by Gina Wilkins
“Right. Later.”
Much later, she told herself as she turned and hurried toward the elevator. Much, much later.
If she was lucky, that was one potentially awkward talk that she would be able to avoid for a long time.
Grace disappeared again Saturday night.
While it didn’t particularly surprise him this time, Bryan was still furious that she would take such a risk again after implying that she wouldn’t. He wasn’t as worried this time that someone had grabbed her on the way home from work; he had no doubt that she had deliberately taken off again. Maybe just to prove to him that she could.
He never should have eased back on security, but he’d thought he’d made his point to her about being extremely careful during the next few weeks. He hadn’t expected her to ignore his warnings.
Aside from his very real concern for her safety, what was really eating at him was the question of who she was with. Picturing her with another man made a wave of fury crash through him, clenching his fists and tensing his muscles.
They were going to have to talk soon. Very soon. He needed to make it clear that as far as he was concerned, the playacting was over. He meant everything he said to her now—whether she chose to listen or not. He needed to make sure she understood that. And he needed very badly to find out if he was only imagining that she was having as much trouble separating fantasy from reality as he was. Hadn’t she said those very words in the garden outside the country club last night?
Was she really so opposed to the possibility that something could be developing between them? Was her disappearing act this evening a panicky reaction to the tension that had been building every time they were together?
He considered breaking into her apartment again, being there to confront her at whatever hour she came dragging in. He would demand to know where she had been, and refuse to leave until he had a satisfactory answer. She would be furious, of course. There would be a heated shouting match, which would allow him, at least, to vent some steam.
But he was getting to know Grace very well. She was looking for excuses to push him away, and he didn’t want to give her any more at the moment. He was going to find out what was going on with her, but he wouldn’t accomplish anything by fighting her. Not just yet, anyway.
Instructing his security detail to let him know when Grace was safely home, he prepared to spend the hours until he received that call pacing the carpets of his house.
He’d always considered himself a man of great patience—but Grace could try the patience of a saint. And he was definitely no saint. If he ever got his hands on her again, he would prove it.
Grace was expecting Bryan’s call Sunday. She had half expected to find him waiting in her apartment when she’d gotten home at just after 1:00 a.m.
Since she didn’t believe for a minute that she had managed to slip away without him being notified, she was fully prepared for another lecture from him. She even rather looked forward to it. She’d been practicing her own responses all day. Such as how he had no right to ask her where she went or what she did. How hard she had been working to make his crazy plan work out, and how she deserved an occasional break from the pressure of that charade.
She almost hoped he would start something. It was easier to fight with Bryan than to hold hands in the moonlight with him. She was more comfortable yelling at him; she knew what to do, what to say, and how to bring it to an end. She could slam down the phone or turn and storm away—actions she did well from experience.
She didn’t hear from him until late Sunday. She thought maybe he had called while she was at church, but there were no messages on her answering machine when she returned home after lunching with a few friends from her Sunday School class. Feeling as if she were waiting for a shoe to drop, she spent the next couple of hours doing laundry, cleaning her apartment, replacing a missing button on one of her favorite blouses. Just typical weekend chores—and yet she kept listening for the phone to ring or someone to knock on her door.
For some reason, the longer Bryan waited to contact her, the more annoyed she became. She knew he was aware that she’d been out last night. She knew he was going to chew her out about it. Why didn’t he just go ahead and do it?
By the time the phone finally rang early that evening, her nerves were a bit frayed—as he probably knew they would be, the rat. She answered the phone with a clipped, “Hello.”
There was a momentary hesitation, and then Bryan asked pleasantly, “Is this a bad time?”
“Not really,” she said, setting aside the book she had just opened. Might as well get this over with.
“How has your weekend been?” he asked, the question sounding casual.
She shifted in her chair. “Fine, thank you. And yours?”
“Nothing special. I’ve been catching up on some work.”
“Same here.” Okay, could this conversation get more stilted and banal?
“Did you have a nice lunch with your church friends today? I understand you tried out the new Tex-Mex place. I’ve heard it’s good.”
“Yes, it’s—wait a minute.” Annoyed with herself for being so slow on the uptake, she pounded her fist on her knee. “Darn it, Bryan, you’re having me followed again.”
“Only since one o’clock this morning. I’m glad he was inconspicuous about it. I’ve given instructions for the security people to stay close, but to keep out of your way.”
“And just how often am I being followed?”
“As of one o’clock this morning, they’re operating on three eight-hour shifts.”
“I’m being watched twenty-four hours a day?”
“Discreetly. You’ll hardly notice.”
Her hand gripped the receiver so tightly that the muscles in her arm quivered. “You have no right to do this.”
His answer surprised her. “You’re probably right. I suppose I am crossing the line by assigning bodyguards to you against your will.”
“Then why—?”
“Because Wallace Childers has disappeared again,” he cut in bluntly. “We don’t know where he is or what he’s up to, and I won’t be comfortable about your safety until we know whether he’s in this country.”
“When did this happen?” she asked, just a bit skeptically.
“We had a report on him last Thursday. It was believed he was still in Mexico. The authorities there were closing in on him, but then he simply disappeared. The guy is slime, Grace, and he hates me. You know that. If he thought he could hurt me by hurting you, he would do so.”
As angry as she was about his methods, it was hard to yell at him for trying to protect her. Even if she did think he was overreacting. Even if she did believe he was being arrogant and high-handed in making decisions on her behalf without consulting her. Even if she did have a secret suspicion that he was more annoyed about her taking off without his permission than he was worried about Wallace Childers.
While she appreciated the concern he expressed for her, she would not apologize for clinging to the last remnants of her privacy. This collaboration would end in a few very weeks, and she would then have to go on as a single businesswoman facing her thirtieth birthday and trying to decide what to do with the rest of her life.
“I’ll be careful,” she told him. “Even though I sincerely doubt that Childers is going to show up here, I’ll use common sense.”
“The bodyguards will leave you alone,” he promised. “They won’t interfere with any of your plans. But I’m going to have to insist that they watch over you for the next few weeks. Think of it as another measure to make sure nothing interferes with the wedding.”
Low blow. She sighed, knowing that further argument would serve no purpose. She had known when she’d impulsively slipped off again last night that there would be repercussions. Bryan had been adamant from the beginning about the need for security as long as they were pretending to be lovers. And since Chloe had been kidnapped just for being associated with him, Grace couldn’t even accuse him o
f having no justification for his paranoia.
“I’ll be glad when this wedding is over so we can bring an end to all this,” she grumbled.
After a rather lengthy pause, he replied, “I’m sorry this has been so difficult for you.”
His tone was a bit stiff—as if, perhaps, she had hurt his feelings. And now she felt guilty on top of everything else. She hadn’t even realized she could hurt his feelings with a careless remark. “What I meant was…”
“Never mind. Now that we’ve gotten the security issue out of the way—once again—there’s something else I need to discuss with you. It’s a favor, actually, so feel free to decline.”
“What sort of favor?” she asked warily.
“It concerns my parents. There was an article in a national business journal last Friday comparing my business style to my father’s. The writer implied that my parents and I have been estranged since I went into business for myself. There was even a throwaway comment that my parents are elitists who don’t approve of my current relationship with a mere shopkeeper.”
“That would be me, I presume?”
“I’m afraid so. Anyway, as you know, I was quite busy Friday finishing up my business in Seattle and getting back to the party in Searcy, and I never had a chance to see the article. Apparently my father just got around to reading it this morning. He was outraged by the assertion that he resents me because I’m a better businessman than he is. He phoned my mother, who took great offense at being labeled a snob. Even though she is, and she’s well aware of it.”
Shaking her head at his matter-of-fact description of his parents, she asked, “So what’s the favor you want to ask me?”
“My parents want us to have dinner with them tomorrow evening. I’m quite sure they’ll make arrangements for a society reporter to just happen to wander by with a camera during the meal, at which time my father will make a grand gesture like toasting our happiness with my mother smiling mistily at us from his side. It will be an excruciatingly uncomfortable meal, but it won’t last more than a couple of hours at most. Will you go?”
“You want to go?” Grace asked in disbelief.
“I would rather have a root canal. Without anesthesia.”
Now she was really confused. “So why are you asking me?”
“Because they’re the only parents I have,” he answered simply. “The article embarrassed them, and they’ve asked me to help them counteract it. They rarely ask me for anything, so I don’t mind doing them a favor every once in a while.”
How could she turn him down after that, even if she was still annoyed with him? Although she’d almost rather have oral surgery herself, than to participate in a just-for-show dinner with Bryan’s difficult parents, she supposed she could suffer through it as a favor to him. He had gone to so much effort to make it to the party for Chloe and Donovan Friday evening, and he’d been nothing but polite and gracious to her parents and their friends.
This guy was something else, she thought with a shake of her head. During the course of this one phone call, she’d gone from being furious at him for his arrogance to admiring him for his thoughtfulness.
“All right. What time are you picking me up?”
“You’ll do it?” He sounded surprised.
Had he really doubted that she would? “Yes, I’ll go.”
“Thanks, Grace. That’s very nice of you.”
Even though he couldn’t see her, she shrugged. “I just get tired of the gossip—even in business magazines, which should be above that sort of thing. Your relationship with your parents is nobody’s business but yours.”
“I agree.”
She didn’t add that she found his filial sense of obligation rather touching, especially considering the pain his self-absorbed parents must have caused him in the past. Not for the first time, she was grateful for the family she had. Her sister, of course, and their parents who might not have been wealthy or socially prominent, but had always provided them with whatever they needed in addition to unconditional love and support.
So she would have dinner with Bryan and his parents. After that would come the wedding, and then a few more very public dates. They would keep the act going for a few weeks after the wedding, and then they would bring it to an amicable end, answering media questions with vague smiles and polite “no comments.”
And then it would be over. As it had to be, she assured herself. No regrets.
Yeah, right, Grace.
Chapter Twelve
“It wasn’t quite as bad as a root canal, I suppose,” Bryan murmured as he drove Grace home from the exclusive downtown restaurant where they had spent the past two very long hours.
Grace ran her tongue experimentally over her teeth. She had never had a root canal, but she wasn’t sure it could be much worse than dinner with Bryan’s parents. Her cheeks still ached from the fake smile she’d worn all during the meal. It hadn’t been easy—especially when his father continuously spoke to her as if she had the IQ of an average five-year-old and his mother asked a string of utterly inane questions about the shop.
Normally she would have let anyone else know exactly what she thought of their patronizing behavior. But these were Bryan’s parents. She had restrained herself for his sake—and because she had solemnly promised Chloe that she would behave.
It had been a struggle, but she’d managed. She was rather proud of herself, actually. And thoroughly relieved that she would never have to go through that again.
“You really were great this evening,” Bryan commented, proving that he’d been thinking along the same lines. “I know it wasn’t easy for you.”
“It wasn’t too bad.”
He laughed and reached over to give her a companionable pat on the knee, through the thin fabric of her summery, light-colored slacks. “You’re a liar. But I still appreciate what you did tonight.”
“I just hope we accomplished something. Except for the photographer who stopped by our table to snap a photo of your father toasting us—you predicted that to the last detail, by the way—no one seemed to pay much attention to us.”
“Don’t you believe it. Nearly everyone there saw us and recognized us. The ones who didn’t were informed of our identify by the serving staff and other diners.”
“And you think they’ll talk about seeing us all together?”
“Oh, yeah. They’ll suspect the dinner was specifically arranged for tonight because of that journal article, but it was obvious that we were all being pleasant and cordial. We might not have looked like a Norman Rockwell family, but we obviously aren’t estranged, either.”
His hand was still on her knee. Grace picked it up and set it firmly on the steering wheel. “Are you ever going to tell your parents why you and I have been seen together so often during the past few weeks? That we aren’t really a couple?”
Still grinning at the byplay with his hand, he shrugged. “Probably not. They aren’t really that interested in my social life. Who I see, or why. Unless, of course, there’s a chance that I could introduce Mother to someone from Hollywood. You know how she feels about anyone who’s ever been on a movie screen.”
“Yes, she makes that clear enough.” It hadn’t escaped Grace that his parents hadn’t even asked how his injuries were healing. She hoped they had asked during telephone calls, at least, or had expressed some concern for their son’s well-being. After a moment, she asked a question that had been bothering her all evening. “How did you end up so different from your parents?”
He shrugged again. “I didn’t spend a whole lot of time with them. I was raised by a series of nannies and housekeepers. Spent some time with my paternal grandmother until she died when I was eleven. Mostly I just raised myself.”
She would not feel sorry for him, she told herself. It would be a tremendous waste of time to feel sorry for Bryan Falcon. Instead she said merely, “You spoiled yourself rotten.”
He laughed. “You aren’t the first to say that.”
He pulle
d into the parking space next to her car and killed the engine. “Are you going to ask me up for coffee, or are you going to bolt again?”
She gave it only a moment’s thought. “I’m going to bolt,” she said, unbuckling her seat belt and reaching for the door handle.
He caught her arm, holding her in her seat. “What are you so afraid of, Grace? What do you think will happen if I come up?”
“We’ll fight,” she said promptly. “You’ll start lecturing me again about how reckless and irresponsible I am when it comes to the security measures you want me to take, and that will make me mad and we’ll start yelling at each other.”
“What if I promise not to fight with you? We’ve already settled the issue of security as far as I’m concerned.”
“Right. You have someone following me twenty-four hours a day whether I like it or not, and I’m supposed to accept that without complaint.”
“Exactly. So there’s nothing to fight about, right?”
“If you say so,” she muttered.
“Which brings us to what you’re really afraid of—that we won’t fight.”
She scowled at his hand on her arm. “Wanna bet?”
Ignoring her, he continued, “You’re afraid we’ll be alone up there together—not fighting—and things will start getting intense again.”
“That’s not—”
He reached out with his free hand to slide his fingers beneath her chin and turn her face toward him. “We’d start kissing again—and you’d enjoy it. Again. And that scares you all the way down to your toes.”
“You obviously had too much wine with dinner,” she said, trying to sound haughty instead of panicky. “It’s gone straight to your head.”
“I had half a glass because my father ordered a wine he knows I don’t like. You know I’m right, Grace.”
“About the wine? How could I know—?”
“About the kisses,” he interrupted with strained patience. “That’s what really scares you, isn’t it?”