You′re Marrying Her?
You're Marrying Her?
Angie Ray
HOW WAS SHE GOING TO STOP THE WEDDING?There was no way Samantha Gillespie was going to let her best friend, Brad Rivers, marry a conniving woman only interested in his money! Brad may have been taken in by the beautiful blonde's act, but Sam knew differently.The problem was, the gold digger had made it impossible for Sam to tell Brad the truth without risking the bond between them. And even though the steamy looks Brad kept giving Sam made her question his engagement, she couldn't take the chance he'd choose the other woman over their…friendship? Still, was the commitment-shy Sam ready to acknowledge the desire she was feeling for her longtime "buddy" and even–gulp!–propose he marry her instead?
Brad?
Samantha started up at the man in shock. She’d seen him just eight months ago, but he looked…different. Incredibly different. His glasses were gone, he wore a dark gray, pin-striped suit that looked tailor-made, and silver cuff links.
But the difference went beyond clothes. He smelled of expensive gabardine, fine linen and spicy cologne. He was still tall and lean, but his shoulders looked broader. More powerful.
And even though he was smiling, he hadn’t hugged her or kissed her cheek. In fact, he was looking at her with a strange, watchful gaze. Her own smile dimmed.
“What are you doing here, Brad?”
He smiled broadly. “Congratulate me, Sammy. I met the girl of my dreams and she agreed to marry me.”
Dear Reader,
My, how time flies! I still remember the excitement of becoming Senior Editor for Silhouette Romance and the thrill of working with these wonderful authors and stories on a regular basis. My duties have recently changed, and I’m going to miss being privileged to read these stories before anyone else. But don’t worry, I’ll still be reading the published books! I don’t think there’s anything as reassuring, affirming and altogether delightful as curling up with a bunch of Silhouette Romance novels and dreaming the day away. So know that I’m joining you, even though Mavis Allen will have the pleasure of guiding the line now.
And for this last batch that I’m bringing to you, we’ve got some terrific stories! Raye Morgan is finishing up her CATCHING THE CROWN series with Counterfeit Princess (SR #1672), a fun tale that proves love can conquer all. And Teresa Southwick is just beginning her DESERT BRIDES trilogy about three sheiks who are challenged—and caught!—by American women. Don’t miss the first story, To Catch a Sheik (SR #1674).
Longtime favorite authors are also back. Julianna Morris brings us The Right Twin for Him (SR #1676) and Doreen Roberts delivers One Bride: Baby Included (SR #1673). And we’ve got two authors new to the line—one of whom is new to writing! RITA® Award-winning author Angie Ray’s newest book, You’re Marrying Her?, is a fast-paced funny story about a woman who doesn’t like her best friend’s fiancée. And Patricia Mae White’s first novel is about a guy who wants a little help in appealing to the right woman. Here Practice Makes Mr. Perfect (SR #1677).
All the best,
Mary-Theresa Hussey
Senior Editor
You’re Marrying Her?
Angie Ray
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ANGIE RAY
A RITA® Award-winning author for her first novel, Angie Ray has written historical and paranormal novels, but this is her first category romance. A native of Southern California, her mind is buzzing with ideas for stories, and she loves brainstorming while taking walks. Her husband and two children also provide plenty of distraction, but sooner or later she’s always drawn back to her computer for “just one more scene”—which invariably leads to another book!
Dear Reader,
At age twelve, I regarded anything with the word romance in it with suspicion—until a friend gave me a category romance novel and I read it. I was hooked. Actually, I was addicted, obsessed and insatiable. I quickly figured out that the new series romances always appeared in the bookstore about the seventh of each month, but that sometimes they came earlier. Starting around the first, I would beg my poor mother to take me to the bookstore every day until those books showed up on the shelf.
My love affair with romances continued through high school, college, several jobs and even through my own personal romance with the man who would become my husband. I read romances before, during and after the birth of my two children (well, not actually on the delivery table, but you get the idea).
When I finally decided to write something myself, I wrote several historicals and time travels—but part of me was still drawn to the Silhouette Romance line and its simple (???!!!) stories about two people falling in love.
Writing this book was pure pleasure—as was working with the outstanding editorial staff at Silhouette (specifically, Mary-Theresa Hussey, my editor extraordinaire, and Shannon Godwin, her remarkable assistant).
Whether you’re twelve or six times twelve, I hope you will have as much fun reading You’re Marrying Her?, as I had writing it.
Sincerely,
p.s. I love hearing from my readers! Please e-mail me at: ARay3@aol.com, or write to: P.O. Box 4672, Orange, CA 92863-4672.
Contents
Prologue (#uadc3dfe3-8954-5150-b74a-684cadb8ade4)
Chapter One (#udab43778-2d60-5c71-bb6f-3fba7a23026e)
Chapter Two (#ud110a477-56d6-5b6f-a5e9-e48520622f82)
Chapter Three (#u5a0fff94-efc4-51fc-9caf-449d55a2a6ec)
Chapter Four (#uba50e183-e674-505e-b047-00b95f781e06)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
His lungs were on fire. Sweat dripped down his forehead, soaking the sweatband and trickling down into his eyes, clouding his vision. The cheers from the crowd on either side increased, the noise half obscured by the pounding of blood in his ears, but he knew why they were yelling. The finish line was only a few yards ahead.
Every part of him ached. He couldn’t possibly go any faster—but he had to. Agonizing step after agonizing step, he drew closer to the figure ahead of him. He drew level. One more stride and he crossed the finish line—a nose ahead of the other man.
The crowd roared. Flags waved. Confetti floated through the air. “First place goes to…Brad Rivers!” boomed a voice over the loudspeaker.
The two men stopped jogging but kept walking to keep their muscles from cramping. They both breathed heavily. After a few minutes, the shorter one managed to gasp, “Damn…you…Brad, you beat me again!”
Brad laughed, even though his lungs burned with each exhalation. “I wasn’t about to give up that trophy—I like the way it looks on my desk.”
“You like taunting me with it, you mean.” George Yorita, Brad’s business partner and best friend, scowled, his thick black brows drawing together in a mock frown.
“C’mon, George. I never taunt.”
“Then why do you start polishing the damn thing every time I come into your office?”
“Trophies need a lot of upkeep—”
George snorted. “Yeah, right.” Before he could complain any more, a tiny Japanese-American woman with a toddler in tow came up. “I saw you running, Daddy,” the three-year-old said. “How come you let Uncle Brad beat you?”
George smiled ruefully, hugging his wife and ruffling his son’s hair at the same time. “Brad is very determined. When he wants something, he gets it.”
“You’re spoiled, Brad.” Laura Yorita shook her head. “You can’t always have everything you want.”
“So far he has,” George grumbled. “You should see the car he just bought. A ’65 Mustang in mint condition. When he told me it was on eBay, I tried to bid on it but got locked out. A million people must have been trying for that car, but Brad somehow managed to get it. The prettiest little convertible I ever saw. Original seats, hubcaps, detailing—”
“Maybe you should stay here and salivate over Brad’s car,” Laura said sweetly, “while I take Collin home for his nap.”
George grinned at his wife. “No, I’ll come with you. See you at the office Monday, Brad—but you better not drive that car. And you better not polish that trophy within my sight.…”
Brad watched the three of them leave. Holding his son’s hand, George bent to whisper in Laura’s ear. She laughed and nodded. He put his arm around her waist and they continued on, George shortening his steps to match those of his wife and child.
A slight frown etched Brad’s brow and he turned away, staring at the other runners crossing the finish line but not really seeing them. He hadn’t always gotten what he wanted. There was one thing that continued to elude him.…
“Water, mister?”
Brad took the proffered bottle, nodding his thanks to the race volunteer. Drinking the cold liquid, he turned his gaze back to the race.
Another runner had just crossed the finish line—a woman. She had a great figure, large breasts, small waist, curving hips, long legs. She looked familiar. He’d seen her somewhere before.
Yeah, now he remembered. At a party he’d attended a few weeks ago. The woman had been there. He hadn’t paid too much attention to her then—beyond the obvious, that is.
“An actress,” someone had told him.
He studied her more closely now. In addition to her other attributes, she had a beautiful face and carried herself with grace and self-assurance. She wore no engagement or wedding ring.
An idea sprang into his mind.
An insane idea. A completely ridiculous idea.
But then again, it had been an insane idea to start an electronics company just when all the tech stocks were taking a dive. And it had been ridiculous to expand into e-business, just when all the dot-com’s were going belly-up.
In short, he would try. And he would succeed.
Because the truth of the matter was, in the end, he always did get everything he wanted.
Chapter One
The wedding dress glowed in the late-afternoon sunlight streaming through the plate-glass windows of the small shop. Sequins formed a delicate tracery of vines on the bodice. A cluster of palest pink silk roses gathered the back of the full satin skirt into the faintest hint of a bustle. It was a Cinderella dress, symbolic of the bride’s hopes for a happily-ever-after future with Prince Charming. Next week, a young woman would walk down the aisle in this dress and pledge the rest of her life to the man of her dreams.
Samantha Gillespie shuddered.
The reaction was involuntary. She really had nothing against marriage, Sam told herself as she studied the dress on the dais before her. It just wasn’t something she wanted to do right now. Or any time soon. She was only twenty-four, for heaven’s sake, and no matter what her mother said, Sam wasn’t ready to get married yet. Not when life held such an endless array of possibilities. Why would she want to give that up for marriage?
“Well?” a voice demanded impatiently from the back of the shop. “Have you finished it?”
Sam glanced over her shoulder at the petite woman standing in the doorway of the small office at the far end of the showroom. “Almost,” Sam told her sister. “I think it needs a few more clusters of roses at the back.”
“For heaven’s sake!” Dressed in a pastel-pink suit and frilly white blouse, Jeanette glared over the top of her chunky, black-rimmed reading glasses, her lips pursed. Samantha recognized the expression—and the suit. She’d tried to get Jeanette to wear something less insipid, more contemporary, but her sister refused to cooperate. “I can’t wear that stuff you wear,” Jeanette always said.
Which was completely unfair, Sam thought, tightening the knot of the shirt tied at her waist and smoothing her ancient blue jeans. The casual look might not suit Jeanette, but a deep red suit with a tailored cut would flatter her dark hair and eyes and make the most of her pleasingly plump figure.
“Why don’t you let me make you a new suit?” Sam wheedled, ignoring Jeanette’s disapproving expression. “We got in some red linen that would look gorgeous on you.”
“No, thank you.” Jeanette’s toe, in a dull pink pump, tapped a stern tattoo. “I would prefer you worry about Miss Blogden’s gown rather than my attire. She and her mother are supposed to be here in half an hour. Mrs. Blogden will be furious if the dress isn’t finished.”
“Don’t worry.” Samantha retrieved a sewing kit and some pink silk from an antique armoire, then returned to the dais where the dress in question was reflected in a three-way mirror. “It won’t take me long.”
“Good grief, Sam!” Jeanette advanced from the office to the hat stand in the middle of the room—a more strategic spot for lecturing. “Must you always wait until the last minute? You know what Mrs. Blogden’s like.”
Sam sighed. Besides wearing boring clothes, Jeanette’s favorite activity was to lecture Sam on her habit of procrastinating. Sam listened sometimes, and even made sporadic efforts to change, but somehow her bad habits always crept back.
“Don’t worry,” Sam said again. “The dress will be ready.” Kneeling beside the mannequin, she twirled a piece of silk into a rose shape and stitched it onto the skirt of the wedding gown.
Jeanette chewed her lip. “I hate to leave you alone with her, but I promised Matt I’d come home early tonight.”
“Oh?” Sam glanced sideways at her sister. “How is Matt?”
Jeanette’s expression closed up. “He’s fine,” she said shortly.
Sam didn’t press. She knew Jeanette and her husband had been arguing a lot lately, but Jeanette was as unrevealing as her suit when it came to talking about her marriage. Sam hoped the couple found some way to resolve their problems—for the sake of their three children if nothing else.
“Go on then,” Sam told her. “Go home. Don’t worry about Mrs. Blogden.”
“I can’t help worrying about Mrs. Blogden,” Jeanette muttered. “I can’t afford to lose any clients.” She straightened a veil on the hat stand. “By the way, Brad Rivers called half an hour ago. He wanted to talk to you.”
“Brad?” Sam’s thimble fell to the floor and rolled off the dais, but she paid no attention. “What did he want?”
“If you’d been here on time, you would know.”
Sam rolled her eyes at her sister’s back as Jeanette retreated into her office. “Did he say anything?” she called after her.
“Not really.” Jeanette’s muffled voice floated out. “Just that he would call again later.”
How odd. Sam crouched down to look for her thimble. She’d barely talked to Brad since Christmas, eight months ago. She’d just returned to Southern California after a two-year absence, and when she arrived—late—at her mother’s house, she’d been delighted to see him. Only he hadn’t been so happy to see her. He’d been stiff, almost unfriendly. She’d thought at first that her long absence was responsible for his behavior. But as the day wore on and he didn’t loosen up, she’d realized something else was bothering him. She’d asked him flat out what was wrong, but he’d said everything was fine.
She’d called him several times over the next several months and left messages, but some barrier remained. When he’d made some excuse not to come to Easter dinner, everyone in her family had been surprised. He’d spent every holiday with them since Samantha was fourteen. And suddenly he couldn’t come because of “pressing demands at work”?
Hurt and confused, she’d stopped calling. He hadn’t made any effort to contact her. Until today.
Sam frowned at the rose she’d just sewn into place. What could he want to talk to her about now, after ignoring her for so long?
Jeanette came back out of her office with her purse and a stack of magazines. “Here are the latest bridal magazines. And something else I thought you’d like to see.”
She held up a tabloid newspaper and Sam stared at the picture on the cover of a man splaying his hand outward in an effort to block his face from the camera.
Is This Man Too Good to Be True? screamed the headline.
In spite of his outstretched hand, Sam recognized him immediately. “Brad?” She reached for the tabloid. “Does this have something to do with why he called me?”
“Maybe.” Jeanette held the magazine out of Sam’s reach and flipped through the pages. “It says that he’s selling RiversWare for $100 million and giving half the profits to his employees. Can you believe that?”
“He always was generous.” Absently, Sam sewed another rose on the dress. “But what does that have to do with me?”
“It says in here somewhere…oh, here it is, listen to this—‘although Rivers declined to be interviewed for this article, a reliable source tells us that he plans to use the money to convince his sweetheart to marry him!”’ Jeanette lowered the newspaper and stared at Samantha. “He must mean you, Sammy.”
Sam pricked her finger with the needle. Swearing under her breath, she sucked at the spot of blood before it could stain the white satin. “You’re crazy. Brad and I were never interested in each other. We were just friends.”
Jeanette snorted. “What guy is friends with a girl? Brad was in love with you.”
“No, he wasn’t. He was in love with Blanche Milken, remember?”
“Ha. He never cared about Blanche the way he did about you. He wasn’t the same after you and Maria Vasquez left on that wild road trip cross-country—and you should have seen his face when Mom told him that you’d decided to go backpacking across Europe!”
“You should have seen his face when he saw me last Christmas!” Sam retorted. “The rocks at Stonehenge had more expression. He was not welcoming home his long-lost love, believe me.”
“You always were blind about Brad. But I don’t have time to argue with you. I’ve got to run.” Jeanette set the magazines and tabloid on the floor. “It’s past six o’clock. Come lock the door after I leave.”
Sam automatically complied—Jeanette worried about Sam being alone in the shop after hours—then returned to where she’d been sitting, her brow furrowed. Blind about Brad? That wasn’t true. Sam had known him better than anyone.
Her gaze drifted to the stack of magazines. The tabloid rested on top. Slowly, she picked up the newspaper and opened it. Inside was another picture, although the caption identified this one as being five years old. Brad stood with his hands shoved in the pants pockets of his ill-fitting brown polyester suit, his shoulders slightly hunched. His gray-blue eyes, the color obscured by the glasses he wore, gazed off into the distance as if contemplating some thorny dilemma.
Samantha smiled a little. She remembered that suit—he’d bought it at a thrift shop to wear to graduation. She recognized his pose, too—it was so typically Brad. The first time she’d seen him, when he moved in with his grandmother down the street from her parents’ house, he’d been standing exactly the same way. He’d been seventeen, a senior in high school, quiet and serious. Only fourteen herself, she hadn’t seen much of him until one day at school when she came upon some of the jocks—including her boyfriend, Pete—picking on him. Indignantly, she’d told them to knock it off.
Pete had been annoyed—he’d broken up with her a week later—but she hadn’t really cared. She hadn’t liked having a boyfriend, it was too restricting. But after that, she’d run into Brad a lot more often, and one day she impulsively invited him and his grandmother to Thanksgiving dinner. Her mother, whose rather abrasive personality was offset by her deep-seated maternal instincts, had taken him under her wing once she heard the story of how his parents and sister had been killed in a car crash. Brad—and his grandmother, before her death—had become part of the family.
Samantha put down the tabloid and sewed two more silk roses into place on the Blogden wedding dress. Even after Brad graduated and went to college, their friendship had continued and deepened. He’d helped her with some of her classes, and she’d made him laugh with her tales of trying to correct the fashion faux pas of her friends. He’d been one of the few people she could really talk to. She’d poured out her troubles and he’d always listened, ever sympathetic, ever patient. He wasn’t like the boys in high school, the ones who got possessive after she dated them a few times. She’d always been able to count on Brad. She’d thought that they would be friends forever.
His behavior this last Christmas had come as a rude shock. Although she’d tried to pretend nothing was amiss, she’d been uneasy all evening. She’d drunk a little too much wine and chattered too much, acutely aware of his quietness, his stiffness, his stillness. She’d gotten the impression he wanted nothing to do with her, an impression reinforced by his reaction to her phone calls.
Frowning, Sam knotted and snipped the thread. So why did he want to talk to her now?
Brad was in love with you.
Jeanette’s words echoed in Sam’s brain. Automatically, she shook her head. Brad in love with her? The idea was laughable. They’d never even gone out on a date, let alone discussed marriage.
Well, okay, that wasn’t strictly true. They had discussed it, the summer she’d graduated from high school. But only in the general sense. He’d asked her if she ever wanted to get married.
“Not until I’m really old,” she’d said. “Thirty, at least.” They’d ridden their bikes along Santa Monica Boulevard to the beach—her mother didn’t like her to go alone—and she’d been sitting in the warm sand, under a strategically placed umbrella. Wearing a new polka-dot bikini, she’d been anxiously surveying her pale skin for signs of any new freckles.
Giving up on the inspection, she’d glanced up to find him staring at her. He’d looked away quickly, picking up a bottle of sunscreen.
“How about you?” She watched furtively as he rubbed the lotion onto his chest, the liquid mixing with the sprinkling of hair that had sprouted there in the last year or so. She wondered why he bothered. His skin browned easily, in spite of his light brown hair and gray-blue eyes.
“Yes. Someday.” His elbows stuck up in the air as he applied lotion to his back. The muscles in his chest and arms—more defined than she remembered from the previous summer—rippled as he did so. “I want children. And a wife to come home to every night.”
Sam wrinkled her nose. “Sounds boring. I want to travel. I want excitement. I want…” She looked up at the bright, cloudless blue sky, groping for words.
A seagull glided in the air, circling the beach, searching, waiting for an opportunity to swoop down and snatch some delicious morsel.
“You want what?” Brad asked.
The seagull dived. Descending with speed and grace, it focused completely on its target. Sam could imagine the wind rushing through its feathers, almost feel the bird’s excitement as it swooped down, the rush of anticipation as it approached its goal.
The bird landed by a trash can. It pecked at the sandy remnants of a greasy, half-eaten hamburger. The prize secure in its beak, the seagull took off again.
Sam lay down on her towel and closed her eyes. “I don’t know what I want yet,” she told Brad. “But I will.”
But now six years had passed, she was twenty-four, and she still didn’t have a clue.
Shaking her head, Sam put her needle and thread back in the sewing box and closed the lid. Maybe it was time she got a real job. She’d taken a couple of accounting classes before she quit college and had plenty of accounts receivable-payable experience both in the U.S. and in Europe. She should be able to find work fairly easily.
Or she could go back to college. She’d been considering that for the last year or so. She could finish her business degree while living off her share of the small trust fund her father had left. It would support her comfortably, if not luxuriously, while she studied.
Or she could continue to work for her sister. At least for a while. She’d taken the job with Jeanette partly to help out her sister, partly because she enjoyed working in the shop. But she knew Jeanette couldn’t really afford to keep her on long-term. Sam needed to make some decision soon. Hopefully before Jeanette became completely fed up with her lack of punctuality and fired her.
A knock sounded at the door. Sam glanced at her watch. Seven o’clock—Mrs. Blogden had said she and her daughter would be at the shop by six-thirty. Jeanette should have stayed and lectured them, Sam thought. Although, of course, Jeanette would never criticize a client. Only sisters enjoyed that privilege.
The knock came again.
Reluctantly she stood up, fluffing up her curls and brushing the stray bits of thread and cloth from her shirt and jeans. She picked up the stack of magazines and put them in the armoire before walking toward the door.
Another knock sounded, more impatient this time.
“Hold on to your horses,” Samantha muttered, but she arranged her features in a smile as she opened the door. “Your dress is ready.…”
The man standing on the threshold arched an eyebrow, his gray-blue eyes smiling down at her.
“You always did have a peculiar idea of me, Sammy.”
Chapter Two
Samantha stared up at the man in shock. Brad? She’d seen him just eight months ago, but he looked…different. Incredibly different. His glasses were gone, he wore a dark gray pin-striped suit that looked tailormade and silver cuff links. His sun-streaked hair was expertly cut, his nails manicured. On his wrist, he wore a gold Rolex watch, and on his feet, polished to a brilliant shine, shoes that screamed custom-made Italian leather.
But the difference went beyond clothes. He smelled of expensive gabardine, fine linen and spicy cologne. He was still tall and lean, but his shoulders looked broader. More powerful.
“A peculiar idea?” she replied stupidly, distracted by her efforts to decide whether his shoulders actually were wider or if the expensive jacket just made them appear so.
“I may have done some wild things in my life, but I draw the line at wearing ladies’ dresses.”
Her gaze flew to his. His gray-blue eyes held a glint. A familiar glint.
She started to smile. “What wild thing have you ever done, Brad? Ditched class to work on some computer program?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” he said, the glint still in his eyes.
She laughed. Her first impression that he’d changed faded away. This was the Brad she remembered from high school. Someone she could laugh with. Her friend.
Or so she’d thought. He certainly hadn’t acted very friendly in the past eight months. And even though he was smiling, he hadn’t hugged her or kissed her cheek. In fact, he was looking at her with a strange, watchful gaze. Her own smile dimmed. “What are you doing here, Brad?”
His gaze didn’t waver. “I need to talk to you. I was going to call again, but I realized that this is too important to tell you over the phone, so I decided it would be better to come and see you in person.”
Too important to tell her over the phone? Sam stared at him uneasily, Jeanette’s words popping into her brain.
Brad was in love with you.
Sam tried to banish the foolish thought. He’d barely spoken to her in the past eight months. That was hardly a sign of love.
But the thought refused to go away. Could Jeanette have been right, after all? Had Brad come to propose? “You’re wearing a suit,” she said, trying to hide her uneasiness. “Very nice. Are you trying to impress someone?”
“You, I hope.”
Her hand tightened on the doorknob. “I’m duly impressed,” she said, as lightly as possible.
“Are you?” The watchful expression in his eyes turned into something even more obscure and unreadable. “May I come in?”
“Oh, of course.” The pitch of her laughter a bit high, she stepped back and allowed him to enter the shop.
He looked around with interest, his gaze taking in the forest-green sofa and the pine table littered with catalogs and pattern books, the peach-colored wallpaper with its tiny white flowers and the rainbow of dresses hanging on one wall. His eyes lingered on the mannequin with Miss Blogden’s dress.
“Did you make this, Sammy?”
She nodded, unable to prevent a small welling of pride at the admiration in his voice. She’d done most of the sewing herself, endured thousands of pinpricks. But the result was worth it.
“You always did have a talent with clothes,” he said. “Remember that outfit you gave me one Christmas? A pair of baggy shorts, a black T-shirt and silver-rimmed sunglasses—along with a little note suggesting that I grow a goatee.”
She couldn’t help smiling. “Okay, so maybe I wasn’t very subtle. I still think you would’ve looked great. You could have at least tried the outfit. You never wore it even once.”
“Not my style.” He glanced at the row of gowns against the wall. “Do you make all the dresses for the shop?”
“Good heavens, no. Most of them are off the rack,” she said. “I only make a dress once in a while when a customer requests something unique. Usually, I just help Jeanette with whatever needs to be done. She’s doing very well. She only started a year ago, but she’s already close to making a profit. She had six weddings in June, and has at least two scheduled every month for the next year. I just assisted her with a wedding at the Arboretum in Arcadia with ten bridesmaids and ten groomsmen, a harpist, programs, the works. It was beautiful, we released 10,000 Monarch butterflies after the ceremony—”
She stopped, suddenly aware that she was babbling. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ramble on.”
“I enjoy listening to you. I remember Jeanette talking about starting a bridal shop ten years ago.”
“I didn’t think she’d ever actually own one. She hit a few roadblocks.”
“That’s normal. The important thing is she didn’t give up.”
“Mmm.” She glanced at him. “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about? Jeanette’s shop?”
His mouth quirked. “You always were direct, Sam. To tell you the truth, I came here for another reason. There’s something I want to ask you.…”
She stiffened, unable to prevent herself. “Oh?”
His gaze traveled over her face. “Yes,” he said gently. “I want to apologize for my behavior over the last several months. I was…disturbed about a certain situation and I allowed that to affect my friendships.”
“Oh, Brad!” The tension flowed out of her. She touched his arm lightly. “Have you been able to fix the situation?”
“No, but I’m working on it.” He smiled down at her. “In the meantime, I wanted to ask if we could be friends again.”
“That would be wonderful.” She smiled back at him, absently noticing that the angle of his chin seemed more pronounced than she remembered, the texture of skin at his jaw a little rougher. A few lines in his forehead were now permanent. “I’ve missed you.”
“Have you?” He reached out and brushed a curl off her forehead, his fingers lingering on her skin. “I thought you’d forgotten about me completely.”
“I could never do that.” His touch was friendly, the warmth from his fingers penetrating her skin and deep inside her. “You’re the nicest guy I’ve ever known. I’ve always thought of you as my best friend.”
Abruptly, his hand dropped to his side. For an instant, she saw something in his eyes, a spark of emotion she couldn’t identify. He grinned. “I’m glad to hear it—it will make my next question a lot easier.”
Her tension returned. Had she relaxed too soon?
He laughed, but his eyes still had that spark. “Don’t look like that, Sammy. It’s nothing terrible. At least, I hope you won’t think it’s terrible.”
Oh, dear heaven. “Brad, I don’t think—”
“Please, Sammy. Just listen. I’ve wanted to get married for a long time—”
Her fingernails bit into the palms of her hands. She couldn’t believe it. He really was going to propose. Her stomach churned. “Oh, Brad.…”
“And I’ve finally found someone who will have me.”
“I’m afraid—” She stopped, blinking in confusion. “What did you say?”
He smiled broadly. “Congratulate me, Sammy. I met the girl of my dreams and she has agreed to marry me. Her name is Heather Lovelace. And she’s the sweetest, kindest, most beautiful woman in the world.”
Samantha couldn’t speak. She felt dizzy for a second. Brad was getting married? She had never thought…that is, she couldn’t quite imagine…
“And we want you to design the dress. And Jeanette to arrange the wedding. Will you do it? Sammy? Sammy? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She shook her head, trying to clear away the unaccountable vertigo that had made everything in the shop tilt sideways. She forced herself to smile and say, “Of course I’ll do it. And I’m sure Jeanette can handle the wedding. If she can’t, I’ll do it myself,” she promised recklessly.
His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Thank you, Sammy. Heather’s waiting out in the car right now. She wants to meet you. Will you come to dinner with us?”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t.” Her refusal was automatic and instinctive. She didn’t feel very well. Maybe she had a summer cold coming on.
“Why not?”
“I…I couldn’t go to dinner dressed like this.”
“Come on, Sammy. You look great.”
“You’re wearing a suit—”
“There has to be a dress you could wear somewhere in this place.”
There was, of course. She bit her lip. What was wrong with her? She’d just been thinking how much she wanted to be friends with Brad again, and now here he was, wanting to renew their old relationship and share his happy news.
And it was happy news. She couldn’t quite figure out why it was affecting her so strangely. She was happy for Brad. Wasn’t she? Of course she was. He was going to get married and live happily ever after.
If that was possible.
She’d seen married people in action. She’d seen how couples could fight and tear each other apart. That was why Brad’s news unsettled her—she was worried about him. She didn’t want him to have to experience that unpleasantness.
“I really can’t. I’m expecting a client.” She glanced at her watch. It was almost seven-thirty. Apparently Mrs. Blogden wasn’t going to show.
“Can’t you call and cancel? Please, Sammy.”
“Well…” She wavered. She did want to meet Brad’s fiance´e. Heather Lovelace. The most beautiful woman in the world, Brad had called her. But Sam took that with a grain of salt. Brad was in love with Heather after all. He’d also described her as sweet and kind. That sounded like Blanche Milken, the girl he’d had a crush on in high school. Blanche had been a straight-A student with mousy, colorless clothes to go along with her mousy, colorless personality.
“Okay,” Samantha said, making up her mind. “Let me change and call Mrs. Blogden to make sure she isn’t coming. It’ll only take me a few minutes.”
“Great. I’ll go tell Heather. Come outside when you’re ready.”
He left, and Sam went into the office to call Mrs. Blogden. The housekeeper answered and informed Sam that Mrs. Blogden was at a party and wouldn’t be home until late. Sam wasn’t too surprised. Mrs. Blogden frequently didn’t show up for her appointments and rarely called to cancel.
Her conscience clear, Sam grabbed a short black dress off a rack, went into the dressing room and changed. Quickly, she slipped on some strappy, high-heeled sandals that increased her height from an insignificant five three to a much more respectable five six.
She brushed out her hair, applied enough makeup to conceal her freckles and surveyed herself in the mirror. Acceptable, she thought. The black matte jersey echoed the sheen of her dark curls and made her eyes seem more green than gold. She hurried outside.
A red sports car was parked there. Next to it stood Brad, his arm around the waist of a tall, slender blonde dressed in a form-fitting halter dress of glittering bronze.
Samantha stumbled on the asphalt. This was his fiance´e? The woman was gorgeous! Not a day over eighteen, she had the long, lean look of a model—except for the large, firm breasts that threatened to bounce right out of her low-cut dress. She was wearing heels, too, fantastic purple-and-bronze Jimmy Choo stilettos that lifted her at least four inches over Sam’s suddenly pathetic height. Sam felt like a troll next to her.
This was no Blanche Milken.
Sam pinned a smile to her lips and held out her hand. “Hi, Heather, I’m Samantha Gillespie.”
The blonde ignored her outstretched hand. A cloud of Chanel No. 5 enveloped Sam as Heather hugged her. “Samantha! Brad has told me so much about you!”
“He has?” Sam murmured faintly when she could speak.
Heather smiled blindingly. Her teeth were as white and perfect as the rest of her. “Oh, yes. I have to admit that when he first told me what good friends you were, I was the tiniest bit jealous, but now that I’ve met you, I can see that I didn’t need to worry at all.”
Startled, Sam glanced at Heather’s face. Had the woman—girl, really—meant that the way it sounded?
Heather was smiling, her large blue eyes clear and innocent.
Brad smiled, too. “I told you you were being silly. Samantha and I have always been just friends. Right, Sam?”
“Right.” You’re being oversensitive, Sam told herself sternly. She smiled at Brad’s fiance´e. “You’re marrying a really nice guy.”
“Nice?” Heather turned to Brad and drew a teasing finger down his chest. “I don’t know if I would have used exactly that word to describe you, darling.”
Sam frowned at the sexual implication of the blonde’s words. She glanced at Brad, expecting him to defend his character, but he only gazed at Heather, his hand closing over the blonde’s. The two of them stared into each other’s eyes, a silent communication of some shared memory passing between them. They appeared to have completely forgotten Sam’s presence.
She cleared her throat.
The spell was broken. The two lovers stepped away from each other. Brad glanced at Sam, his mouth curving ruefully. “Sorry. You know what it’s like to be in love.”
Sam forced herself to smile again, but inwardly she felt oddly defensive. Of course she knew what it was like. She’d had innumerable boyfriends in high school and college. She’d gone out with men from here to Chicago to New York to London, Paris and Rome. But somehow, none of them had ever looked at her the way Brad looked at Heather. Sam didn’t remember him ever looking at Blanche Milken that way. Talk about wearing your heart on your sleeve. She would’ve thought he would show more restraint.
“Shall we go?” she asked brightly.
Brad opened the passenger door.
“You don’t mind if I sit in the front, do you?” Heather asked Sam. “My legs get terribly cramped in the back.”
Sam saw Brad’s gaze go immediately to the impossibly long legs of his fiance´e. “Of course not,” she said, feeling like a child relegated to the back seat. She climbed into the tight space behind Heather and Brad.
With a roar of the powerful engine, they were off.
Chapter Three
Samantha sat at the dinner table of the West L.A. restaurant, watching the laughing couple across from her. They seemed giddy with happiness. There was a glow in Brad’s eyes that she’d never seen before—except, perhaps, when he was working on some complicated project. But this wasn’t the same. A sense of electricity seemed to envelop him.
Heather glowed, too. Sam had never met a woman who glowed so much.
Sam looked down at her menu and tried to subdue the wave of dislike she felt for Heather. So far, she’d seen nothing about the blonde that would justify Brad’s falling in love with her. Except for her gorgeous face and figure. But Heather must have more to her than that. Brad wasn’t the kind of man to care only about a woman’s looks.
Sam shifted her gaze to Brad as he raised a finger and a waiter rushed over. Watching him place their order, she was struck once again by a sense that he had changed—and not just on the surface.
Sam could restrain her curiosity no longer. “What happened to you, Brad?” she asked after the waiter left. “You used to be a strictly meat and potatoes man and now you’re ordering shrimp and jicama. And you look like you should be on the cover of GQ. Isn’t that an Armani suit?”
“Heather happened to me.” Putting his arm around his fiance´e, he smiled down at her. “She convinced me to try some new dishes and helped me make a few changes—new clothes, haircut and contact lenses. An improvement, don’t you think, Sammy?”
“I always thought you looked fine.” Forgetting her own attempts to change Brad’s wardrobe, Sam realized suddenly that she really didn’t care for this new style that Heather had foisted on him. Before, he’d looked like…Brad. Now he looked almost alien. He looked rich. Sophisticated. Masculine.
She shook her head. Brad was Brad, no matter how he dressed. That much she was sure of.
Heather had arched her brows at Sam’s response. “I think appearance is extremely important. Some women, especially older ones, don’t set any standards for themselves at all. I’m always careful to wear the right clothes and makeup and watch my weight. I count every calorie. I think it’s worth it, don’t you, Brad?”
Brad’s gaze wandered over Heather’s magnificent figure. “Sure, sweetheart.”
Heather beamed.
A waiter passed by with a dessert tray, and Sam resisted an urge to seize a slice of strawberry torte and stuff it down Heather’s throat. Instead she told herself that Heather probably hadn’t meant to imply that Sam was old and fat. Forcing herself to smile politely, she asked, “So, how did you two meet?”
“At the RiversWare Run,” Brad said. “Heather loves to run and enters competitions whenever she can.”
Heather sipped her drink. “Do you run, Samantha?”
“Not if I can avoid it.” Sam tried to remember exactly when the RiversWare Run had been. About four months ago, she was pretty sure. That wasn’t very long.
“Running doesn’t appeal to everyone,” Heather said in a kindly manner. “I like to try something different once in a while, too. Like in-line skating. I started just a few weeks ago. Brad says I’m a real fast learner.”
“Heather’s amazing on skates,” Brad interjected. “I’ve never seen anyone as graceful as she is.”
Heather smiled modestly. “In-line skating’s very easy. Even the biggest klutz imaginable can do it.”
“Sam can’t,” Brad announced cheerfully.
Sam’s fingernails curled into her napkin.
Heather’s eyes widened. “You can’t?”
Sam could barely stay upright on skates and usually wouldn’t have minded admitting it. But something about the blonde’s incredulous blue eyes made Sam say, “Of course I can.” She looked past Heather to the approaching waiter. “Oh, here comes our food.”
Brad wasn’t diverted, however. Releasing Heather’s hand so the waiter could put their plates down, he stared at Sam. “Since when? That time I took you skating, you almost fell on your face.”
“That was a long time ago. I’ve improved,” Sam lied. She remembered the time he referred to very well. It had been a high school fund-raiser, and she’d been falling all over the place until Brad came to her rescue. He’d helped her up and held her upright—until someone brushed by them, knocking her off balance. Legs and arms sprawling, they’d both ended up on the floor. Tangled together, they’d started laughing uncontrollably. By the end of the evening, they’d both had more bruises than two boxers—not to mention a bad case of the hiccups.
“Unfortunately, I can’t go skating very often,” Sam added as she cut a bite of chicken and swished it in mango-chili sauce. “Helping at Jeanette’s shop takes up all my time.”
“I work, too,” Heather said. “But I still find time to exercise.”
“Keeping fit is very important in Heather’s business,” Brad explained. “She’s an actress.”
Heather preened. “I just had a part in a special TV movie called Baywatch—the California Reunion.”
“Oh, really?” Sam had never watched the show, but she knew it was something about lifeguards at the beach. “That must have been exciting.”
“Yes, it was. David Hasselhoff himself rescued me when a great white shark attacked the swimmers in the middle of an earthquake right after a deranged yoga instructor blew up the pier. I didn’t have any speaking lines, but I did have to scream very loudly. Jim, the director, is editing the final cut of the movie right now, so I’m on call. That’s why I’m staying at the hotel across the street, because it’s close to the location shoot.”
“You’re not staying with Brad?”
“My house is too inconvenient,” Brad said.
Sam, chewing on a bite of risotto with pine nuts and green chilies, was surprised but strangely relieved. The thought of him living with Heather was very distasteful. The thought of him sleeping with her…
The rice and pine nuts in her stomach oscillated.
Forcing herself to keep her tone pleasant, Sam asked Heather, “When will the movie be on TV?”
“Not for several months,” Heather said. “But my agent says the offers will pour in once it airs. Not that I’ll accept any of them, of course.”
“Why not?” Sam asked.
“Because I’m marrying Brad. I want nothing more than to be his wife, to love him and support him with every fiber of my being. And, if God is willing, I will bear his children, the precious fruit of our deep and eternal love for each other.”
Sam smiled, thinking the blonde was joking. But her smile faded when she saw Brad wasn’t laughing. He was gazing tenderly at his fiance´e, who gazed back worshipfully.
Sam gagged on her mango-chili sauce.
Her cough broke the spell. “Are you all right?” Heather asked.
“Mmm.” She coughed once more to clear her throat and to prevent any resumption of adoring gazing. “Brad said you wanted me to design your dress.”
“Oh, yes,” Heather said. “It would mean so much to Brad and me. Do you think you can do it?”
“Of course,” Sam said automatically. “You must come to my sister’s shop tomorrow and we can look through the catalogs.”
Heather tapped a French-manicured nail against her chin. “Well…I hope you don’t mind…but I would really like something unique. Something that suits my personality.”
Something with lots of frills and lace. And maybe a big lollipop. The bitchy thought popped into Sam’s head before she could prevent it.
“Oh, that reminds me,” Heather said, laying down her fork. “I promised to call my agent about a possible part playing a housewife in a commercial. He thinks I would be perfect for it.” Her eyelashes fluttered in response to Brad’s warm look. “I’ll be back in a minute, darling.”
She rose and glided gracefully away.
Sam watched her go, wondering how on earth the girl got her hips to sway like that.
She peeked at Brad to see his reaction. To her surprise, he was looking straight at her, paying no attention to Heather’s hips. A crooked smile quirked the corner of his mouth.
“So, what do you think?” His gaze was strangely intent as he asked the question.
“She’s…” Sam paused, several unkind remarks hovering on her tongue. She took a deep breath. “She’s perfect,” she admitted. “I’m sure you’ll be very happy, Brad.”
Brad leaned back against his seat, his face expressionless for a long moment. Then he smiled. “She’s amazing, isn’t she? I couldn’t believe my luck when she said yes to my proposal.” He stirred some cream into his coffee. “What about you, Sam? Are you seeing anyone?”
“No, not right now. I’ve been too busy at the shop.”
“Oh, yes, the shop. Are you planning on working there permanently?”
“No,” she said. “Not really. I’ll probably look for some other job soon.”
“Still haven’t made up your mind what you want to do with your life?”
Samantha pushed her rice around on her plate. “Not yet. I never could figure out what I wanted. Unlike you. You always knew, didn’t you, Brad?”
“Yes, I did. I still do.”
She’d never paid much attention before, but he really had the most determined chin she’d ever seen—a square jaw ending in a resolute knob. There was no softness beneath, no cleft to compromise it. “You’ve done very well for yourself. You’ve accomplished a lot.”
He shrugged. “A case of being in the right place at the right time.”
“You’re too modest.”
“So Heather tells me.” He grinned. “She’s an extraordinary woman. I really am the luckiest man alive.”
“I think Heather’s the lucky one.”
He leaned forward in his seat, his gaze intent. “Do you, Sam?”
“Of course. You’re my friend.”
He leaned back. He wiped his mouth with his napkin, then held out his hand. “Best friends, right?”
Nodding, she put her hand in his. They sat there for a moment, smiling at each other. His hand was much larger than hers, warm and strong.
Suddenly, for no reason she could think of, Sam felt like crying.
“Sam?” His fingers tightened on hers. “Are you okay?”
Sam blinked hard. “I’m fine.” But she had to force herself to smile.
Brad’s gaze went to her mouth, then flickered back up. “Uh, Sam…I hope you don’t mind me mentioning it, but you’ve got a green chili stuck in your teeth.”
Sam stopped smiling immediately. Licking her teeth with her tongue, she wondered uneasily how long the chili had been there.
Please don’t let Heather have seen it, she prayed silently. “Is it gone?” she asked, parting her lips again.
He shook his head. “Looks like it’s wedged in there pretty good.”
She stood up and put her napkin on her chair. “Please excuse me,” she muttered.
Weaving in between the tables toward the rear of the restaurant, she continued to try to find the chili with her tongue.
She entered the rest room, bared her teeth into the mirror, but saw no sign of any chilies. She must have gotten it out on the way, she thought.
She washed her hands, glad for the small respite to try to make sense of her fluctuating emotions. Ever since she’d heard of Brad’s plans to marry, she’d felt a bit off balance, a little shaky inside. Perhaps because in some odd way, she’d always thought of Brad as hers. Her rock. Her anchor. Her friend. She’d thought that nothing would ever change that. But she knew, without a doubt, that once he married Heather, everything would change. Everything would be completely different.
She washed her hands again, trying to banish the tears prickling at the back of her eyes. Really, she was being incredibly foolish and selfish. She and Brad could still be friends. She was happy for him. She was.
Feeling more in control, she held her palms under the dryer, muttering to herself, “I am happy for them. I am happy for them.”
Her nose twitched a little as she smelled cigarette smoke. It seemed as if someone was always lighting up in the bathroom, trying to circumvent the no-smoking laws. “I am happy for them.…”
A toilet flushed, and the door to one of the stalls opened to reveal Heather.
“Oh, it’s you,” the younger woman said. “I thought I was about to be busted.” Opening her tiny evening bag, she pulled out another cigarette and lit it. “You want one?”
“No, thank you,” Sam said automatically, hiding her surprise. With a cigarette in her hand, Heather didn’t appear nearly as young and sweet as she had in the restaurant. “Brad must have changed more than I thought—he used to hate smoking.”
“Are you kidding?” Heather snorted, smoke blowing from her nostrils. “He’s such a health freak, he’d probably break our engagement if he found out.”
“He doesn’t know?”
“Of course not. I’m not a fool. You won’t tell him, will you?”
Sam stared at her. Surely the girl couldn’t be serious? “I would think he could smell the smoke on your breath.”
“Oh, I’m very careful, don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried—that is, I’m sure Brad loves you enough that he won’t care that you smoke.” Sam gave Heather a strained smile and tried to make a joke. “Although he may insist that you quit when you start having children.”
“Children—ha! I detest the creatures. No way am I going to have a passel of brats. They’d ruin my figure—not to mention my career.”
“But…but I thought you were giving up your career.”
“I had to tell Brad that, or he never would’ve proposed. He wants a little woman who will adore him. But I have plans of my own and no man is going to stand in my way.”
“Why are you marrying him, then?”
Heather looked at her as though she were a mental case. “Are you crazy? He’s incredibly attractive, straight and rich. With $100 million, he can help finance a movie for me so I won’t have to do these crummy little commercials anymore.”
Sam couldn’t stop staring at her. The only thing she could think to say was “He’ll only have $50 million once he gives half to his employees.”
Ashes fell from Heather’s cigarette to the pristine marble floor. “God, are you naive. You don’t really think I would allow him to do that? You really fell for my little act in there, didn’t you? I thought another woman would see through that pack of lies immediately. So, what are you going to do now? Tattle to Brad?”
“Brad’s my friend.”
Heather laughed—an ugly, distorted sound. “Don’t tell me—you’re one for all and all for one, or some crap like that, right? God, what century were you born in? Tell him whatever you like—he’ll never believe you.” She cast a sly sideways look at Sam. “He’s so besotted, he would never take someone else’s word over mine.”
“You think so?”
“I know so, sweetie.” Heather stubbed out the cigarette on the floor. “Don’t try to make trouble for me—or you’ll regret it.”
Heather popped several breath mints in her mouth, then glided out of the bathroom. Sam stood where she was, staring at the crushed cigarette butt on the floor. She felt like she’d wandered into a soap opera—with Heather playing the part usually reserved for Susan Lucci.
In something of a daze, Sam walked back to the table. She spent the next half hour watching Heather smile and laugh and press up against Brad as if she thought he was the most wonderful man in the world. No one watching her would ever doubt that she was deeply, wholeheartedly in love with the man at her side.
Sam could barely doubt it herself. The scene in the bathroom was beginning to take on a surreal quality—it seemed like a bad dream. Could she have imagined it?
Heather glanced over at her. For an instant, a catlike smile curved her lips. Then it vanished and she was gazing up at Brad, the adoration back in her eyes.
Sam’s lips tightened. No, she hadn’t imagined it. Without a doubt, the blonde was the greediest, most conniving female she’d ever met. Sam wouldn’t have believed such an amoral person existed if she hadn’t heard the evidence with her own ears. Heather didn’t care about Brad at all—she cared only about his money.
Sam’s gaze flickered to Brad. He smiled down into Heather’s eyes, completely unaware of her deceit. Poor Brad. Did he have any idea what he was getting himself into? No, of course not. Poor, poor, poor Brad.
He thought Heather was perfect. He was in love with her. He would be devastated when he found out the truth. Sam hated to think of him being hurt like that.
Memories flashed through her brain—memories of Brad listening while she ranted and raved about Joe Danvers’s jerkiness. Joe had dumped her because she wouldn’t have sex with him, and her pride had been hurt more than her heart, but still Brad had listened and supported her decision.
Brad had always been there for her. If it hadn’t been for him, she never would have gotten through calculus in college. She’d had little aptitude for math, but he’d explained the theorems over and over until she’d understood.
He’d been there, too, when her parents divorced, and then, a year later, when her father died. She’d cried on his shoulder, and he’d rocked her and smoothed her hair back from her face and held her tightly. The warmth of his arms around her had helped banish the coldness, given her strength to go on.
Brad was a nice guy. The nicest guy she’d ever known. He didn’t deserve a piece of work like Heather.
Brad bent over to whisper something in the blonde’s ear. As if reading Sam’s thoughts, Heather stared at her, her gaze mocking.
Sam clenched her teeth until they ached. She couldn’t let Brad ruin his life. He was her friend. She had to do something to save him. He needed her.
She wasn’t going to let him down.
Chapter Four
The easiest course of action would be to have a talk with Brad and tell him what Heather had said to her, Sam decided. The blonde was unbelievably arrogant—did she really think that Brad would believe her over his old friend, Sam?
Therefore, when the meal was finished and Brad suggested dropping Heather off at her hotel before driving Sam home, she was delighted.
Heather’s eyes narrowed, but all she said was “Hurry back, Brad. I have a present for you—a surprise.”
The way the woman was licking her lips made Sam think that the “surprise” wouldn’t be a new one. Brad probably wouldn’t care about anything once the blonde got her hands on him.
The thought was an unpleasant one. Extremely unpleasant. It was still gnawing at Sam a few minutes later when she was in the car with Brad speeding down the freeway. She supposed it was foolish to be bothered by the thought of Brad and Heather having sex. They were two normal, healthy adults who planned to get married. Heather didn’t exactly look like Little Bo Peep, and she’d made it clear that she found Brad attractive. Incredibly attractive, she’d called him. How strange. Sam never thought of him that way.
“Isn’t Heather fantastic?” Brad’s voice broke the silence. “I still can’t believe she agreed to marry me.”
“I can.” Sam couldn’t prevent the slightly sarcastic note from creeping into her voice.
Brad gave her a quick sideways glance before returning his gaze to the lane of traffic before him. “What do you mean, Sammy? You said yourself she’s perfect.”
“No one is perfect. I think interesting might be a better word for Heather.”
“Interesting?” Brad’s eyebrows rose. “That sounds like someone describing a blind date. Come on, tell me what you really think.”
Watching his expression in the dim glare from the passing streetlights, Sam said carefully, “She seemed a little different when we were in the bathroom.”
“Different in what way?”
“Not quite as friendly.”
Brad exited the freeway and braked at a stoplight. He turned to face Sam. “There’s something you have to understand about Heather. She’s really gotten a raw deal from other women. Most of them dislike her because of her looks and try to undermine her. You wouldn’t believe some of the stories they’ve made up about her. One woman actually tried to make me believe that Heather was only interested in my money! I had considered the woman a friend, but after that, I broke off contact with her.”
Sam gaped at him.
“I can see you’re as shocked as I was,” Brad said. “And I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s no wonder Heather sometimes seems a little wary. I told her you weren’t like that, though. I told her you would never say bitchy, malicious things about her behind her back.”
“No. No, of course I wouldn’t,” Sam managed to say. She couldn’t believe it—Heather had made it virtually impossible for Sam to say anything bad about her! The blonde was extraordinarily devious.
The light changed and the car moved forward again. Sam gazed out the window at the passing cars, silently cursing Heather’s cleverness. She would have to proceed cautiously. “But have you ever wondered if some of the things those women said might be true?”
“Absolutely not. Oh, I realize she might seem a bit standoffish when you first meet her, but that’s because she’s actually very shy.”
Shy? Oh, please. Why were men such fools over a pretty face and a gorgeous body? “You’ve known her how long—four months?” In spite of her inner thoughts, Sam managed to keep her voice neutral.
“We’ve been dating almost two months.”
“Two months! That’s not very long at all!”
“It may not seem long, but I feel as though I’ve known her all my life.”
Sam stared at him. Lights speeding past the car backlit his strong profile, but she could not make out his expression. Could he really believe such baloney?
Heather really had her claws into him. Exactly how deeply was beginning to worry Sam more and more.
“I saw an article about you in the paper,” she said, deciding to try a more subtle approach.
He grimaced. “The one that made me sound like a cross between a lunatic and a saint? I simply decided sharing the profits was the right thing to do. Everyone has worked hard—they deserve part of the rewards.” He glanced at her sideways. “Do you think I’m a fool?”
“Not at all. I think it’s extremely generous of you.” She fiddled with her seat belt. “What does Heather think?”
“Heather is happy whatever I do. She only asked that I wait to give the money away until after we’re married so she can be part of it.”
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/angie-ray-2/you-re-marrying-her/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Angie Ray
HOW WAS SHE GOING TO STOP THE WEDDING?There was no way Samantha Gillespie was going to let her best friend, Brad Rivers, marry a conniving woman only interested in his money! Brad may have been taken in by the beautiful blonde's act, but Sam knew differently.The problem was, the gold digger had made it impossible for Sam to tell Brad the truth without risking the bond between them. And even though the steamy looks Brad kept giving Sam made her question his engagement, she couldn't take the chance he'd choose the other woman over their…friendship? Still, was the commitment-shy Sam ready to acknowledge the desire she was feeling for her longtime "buddy" and even–gulp!–propose he marry her instead?
Brad?
Samantha started up at the man in shock. She’d seen him just eight months ago, but he looked…different. Incredibly different. His glasses were gone, he wore a dark gray, pin-striped suit that looked tailor-made, and silver cuff links.
But the difference went beyond clothes. He smelled of expensive gabardine, fine linen and spicy cologne. He was still tall and lean, but his shoulders looked broader. More powerful.
And even though he was smiling, he hadn’t hugged her or kissed her cheek. In fact, he was looking at her with a strange, watchful gaze. Her own smile dimmed.
“What are you doing here, Brad?”
He smiled broadly. “Congratulate me, Sammy. I met the girl of my dreams and she agreed to marry me.”
Dear Reader,
My, how time flies! I still remember the excitement of becoming Senior Editor for Silhouette Romance and the thrill of working with these wonderful authors and stories on a regular basis. My duties have recently changed, and I’m going to miss being privileged to read these stories before anyone else. But don’t worry, I’ll still be reading the published books! I don’t think there’s anything as reassuring, affirming and altogether delightful as curling up with a bunch of Silhouette Romance novels and dreaming the day away. So know that I’m joining you, even though Mavis Allen will have the pleasure of guiding the line now.
And for this last batch that I’m bringing to you, we’ve got some terrific stories! Raye Morgan is finishing up her CATCHING THE CROWN series with Counterfeit Princess (SR #1672), a fun tale that proves love can conquer all. And Teresa Southwick is just beginning her DESERT BRIDES trilogy about three sheiks who are challenged—and caught!—by American women. Don’t miss the first story, To Catch a Sheik (SR #1674).
Longtime favorite authors are also back. Julianna Morris brings us The Right Twin for Him (SR #1676) and Doreen Roberts delivers One Bride: Baby Included (SR #1673). And we’ve got two authors new to the line—one of whom is new to writing! RITA® Award-winning author Angie Ray’s newest book, You’re Marrying Her?, is a fast-paced funny story about a woman who doesn’t like her best friend’s fiancée. And Patricia Mae White’s first novel is about a guy who wants a little help in appealing to the right woman. Here Practice Makes Mr. Perfect (SR #1677).
All the best,
Mary-Theresa Hussey
Senior Editor
You’re Marrying Her?
Angie Ray
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ANGIE RAY
A RITA® Award-winning author for her first novel, Angie Ray has written historical and paranormal novels, but this is her first category romance. A native of Southern California, her mind is buzzing with ideas for stories, and she loves brainstorming while taking walks. Her husband and two children also provide plenty of distraction, but sooner or later she’s always drawn back to her computer for “just one more scene”—which invariably leads to another book!
Dear Reader,
At age twelve, I regarded anything with the word romance in it with suspicion—until a friend gave me a category romance novel and I read it. I was hooked. Actually, I was addicted, obsessed and insatiable. I quickly figured out that the new series romances always appeared in the bookstore about the seventh of each month, but that sometimes they came earlier. Starting around the first, I would beg my poor mother to take me to the bookstore every day until those books showed up on the shelf.
My love affair with romances continued through high school, college, several jobs and even through my own personal romance with the man who would become my husband. I read romances before, during and after the birth of my two children (well, not actually on the delivery table, but you get the idea).
When I finally decided to write something myself, I wrote several historicals and time travels—but part of me was still drawn to the Silhouette Romance line and its simple (???!!!) stories about two people falling in love.
Writing this book was pure pleasure—as was working with the outstanding editorial staff at Silhouette (specifically, Mary-Theresa Hussey, my editor extraordinaire, and Shannon Godwin, her remarkable assistant).
Whether you’re twelve or six times twelve, I hope you will have as much fun reading You’re Marrying Her?, as I had writing it.
Sincerely,
p.s. I love hearing from my readers! Please e-mail me at: ARay3@aol.com, or write to: P.O. Box 4672, Orange, CA 92863-4672.
Contents
Prologue (#uadc3dfe3-8954-5150-b74a-684cadb8ade4)
Chapter One (#udab43778-2d60-5c71-bb6f-3fba7a23026e)
Chapter Two (#ud110a477-56d6-5b6f-a5e9-e48520622f82)
Chapter Three (#u5a0fff94-efc4-51fc-9caf-449d55a2a6ec)
Chapter Four (#uba50e183-e674-505e-b047-00b95f781e06)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
His lungs were on fire. Sweat dripped down his forehead, soaking the sweatband and trickling down into his eyes, clouding his vision. The cheers from the crowd on either side increased, the noise half obscured by the pounding of blood in his ears, but he knew why they were yelling. The finish line was only a few yards ahead.
Every part of him ached. He couldn’t possibly go any faster—but he had to. Agonizing step after agonizing step, he drew closer to the figure ahead of him. He drew level. One more stride and he crossed the finish line—a nose ahead of the other man.
The crowd roared. Flags waved. Confetti floated through the air. “First place goes to…Brad Rivers!” boomed a voice over the loudspeaker.
The two men stopped jogging but kept walking to keep their muscles from cramping. They both breathed heavily. After a few minutes, the shorter one managed to gasp, “Damn…you…Brad, you beat me again!”
Brad laughed, even though his lungs burned with each exhalation. “I wasn’t about to give up that trophy—I like the way it looks on my desk.”
“You like taunting me with it, you mean.” George Yorita, Brad’s business partner and best friend, scowled, his thick black brows drawing together in a mock frown.
“C’mon, George. I never taunt.”
“Then why do you start polishing the damn thing every time I come into your office?”
“Trophies need a lot of upkeep—”
George snorted. “Yeah, right.” Before he could complain any more, a tiny Japanese-American woman with a toddler in tow came up. “I saw you running, Daddy,” the three-year-old said. “How come you let Uncle Brad beat you?”
George smiled ruefully, hugging his wife and ruffling his son’s hair at the same time. “Brad is very determined. When he wants something, he gets it.”
“You’re spoiled, Brad.” Laura Yorita shook her head. “You can’t always have everything you want.”
“So far he has,” George grumbled. “You should see the car he just bought. A ’65 Mustang in mint condition. When he told me it was on eBay, I tried to bid on it but got locked out. A million people must have been trying for that car, but Brad somehow managed to get it. The prettiest little convertible I ever saw. Original seats, hubcaps, detailing—”
“Maybe you should stay here and salivate over Brad’s car,” Laura said sweetly, “while I take Collin home for his nap.”
George grinned at his wife. “No, I’ll come with you. See you at the office Monday, Brad—but you better not drive that car. And you better not polish that trophy within my sight.…”
Brad watched the three of them leave. Holding his son’s hand, George bent to whisper in Laura’s ear. She laughed and nodded. He put his arm around her waist and they continued on, George shortening his steps to match those of his wife and child.
A slight frown etched Brad’s brow and he turned away, staring at the other runners crossing the finish line but not really seeing them. He hadn’t always gotten what he wanted. There was one thing that continued to elude him.…
“Water, mister?”
Brad took the proffered bottle, nodding his thanks to the race volunteer. Drinking the cold liquid, he turned his gaze back to the race.
Another runner had just crossed the finish line—a woman. She had a great figure, large breasts, small waist, curving hips, long legs. She looked familiar. He’d seen her somewhere before.
Yeah, now he remembered. At a party he’d attended a few weeks ago. The woman had been there. He hadn’t paid too much attention to her then—beyond the obvious, that is.
“An actress,” someone had told him.
He studied her more closely now. In addition to her other attributes, she had a beautiful face and carried herself with grace and self-assurance. She wore no engagement or wedding ring.
An idea sprang into his mind.
An insane idea. A completely ridiculous idea.
But then again, it had been an insane idea to start an electronics company just when all the tech stocks were taking a dive. And it had been ridiculous to expand into e-business, just when all the dot-com’s were going belly-up.
In short, he would try. And he would succeed.
Because the truth of the matter was, in the end, he always did get everything he wanted.
Chapter One
The wedding dress glowed in the late-afternoon sunlight streaming through the plate-glass windows of the small shop. Sequins formed a delicate tracery of vines on the bodice. A cluster of palest pink silk roses gathered the back of the full satin skirt into the faintest hint of a bustle. It was a Cinderella dress, symbolic of the bride’s hopes for a happily-ever-after future with Prince Charming. Next week, a young woman would walk down the aisle in this dress and pledge the rest of her life to the man of her dreams.
Samantha Gillespie shuddered.
The reaction was involuntary. She really had nothing against marriage, Sam told herself as she studied the dress on the dais before her. It just wasn’t something she wanted to do right now. Or any time soon. She was only twenty-four, for heaven’s sake, and no matter what her mother said, Sam wasn’t ready to get married yet. Not when life held such an endless array of possibilities. Why would she want to give that up for marriage?
“Well?” a voice demanded impatiently from the back of the shop. “Have you finished it?”
Sam glanced over her shoulder at the petite woman standing in the doorway of the small office at the far end of the showroom. “Almost,” Sam told her sister. “I think it needs a few more clusters of roses at the back.”
“For heaven’s sake!” Dressed in a pastel-pink suit and frilly white blouse, Jeanette glared over the top of her chunky, black-rimmed reading glasses, her lips pursed. Samantha recognized the expression—and the suit. She’d tried to get Jeanette to wear something less insipid, more contemporary, but her sister refused to cooperate. “I can’t wear that stuff you wear,” Jeanette always said.
Which was completely unfair, Sam thought, tightening the knot of the shirt tied at her waist and smoothing her ancient blue jeans. The casual look might not suit Jeanette, but a deep red suit with a tailored cut would flatter her dark hair and eyes and make the most of her pleasingly plump figure.
“Why don’t you let me make you a new suit?” Sam wheedled, ignoring Jeanette’s disapproving expression. “We got in some red linen that would look gorgeous on you.”
“No, thank you.” Jeanette’s toe, in a dull pink pump, tapped a stern tattoo. “I would prefer you worry about Miss Blogden’s gown rather than my attire. She and her mother are supposed to be here in half an hour. Mrs. Blogden will be furious if the dress isn’t finished.”
“Don’t worry.” Samantha retrieved a sewing kit and some pink silk from an antique armoire, then returned to the dais where the dress in question was reflected in a three-way mirror. “It won’t take me long.”
“Good grief, Sam!” Jeanette advanced from the office to the hat stand in the middle of the room—a more strategic spot for lecturing. “Must you always wait until the last minute? You know what Mrs. Blogden’s like.”
Sam sighed. Besides wearing boring clothes, Jeanette’s favorite activity was to lecture Sam on her habit of procrastinating. Sam listened sometimes, and even made sporadic efforts to change, but somehow her bad habits always crept back.
“Don’t worry,” Sam said again. “The dress will be ready.” Kneeling beside the mannequin, she twirled a piece of silk into a rose shape and stitched it onto the skirt of the wedding gown.
Jeanette chewed her lip. “I hate to leave you alone with her, but I promised Matt I’d come home early tonight.”
“Oh?” Sam glanced sideways at her sister. “How is Matt?”
Jeanette’s expression closed up. “He’s fine,” she said shortly.
Sam didn’t press. She knew Jeanette and her husband had been arguing a lot lately, but Jeanette was as unrevealing as her suit when it came to talking about her marriage. Sam hoped the couple found some way to resolve their problems—for the sake of their three children if nothing else.
“Go on then,” Sam told her. “Go home. Don’t worry about Mrs. Blogden.”
“I can’t help worrying about Mrs. Blogden,” Jeanette muttered. “I can’t afford to lose any clients.” She straightened a veil on the hat stand. “By the way, Brad Rivers called half an hour ago. He wanted to talk to you.”
“Brad?” Sam’s thimble fell to the floor and rolled off the dais, but she paid no attention. “What did he want?”
“If you’d been here on time, you would know.”
Sam rolled her eyes at her sister’s back as Jeanette retreated into her office. “Did he say anything?” she called after her.
“Not really.” Jeanette’s muffled voice floated out. “Just that he would call again later.”
How odd. Sam crouched down to look for her thimble. She’d barely talked to Brad since Christmas, eight months ago. She’d just returned to Southern California after a two-year absence, and when she arrived—late—at her mother’s house, she’d been delighted to see him. Only he hadn’t been so happy to see her. He’d been stiff, almost unfriendly. She’d thought at first that her long absence was responsible for his behavior. But as the day wore on and he didn’t loosen up, she’d realized something else was bothering him. She’d asked him flat out what was wrong, but he’d said everything was fine.
She’d called him several times over the next several months and left messages, but some barrier remained. When he’d made some excuse not to come to Easter dinner, everyone in her family had been surprised. He’d spent every holiday with them since Samantha was fourteen. And suddenly he couldn’t come because of “pressing demands at work”?
Hurt and confused, she’d stopped calling. He hadn’t made any effort to contact her. Until today.
Sam frowned at the rose she’d just sewn into place. What could he want to talk to her about now, after ignoring her for so long?
Jeanette came back out of her office with her purse and a stack of magazines. “Here are the latest bridal magazines. And something else I thought you’d like to see.”
She held up a tabloid newspaper and Sam stared at the picture on the cover of a man splaying his hand outward in an effort to block his face from the camera.
Is This Man Too Good to Be True? screamed the headline.
In spite of his outstretched hand, Sam recognized him immediately. “Brad?” She reached for the tabloid. “Does this have something to do with why he called me?”
“Maybe.” Jeanette held the magazine out of Sam’s reach and flipped through the pages. “It says that he’s selling RiversWare for $100 million and giving half the profits to his employees. Can you believe that?”
“He always was generous.” Absently, Sam sewed another rose on the dress. “But what does that have to do with me?”
“It says in here somewhere…oh, here it is, listen to this—‘although Rivers declined to be interviewed for this article, a reliable source tells us that he plans to use the money to convince his sweetheart to marry him!”’ Jeanette lowered the newspaper and stared at Samantha. “He must mean you, Sammy.”
Sam pricked her finger with the needle. Swearing under her breath, she sucked at the spot of blood before it could stain the white satin. “You’re crazy. Brad and I were never interested in each other. We were just friends.”
Jeanette snorted. “What guy is friends with a girl? Brad was in love with you.”
“No, he wasn’t. He was in love with Blanche Milken, remember?”
“Ha. He never cared about Blanche the way he did about you. He wasn’t the same after you and Maria Vasquez left on that wild road trip cross-country—and you should have seen his face when Mom told him that you’d decided to go backpacking across Europe!”
“You should have seen his face when he saw me last Christmas!” Sam retorted. “The rocks at Stonehenge had more expression. He was not welcoming home his long-lost love, believe me.”
“You always were blind about Brad. But I don’t have time to argue with you. I’ve got to run.” Jeanette set the magazines and tabloid on the floor. “It’s past six o’clock. Come lock the door after I leave.”
Sam automatically complied—Jeanette worried about Sam being alone in the shop after hours—then returned to where she’d been sitting, her brow furrowed. Blind about Brad? That wasn’t true. Sam had known him better than anyone.
Her gaze drifted to the stack of magazines. The tabloid rested on top. Slowly, she picked up the newspaper and opened it. Inside was another picture, although the caption identified this one as being five years old. Brad stood with his hands shoved in the pants pockets of his ill-fitting brown polyester suit, his shoulders slightly hunched. His gray-blue eyes, the color obscured by the glasses he wore, gazed off into the distance as if contemplating some thorny dilemma.
Samantha smiled a little. She remembered that suit—he’d bought it at a thrift shop to wear to graduation. She recognized his pose, too—it was so typically Brad. The first time she’d seen him, when he moved in with his grandmother down the street from her parents’ house, he’d been standing exactly the same way. He’d been seventeen, a senior in high school, quiet and serious. Only fourteen herself, she hadn’t seen much of him until one day at school when she came upon some of the jocks—including her boyfriend, Pete—picking on him. Indignantly, she’d told them to knock it off.
Pete had been annoyed—he’d broken up with her a week later—but she hadn’t really cared. She hadn’t liked having a boyfriend, it was too restricting. But after that, she’d run into Brad a lot more often, and one day she impulsively invited him and his grandmother to Thanksgiving dinner. Her mother, whose rather abrasive personality was offset by her deep-seated maternal instincts, had taken him under her wing once she heard the story of how his parents and sister had been killed in a car crash. Brad—and his grandmother, before her death—had become part of the family.
Samantha put down the tabloid and sewed two more silk roses into place on the Blogden wedding dress. Even after Brad graduated and went to college, their friendship had continued and deepened. He’d helped her with some of her classes, and she’d made him laugh with her tales of trying to correct the fashion faux pas of her friends. He’d been one of the few people she could really talk to. She’d poured out her troubles and he’d always listened, ever sympathetic, ever patient. He wasn’t like the boys in high school, the ones who got possessive after she dated them a few times. She’d always been able to count on Brad. She’d thought that they would be friends forever.
His behavior this last Christmas had come as a rude shock. Although she’d tried to pretend nothing was amiss, she’d been uneasy all evening. She’d drunk a little too much wine and chattered too much, acutely aware of his quietness, his stiffness, his stillness. She’d gotten the impression he wanted nothing to do with her, an impression reinforced by his reaction to her phone calls.
Frowning, Sam knotted and snipped the thread. So why did he want to talk to her now?
Brad was in love with you.
Jeanette’s words echoed in Sam’s brain. Automatically, she shook her head. Brad in love with her? The idea was laughable. They’d never even gone out on a date, let alone discussed marriage.
Well, okay, that wasn’t strictly true. They had discussed it, the summer she’d graduated from high school. But only in the general sense. He’d asked her if she ever wanted to get married.
“Not until I’m really old,” she’d said. “Thirty, at least.” They’d ridden their bikes along Santa Monica Boulevard to the beach—her mother didn’t like her to go alone—and she’d been sitting in the warm sand, under a strategically placed umbrella. Wearing a new polka-dot bikini, she’d been anxiously surveying her pale skin for signs of any new freckles.
Giving up on the inspection, she’d glanced up to find him staring at her. He’d looked away quickly, picking up a bottle of sunscreen.
“How about you?” She watched furtively as he rubbed the lotion onto his chest, the liquid mixing with the sprinkling of hair that had sprouted there in the last year or so. She wondered why he bothered. His skin browned easily, in spite of his light brown hair and gray-blue eyes.
“Yes. Someday.” His elbows stuck up in the air as he applied lotion to his back. The muscles in his chest and arms—more defined than she remembered from the previous summer—rippled as he did so. “I want children. And a wife to come home to every night.”
Sam wrinkled her nose. “Sounds boring. I want to travel. I want excitement. I want…” She looked up at the bright, cloudless blue sky, groping for words.
A seagull glided in the air, circling the beach, searching, waiting for an opportunity to swoop down and snatch some delicious morsel.
“You want what?” Brad asked.
The seagull dived. Descending with speed and grace, it focused completely on its target. Sam could imagine the wind rushing through its feathers, almost feel the bird’s excitement as it swooped down, the rush of anticipation as it approached its goal.
The bird landed by a trash can. It pecked at the sandy remnants of a greasy, half-eaten hamburger. The prize secure in its beak, the seagull took off again.
Sam lay down on her towel and closed her eyes. “I don’t know what I want yet,” she told Brad. “But I will.”
But now six years had passed, she was twenty-four, and she still didn’t have a clue.
Shaking her head, Sam put her needle and thread back in the sewing box and closed the lid. Maybe it was time she got a real job. She’d taken a couple of accounting classes before she quit college and had plenty of accounts receivable-payable experience both in the U.S. and in Europe. She should be able to find work fairly easily.
Or she could go back to college. She’d been considering that for the last year or so. She could finish her business degree while living off her share of the small trust fund her father had left. It would support her comfortably, if not luxuriously, while she studied.
Or she could continue to work for her sister. At least for a while. She’d taken the job with Jeanette partly to help out her sister, partly because she enjoyed working in the shop. But she knew Jeanette couldn’t really afford to keep her on long-term. Sam needed to make some decision soon. Hopefully before Jeanette became completely fed up with her lack of punctuality and fired her.
A knock sounded at the door. Sam glanced at her watch. Seven o’clock—Mrs. Blogden had said she and her daughter would be at the shop by six-thirty. Jeanette should have stayed and lectured them, Sam thought. Although, of course, Jeanette would never criticize a client. Only sisters enjoyed that privilege.
The knock came again.
Reluctantly she stood up, fluffing up her curls and brushing the stray bits of thread and cloth from her shirt and jeans. She picked up the stack of magazines and put them in the armoire before walking toward the door.
Another knock sounded, more impatient this time.
“Hold on to your horses,” Samantha muttered, but she arranged her features in a smile as she opened the door. “Your dress is ready.…”
The man standing on the threshold arched an eyebrow, his gray-blue eyes smiling down at her.
“You always did have a peculiar idea of me, Sammy.”
Chapter Two
Samantha stared up at the man in shock. Brad? She’d seen him just eight months ago, but he looked…different. Incredibly different. His glasses were gone, he wore a dark gray pin-striped suit that looked tailormade and silver cuff links. His sun-streaked hair was expertly cut, his nails manicured. On his wrist, he wore a gold Rolex watch, and on his feet, polished to a brilliant shine, shoes that screamed custom-made Italian leather.
But the difference went beyond clothes. He smelled of expensive gabardine, fine linen and spicy cologne. He was still tall and lean, but his shoulders looked broader. More powerful.
“A peculiar idea?” she replied stupidly, distracted by her efforts to decide whether his shoulders actually were wider or if the expensive jacket just made them appear so.
“I may have done some wild things in my life, but I draw the line at wearing ladies’ dresses.”
Her gaze flew to his. His gray-blue eyes held a glint. A familiar glint.
She started to smile. “What wild thing have you ever done, Brad? Ditched class to work on some computer program?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” he said, the glint still in his eyes.
She laughed. Her first impression that he’d changed faded away. This was the Brad she remembered from high school. Someone she could laugh with. Her friend.
Or so she’d thought. He certainly hadn’t acted very friendly in the past eight months. And even though he was smiling, he hadn’t hugged her or kissed her cheek. In fact, he was looking at her with a strange, watchful gaze. Her own smile dimmed. “What are you doing here, Brad?”
His gaze didn’t waver. “I need to talk to you. I was going to call again, but I realized that this is too important to tell you over the phone, so I decided it would be better to come and see you in person.”
Too important to tell her over the phone? Sam stared at him uneasily, Jeanette’s words popping into her brain.
Brad was in love with you.
Sam tried to banish the foolish thought. He’d barely spoken to her in the past eight months. That was hardly a sign of love.
But the thought refused to go away. Could Jeanette have been right, after all? Had Brad come to propose? “You’re wearing a suit,” she said, trying to hide her uneasiness. “Very nice. Are you trying to impress someone?”
“You, I hope.”
Her hand tightened on the doorknob. “I’m duly impressed,” she said, as lightly as possible.
“Are you?” The watchful expression in his eyes turned into something even more obscure and unreadable. “May I come in?”
“Oh, of course.” The pitch of her laughter a bit high, she stepped back and allowed him to enter the shop.
He looked around with interest, his gaze taking in the forest-green sofa and the pine table littered with catalogs and pattern books, the peach-colored wallpaper with its tiny white flowers and the rainbow of dresses hanging on one wall. His eyes lingered on the mannequin with Miss Blogden’s dress.
“Did you make this, Sammy?”
She nodded, unable to prevent a small welling of pride at the admiration in his voice. She’d done most of the sewing herself, endured thousands of pinpricks. But the result was worth it.
“You always did have a talent with clothes,” he said. “Remember that outfit you gave me one Christmas? A pair of baggy shorts, a black T-shirt and silver-rimmed sunglasses—along with a little note suggesting that I grow a goatee.”
She couldn’t help smiling. “Okay, so maybe I wasn’t very subtle. I still think you would’ve looked great. You could have at least tried the outfit. You never wore it even once.”
“Not my style.” He glanced at the row of gowns against the wall. “Do you make all the dresses for the shop?”
“Good heavens, no. Most of them are off the rack,” she said. “I only make a dress once in a while when a customer requests something unique. Usually, I just help Jeanette with whatever needs to be done. She’s doing very well. She only started a year ago, but she’s already close to making a profit. She had six weddings in June, and has at least two scheduled every month for the next year. I just assisted her with a wedding at the Arboretum in Arcadia with ten bridesmaids and ten groomsmen, a harpist, programs, the works. It was beautiful, we released 10,000 Monarch butterflies after the ceremony—”
She stopped, suddenly aware that she was babbling. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ramble on.”
“I enjoy listening to you. I remember Jeanette talking about starting a bridal shop ten years ago.”
“I didn’t think she’d ever actually own one. She hit a few roadblocks.”
“That’s normal. The important thing is she didn’t give up.”
“Mmm.” She glanced at him. “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about? Jeanette’s shop?”
His mouth quirked. “You always were direct, Sam. To tell you the truth, I came here for another reason. There’s something I want to ask you.…”
She stiffened, unable to prevent herself. “Oh?”
His gaze traveled over her face. “Yes,” he said gently. “I want to apologize for my behavior over the last several months. I was…disturbed about a certain situation and I allowed that to affect my friendships.”
“Oh, Brad!” The tension flowed out of her. She touched his arm lightly. “Have you been able to fix the situation?”
“No, but I’m working on it.” He smiled down at her. “In the meantime, I wanted to ask if we could be friends again.”
“That would be wonderful.” She smiled back at him, absently noticing that the angle of his chin seemed more pronounced than she remembered, the texture of skin at his jaw a little rougher. A few lines in his forehead were now permanent. “I’ve missed you.”
“Have you?” He reached out and brushed a curl off her forehead, his fingers lingering on her skin. “I thought you’d forgotten about me completely.”
“I could never do that.” His touch was friendly, the warmth from his fingers penetrating her skin and deep inside her. “You’re the nicest guy I’ve ever known. I’ve always thought of you as my best friend.”
Abruptly, his hand dropped to his side. For an instant, she saw something in his eyes, a spark of emotion she couldn’t identify. He grinned. “I’m glad to hear it—it will make my next question a lot easier.”
Her tension returned. Had she relaxed too soon?
He laughed, but his eyes still had that spark. “Don’t look like that, Sammy. It’s nothing terrible. At least, I hope you won’t think it’s terrible.”
Oh, dear heaven. “Brad, I don’t think—”
“Please, Sammy. Just listen. I’ve wanted to get married for a long time—”
Her fingernails bit into the palms of her hands. She couldn’t believe it. He really was going to propose. Her stomach churned. “Oh, Brad.…”
“And I’ve finally found someone who will have me.”
“I’m afraid—” She stopped, blinking in confusion. “What did you say?”
He smiled broadly. “Congratulate me, Sammy. I met the girl of my dreams and she has agreed to marry me. Her name is Heather Lovelace. And she’s the sweetest, kindest, most beautiful woman in the world.”
Samantha couldn’t speak. She felt dizzy for a second. Brad was getting married? She had never thought…that is, she couldn’t quite imagine…
“And we want you to design the dress. And Jeanette to arrange the wedding. Will you do it? Sammy? Sammy? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She shook her head, trying to clear away the unaccountable vertigo that had made everything in the shop tilt sideways. She forced herself to smile and say, “Of course I’ll do it. And I’m sure Jeanette can handle the wedding. If she can’t, I’ll do it myself,” she promised recklessly.
His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Thank you, Sammy. Heather’s waiting out in the car right now. She wants to meet you. Will you come to dinner with us?”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t.” Her refusal was automatic and instinctive. She didn’t feel very well. Maybe she had a summer cold coming on.
“Why not?”
“I…I couldn’t go to dinner dressed like this.”
“Come on, Sammy. You look great.”
“You’re wearing a suit—”
“There has to be a dress you could wear somewhere in this place.”
There was, of course. She bit her lip. What was wrong with her? She’d just been thinking how much she wanted to be friends with Brad again, and now here he was, wanting to renew their old relationship and share his happy news.
And it was happy news. She couldn’t quite figure out why it was affecting her so strangely. She was happy for Brad. Wasn’t she? Of course she was. He was going to get married and live happily ever after.
If that was possible.
She’d seen married people in action. She’d seen how couples could fight and tear each other apart. That was why Brad’s news unsettled her—she was worried about him. She didn’t want him to have to experience that unpleasantness.
“I really can’t. I’m expecting a client.” She glanced at her watch. It was almost seven-thirty. Apparently Mrs. Blogden wasn’t going to show.
“Can’t you call and cancel? Please, Sammy.”
“Well…” She wavered. She did want to meet Brad’s fiance´e. Heather Lovelace. The most beautiful woman in the world, Brad had called her. But Sam took that with a grain of salt. Brad was in love with Heather after all. He’d also described her as sweet and kind. That sounded like Blanche Milken, the girl he’d had a crush on in high school. Blanche had been a straight-A student with mousy, colorless clothes to go along with her mousy, colorless personality.
“Okay,” Samantha said, making up her mind. “Let me change and call Mrs. Blogden to make sure she isn’t coming. It’ll only take me a few minutes.”
“Great. I’ll go tell Heather. Come outside when you’re ready.”
He left, and Sam went into the office to call Mrs. Blogden. The housekeeper answered and informed Sam that Mrs. Blogden was at a party and wouldn’t be home until late. Sam wasn’t too surprised. Mrs. Blogden frequently didn’t show up for her appointments and rarely called to cancel.
Her conscience clear, Sam grabbed a short black dress off a rack, went into the dressing room and changed. Quickly, she slipped on some strappy, high-heeled sandals that increased her height from an insignificant five three to a much more respectable five six.
She brushed out her hair, applied enough makeup to conceal her freckles and surveyed herself in the mirror. Acceptable, she thought. The black matte jersey echoed the sheen of her dark curls and made her eyes seem more green than gold. She hurried outside.
A red sports car was parked there. Next to it stood Brad, his arm around the waist of a tall, slender blonde dressed in a form-fitting halter dress of glittering bronze.
Samantha stumbled on the asphalt. This was his fiance´e? The woman was gorgeous! Not a day over eighteen, she had the long, lean look of a model—except for the large, firm breasts that threatened to bounce right out of her low-cut dress. She was wearing heels, too, fantastic purple-and-bronze Jimmy Choo stilettos that lifted her at least four inches over Sam’s suddenly pathetic height. Sam felt like a troll next to her.
This was no Blanche Milken.
Sam pinned a smile to her lips and held out her hand. “Hi, Heather, I’m Samantha Gillespie.”
The blonde ignored her outstretched hand. A cloud of Chanel No. 5 enveloped Sam as Heather hugged her. “Samantha! Brad has told me so much about you!”
“He has?” Sam murmured faintly when she could speak.
Heather smiled blindingly. Her teeth were as white and perfect as the rest of her. “Oh, yes. I have to admit that when he first told me what good friends you were, I was the tiniest bit jealous, but now that I’ve met you, I can see that I didn’t need to worry at all.”
Startled, Sam glanced at Heather’s face. Had the woman—girl, really—meant that the way it sounded?
Heather was smiling, her large blue eyes clear and innocent.
Brad smiled, too. “I told you you were being silly. Samantha and I have always been just friends. Right, Sam?”
“Right.” You’re being oversensitive, Sam told herself sternly. She smiled at Brad’s fiance´e. “You’re marrying a really nice guy.”
“Nice?” Heather turned to Brad and drew a teasing finger down his chest. “I don’t know if I would have used exactly that word to describe you, darling.”
Sam frowned at the sexual implication of the blonde’s words. She glanced at Brad, expecting him to defend his character, but he only gazed at Heather, his hand closing over the blonde’s. The two of them stared into each other’s eyes, a silent communication of some shared memory passing between them. They appeared to have completely forgotten Sam’s presence.
She cleared her throat.
The spell was broken. The two lovers stepped away from each other. Brad glanced at Sam, his mouth curving ruefully. “Sorry. You know what it’s like to be in love.”
Sam forced herself to smile again, but inwardly she felt oddly defensive. Of course she knew what it was like. She’d had innumerable boyfriends in high school and college. She’d gone out with men from here to Chicago to New York to London, Paris and Rome. But somehow, none of them had ever looked at her the way Brad looked at Heather. Sam didn’t remember him ever looking at Blanche Milken that way. Talk about wearing your heart on your sleeve. She would’ve thought he would show more restraint.
“Shall we go?” she asked brightly.
Brad opened the passenger door.
“You don’t mind if I sit in the front, do you?” Heather asked Sam. “My legs get terribly cramped in the back.”
Sam saw Brad’s gaze go immediately to the impossibly long legs of his fiance´e. “Of course not,” she said, feeling like a child relegated to the back seat. She climbed into the tight space behind Heather and Brad.
With a roar of the powerful engine, they were off.
Chapter Three
Samantha sat at the dinner table of the West L.A. restaurant, watching the laughing couple across from her. They seemed giddy with happiness. There was a glow in Brad’s eyes that she’d never seen before—except, perhaps, when he was working on some complicated project. But this wasn’t the same. A sense of electricity seemed to envelop him.
Heather glowed, too. Sam had never met a woman who glowed so much.
Sam looked down at her menu and tried to subdue the wave of dislike she felt for Heather. So far, she’d seen nothing about the blonde that would justify Brad’s falling in love with her. Except for her gorgeous face and figure. But Heather must have more to her than that. Brad wasn’t the kind of man to care only about a woman’s looks.
Sam shifted her gaze to Brad as he raised a finger and a waiter rushed over. Watching him place their order, she was struck once again by a sense that he had changed—and not just on the surface.
Sam could restrain her curiosity no longer. “What happened to you, Brad?” she asked after the waiter left. “You used to be a strictly meat and potatoes man and now you’re ordering shrimp and jicama. And you look like you should be on the cover of GQ. Isn’t that an Armani suit?”
“Heather happened to me.” Putting his arm around his fiance´e, he smiled down at her. “She convinced me to try some new dishes and helped me make a few changes—new clothes, haircut and contact lenses. An improvement, don’t you think, Sammy?”
“I always thought you looked fine.” Forgetting her own attempts to change Brad’s wardrobe, Sam realized suddenly that she really didn’t care for this new style that Heather had foisted on him. Before, he’d looked like…Brad. Now he looked almost alien. He looked rich. Sophisticated. Masculine.
She shook her head. Brad was Brad, no matter how he dressed. That much she was sure of.
Heather had arched her brows at Sam’s response. “I think appearance is extremely important. Some women, especially older ones, don’t set any standards for themselves at all. I’m always careful to wear the right clothes and makeup and watch my weight. I count every calorie. I think it’s worth it, don’t you, Brad?”
Brad’s gaze wandered over Heather’s magnificent figure. “Sure, sweetheart.”
Heather beamed.
A waiter passed by with a dessert tray, and Sam resisted an urge to seize a slice of strawberry torte and stuff it down Heather’s throat. Instead she told herself that Heather probably hadn’t meant to imply that Sam was old and fat. Forcing herself to smile politely, she asked, “So, how did you two meet?”
“At the RiversWare Run,” Brad said. “Heather loves to run and enters competitions whenever she can.”
Heather sipped her drink. “Do you run, Samantha?”
“Not if I can avoid it.” Sam tried to remember exactly when the RiversWare Run had been. About four months ago, she was pretty sure. That wasn’t very long.
“Running doesn’t appeal to everyone,” Heather said in a kindly manner. “I like to try something different once in a while, too. Like in-line skating. I started just a few weeks ago. Brad says I’m a real fast learner.”
“Heather’s amazing on skates,” Brad interjected. “I’ve never seen anyone as graceful as she is.”
Heather smiled modestly. “In-line skating’s very easy. Even the biggest klutz imaginable can do it.”
“Sam can’t,” Brad announced cheerfully.
Sam’s fingernails curled into her napkin.
Heather’s eyes widened. “You can’t?”
Sam could barely stay upright on skates and usually wouldn’t have minded admitting it. But something about the blonde’s incredulous blue eyes made Sam say, “Of course I can.” She looked past Heather to the approaching waiter. “Oh, here comes our food.”
Brad wasn’t diverted, however. Releasing Heather’s hand so the waiter could put their plates down, he stared at Sam. “Since when? That time I took you skating, you almost fell on your face.”
“That was a long time ago. I’ve improved,” Sam lied. She remembered the time he referred to very well. It had been a high school fund-raiser, and she’d been falling all over the place until Brad came to her rescue. He’d helped her up and held her upright—until someone brushed by them, knocking her off balance. Legs and arms sprawling, they’d both ended up on the floor. Tangled together, they’d started laughing uncontrollably. By the end of the evening, they’d both had more bruises than two boxers—not to mention a bad case of the hiccups.
“Unfortunately, I can’t go skating very often,” Sam added as she cut a bite of chicken and swished it in mango-chili sauce. “Helping at Jeanette’s shop takes up all my time.”
“I work, too,” Heather said. “But I still find time to exercise.”
“Keeping fit is very important in Heather’s business,” Brad explained. “She’s an actress.”
Heather preened. “I just had a part in a special TV movie called Baywatch—the California Reunion.”
“Oh, really?” Sam had never watched the show, but she knew it was something about lifeguards at the beach. “That must have been exciting.”
“Yes, it was. David Hasselhoff himself rescued me when a great white shark attacked the swimmers in the middle of an earthquake right after a deranged yoga instructor blew up the pier. I didn’t have any speaking lines, but I did have to scream very loudly. Jim, the director, is editing the final cut of the movie right now, so I’m on call. That’s why I’m staying at the hotel across the street, because it’s close to the location shoot.”
“You’re not staying with Brad?”
“My house is too inconvenient,” Brad said.
Sam, chewing on a bite of risotto with pine nuts and green chilies, was surprised but strangely relieved. The thought of him living with Heather was very distasteful. The thought of him sleeping with her…
The rice and pine nuts in her stomach oscillated.
Forcing herself to keep her tone pleasant, Sam asked Heather, “When will the movie be on TV?”
“Not for several months,” Heather said. “But my agent says the offers will pour in once it airs. Not that I’ll accept any of them, of course.”
“Why not?” Sam asked.
“Because I’m marrying Brad. I want nothing more than to be his wife, to love him and support him with every fiber of my being. And, if God is willing, I will bear his children, the precious fruit of our deep and eternal love for each other.”
Sam smiled, thinking the blonde was joking. But her smile faded when she saw Brad wasn’t laughing. He was gazing tenderly at his fiance´e, who gazed back worshipfully.
Sam gagged on her mango-chili sauce.
Her cough broke the spell. “Are you all right?” Heather asked.
“Mmm.” She coughed once more to clear her throat and to prevent any resumption of adoring gazing. “Brad said you wanted me to design your dress.”
“Oh, yes,” Heather said. “It would mean so much to Brad and me. Do you think you can do it?”
“Of course,” Sam said automatically. “You must come to my sister’s shop tomorrow and we can look through the catalogs.”
Heather tapped a French-manicured nail against her chin. “Well…I hope you don’t mind…but I would really like something unique. Something that suits my personality.”
Something with lots of frills and lace. And maybe a big lollipop. The bitchy thought popped into Sam’s head before she could prevent it.
“Oh, that reminds me,” Heather said, laying down her fork. “I promised to call my agent about a possible part playing a housewife in a commercial. He thinks I would be perfect for it.” Her eyelashes fluttered in response to Brad’s warm look. “I’ll be back in a minute, darling.”
She rose and glided gracefully away.
Sam watched her go, wondering how on earth the girl got her hips to sway like that.
She peeked at Brad to see his reaction. To her surprise, he was looking straight at her, paying no attention to Heather’s hips. A crooked smile quirked the corner of his mouth.
“So, what do you think?” His gaze was strangely intent as he asked the question.
“She’s…” Sam paused, several unkind remarks hovering on her tongue. She took a deep breath. “She’s perfect,” she admitted. “I’m sure you’ll be very happy, Brad.”
Brad leaned back against his seat, his face expressionless for a long moment. Then he smiled. “She’s amazing, isn’t she? I couldn’t believe my luck when she said yes to my proposal.” He stirred some cream into his coffee. “What about you, Sam? Are you seeing anyone?”
“No, not right now. I’ve been too busy at the shop.”
“Oh, yes, the shop. Are you planning on working there permanently?”
“No,” she said. “Not really. I’ll probably look for some other job soon.”
“Still haven’t made up your mind what you want to do with your life?”
Samantha pushed her rice around on her plate. “Not yet. I never could figure out what I wanted. Unlike you. You always knew, didn’t you, Brad?”
“Yes, I did. I still do.”
She’d never paid much attention before, but he really had the most determined chin she’d ever seen—a square jaw ending in a resolute knob. There was no softness beneath, no cleft to compromise it. “You’ve done very well for yourself. You’ve accomplished a lot.”
He shrugged. “A case of being in the right place at the right time.”
“You’re too modest.”
“So Heather tells me.” He grinned. “She’s an extraordinary woman. I really am the luckiest man alive.”
“I think Heather’s the lucky one.”
He leaned forward in his seat, his gaze intent. “Do you, Sam?”
“Of course. You’re my friend.”
He leaned back. He wiped his mouth with his napkin, then held out his hand. “Best friends, right?”
Nodding, she put her hand in his. They sat there for a moment, smiling at each other. His hand was much larger than hers, warm and strong.
Suddenly, for no reason she could think of, Sam felt like crying.
“Sam?” His fingers tightened on hers. “Are you okay?”
Sam blinked hard. “I’m fine.” But she had to force herself to smile.
Brad’s gaze went to her mouth, then flickered back up. “Uh, Sam…I hope you don’t mind me mentioning it, but you’ve got a green chili stuck in your teeth.”
Sam stopped smiling immediately. Licking her teeth with her tongue, she wondered uneasily how long the chili had been there.
Please don’t let Heather have seen it, she prayed silently. “Is it gone?” she asked, parting her lips again.
He shook his head. “Looks like it’s wedged in there pretty good.”
She stood up and put her napkin on her chair. “Please excuse me,” she muttered.
Weaving in between the tables toward the rear of the restaurant, she continued to try to find the chili with her tongue.
She entered the rest room, bared her teeth into the mirror, but saw no sign of any chilies. She must have gotten it out on the way, she thought.
She washed her hands, glad for the small respite to try to make sense of her fluctuating emotions. Ever since she’d heard of Brad’s plans to marry, she’d felt a bit off balance, a little shaky inside. Perhaps because in some odd way, she’d always thought of Brad as hers. Her rock. Her anchor. Her friend. She’d thought that nothing would ever change that. But she knew, without a doubt, that once he married Heather, everything would change. Everything would be completely different.
She washed her hands again, trying to banish the tears prickling at the back of her eyes. Really, she was being incredibly foolish and selfish. She and Brad could still be friends. She was happy for him. She was.
Feeling more in control, she held her palms under the dryer, muttering to herself, “I am happy for them. I am happy for them.”
Her nose twitched a little as she smelled cigarette smoke. It seemed as if someone was always lighting up in the bathroom, trying to circumvent the no-smoking laws. “I am happy for them.…”
A toilet flushed, and the door to one of the stalls opened to reveal Heather.
“Oh, it’s you,” the younger woman said. “I thought I was about to be busted.” Opening her tiny evening bag, she pulled out another cigarette and lit it. “You want one?”
“No, thank you,” Sam said automatically, hiding her surprise. With a cigarette in her hand, Heather didn’t appear nearly as young and sweet as she had in the restaurant. “Brad must have changed more than I thought—he used to hate smoking.”
“Are you kidding?” Heather snorted, smoke blowing from her nostrils. “He’s such a health freak, he’d probably break our engagement if he found out.”
“He doesn’t know?”
“Of course not. I’m not a fool. You won’t tell him, will you?”
Sam stared at her. Surely the girl couldn’t be serious? “I would think he could smell the smoke on your breath.”
“Oh, I’m very careful, don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried—that is, I’m sure Brad loves you enough that he won’t care that you smoke.” Sam gave Heather a strained smile and tried to make a joke. “Although he may insist that you quit when you start having children.”
“Children—ha! I detest the creatures. No way am I going to have a passel of brats. They’d ruin my figure—not to mention my career.”
“But…but I thought you were giving up your career.”
“I had to tell Brad that, or he never would’ve proposed. He wants a little woman who will adore him. But I have plans of my own and no man is going to stand in my way.”
“Why are you marrying him, then?”
Heather looked at her as though she were a mental case. “Are you crazy? He’s incredibly attractive, straight and rich. With $100 million, he can help finance a movie for me so I won’t have to do these crummy little commercials anymore.”
Sam couldn’t stop staring at her. The only thing she could think to say was “He’ll only have $50 million once he gives half to his employees.”
Ashes fell from Heather’s cigarette to the pristine marble floor. “God, are you naive. You don’t really think I would allow him to do that? You really fell for my little act in there, didn’t you? I thought another woman would see through that pack of lies immediately. So, what are you going to do now? Tattle to Brad?”
“Brad’s my friend.”
Heather laughed—an ugly, distorted sound. “Don’t tell me—you’re one for all and all for one, or some crap like that, right? God, what century were you born in? Tell him whatever you like—he’ll never believe you.” She cast a sly sideways look at Sam. “He’s so besotted, he would never take someone else’s word over mine.”
“You think so?”
“I know so, sweetie.” Heather stubbed out the cigarette on the floor. “Don’t try to make trouble for me—or you’ll regret it.”
Heather popped several breath mints in her mouth, then glided out of the bathroom. Sam stood where she was, staring at the crushed cigarette butt on the floor. She felt like she’d wandered into a soap opera—with Heather playing the part usually reserved for Susan Lucci.
In something of a daze, Sam walked back to the table. She spent the next half hour watching Heather smile and laugh and press up against Brad as if she thought he was the most wonderful man in the world. No one watching her would ever doubt that she was deeply, wholeheartedly in love with the man at her side.
Sam could barely doubt it herself. The scene in the bathroom was beginning to take on a surreal quality—it seemed like a bad dream. Could she have imagined it?
Heather glanced over at her. For an instant, a catlike smile curved her lips. Then it vanished and she was gazing up at Brad, the adoration back in her eyes.
Sam’s lips tightened. No, she hadn’t imagined it. Without a doubt, the blonde was the greediest, most conniving female she’d ever met. Sam wouldn’t have believed such an amoral person existed if she hadn’t heard the evidence with her own ears. Heather didn’t care about Brad at all—she cared only about his money.
Sam’s gaze flickered to Brad. He smiled down into Heather’s eyes, completely unaware of her deceit. Poor Brad. Did he have any idea what he was getting himself into? No, of course not. Poor, poor, poor Brad.
He thought Heather was perfect. He was in love with her. He would be devastated when he found out the truth. Sam hated to think of him being hurt like that.
Memories flashed through her brain—memories of Brad listening while she ranted and raved about Joe Danvers’s jerkiness. Joe had dumped her because she wouldn’t have sex with him, and her pride had been hurt more than her heart, but still Brad had listened and supported her decision.
Brad had always been there for her. If it hadn’t been for him, she never would have gotten through calculus in college. She’d had little aptitude for math, but he’d explained the theorems over and over until she’d understood.
He’d been there, too, when her parents divorced, and then, a year later, when her father died. She’d cried on his shoulder, and he’d rocked her and smoothed her hair back from her face and held her tightly. The warmth of his arms around her had helped banish the coldness, given her strength to go on.
Brad was a nice guy. The nicest guy she’d ever known. He didn’t deserve a piece of work like Heather.
Brad bent over to whisper something in the blonde’s ear. As if reading Sam’s thoughts, Heather stared at her, her gaze mocking.
Sam clenched her teeth until they ached. She couldn’t let Brad ruin his life. He was her friend. She had to do something to save him. He needed her.
She wasn’t going to let him down.
Chapter Four
The easiest course of action would be to have a talk with Brad and tell him what Heather had said to her, Sam decided. The blonde was unbelievably arrogant—did she really think that Brad would believe her over his old friend, Sam?
Therefore, when the meal was finished and Brad suggested dropping Heather off at her hotel before driving Sam home, she was delighted.
Heather’s eyes narrowed, but all she said was “Hurry back, Brad. I have a present for you—a surprise.”
The way the woman was licking her lips made Sam think that the “surprise” wouldn’t be a new one. Brad probably wouldn’t care about anything once the blonde got her hands on him.
The thought was an unpleasant one. Extremely unpleasant. It was still gnawing at Sam a few minutes later when she was in the car with Brad speeding down the freeway. She supposed it was foolish to be bothered by the thought of Brad and Heather having sex. They were two normal, healthy adults who planned to get married. Heather didn’t exactly look like Little Bo Peep, and she’d made it clear that she found Brad attractive. Incredibly attractive, she’d called him. How strange. Sam never thought of him that way.
“Isn’t Heather fantastic?” Brad’s voice broke the silence. “I still can’t believe she agreed to marry me.”
“I can.” Sam couldn’t prevent the slightly sarcastic note from creeping into her voice.
Brad gave her a quick sideways glance before returning his gaze to the lane of traffic before him. “What do you mean, Sammy? You said yourself she’s perfect.”
“No one is perfect. I think interesting might be a better word for Heather.”
“Interesting?” Brad’s eyebrows rose. “That sounds like someone describing a blind date. Come on, tell me what you really think.”
Watching his expression in the dim glare from the passing streetlights, Sam said carefully, “She seemed a little different when we were in the bathroom.”
“Different in what way?”
“Not quite as friendly.”
Brad exited the freeway and braked at a stoplight. He turned to face Sam. “There’s something you have to understand about Heather. She’s really gotten a raw deal from other women. Most of them dislike her because of her looks and try to undermine her. You wouldn’t believe some of the stories they’ve made up about her. One woman actually tried to make me believe that Heather was only interested in my money! I had considered the woman a friend, but after that, I broke off contact with her.”
Sam gaped at him.
“I can see you’re as shocked as I was,” Brad said. “And I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s no wonder Heather sometimes seems a little wary. I told her you weren’t like that, though. I told her you would never say bitchy, malicious things about her behind her back.”
“No. No, of course I wouldn’t,” Sam managed to say. She couldn’t believe it—Heather had made it virtually impossible for Sam to say anything bad about her! The blonde was extraordinarily devious.
The light changed and the car moved forward again. Sam gazed out the window at the passing cars, silently cursing Heather’s cleverness. She would have to proceed cautiously. “But have you ever wondered if some of the things those women said might be true?”
“Absolutely not. Oh, I realize she might seem a bit standoffish when you first meet her, but that’s because she’s actually very shy.”
Shy? Oh, please. Why were men such fools over a pretty face and a gorgeous body? “You’ve known her how long—four months?” In spite of her inner thoughts, Sam managed to keep her voice neutral.
“We’ve been dating almost two months.”
“Two months! That’s not very long at all!”
“It may not seem long, but I feel as though I’ve known her all my life.”
Sam stared at him. Lights speeding past the car backlit his strong profile, but she could not make out his expression. Could he really believe such baloney?
Heather really had her claws into him. Exactly how deeply was beginning to worry Sam more and more.
“I saw an article about you in the paper,” she said, deciding to try a more subtle approach.
He grimaced. “The one that made me sound like a cross between a lunatic and a saint? I simply decided sharing the profits was the right thing to do. Everyone has worked hard—they deserve part of the rewards.” He glanced at her sideways. “Do you think I’m a fool?”
“Not at all. I think it’s extremely generous of you.” She fiddled with her seat belt. “What does Heather think?”
“Heather is happy whatever I do. She only asked that I wait to give the money away until after we’re married so she can be part of it.”
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/angie-ray-2/you-re-marrying-her/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Angie Ray
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
Отзывы: Пока нет Добавить отзыв
О книге: HOW WAS SHE GOING TO STOP THE WEDDING?There was no way Samantha Gillespie was going to let her best friend, Brad Rivers, marry a conniving woman only interested in his money! Brad may have been taken in by the beautiful blonde′s act, but Sam knew differently.The problem was, the gold digger had made it impossible for Sam to tell Brad the truth without risking the bond between them. And even though the steamy looks Brad kept giving Sam made her question his engagement, she couldn′t take the chance he′d choose the other woman over their…friendship? Still, was the commitment-shy Sam ready to acknowledge the desire she was feeling for her longtime «buddy» and even–gulp!–propose he marry her instead?