Annabeth set the last of the champagne glasses in front of her. “Would you help me write a card to my brother? He’s stationed in the Middle East. We’re not mushy, sharing types, but I want him to know how proud I am of him.”
“It’d be my honor.” Chloe whipped a card out of her purse and handed it over.
Griff tapped his wineglass with his knife to get everyone’s attention. Which made Knox vault out of his chair, hands white-knuckled on the table.
“That’s a fifteen-year-old bottle of Cabernet, Griffin. Don’t abuse it like that.”
“Figured you’d freak out less if I assaulted the Cab than if I did it to the champagne.”
“Peasant.”
“Tight-assed snob.”
He raised his flute in the air, waited for everyone else to do the same with theirs. Reached over for Chloe’s hand. She’d be the first outsider to share in this particular tradition of theirs. The words hadn’t ever changed. And they never would. But it was time to grow their circle.
“I’d like to make a toast. First, as always, we toast to our driver that fateful day, Santo, and his family left behind. Salut.” After a quiet sip, Griff raised the glass again. “Second, as always, we toast to the Sesto Reggimento Alpini who patched us up and got us back to civilization. Prost.” Another surge forward from everyone to clink, and then back to drink. “Sadly, my third toast has to be to Logan. He’s been away too long this time. He’s a douchebag for not staying in better touch, but he’s still one of us.”
“To the douche,” the other ACSs intoned solemnly. Chloe bit back a giggle, but clinked her glass nonetheless.
Stupid, how worried he’d been about her getting along with everyone. The guys were awesome. Chloe knocked his socks off. Yeah, this was a good night. “Last of all, we kicked some podcast ass today. To my brothers, the Naked Men!”
Chapter 17
Well, one thing was clear—Griffin had been keeping a secret from her. Chloe raked her gaze across the manicured lawn, down the loooong brick pathway, and up across the immense rows of black-shuttered windows of what she pegged as a Georgian Colonial…well, there was no other word for it but mansion.
“You’re rich,” she said accusingly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Pushing at the small of her back to keep her moving forward, Griff sighed. “Does it matter?”
“Of course not.” Good grief, Chloe still felt guilty about the price of the heavenly bubbles she’d downed with all of them last night. When she got home, she’d looked up the champagne in the hopes of buying a bottle. And although, technically, she could afford it? Chloe couldn’t handle the thought of spending what amounted to a car payment on glorified grape juice, no matter how tasty. “The only thing that matters is why you’d hide that from me.”
“You want me to dress like Knox?” He tugged at the collar of his sage-green polo shirt. “In thousand-dollar suits? With couture names stamped across every inch of me from my socks to my ass?”
“The only name I’d ever want to see on your ass is mine.” The orange tip of Chloe’s spectator pump caught on the uneven brick and she stumbled. Right. It was the brick. Or the too-pointy shoe that Summer had foisted on her. Her lack of balance had nothing to do with the thought of seeing Griffin’s ass. Naked. Flexing. With or without her name on it, she assumed it was spectacularly sexy.
Griffin laughed. Hard. “Nice try. But flirting with me won’t get you out of lunch with my mom. You already agreed.”
All Chloe intended to do was spend every spare second possible with Griff before he went back on active duty. By the time she realized lunch involved his mom, it was too late to back out. And now? Seeing his massive wealth? It freaked her out. Kind of left her feeling like she needed one of those ridiculous British fascinators to top off her apricot toile dress. Despite the armload of awesome clothes Summer loaned her in the spirit of coaxing Griff into bed faster (’cause that’s what best friends were all about), nothing in her closet was nice enough for this place.
She pretended her heel was stuck in the crack. Okay, she was stalling. So what? “Meeting your closest friends in the world last night? That was a big deal. A massive relationship stepping-stone.”
“And you did great.”
Well, that was a relief. Getting along with the ACSs was a deal breaker, albeit unspoken. Luckily, they were just as much fun as Griff. Not to mention all of them were super easy on the eyes. She’d put money on the SER marketing department slapping their photos on every inch of the website.
“Josh wants to swap recipes with you.” Griff grimaced. “Okay, even knowing he runs a food truck, that’s a weird-ass thing to say. Let’s pretend I never did.”
“You and I can pretend. But I have to get his recipe for the dessert grilled cheese with mascarpone, bananas, and caramel.” Maybe she could serve it up for Griff at two in the morning after a long bout of hot sex. If…if…she ever got him into bed. How nuts was it that she couldn’t get sex with him off her brain even with the prospect of his mother looming just steps away? That ought to be enough to quash all her salacious intentions. Guess her hots for the lieutenant were unquashable.
Griff licked his lips. “The Banoffee. Yeah, you do have to get that one. We’ll just never talk about how you got it from my former goalie.”
He’d just given her the perfect segue into the only uncomfortable moments of the night. “At first, I didn’t think Knox wanted to talk to me. He’d look at me, and then turn away and talk to…well, anybody else. But by the end of dinner, everything was fine.”
“Yeah, he apologized to me. Probably will to you, too.” Griffin dropped a kiss on the back of her hand. Then he lingered, creating a bracelet of kisses all around her wrist.
Chloe still had no idea what had actually happened with Knox. “For what?”
“He couldn’t figure out how to talk to you without hitting on you. It’s what he does around beautiful women. As involuntary as breathing.”
She sucked in a breath. “That’s equally debauched and sweet.” Not to mention that even on her best days—and last night’s look had, thanks to Summer, been one of her absolute best—she barely tipped the low end of the “beautiful” scale.
“That’s Knox.”
“Oh, and will you tell Riley that turnabout’s fair play?”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I went home and Googled him.” Boy, if the zombie apocalypse ever came to pass, she’d run straight to Riley. Survivalist expert barely scratched the surface of describing him. “I read a bunch of his magazine articles. Thanks to him, I think I can now make a radio out of a potato.”
“Sure you didn’t have Gilligan’s Island on in the background? It sounds more their speed than Ry’s. He’s way more high tech. He’d coax Wi-Fi out of a potato.” Griff picked her up and slung her, fireman style, over his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” she squealed. The pressure of his shoulder against her diaphragm made her queasy. On the other hand, it gave her a view of his tight ass flexing beneath well-washed denim. That was surely worth a little incipient nausea.
“Getting you off this damn path and in the front door.”
Okay. So he’d seen through her stall tactic. Which was fine. Technically, Chloe didn’t want to be with a man who wasn’t bright enough to do so. She just wished Griff had been a little, um, off his game today. She started talking, quickly. “I deserve at least a week before meeting a parent. What did you have planned for after this? Hitting Tysons Corner to pick out china patterns?”
“Not in a million years. I believe in plates that can be tossed into the dishwasher.”
“Glad we’ve got that out in the open. You’re filthy rich, and a dishwasher guy. Wow. This has been such an instructive visit. Maybe I should call it a day.”
Griffin set her on her feet in between two massive pots of blue hydrangeas. “Chloe, this is nothing. You’re more impressive taking a nap than my mother has been for the last two decades.”
“You�
�re slamming your mom…even though you love her. I’m confused.”
“Now you know how I feel.”
“You’re saying she won’t judge me? At all? To see if I’m worthy to be with her baby boy?”
“She doesn’t worry about me. Ever. Unless she’s got nothing better to do, and then I’m all she worries about. I want you to meet her because, yes, I do love her. But that’s it.”
“I’m still confused. Am I trying to impress her or not?”
“I’m saying that it doesn’t matter. My mother is absent nine-tenths of the time, and when she is here, she’s kind of a basket case. I’m here today to dial her back a few notches. Pay her some attention. That should buy a reprieve for a week or two until she falls for the next sugar daddy to cross her path.”
Before Chloe could ask the rest of the questions gridlocking in her throat, the front door swung open. The pale cream designer knit suit and lemon silk shell the tall woman wore were perfection. No other word for it. Perfectly tasteful gold jewelry. Perfectly unostentatious—but still noticeable—diamond solitaires on her ears. Perfect nude makeup, coiffed hair. Most perfect of all was the way her casual elegance and pose of welcoming ownership with one hand on the faceted glass doorknob projected self-confidence.
Chloe felt like her words, on paper, were always this perfect. The rest of her? No way. She wasn’t in league with this woman. She wouldn’t make the minors for the league of perfection Griff’s mom ran in.
“Griffin, darling. How good of you to tear yourself away from the boys and spend an afternoon with the woman who lost her figure permanently pushing all ten pounds, eleven ounces out over thirty-seven hours of labor.”
“You look beautiful, Mom. Like a woman who popped me out in five minutes with great drugs and a suction thing.”
“Don’t be vulgar.”
“Don’t be a martyr about something that happened almost thirty years ago, over which I had no control.” He air-kissed both cheeks. Weird. Even without the Coast Guard target practice, Chloe figured Griff couldn’t miss planting his lips on her cheeks from an inch away.
Where was the big, smacking kiss hello? The rib-squishing hug? David usually spun their mom in a hug until she squealed like a preteen. Was Griff’s stilted greeting indicative of their strained relationship? Or a long-standing habit so as not to smudge her makeup?
Still with one hand on the door, his mom said, “Griffin, I see you brought a guest. Are you going to keep me in suspense much longer?”
Oh, God. Hopefully Griffin hadn’t brought her to lunch without bothering to give his mom a heads-up first. Talk about starting off on the wrong foot. Chloe swallowed hard. Then put on her best, brightest smile.
Griffin pushed her into the foyer as he did the introductions. “Chloe Widmore, I’d like you to meet Sabrina Montgomery Ekholm Patterson Stamatopoulos Hughes Vandamme.”
Wow. Not so perfect after all. Math was far from Chloe’s strong suit, but she could do a basic average in her head. And the average said that Griffin’s mom stayed with a man for no more than four and a half years…and that was being generous. It didn’t account for transitional lag time for the divorce and hunting down the next likely victim.
“Chloe.” Another round of air kisses. “It is a singular treat to meet a friend of Griffin’s.”
Griff immediately tugged Chloe past the wide staircase and down a hallway covered with ornate gold frames. She barely managed a glimpse of a sitting room, library, and dining room as he kept her moving forward. Over his shoulder, he said, “Singular? You’ve hosted the ACSs dozens of times.”
Sabrina’s heels clicked behind them on the black-and-white tiles. “I’ll clarify my statement. It is a singular treat to meet a friend of Griffin’s who knows the difference between a pump and a wedge.”
“Don’t sell Knox short. The man gives shoes as gifts—those fancy ones, with the red soles?”
“Louboutins,” Chloe and Sabrina exhaled the word reverently.
Seriously? Knox, who supposedly had an allergy to spending more than three nights with the same woman, rewarded hookups with shoes that movie stars clamored to wear? It was tempting to crack a joke about clearly dating the wrong Naked Man. But given the vast wealth surrounding them, it was likely that Sabrina would assume Chloe to be a fortune hunter. Probably call security and get her hauled off with a pair of Dobermans snarling at her heels.
If she had to carefully weigh every comment before letting them past her lips, this promised to be a very long lunch. Griffin would definitely owe her some under-the-shirt groping later.
They ended up in a sun-drenched room that curved in a hug at the end of the house. Windows weren’t just floor to ceiling—they slanted up to the apex, where a huge chandelier dropped down above a round marble table. A vase of spiky blue flowers sat in the center. Two—and, crap, only two—place settings in delft blue had not just napkins and chargers, but wineglasses and all the extra silverware that portended a super-fancy meal.
Griffin dropped onto a sofa the same rich cream as the walls. “Peonies look great, Mom.”
Big bushes half falling over from the weight of gigantic pink blooms bordered the entire room. With all the windows, it felt as if they were sitting in the middle of the garden. Chloe stayed standing another minute, admiring the formal hedges and a fountain surrounded by roses. “This is so beautiful. And peaceful. You must love sitting out here, Mrs….” Her brain went into a desperate scramble to remember which was the last name Griffin had recited.
The blond paragon of near-perfection paused next to her with an indulgent smile. “Call me Sabrina.”
Thank goodness. After all, at this point, wasn’t it a bit ridiculous to change your name with every marriage? Far less paperwork to choose your favorite and stick with it.
The older woman trailed a hand across Griffin’s shoulders as she circled behind the sofa. Almost as if she wanted to indulge in a hug, but didn’t dare. “And I do enjoy looking out at the gardens I worked so hard to plan. I miss them when I’m away.”
“Your peonies don’t send you emails, Mom. That’s where I come in, remember?”
Was Griffin trying to pick a fight? Or was this normal? Chloe sank down next to him and squeezed his hand.
“Yes, and whatever you don’t deign to tell me, I can always discover by turning on CNN.”
He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “Still sore about that?”
Sabrina sat, ramrod straight, on the chair across from them. “Why, yes, Griffin, I am. When my only flesh and blood almost dies rescuing total strangers, a bit of notice would be nice. Seeing your face on the television at the gym almost made me fall off my treadmill.”
“I can honestly say I wasn’t worrying about your potential gym accident when I saved that family.” He shifted. Leaned across the coffee table to grab her hand and pat it. “But I can also honestly say that I’m happy you’ve got good reflexes. Wouldn’t want you to break your ankle while staring at my face in HD. I’m sure your therapist would have a field day with that.”
A quick uptick of her lips was the only sign that Sabrina might have a sense of humor after all. Her scowl deepened. “My therapist would be thrilled if he didn’t have to hand over anxiety medication every time I relate a story about you.”
“I’m not a Navy SEAL, Mom. Or a police officer. Or even the kid who hands out cookie samples at the mall. They risk their lives every day.” He leaned back and spread his arms, palms up, the picture of relaxed ease. “I just fly a helicopter over a couple miles of the Atlantic and the Chesapeake Bay. Not a hardship. Not dangerous.”
Chloe didn’t buy that for a minute. Griff didn’t go out under attack—except from the weather. But his job was far from just peaceful hours on end of scenic vistas. So sweet how he downplayed the danger. For all that Griffin and his mother obviously rubbed each other the wrong way, it was equally clear that deep down they had a bond that distance—both geographical and emotional—couldn’t break.
“I just
worry about you, dear.”
He shifted. Cocked his head in what Chloe recognized as his challenge pose. Uh-oh. She braced for what might come next. “And I worry about you getting taken in by another fast-talking piece of Euro-trash, Mom.”
“That’s no way to talk about your stepfather.”
“Which one?” He held his grin of challenge until she finally cracked. They laughed together like people who’d survived bloody battles and lived to joke about it. People who skirmished with each other but united against the enemy. Chloe didn’t quite see how, but evidently it worked for them.
Sabrina moved her hands restlessly in her lap. “Having someone to escort me places, to travel with, and yes, to rub my feet at night, makes me happy. So I’ll keep trying until I find someone…well, someone better, obviously.”
Another peal of laughter. Chloe joined in this time.
Toying with the diamond tennis bracelet on her wrist, Sabrina continued. “But something else that would make me happy is not constantly worrying about the risks you take. Don’t try to convince me that your job is safe, Griffin. I’m not dim. You don’t think I researched exactly what you signed up for, all those years ago? I even talked to an admiral to get the complete picture.”
Griffin was quiet for a long moment. He looked out the window, but Chloe was positive he wasn’t registering the perfect peonies. Maybe he was seeing that although his mother might not live up to his hopes for communication and attention, she certainly exceeded the low bar he’d set for her. It took a lot for him to recalibrate right in the moment. Chloe grabbed his hand. From the way he squeezed back, it was the right move.
Finally, he looked back over at Sabrina. “Mom, I had no idea you worried about me joining the Coast Guard. You never said any of that before.”
“Why would I? So you could brush me off with more inane reassurances? I’m well aware that you as the pilot carry all the responsibility, and almost as much danger, as the rescue swimmer you deploy. You’ve been at it for years. Haven’t you risked enough?”
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