She was sitting in the backseat but leaning forward to talk. If he turned his head just a little, he saw cleavage. Marissa was not usually a girl who put her assets on display like this. Mike didn’t like it. Well, he liked it fine, but he didn’t like the idea of Chase’s fancy Boston friends liking it, not one bit. It had distracted him the whole drive.
“Is your mood going to improve when we get there?” Todd had asked at the halfway mark, giving him a pointed stare.
They pulled into the driveway of the Marblehead house, and Todd swore under his breath.
“Lucy did say it was like a castle.” He heard awe in Marissa’s tone.
“Yeah, but I thought she was exaggerating,” Todd said.
“I kind of did, too,” Mike agreed.
“You think all Chase’s friends are loaded like this?” Mike asked.
“Gee, I hope so,” Marissa said, exiting the car, her voice full of glee.
Mike was not happy.
Then his brother leaned across from the driver’s seat and whispered, “You had your chance and you blew it.”
He swore again and got out of the car.
Marissa was peeling off the Christmas sweater to reveal a small, tight, sexy sequined tank top.
“Aren’t you cold?” he asked. Aware that he sounded like a cranky old man.
“I have a cardigan.” She reached into the car and pulled on what was the world’s smallest jacket. And then she actually adjusted her cleavage, one hand under each breast, and Mike thought he might choke on his own tongue.
“Okay, boys, in we go,” she said, confidently leading the charge. Who was this woman? There were rumors that back at college Marissa had been a party girl, but Mike had never seen it in action; he’d never quite shaken the image of the sweet high school girl she’d been. Maybe he’d been wrong.
And Todd whispered in his ear again, “You are a total fool, you know that, right?”
He certainly did. He shouldn’t have come. He did not need to see this.
Marissa hoped her bravado was enough to get her through the evening. This new look she was wearing made her feel half-naked, and the truth was it was kind of cold. Still, she was here to have fun and flirt her butt off, and she couldn’t do that in a sweater. Well, she could, but not so easily.
The front door swung open, and they were met by a waiter who was holding a tray of drinks. She snagged champagne and took a few steps forward. This house was unbelievable.
Then Lucy came bounding across the entrance toward them. Her friend’s long blond curls were loose around her shoulders. She wore a simple black dress that kicked out at the waist and made her look like a nineteen fifties movie star. She wore cute kitten heels, the world’s largest emerald engagement ring, and a huge smile.
“You made it.” Marissa was pulled into a big hug and did her best not to spill champagne down the hostesses back as her friend whispered in her ear, “You look killer.”
“Thanks. You look beautiful.”
Lucy pulled back to welcome the boys, and Marissa took a moment to take in her surroundings. “Lucy, this place is . . .”
“Insane. I know. You’ll get used to it.”
“Have you?”
She shook her head and laughed. “No, but Chase’s mother assures me one does eventually. Speak of the devil.”
A very pretty blond woman in a wheelchair approached and Lucy introduced her to the group. “My goodness, look how handsome you boys are. If only I were young again. And Marissa, so very pleased to meet you. Now come on in and join the party.”
An hour later, Marissa was fairly certain she’d met about fifty new people, which was at least fifty more than she’d met in the past year.
She met Piper and her husband Aaron, who had recently eloped. They are a really cute couple, she thought. Piper ran Pied Piper’s Pies where Lucy worked as operations manager. She also met Cherie and Luke, who were also their good friends. Luke now ran the multinational that had bought out Pied Piper’s Pies and were franchising the pie trucks all over the country. Cherie and Aaron were cousins, and Aaron and Chase were old university buddies, so they were a tight-knit group
“Cherie is the matchmaker,” Lucy said to her. “Cherie, as discussed, Marissa needs your magic powers.”
Marissa noticed Mike tense, and Todd just laughed. “She sure does. Our small town is devoid of good men, so she needs to find the magic elsewhere.”
Cherie looked the twins up and down. “Well, you two are mighty fine-looking men. Are there more like you back home?”
“No, we’re two of a kind,” Todd quipped. “But there are other men in town, I guess. Most aren’t single, though, seems like people are strangely keen to settle down.”
“So you’re a cynic, Todd?” He gave her a nod of agreement. “I was, too. No one believes in the lovebug until they get bitten.”
“Lucky I wear strong repellent, or maybe I am repellent. Either way, how about you focus on the lovely Marissa, Cherie?”
“Right. Come with me. I know just the guy.”
Cherie, who was wearing shoes that defied gravity, looped her arm through Marissa’s and led her over to a group of men. She really wasn’t sure she was ready for this. Her guide whispered in Marissa’s ear, “So, these boys went to Yale with Chase and Aaron. I used to go and visit in the dorms. They’re all fabulous and all gentlemen, or so they assure me.”
Marissa felt like she was being led onto the set of a Ralph Lauren photo shoot. There was so much all-American male in front of her she felt overwhelmed. Sweat pricked along her hairline and under her arms. She was a small-town librarian and these men were like gods. She was out of her depth.
“Imagine them naked if you’re nervous,” Cherie whispered.
She couldn’t help but let out an inelegant laugh. “Oh my goodness, I think that makes it worse.”
The other woman gave her a cheeky grin.
“Oh well, maybe. Still a nice thought.” Then she turned her attention to the group. “Hi, boys.”
“Hey Cherie,” one of them answered.
“Now this gorgeous creature is Lucy’s very best friend from high school, Marissa, and also one of the bridesmaids, so I need you to take excellent care of her.”
“No problem, Cherie.” One of the Norse gods extended his hand. “I’m Chad, this is Murray, Jake, and Tom, but everyone calls him Moose.”
“Moose?”
“I’m from Maine,” he said, as if that made perfect sense.
“New Hampshire,” she said. Because to her it did.
“We’re practically neighbors, Marissa. Let me take you to the bar and get you a drink.” And with that Moose placed his large hand in the small of her back and led her away.
She looked over her shoulder at Cherie who shrugged as if to say, “And that is how it is done.”
Mike was trying to have a conversation with Luke about trends in marketing and how these were affecting small newspapers like his own but his eyes kept falling to where Marissa stood surrounded by a circle of tall, handsome, attentive men. One in particular seemed to be paying her extra notice.
He told himself he was just being a good friend and keeping an eye out for her, but the truth was he was jealous. He knew it was wrong. He didn’t want to go out with Marissa. After his disastrous brief marriage during his college years, he had sworn off marriage for life, and so Marissa was not an option for him. She wasn’t a girl you had an affair with and left. She wanted, and she deserved, love and a family. He couldn’t give it to her. And yet the thought of that guy who was currently placing his hand in the small of her back and guiding her across the room, the thought of him touching her made him angry.
“You like her, huh?” Luke asked.
“What, who?”
“Marissa, you like her. You’ve been watching her this whole time,” Luke said, sipping his beer. An annoying knowing look on his face.
“No, we’re just friends,” Mike said.
“Yeah, sure, you may be just friends buddy, but you like he
r.”
“I . . .” That was certainly true.
“It’s okay. I’m not going to tell her, but maybe you should. It’s taken me a decade to get my girl back. I’d hate to see the same thing happen to you. Or worse, you could lose her forever.”
Forever? He was right. If Marissa was in a relationship with someone she wouldn’t be around to hang out with, she wouldn’t go with him as a date to work events, and she probably wouldn’t show up to Todd’s weekly poker nights. No, she’d be a girl he saw around town and he’d be . . . alone.
“I don’t do relationships,” he said to Luke.
“I don’t know which one of us you’re trying to convince, but you might want to think about that before some other guy snaps her up. Cherie has some pretty advanced matchmaking skills. You’re up against it now.”
Cherie came over and joined the conversation. “What are we discussing?”
Luke loped his arm around her shoulder and kissed her cheek. “Your excellent matchmaking skills.”
“I do have a gift,” she said. “I’m up to five couples. Marissa will be six.”
Mike felt his mouth go dry. She was probably just delusional. Matchmaking wasn’t a skill; she wasn’t some gypsy woman.
“Her grandmother is a matchmaker, too. It runs in the family. Scary stuff,” Luke added. Okay, maybe she was a gypsy.
This was not good. Mike had not liked the idea of Marissa coming to this party full of attractive, eligible men with the specific goal of meeting someone, but now with a matchmaker in the mix, this might seriously be a problem.
Marissa found herself in an upstairs bathroom with Lucy, fixing her makeup.
“It’s like we’re back in high school,” Lucy joked.
“Apart from the fact that we’re in a mansion surrounded by super-hot guys,” Marissa joked.
“Details,” Lucy said, applying a layer of lip gloss. “I’m really so glad you’re here. I feel a bit overwhelmed and seriously outnumbered, so it’s really great you’re here.”
“It’s my pleasure. And it’s nice that your mom, Kevin, and the kids are here.”
“Sure, but they look a tad shell-shocked. This is not exactly what they’re used to.”
“They’re fine and CeCe is taking wonderful care of them.” She reapplied her gloss. “Anyway, I’m having so much fun. I seriously don’t think I’ve seen so many hot guys in one place, well, maybe ever.”
“That’s good. I just want you to have fun. Moose seems to like you a lot.”
“He’s cute. He said he might take me skiing in Maine. I only met him an hour ago.” She laughed. This was so not how her Saturday night normally looked. “And the weird part was I thought, why not?”
“That a girl! And you are a good skier.”
Marissa smoothed her hair and smiled at her friend. “I used to be. I used to be a lot of things. This has definitely helped me to remember all the things I used to be good at. Flirting, skiing, laughing. I don’t know why I stopped. I think my life got dull, and so I got dull along with it.”
“Not anymore,” Lucy said. “Let’s go party.”
“Yeah, let’s. Moose said there’s going to be dancing.”
“Yep, and lots of it.”
Marissa loved dancing. Back at college, she’d been the first one on the dance floor and the one still there at the end of the night, begging the DJ to play just one more song. And yet, she couldn’t quite remember the last time she’d danced apart from the school reunion a while back. This is going to be fun, she thought.
She was not mistaken. The only time she left the dance floor in the next two hours was for a drink of water or a glass of champagne. She danced with every eligible guy at the party, and probably a few who were ineligible. She didn’t care. She felt fun, and she felt alive. It was the most fun she had had in years, and instead of feeling like an old washed-up spinster, she felt like the belle of the ball.
When the music finally ended she was sad, but kind of grateful, her feet probably couldn’t have lasted much longer.
“Look at you, girl,” Moose said, handing her a drink. “You sure love to dance, huh?”
“I do, but you know small-town life doesn’t give me much opportunity, or maybe I’ve been missing the opportunities that were there.”
He grinned down at her. “Well, you didn’t miss anything tonight.”
“I know.” She gulped down the water.
He leaned in and whispered, “I really wanted another dance.”
She blinked. Wow, she really did still have it.
“Maybe next time.”
“Oh no, not maybe, definitely next time.”
Wow, so this was what it felt like to be alive.
Chapter 8
Mike woke up to the not-so-melodic sound of his brother snoring in the bed across the room that they were sharing. Great. He looked at his watch. Six in the morning. They hadn’t gone to bed until two. After lots of the guests had left, those staying at The Castle, as they had dubbed it, stayed up talking and having a few cocktails until two. He’d tried to ignore Marissa leaning against Moose on the sofa, and the big guy didn’t seem to mind at all that she was practically falling asleep on his shoulder. Heck, why would he? Smart, beautiful women snuggling up to you generally weren’t a problem. He had tried to ignore it but it annoyed him.
“Marissa had a fun night,” Todd said as they climbed into the beds in the shared room.
“Yeah.”
“You can’t have it both ways, Mike. She’s waited a long time for you, and you’ve ignored her. Time to step up or step off.”
He didn’t want to do either.
Mike wasn’t a guy who needed hours of sleep but more than this was good. No way with Todd snoring was he likely to go back to sleep. He climbed out of bed and crossed the room in his boxers. He went to the window and pulled the curtain a little to see what the day was like. Sunlight was starting to bounce across the harbor below. It was a beautiful day.
He pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and made his way down to the kitchen in search of coffee. He was surprised to see CeCe, Chase’s mother, up and sitting in her wheelchair at the kitchen table. The woman looked immaculate, and as far as he could remember, she’d been one of the last to turn in.
“Good morning, darling,” she said, giving him her winning smile. Chase’s father might have been a creep, but he knew a beautiful woman when he saw one. CeCe was the perfect society wife. It was a pity the old man hadn’t remembered that.
“Good morning to you.”
“You’re an early bird.”
“My brother snores.”
“So tedious. The best thing about my husband leaving me was never having to listen to his incessant snoring ever again.” She smiled at him. “There’s coffee and cups there, help yourself.”
“So, that was quite a party,” Mike said, pouring himself a coffee. “Do you need a refill?”
She held out her cup. “Thanks, darling, cream and sugar please. Yes, it was such fun. We definitely haven’t had enough parties around here lately. It’s a shame to have a house like this, so perfect for events, and not host any. Selfish even.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, but it is an amazing house.”
“It is. My father-in-law built it for my mother-in-law to woo her.”
“Quite the gesture,” Mike said, taking a seat at the table.
“Yes, most men don’t have to go quite that far to get the girl, but he was especially despicable, so he had to try extra hard.” She shrugged. “He got the girl, she got a castle, and everyone got an unhappy life.”
“That’s kind of sad.” The coffee tasted so damn good.
“Agreed. Most women just want flowers, to go dancing, the odd thank you, and not to be ignored. It’s not that hard.”
“It’s not?” That wasn’t his experience.
She gave her head a shake. “Not at all. Take your friend Marissa, look how happy she was dancing last night. That wasn’t hard, was it?”
“No.�
�� He sipped his coffee.
“I didn’t see you dancing with her, come to think of it.” She peered at him over the rim of her mug.
“She didn’t need me; she had plenty of people to dance with.”
“As we know, Mike, need and want are not the same thing.” She sipped her coffee and changed the subject to the newspaper. “Chase is enjoying his involvement in your paper. It’s nice for him to be a part of something; working alone all the time can be kind of lonely. Not that it’s such an issue now that he has Lucy, but working alone, living alone . . .”
“Don’t you live here?”
“I’m his mother; it isn’t the same. You don’t think Marissa was lonely living with her folks or Lucy was lonely when she lived with her sister?”
“Maybe.” He’d honestly not given it too much thought. Marissa had always been busy, and he equated that with not being lonely, he supposed.
“Anyway, tell me a bit about how you came to be running that newspaper?”
He sat and told her his dream of being a small-town newspaper boy. He left out the part where he’d briefly married the wrong woman with nearly catastrophic results because that was a whole different story. Half an hour later, Chase came down, followed in dribs and drabs by Todd, Lucy, and the rest of the guests.
Despite being bone-tired from the dancing and excitement and lack of sleep, Marissa was having a great morning. Moose was as attentive as he had been last night, and he was very hot. She didn’t feel the pull she felt when she looked at Mike, but Moose was available and he was into her, so she would follow along and see what happened.
They all shared a brunch of pancakes and omelets and bacon. It was a really fun Sunday and in direct contrast to the usual trip to church with her folks followed by lunch at the diner. Yes, she was not sorry to be missing that.
“This has been fun, hasn’t it?” she said to Todd as they lined up for pancakes.
“It sure has. Nice to live the high life for a change.” He smiled at her.
“You could do it all the time if you wanted.” She elbowed him.
“Shhhh, don’t blow my cover. The world needs to believe I’m destined for mediocrity.”
Any Way You Plan It: An Upper Crust Series Novel Page 4