The Wedding Favor (13 page)

“Shit,” he breathed out. He took a step toward her.

She yanked the door open and ran.

L
ocking herself in a stall, Vicky opened her compact to survey the damage.

Oh God. Hair half up, half down; bobby pins askew. Puffy clown lips ringed with lipstick smears. And that was just the visible damage. The mirror didn’t show her sexual-frustration stomachache or the soggy panties that would make sitting down impossible.

Galling as it was to admit, even to herself, Tyrell Brown knew exactly how to get under her skin. He was a sexy menace, and if she didn’t get a grip, she’d walk out of the ladies’ room and drag him straight back into the coatroom.

Breathe, she told herself. In to a four count, out to a four count. In. Out.

Someone came into the room, peed, washed up, touched up, and left, and still she breathed. Another minute passed. Another.

Finally, when her heart slowed to normal, she began the business of putting herself back together; removing the rest of the bobby pins and finger-combing her hair into some semblance of order, wiping her lips with a clump of toilet paper and reapplying her lipstick.

Stepping out of the stall, she checked her dress in the mirror. Wrinkled, of course. But how could it not be, after Ty’s long, hot body crushed her to the door . . . ?

She slapped her own cheek. Enough, already! Enough of behaving like one of his brainless bimbos, another helpless victim of his sexual mojo. For God’s sake, he’d barely touched her breast and she’d kicked her vaunted ethics to the curb. How humiliating.

Well, she wasn’t going
there
again. She was smart, she was savvy, and if she could just remember that and steer clear of him for the next thirty-six hours, she could still get out of France with her dignity—and her professional integrity—intact.

Striding into the party with her lawyer face on, she spotted him standing at the bar with Jack, looking like they’d both just stepped off a movie set. Calmly, coolly, in full possession of herself, she whirled in the opposite direction.

And walked smack into Winston Churchill Banes.

Chapter Twelve

V
icky stepped back. Blinked. Got her bearings.

And then she got royally pissed. “What are
you
doing here?”

Before Winston could answer, Adrianna stepped around him. “He’s my guest.”

Vicky gaped. “You
invited
him? Why would you do that to me?”

“So the two of you can talk things out. You broke off your engagement without giving him a chance to explain.”

“Explain what? Why he was standing between my secretary’s legs with his pants around his ankles? For God’s sake, Mother, she left her
ass print
on my desk!”

“Victoria—” Winston’s tone was plaintive.

She rolled right over him. “Does Matt know what you’ve done?”

Adrianna waved it off. “It’s none of Matt’s concern. Winston is my guest.”

“Okay, fine.” Vicky’s voice shook. “If he’s your guest, Mother, then you entertain him. I’m done here.” And before either of them could utter another word, she turned on her heel and stalked from the room.

Out in the hallway, her composure crumbled. Blindly, she turned right, ran down an empty corridor until she found the back door. Hitting the crash bar with both hands, she burst out into the parking lot.

Darkness had fallen; the lot was deserted. Pacing between the cars, she sucked air through her teeth, wheezing like an asthmatic.

Not a heart attack, she told herself. Anxiety. She tried yoga breathing, but for once, it failed her. Her heel rolled on a stone, she stumbled against a BMW and the alarm whooped out. She leaped backward and her ass hit the hood of a Porsche. That alarm shrieked louder. The restaurant door flew open; voices pealed over the racket.

And in a stark flash of insight Vicky saw her future, cuffed in a squad car, struggling to explain to stoic policemen in her high school French exactly why she was ping-ponging around the parking lot in fuck-me heels.

She couldn’t bear it. She simply could not bear it.

Sinking to a crouch, she slipped off her shoes and duck-walked between the cars, careful not to touch them. At the end of the row, she stole a glance over the hood of an Audi. The commotion centered around the Porsche, a handful of men gesturing and blabbing.

Heart tripping like a thief on the lam, she darted around the corner of the restaurant, and ran.

T
y had seen Vicky the minute she’d entered the room, face flushed, lips swollen, hair mussed up and bedroomy. He’d looked away before she caught him staring.

Disgusted with himself, he slipped a hand in his pocket and adjusted his junk. He’d be hard all night until he got back to his room and finished himself off like the goddamn teenager he turned into around her.

“If you want her so bad,” Jack drawled out, “what’s stopping you?”

“I can’t stand her, that’s what.” He didn’t sound convincing, even to himself. “Besides, she’s too much trouble.”

“Well, if it’s easy you’re looking for, the stripper’s locked and loaded. Grab yourself a handful. And you can settle the bet while you’re at it.”

“Hell, I can already settle the bet. They’re the real deal.”

“Well why didn’t you say so?”

“Because Matt’ll kill me. Then Isabelle’ll dig me up and kill me again. And it wasn’t even my fault.” He sounded aggrieved. “She shoved my hands up inside that excuse for a bikini. Out in the garden, no less.”

Jack broke into a grin. “No wonder you’re such a mess. All that tit in your hand and nowhere to go with it.” He waved Lil over, jerked a thumb at Ty. “He settled the bet.”

“There’s a surprise.” She favored Ty with a smirk. “When did you squeeze that in? So to speak.”

“This afternoon.” He gave her a toothy grin. “That was her sunscreen on my iPad.”

She shrank back. “For God’s sake, Ty, I’m pregnant!” As she spoke, she dug out a travel-sized bottle of hand sanitizer, squirted some in her palm. “If you infected me with your germy hands—”

“Heads up,” Jack cut in. “Incoming.”

Ty turned, expecting to see Vicky. But it was Annemarie, bulldozing through the crowd. He groaned to himself as she latched on to his arm.

“Tyrell,” she purred, rubbing one of the breasts in question against his biceps. “So handsome in your suit.” She fingered his lapel.

“You’re cutting a swath in that dress yourself.” He slewed a glance around the room. Jack and Lil had already deserted him, but he waved Ricky over. “Sugar, I don’t think you’ve met the best man. Ricky, this is Annemarie. She’s a friend of Isabelle’s.”

Annemarie unloaded a slow, seductive smile on Ricky, who was having a hard time keeping his eyes up on her face.

“Annemarie’s studying anthropology at the Sorbonne,” Ty added, peeling her fingers off his arm and nudging her gently toward the best man. “And she’s got a real interesting sideline too.”

She dragged her sexy smile away from Ricky and brought it back to Ty. Slowly, languorously, she blinked her dark, exotic eyes. He eased back a step.

“Ricky’s in insurance. One of those too-big-to-fail deals. I’m sure you’ll have lots to talk about.” Another step back . . . and then he was moving, heading for the door.

He glanced around. No sign of Vicky, which was fine, since he wasn’t looking for her anyway.

He spotted her mama, though, doing the cougar thing with some guy who had to be twenty years younger. Ty gave him a once-over. Tall, dark-haired. Good-looking in an old-money, never-got-his-hands-dirty kind of way. Probably stayed in shape playing polo, or squash. Ty smirked. The dude looked too arrogant for his own good, exactly how he pictured Winston . . .

Ty stopped walking. Narrowed his eyes for a closer look.

Damn it, Adrianna wasn’t flirting with him. The guy’s shoulders were stiff, his jaw set. He was pissed; Adrianna was placating him.

And Vicky had disappeared.

Could Cruella really be evil enough to blindside her daughter like that?

One way to find out. Putting on his swagger, he ambled into the eye of their hushed conversation.

“Adrianna, honey”—he laid on the down-home drawl—“where’s that gorgeous daughter of yours? She promised to buy me a drink.”

“I have no idea where she is, Mr. Brown.” Her chilly tone should have turned her lips blue.

Ty kept smiling, playing the clueless Southern boy. Sticking out his hand, he said to the guy, “Tyrell Brown. How you doing?”

The guy shook briefly. “Winston Banes,” he intoned.

“The ex?” Ty’s brows winged up. “Vicky know you’re here?”

Winston looked down his nose, which took some doing since Ty was the same height. “That’s none of your business.”

“Told you to fuck off, didn’t she?” Ty’s shit-eating grin was as good as a chest shove.

Winston’s jaw clenched. He set his drink on the table.

“You sure you want to do that, Winnie?” Ty wagged his head slowly, egging him on. “I’ll hand your ass to you.” And wouldn’t that be fun? With all the testosterone pumping through his veins, putting Winston in the hospital was the second best way Ty could think of to burn it off.

Winston flushed dark red. “You ignorant hillbilly. Who do you think you are?”

Ty hooked his thumbs in his pockets. “As a matter of fact, Winnie, I’m the man who just had his hand up Vicky’s skirt.” He wagged his head again, inviting mayhem. “Mmm-mmm. You must be crazy, trading in a fine piece of tail like that.”

“You son of a bitch!” Winston shoved Ty hard, knocking him back a step and surprising a laugh out of him.

“Not bad, Winnie, my man.” Shrugging off his jacket, Ty tossed it at a chair, then curled his fingers in a bring-it-on wiggle. “Come on, boy, let’s have some fun.”

Around them, a circle quickly opened as folks caught wind of a fight. Adrianna was shuffled to the rear, her protests falling on deaf ears as guests and waitstaff alike jockeyed for position.

Ty’s mishmash of conflicting emotions had crystallized into one uncomplicated desire: to beat Winston black and blue. Dropping his cuff links in his pocket, he cracked his knuckles, grinning like a kid at Christmas.

Then Jack’s heavy hand fell on his shoulder. “Ty. Not the place.”

Ty shrugged him off. “Sure it is.”

“Uh-uh. Isabelle’ll kill you dead. And Lil’ll dance on your bones.”

Ty flicked a look past Jack, saw Isabelle fuming. “Aw, hell.” His shoulders slumped. Women. They just didn’t understand that a good fight made a great party better.

C
lad for comfort in a baggy Yale T-shirt and saggy granny panties, her hair scrunched into a messy topknot, Vicky settled back against a pile of pillows, pulled the kitteny bedspread up to her armpits, and opened the National Book Award winner she’d bought at the airport.

Five minutes later she snapped it closed. It didn’t hold her attention now any more than it had on the plane. “Why didn’t I buy something racy?” she muttered. “At least I’d be
reading
about sex.”

Thinking of sex made her think of Tyrell, of course. She flung an arm over her eyes. Good God, they’d almost done it in the coatroom. And the worst part of it was, despite her perfectly rational second thoughts and all the trouble it would have caused, she was sorry they hadn’t!

And now, as if dealing with Ty wasn’t bad enough, she had to contend with Winston too, which was a hundred times worse. Ty only humiliated her in private. Winston had done it the most public way possible.

Seeing him tonight, she couldn’t for the life of her recall why she’d found him attractive. Yes, his face was handsome—dark eyes, patrician nose. But his hair. It
seemed
nice—thick and wavy—but it was always
exactly
the same length. And it always lay perfectly in place. He never touched it, never ran his fingers through it. Creepy.

And his body. Again, it
seemed
nice enough, but it was strictly ornamental. He couldn’t
do
anything with it, like change a faucet or a tire, or even set a mousetrap. Thank God she hadn’t married him! What if there was a massive earthquake, or a tsunami, or a pandemic? He’d be useless in the new world order, where the skills required to manage a hedge fund would have no value and diamonds would be worth less than a good piece of flint.

She smiled grimly. There she went, catastrophizing again. Her therapist said her end-of-the-world scenarios stemmed from losing her father at a young age. Well, no kidding. But that didn’t mean the end of the world wouldn’t really come. It couldn’t hurt to be ready.

Footsteps sounded in the hall, and she stiffened. Then the door across from hers opened and closed. Ty was back. She let herself breathe, even smiled a little. He would have given a beautiful toast, hit just the right note, teasing Isabelle, maybe telling a funny story about her. And when Vicky didn’t show, he would have risen to the occasion and said something nice about Matt too.

Yes, Ty was a jackass, but at least she could count on him.

A few minutes later Jack and Lil’s door opened and closed. Soon afterward, a woman giggled in the hallway, high-pitched and quickly hushed. Ricky mumbled something, then the giggle squirted out again, cut off by the closing of a bedroom door.

How in the world had Ty managed to palm Annemarie off on Ricky? And why hadn’t he kept her for himself?

In the further reaches of the house, doors opened and closed. Isabelle, Adrianna. Winston. Vicky shrank lower under the covers. Reminded herself she didn’t have to deal with him tonight. She could hide in her room, safe behind her locked door.

A moment later, knuckles rapped on that door. Winston’s stern voice vibrated through the wood. “Victoria, let me in.”

Up came the blankets, over her head.

“Victoria. Stop behaving like a child. I came all the way from New York to talk to you.” The knob rattled impatiently. “Don’t make me get your mother.”

She blinked into the darkness under the blankets. Held her breath.

A long moment passed. She listened intently.

Silence. Had he gone for Adrianna? Or was he lying in wait?

Barely breathing, she slipped out of bed. Padded barefoot to the door, pressed her ear to the crack. Nothing.

Carefully, she poked her head out in the hall. From around the corner came the rumble of his voice, followed by Adrianna’s impatient reply. Then a door closed. The voices moved closer.

Panicking, Vicky didn’t pause to weigh the consequences. She darted across the hallway, silently turned Ty’s doorknob, and tiptoed into his pitch-dark room.