So why hadn’t he agreed that a drastic change to her hair was a good idea?
It’d be like painting pouty ruby-red lips on the Mona Lisa. It’d just be wrong.
Still, he felt as if he’d done very little but insult her in the past twenty-four hours, and no matter what his personal feelings about Whitney were, constantly berating a member of the wedding party was not the way to ensure things stayed on message.
“I’ll take you to lunch,” he offered. “We’ll make a day of it.”
She gave him the side eye. “You normally spend your day styling women for weddings?”
“No,” he said with a grin. “Far from it. I’m just making sure everything is—”
“Perfect.”
“Exactly.”
She tilted her head to one side and touched her cheek with a single fingertip. “Aren’t you going to miss work?”
“This is my job.” Again, he got the side eye, so he added, “I do the PR for Percheron Drafts, the beer company Chadwick started after he sold the Beaumont Brewery.” He’d convinced Chadwick that the wedding needed to be a showcase event first. It hadn’t been that hard. His older brother had learned to trust his instincts in the business world, and Matthew’s instincts told him that marrying former playboy bachelor Phillip Beaumont off in a high-profile high-society wedding would pay for itself in good publicity.
Convincing Phillip and Jo that their wedding was going to be over-the-top in every possible regard, however, had been another matter entirely.
“I see,” she said in a way that made it pretty clear she didn’t. Then she cleared her throat. “Won’t your girlfriend be upset if you take me out to lunch?”
That was what she said. What she meant, though, was something entirely different. To his ears, it sure sounded as though she’d asked if he had really been about to kiss her earlier and whether he might try it again.
He leaned toward her, close enough he caught the scent of vanilla again. “I’m not involved with anyone,” he said. What he meant?
Yeah, he might try kissing her again. Preferably someplace where seamstresses wouldn’t bust in on them.
He watched the blush warm her skin. Again, his fingers itched to unzip that dress—to touch her. But... “You?”
His web searches last night hadn’t turned up anything that suggested she was in a relationship.
She looked down at the floor. “I find it’s best if I keep to myself. Less trouble that way.”
“Then lunch won’t be a problem.”
“Are you sure? Or will you need to search my bag for illegal contraband?”
Ouch. Her dig stung all the more because he’d earned it. Really, there was only one way to save face here—throw himself on his sword. If he were lucky, she’d have mercy on him. “I’m sure. I’m done being an ass about things.”
She jolted, her mouth curving into a smile that, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t repress. “Can I have that in writing?”
“I could even get it notarized, if that’s what it’d take for you to forgive me.”
She looked at him then, her eyes full of wonder. “You already apologized last night. You don’t have to do it again.”
“Yes, I do. I keep confusing you. It’s ungentlemanly.”
Her eyebrows jumped up as her mouth opened but behind them, someone cleared her throat. “Mr. Beaumont? We’re ready to start on Ms. Maddox’s dress.”
Whitney’s mouth snapped shut as that blush crept over her cheeks. Matthew looked around. Jo and her dress were nowhere to be seen. He and Whitney had been standing by themselves in the middle of the salon for God knows how long, chatting. Flirting.
Right. They had work to do here.
But he was looking forward to lunch.
Five
“I’m sorry, sir, but the only seats we have are the window seats,” the hostess said.
Matthew turned to look at Whitney. He hadn’t expected Table 6 to be this crowded. He’d thought he was taking her to a quiet restaurant where they could talk. Where he could look at her over a table with only the bare minimum interruption.
But the place was hopping with Christmas shoppers taking a break. Shopping bags crowded the aisle, and there were more than a few people wearing elf hats and reindeer antlers. The hum of conversation was so loud he almost couldn’t hear Bing Crosby crooning Christmas carols on the sound system.
“We can go someplace else,” he offered to Whitney.
She pulled down her sunglasses and shot him a look, as if he’d dared her to throw a diva fit. “This is fine.”
Matthew glanced around the restaurant again. He really didn’t want to sit at a bar-high counter next to her. On the other hand, then he could maybe brush against her arm, her thigh.
They took the only two spots left in the whole place. A shaft of sunlight warmed their faces. Whitney took off her sunglasses and her knit hat and turned her face to the light.
She exhaled, a look of serene joy radiating from her. She was so beautiful, so unassuming, that she simply took his breath away.
Then it stopped. She shook back to herself and gave him an embarrassed look. “Sorry,” she said, patting her hair back into place. “It’s a lot colder here than it is in California. I miss the sun.”
“Don’t apologize.” Her cheeks colored under his gaze. “Let’s order. Then tell me about California.” She notched a delicate eyebrow at him in challenge. “And I mean more than the basics. I want to know about you.”
The corners of her mouth curved up as she nodded. But the waitress came, so they turned their attention to the daily specials. She ordered the soup and salad. He picked the steak sandwich. The process seemed relatively painless.
But Matthew noticed the way the waitress’s eyes had widened as Whitney had asked about the soup du jour. Oh, no, he thought. The woman had recognized her.
Maybe it wouldn’t be a problem. The restaurant was busy, after all. The staff had better things to do than wonder why Whitney Wildz had suddenly appeared at the counter, right?
He turned his attention back to Whitney. Which was not easy to do, crammed into the two seats in this window. But he managed to pull it off. “Now,” he said, fixing her with what he really hoped wasn’t a wolfish gaze, “tell me about you.”
She shrugged.
The waitress came back with some waters and their coffee. “Anything else?” she asked with an ultraperky smile.
“No,” Matthew said forcefully. “Thank you.”
The woman’s eyes cut back to Whitney again and she grinned in disbelief as she walked away. Oh, hell.
But Whitney hadn’t noticed. She’d unwrapped her straw and was now wrapping the paper around her fingers, over and over.
Matthew got caught up in watching her long fingers bend the wrapper again and again and forgot about the waitress.
“You’re confusing me,” she said, staring hard at her scrap of paper. “Again.”
“How?” She gave him the side eye. “No, seriously—please tell me. It’s not my job here to confuse you.”
She seemed to deflate, just a little. But it didn’t last. “You’re looking at me like that.”
He forced his attention to his own straw. Hopefully, that would give her the space she needed. “Like how?”
The silence stretched between them like a string pulling tight. He was afraid he might snap. And he never snapped. He was unsnappable, for God’s sake.
But then his mind flashed back to the bare skin of her back, how the zipper had ended just at the waistband of her panties. All he’d seen was a pretty edge of lace. Now he couldn’t get his mind off it.
“I can’t decide if you think I’m the biggest pain in the neck of your life or if you’re— If you—” She exhaled, the words coming out in a rush. “If y
ou like me. And when you look at me like that, it just...makes it worse.”
“I can’t help it,” he admitted. It was easier to say that without looking at her. Maybe this counter seating wasn’t all bad.
Her hands stilled. “Why not?” There was something else in her voice. That something seemed to match the look she’d given him last night, the one that craved his approval.
He couldn’t tell her why not. Not without telling her...what? That he’d nursed a boyhood crush on her long after he’d left boyhood behind? That he’d followed her in the news? That this very afternoon, she’d been the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen?
“Tell me about you,” he said, praying that she’d go along with the subject change. “Tell me about your life.”
He felt her gaze on him. Now it was his turn to blush. “If I do, will you tell me about you?”
He nodded.
“Okay,” she agreed. He expected her to begin twisting her paper again, but she didn’t. She dug out her phone. “This is Pride and Joy,” she said, showing him a horse and rider holding a gold medal.
The picture was her phone’s wallpaper. Her pride and joy, indeed. “That was the Games, right?”
“Right.” Her tone brightened considerably at his memory. “I’d been getting close to that level but...I wanted him to win, you know? Having bred a horse that could win at that level made me feel legitimate. Real. I wasn’t some crazy actress, not anymore. I was a real horse breeder.”
She spoke calmly—no hysterics, no bravado. Just someone determined to prove her worth.
Yeah, he knew that feeling, too. Better than he wanted to.
“There are people in this world who don’t know about that show,” she said, staring at her phone. “People who only know me as Whitney Maddox, the breeder of Pride and Joy. You have no idea how huge that is.”
“I’m starting to get one.” He lifted the phone from her hand and studied the horse. He’d seen a similar shot to this one online. But she wasn’t in either one.
She slid her fingertip over the screen and another horse came up. Even he could tell this was a younger one, gangly and awkward looking. “This is Joy’s daughter, Ode to Joy. I own her mother, Prettier Than a Picture—Pretty for short. She was a world-champion dressage horse, but her owner got indicted and she was sold at auction. I was able to get her relatively cheap. She’s turned out some amazing foals.” The love in her voice was unmistakable. Pretty might have been a good business decision, but it was clear that the horse meant much more to Whitney than just a piece of property. “Ode’s already been purchased,” she went on. “I could keep studding Joy to Pretty for the rest of my life and find buyers.”
“Sounds like job security.”
“In another year, I’ll deliver Ode,” she went on. “She’s only one right now.” She flicked at her screen and another photo came up. “That’s Fifi,” she told him. “My rescued greyhound.”
The sleek dog was sprawled out on a massive cushion on the floor, giving the camera a don’t-bother-me look. “A greyhound?”
“I was fostering her and just decided to keep her,” Whitney replied. “She’d run and run when she was younger and then suddenly her life stopped. I thought—and I know this sounds silly because she’s just a dog—but I thought she understood me in a way that most other living creatures don’t.”
“Ah.” He didn’t know what else to say to that. He’d never felt much kinship with animals, not the way Phillip did with his horses. His father had never really loved the horses he’d bought, after all. They’d been only investments for him—investments that might pay off in money or prestige. “You foster dogs?”
She nodded enthusiastically. “The no-kill shelter in Bakersfield never has enough room.” Her face darkened briefly. “At first they wouldn’t let me take any animals but...” Her slim shoulders moved up and down. Then the cloud over her face was gone. “There’s always another animal that needs a place to stay.”
He stared at her. It could have been a naked play for pity—poor little celebrity, too notorious to be entrusted with animals no one else wanted. But that was not how it came out. “How many animals have you fostered?”
She shrugged again. “I’ve lost count.” She flicked the screen again and a strange-looking animal appeared.
He held the phone up so he could get a better look, but the squished black-and-white face stayed the same. “What is that?”
“That,” she replied with a giggle that drew his gaze to her face, “is Gater. He’s a pug-terrier-something.”
Hands down, that was the ugliest mutt Matthew had ever seen. “How long have you had him?”
“Just over two years. He thinks he rules the house. Oh, you should have seen him when Jo and Betty stayed with me. He was furious!” She laughed again, a sweet, carefree sound that did more to warm him than the sun ever could.
“What happened?”
“He bit Betty on the ankle, and she kicked him halfway across the living room. No broken bones or skin,” she hurried to add. “Just a pissed-off dog and donkey. Gater thinks he’s the boss, and Fifi doesn’t care as long as Gater stays off her cushion.”
Whitney leaned over and ran her fingers over the screen again. A photo of some cats popped up, but that was not what held Matthew’s attention. Instead, it was the way she was almost leaning her head against his shoulder, almost pressing her body against his arm.
“That’s Frankie and Valley, my barn cats.”
“Frankie and Valley? Like Frankie Valli, the singer?”
“Yup.” Without leaning away, she turned her face up toward his. Inches separated them. “Frankie was a...stray.” Her words trailed off as she stared at Matthew’s face, his lips. Her eyes sparkled as the blush spread over her cheeks like the sunrise after a long, cold night.
He could lean forward and kiss her. It’d be easy. For years, he’d thought about kissing Whitney Wildz. He’d been young and hormonal and trying so, so hard to be the Beaumont that his father wanted him to be. Fantasies about Whitney Wildz were a simple, no-mess way to escape the constant effort to be the son Hardwick Beaumont wanted.
Except he didn’t want to kiss that fantasy girl anymore. He wanted to kiss the flesh-and-blood woman sitting next to him. She shouldn’t attract him as she did. He should see nothing but a headache to be managed when he looked at her. But he didn’t, damn it. He didn’t.
Matthew couldn’t help himself. He lifted the hand that wasn’t holding her phone and let the tips of his fingers trail down the side of her cheek.
Her breath caught, but she didn’t turn away—didn’t look away. Her skin was soft and warmed by the sun. He spread his fingers out until the whole of his palm cradled her cheek.
“I didn’t realize you were such a fan of Frankie Valli,” she said in a breathy voice. Her pupils widened as she took another deep breath. As if she was waiting for him to make his move.
“I’m not.” The problem was, Matthew didn’t have a move to make. Phillip might have once moved in on a pretty woman without a care in the world about who saw them or how it’d look in the media.
But Matthew cared. He had to. It was how he’d made a place for himself in this family. And he couldn’t risk all of that just because he wanted to kiss Whitney Maddox.
So, as much as it hurt, he dropped his hand away from her face and looked back at the screen. Yes. There were cats on the screen. Named after an aging former pop idol.
He could still feel Whitney’s skin under his touch, still see her bare back...
Something outside the window caught his eye. He looked up to see two women in their mid-twenties standing on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. One had her phone pointed in their general direction. When they saw that he’d noticed them, they hurried along, giggling behind their hands.
Dread filled him. Okay, yes, Wh
itney was recognizable—but she wasn’t the only woman in the world with an unusual hair color, for crying out loud. This had to be...a coincidence.
He turned his attention back to the phone, but pictures of cats and dogs and horses barely held his attention. He wanted their food to come so they could eat and get the hell out of here. He wanted to get Whitney to a place where even if people did recognize her, they had the decency not to make a huge deal out of it.
She flicked to the last photo, which was surprisingly not of an animal. Instead, it was of a cowgirl wearing a straw hat and tight jeans, one foot kicked up on a fence slat. The sun was angled so that the woman in the picture was bathed in a golden glow—alone. Perfect.
Whitney tried to grab the phone from him, but he held on to it, lifting it just out of her reach. “Is this...you?”
“May I have that back, please?” She sounded tense.
“It is you.” He studied the photo a little more. “Who took it?”
“Jo did, when she was out last winter.” She leaned into him, reaching for the phone. “Please.”
He did as the lady asked. “So that’s the real Whitney Maddox, then.”
She froze, her fingertip hovering over the button that would turn the screen off. She looked down at the picture, a sense of vulnerability on her face. “Yes,” she said in a quiet voice. “That’s the real me.” The screen went black.
He cleared his throat. “I think I like the real you.”
Even then she didn’t look at him, but he saw the smile that curved up her lips. “So,” she said in a bright voice, “your turn.”
Hell. What was he supposed to say? He looked away—and right at the same two women he’d seen earlier. Except now there were four of them. “Uh...”
“Oh, don’t play coy with me,” she said as she slipped her phone back into her jacket pocket. Then she nudged him with her shoulder. “The real you. Go.”
This time, when the women outside caught him looking, they didn’t hurry off and they sure didn’t stop pointing their cameras. One was on her phone.
A Beaumont Christmas Wedding Page 6