibly sweet.

  And this time, when her heart pounded crazily, she had no excuses handy.

  Still, she let herself kiss him, losing herself in the sweetness of their embrace. Because he was right. Because this could very well be the only time she ever got married too. Because he was quite possibly the most desirable man she’d ever met. Because despite that, from this moment forth, their relationship was going to be pure business.

  She was going to make damn sure of that.

  SEVEN

  “YOU BOUGHT ME a present?”

  Johnny smiled at Chelsea’s look of total amazement as she turned to gaze at the neatly wrapped and beribboned package he had put into her hands.

  They were sitting in the first-class section of a jet heading directly to the Caribbean. He was on his way to paradise with the most beautiful, most appealingly complex and attractive woman he’d ever had the pleasure to meet. But just a short time ago she’d given him his final warning. This wasn’t a honeymoon. It was a four-day-three-night-long business meeting.

  In other words, hands off.

  He’d never seduced a woman with his hands tied behind his back before. But there was a first time for everything.

  Oh, not that he’d go and mess up her chances for getting an easy annulment. No, he could wait. But by the day that the annulment was declared, he was determined that Chelsea Spencer would be more than ready to fall into bed with him. And then they would consummate and celebrate their not being married to their hearts’ content.

  “What are you smiling at?” she asked, but he just shook his head, watching as she unwrapped the gift he’d bought for her. She opened the little cardboard box. “It’s a … What is it?”

  “It’s a miniature music box.” He fingered the unfamiliar weight and bulk of the thick gold wedding ring on his left hand. “If you wind the little key on the bottom, it’ll play a very square version of ‘Harlem Nocturne.’”

  Intrigued, she wound the key and laughed as the melody came tinkling out. “I know this song.”

  “It’s supposed to swing a whole lot more, but there’s not much you can do with an old-fashioned cylinder-style music box that’s this small. I’m amazed they managed to fit eight bars of the tune onto something that tiny.”

  “It’s such a pretty melody.” She looked up at him almost shyly. “This is so sweet.”

  “I’m glad you like it.” Damn, it would be so easy to lose himself in her blue eyes. …

  “I feel like a jerk—I didn’t get you anything.”

  “In that case, I’ll let you pick up the tab on the champagne.”

  “Champagne?”

  Chelsea watched as Johnny gestured for the flight attendant. The young woman came over almost immediately, ready with a big smile and a flutter of her eyelashes. “Yes, sir?”

  Johnny reached for Chelsea’s hand, turning it over to look at her wristwatch. “In about three minutes we’ll be celebrating our two-and-a-half-hour wedding anniversary. Do you think you can get a bottle of champagne opened in time?”

  “Only two and half hours since you were married? Oh, aren’t you so sweet!” She rushed toward the food-preparation area.

  “Two and a half hours,” Chelsea echoed. Johnny was still holding her hand, and she gently pulled it free. “Are you sure you don’t want to skip the fractions and go for the solid hours—wait for three to celebrate?”

  “I’m not real good at waiting.” He fished in his jacket pocket, trying to pull something free. “Besides, we need to have something to drink right now—to wash down our wedding cake.”

  He tossed a double package of Twinkies onto the tray table.

  Chelsea looked from Johnny to the Twinkies and back. “That’s your idea of wedding cake?” She couldn’t keep from laughing.

  “I could have done a whole lot better if I’d had a couple hours and a bakery kitchen,” he admitted. “Instead, all I had to work with was an airport vending machine. It was this or Yodels. And I figured wedding cakes are supposed to be vanilla, so …”

  Chelsea picked up the Twinkie package. “There’s no way in hell you’re going to get me to eat one of these.”

  “You don’t have to eat an entire Twinkie,” he told her, somehow managing to keep a perfectly straight face. “You just need to take a little, tiny bite.”

  “I eat only healthy food,” she told him, still laughing. “Twinkies are the total antithesis of both healthy and food. No way is this getting anywhere near my mouth.”

  “But isn’t eating the wedding cake supposed to bring good luck?” Johnny asked, tearing the package open. “Don’t we risk the wrath of the wedding-cake god if we don’t partake? Isn’t that, like, bad juju or something?”

  “Believe me, it would be very bad juju for me to take even the tiniest bite of one of these.”

  He took a bite and waved th
e half-eaten Twinkie in front of her nose. “Sure I can’t tempt you with its flavorful aroma?”

  She laughed, pushing his hand away. “Oh, God, it smells like my elementary-school cafeteria. Tiffany Stewart always brought three packs of Twinkies in her lunch—she told her housekeeper that there was a special table where privileged students could leave food donations for the scholarship kids, and since her father had more money than God, her housekeeper always let her take two extra packs. Of course, there was no such table. Tiffany threw away her sandwich and existed on a pure Twinkie diet for about three years.”

  “You went to a private school, huh?” he asked.

  “The Wellford Academy. Pre-K through twelfth grade.”

  The flight attendant brought two plastic glasses of champagne. “Congratulations.” She turned to Chelsea, nearly beaming with happiness. “You’re so lucky—he’s good-looking and romantic.”

  “So why is it you’re not married?” Chelsea asked, taking a sip of her champagne after the attendant had walked away.

  He gazed at the cabin lights through the plastic glass and the bubbling wine. “Just unlucky, I guess.”

  She shifted in her seat to face him. “I sense a story here.”

  He took a sip of his champagne. “I thought you didn’t want to get to know me that well.”

  He was right. She shouldn’t be asking him questions. She shouldn’t try to find out who he was, where he’d been, what he thought, how he felt. She should keep her distance. She turned away, forcing herself to feel nothing but detached. It was only a matter of time before she received her inheritance and this whole ridiculous game ended. All she had to do was endure. She could do that. She would do that. “You’re right. I don’t. Consider the question withdrawn.”

  She signaled for the flight attendant, who appeared almost instantly. “I’d like a pillow and blanket, please.”

  Johnny cursed softly. The sudden chilly drop in the cabin’s temperature was his fault. He’d gone and conjured up the Ice Princess—because of the one subject he didn’t want to discuss.

  “Thank you,” Chelsea said politely to the attendant, who had handed her a pillow and blanket. “You can take the champagne, too, please. I’m done.”

  “She was from Paris.” Johnny waited for the attendant to leave before he spoke. “Her name was Raquel, and I was with her for three years—”

  Chelsea reclined her seat. “I really don’t want to hear this.”

  “We were pretty hot and heavy right from the start, and the last two years we actually lived together. This was down in Washington, D.C.—we were both students at the International Culinary Institute. Can you imagine someone coming to America from Paris to learn how to cook? I would have sold my soul for a chance to study in Paris.”

  He’d gotten her attention. “You know how to cook?”

  “Some people think so. Anyway, Raquel’s dad had a heart attack, and she had to fly home. She was supposed to be gone for a month, but she never came back. She wrote me a letter telling me to toss her stuff. She said she didn’t need it. And oh, by the way, by the time I got the letter, she would already be married to some old family friend. Two years we lived together, and she types me a note.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

  “Yeah, I was too. But before that I was angry, and then I was hurt. I thought you know, first you live together and then you get married. It seemed the natural order of events—not first you live together and then you marry someone else. I had no clue she didn’t feel the same way I did. I mean, right up until she left—the night before her flight home we …” He shook his head, smiling ruefully. “No, you definitely don’t want to hear about that. Sorry.”

  They sat for a moment in silence.

  “I guess I got you on the rebound, so to speak,” Chelsea finally said.

  “It’s been five years. I think I’m past the rebound stage.”

  “But you still haven’t found somebody new.”

  “Nope. But then again, I haven’t exactly been looking. I work kind of crazy hours. Don’t get me wrong—I haven’t exactly been a monk these past five years. I’ve had girlfriends—I just haven’t let anything get too serious.”

  Chelsea was watching him. The Ice Princess had vanished. There was nothing but compassion and warmth in her eyes.

  “Do you still love her?” she asked quietly.

  “No,” he said. But he could tell from the way she was watching him that she didn’t believe him.

  “How about you?” he asked. “Do you still love what’s-his-name? Bent?”

  Her eyes widened. “Who told you about Bent?”

  “Troy.”

  “Troy knows?”

  “Knows what? Troy told me you had some kind of teenage crush on his friend—that you guys dated a few times and then he married some girl he got pregnant.”

  Chelsea was curled up in her seat, her cheek pressed against the reclined back, watching him, as if deciding how much to tell him. She hitched her blanket up higher underneath her chin. “Troy didn’t know, but Bent and I did more than date,” she finally said. “It was really just dumb luck that he didn’t manage to get me pregnant too.”

  “How old were you?”

  She paused before answering, her eyes assessing him, trying to gauge his reaction. “Sixteen.”

  In his neighborhood, girls lost their virginity at age sixteen all the time. But in hers? He did his best to hide his shock. “And he was how many years older?”

  “He was twenty-three.”

  “Christ, what the hell was he thinking?” So much for hiding his shock.

  Chelsea smiled. “I don’t think Bent particularly paid attention to the parts of his anatomy that did the thinking. And as for me, I was impetuous and independent, and trying much too hard to be all grown-up.” She laughed, rolling her eyes. “I was so naive. When he told me that Nicole was pregnant—that was her name, Nicole—I honestly didn’t understand. I thought he was somehow being coerced into marrying some dumb girl who’d gotten herself into trouble. It took me two days before I made the connection that he’d been sleeping with Nicole on the nights he wasn’t with me. It was a crash course in reality.”

  “You were just a kid—it must’ve been hell to have to deal with that.”

  “I didn’t deal with it very gracefully,” she admitted. “It took me years to get over the bastard. You know, the really stupid thing was, if he had been faithful, if he had really honestly loved me, I would have married him right out of college. I would’ve become everything that I hated most about my mother and my sister, and all those other good little wives who live and breathe only for their husbands. I would have been driven slowly insane. Nicole saved me years of expensive therapy, attempting to discover the underlying causes of my deep unhappiness.”

  “How do you know you would have been unhappy?”

  “Oh, please.”

  “No, I’m serious.” Johnny reclined his own seat, so that they were nearly nose to nose. “I met your sister, Sierra. She seems really happy. And her husband, Ed Pope—he seems like an okay guy. True, he’s not your type, you wouldn’t be happy with him, but maybe your sister is. Not everybody wants to be president of their own company, you know.” He gazed at her, well aware that she hadn’t answered his question. She hadn’t told him whether or not she was still in love with her former—and probably her first—lover.

  “But I want to be president of my own incredibly successful business,” she told him. “How could I do that with a husband like Edgar Pope or Benton Scott, who at any moment could come home and tell me he’s being transferred to the Philadelphia office?”

  “Obviously the trick is to marry someone like me. A townie. Even if Lumière’s burned down, I’d find another job in Boston. It’s my home—I’m not going anywhere, except on vacation.”

  “Except—suppose that we were really married, suppose we really were trying to make it work,” she said. “And what if I had the opportunity to sell my business for a
million dollars to a buyer in Texas—with the contingency that I move to Dallas and continue on in my salaried position as president for the next five years?”

  “Five years?”

  “You wouldn’t want to do it.”

  Johnny shook his head. “There’s no way I can know what I would or wouldn’t do. I mean, everything would be different. If we loved each other …” He shrugged. “If I loved you and you were in Dallas … Hell, I guess I’d go to Dallas. If I knew I could go back to Boston in five years—”

  “What if you didn’t know that?” she asked. “What if you didn’t know where you’d end up, whether you’d stay in Dallas another five years, or then go somewhere totally different? And what if the only job you could get was at a Texas barbecue restaurant, waiting tables? And what if you knew that the ten most talented chefs from Paris were coming to Boston to spend a year teaching a small group of students—and you’d been chosen to participate?”

  Johnny had to laugh. “Well, that would make the choice a little tougher. I’d see if we could compromise—you’d put off selling the business for a year and after that I’d go to Dallas.”

  “What if the deal wouldn’t wait a year? What if it had to happen immediately?”

  She was damned good at thinking up worst-case scenarios. “God, Chelsea, I don’t know.”

  “Or here’s a good one: What if I didn’t tell you about the deal until after it had been done? What if you didn’t have a choice? What if I just came home and said, ‘Guess what, honey? We’re moving to Dallas!’”

  Johnny was silent.

  “Both my mother and Sierra have lived that scenario more than once,” she told him. “But I refuse to put myself into that situation. Because if it were you who had to go to Dallas, and I was the one who had to give up my job and my home and my friends … I wouldn’t go.” She gazed at him unblinkingly. “And that’s why I’ll never get married.”

  “Hey. Hey, Chelsea. Seat-belt sign’s on. We’re coming in for a landing. …”

  Chelsea stirred. She was so comfortable and so soundly asleep, but now someone was touching her shoulder, trying to wake her up.