Maid of Dishonor Page 18

  He gripped her hands and slid down onto one knee.

  Her eyes widened in horror as she tugged her wrists, frantically trying to yank him back onto his feet. ‘Carter? What the hell are you doing?’ she snapped as she sent a panicked ‘rescue-me’ glance to her friends over his head.

  He ignored that, as well as his sister’s strangled gasp, the soft whisper of ‘Someone pinch me, I think I’ve been transported into a chick flick,’ from Reese, and the Texan growl of ‘Who the hell is this guy?’ from the man he’d recognised from his NFL days as the groom.

  ‘Carter, please, get up, you’re making a scene.’

  His lips curved at the panicked plea, he was unable to ignore the irony of the situation. Who knew he’d finally get the better of Gina Carrington, not with temper or charm or hot and sweaty sex, but with a cheesy show of sentiment. If this worked out, he was so going to spend the rest of his natural life lavishing her with grand romantic gestures in public places to keep her in line.

  ‘Damn straight I am,’ he said, holding onto her wrists and swallowing down the big fat ‘if’ that had gotten stuck in his throat. ‘I’m assuming the position here, because there’s something I need to say to you. And this is the only way I know to prove to you I’m sincere.’

  Her eyebrows had levitated to her hairline, but she’d stopped trying to free her hands, which he took as a positive sign.

  ‘Right, here goes nothing.’ He pressed his thumbs into her wrists and felt the butterfly flutter of her pulse. Even better, she wasn’t totally immune.

  ‘I love you, Gina Carrington.’ She bucked but he held firm and kept going. ‘I love your fire and your passion, your honesty, your integrity, your smart mouth and your bad attitude and that sexy dimple on your butt.’

  She gasped and found her voice at last. ‘I do not have a dimple on my—’

  ‘I love the way your eyes go all squinty with temper when you’re mad,’ he interrupted, basking in that exact look. ‘And I love the way they go all dazed and dewy when you come.’

  ‘Oh, for Pete’s sake!’

  ‘I love the fact that you think you’re such a tough cookie. And most of all I love that soft, giving, open heart that you try so hard to keep hidden—but you showed to me one incredible summer night a decade ago, and I’ve had several tempting glimpses of this summer in Savannah. I’m not a great bet for the long haul, I know that. But then neither are you, so I figure we’re even there. And if you’d be willing to take a chance on me, I’m more than ready to take a chance on you.’

  He lifted off his knees, cradled her cheeks, so desperate to hold her his body felt as if it were caught in a tractor beam. There was one more thing, though, that had to be said, and it was the hardest of all.

  ‘Now, you can tell me you don’t love me and I’ll walk out that door and never contact you again.’ He stroked her face, willing her to give him another chance. ‘But don’t lie, sugar. Because I’ll know, and then I’ll just have to get back on my knees and embarrass us both all over again.’

  He could hear the hush of anticipation, not only from her friends but from the sizeable crowd in the hall who’d all been silenced by his declaration.

  She swallowed audibly. ‘Do you have any idea how much I want to kick your butt at this moment, Carter Price?’

  The grin spread across his face—and his heart—because he could hear the hitch in that sultry purr, and knew he’d struck gold. ‘You didn’t just answer my question with another question, did you, sugar?’

  A small laugh choked out through the tears tumbling down her cheeks. Then she flung her arms around his neck and whispered into his hair. ‘I love you too, Rhett. But I’m still going to kick your butt the first chance I get.’

  Spontaneous applause broke out around the hall as he covered her lips with his and sank into the long-awaited kiss.

  When they were both forced to come up for air, he held her at arm’s length and said with a smile that he was pretty sure reached both ears simultaneously, ‘Frankly, my dear, I’d enjoy watching you try.’

  * * *

  After all the drama, Cassie and Tuck’s wedding went off like a dream. The bride saying her vows in a sure, steady voice and then turning to smile at her friends once Tuck had said his.

  Gina had to be grateful that Carter’s warm palm anchored her hip to his side throughout the ceremony, or she would surely have floated off on a cloud of bliss. His insane declaration in front of half of Manhattan had terrified her at first, but as his words sank into her consciousness the strangest thing had happened—the panicked beat of her heart had slowed, the lead weight in her stomach had dissolved and all those barriers that she’d spent so many years erecting and maintaining had come tumbling down in one fell swoop.

  She laid her head on Carter’s shoulder in one of the limousines Reese had booked to transport them to Cassie’s reception party, and listened to Carter chat easily to Dylan—the two of them having developed mutual amnesia about their earlier stand-off, like typical guys. Staring into space, she used the moment of calm to contemplate the difficult decisions in her future.

  Carter had invited himself back to her place tonight and told her he’d organised a week’s leave from the Mill, but the eight hundred miles that separated them were going to be the first obstacle they’d have to discuss.

  But as the car cruised through the early evening traffic, and she watched the office workers flooding into the subway to begin the Labor Day weekend, she had a sudden yearning for the subtle pace and relaxed gentility of Savannah. While she’d once thrived on the manic energy of the City That Never Sleeps, it didn’t seem quite so necessary any more, now she was embarking on a relationship that promised to generate enough energy to fuel a nuclear power plant.

  Marnie sat on the other side of the limo, her unfocused gaze fixed on something out of the window, but when her eyes flicked to her brother and then back out of the window Gina knew the siblings’ strained relationship was going to be a much bigger hurdle to overcome than her living arrangements.

  The Tribeca Terrace was everything they had wanted in a surprise party venue. Reese had put her organisational skills to work on the ride over, ensuring an extra place setting for Carter appeared as if by magic amid the balloons, streamers and the enormous Just Hitched banner she’d already arranged to adorn their table.

  Gina’s thanks for her friend’s thoughtfulness was greeted with a cocked eyebrow. ‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten your gross dereliction of shag and share duty. If he’s not the Mystery Studmuffin, I’ll eat my Jimmy Choos.’ But then she added in a soft murmur that had Gina repairing her mascara again, ‘I’m thrilled for you two. After all the heartache you’ve both been through, you deserve this chance.’

  As the evening progressed Gina found her flirt gene shimmering happily back to life under Carter’s heavily lidded gaze—the desire to race back to her apartment and tear his clothes off becoming increasingly imperative. But as they swayed together on the restaurant’s small dance floor, the slow rub of his body against hers making her throat dry, she noticed Marnie pouring herself a hefty glass of Chardonnay while Dylan sat opposite her, engrossed in his smartphone.

  Pulling Carter’s head down by the ears, she whispered, ‘You need to speak to your sister. Sort things out with her.’

  He nuzzled her neck. ‘I don’t need Marnie’s permission and neither do you.’

  Gina sighed, forced to file ‘fixing his relationship with his sister’ into a folder marked ‘works in progress’—Carter’s response making it blatantly obvious that his relationship with his sister seemed to have arrested somewhere around Marnie’s eighteenth birthday.

  Her thoughts scattered completely when his hands drifted down to her butt: ‘I suggest you save your freak out about Marnie for another time,’ he murmured, giving her backside a proprietary squeeze. ‘Because you’ve got someth
ing a lot bigger to handle tonight, sugar.’

  The husky giggle, which was never far from the surface now, bubbled out as his hips brushed against hers—and the casual endearment settled around her like a golden fog.

  She’d never considered herself a sweet person, but somehow Carter Price’s good opinion had managed to shear off a lot of her sour edges and—while shedding that protective layer of sarcasm altogether would have to be another ‘work in progress’—she couldn’t wait to discover her inner Pollyanna.

  Fisting her fingers into his hair, she dragged his mouth down to hers.

  That said, she didn’t intend to let true love turn her into a total sucker.

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry, Rhett.’ She pressed provocatively against the rather prominent bulge in his suit pants. ‘I think I’ve got the measure of you,’ she purred, delighted when his heartfelt groan was followed by an exceptionally sinful kiss.

  * * * * *

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  ONE

  ‘Ellie, your phone is ringing! Ellie, answer it now!’

  Ellie Evans grinned at her best friend Merri’s voice emanating from her mobile in her personalised ring tone, then eagerly scooped up the phone and slapped it against her ear.

  ‘El?’

  ‘Hey, you—how’s the Princess?’ Ellie asked, sorting through the invoices on her desk, which essentially meant that she just moved them from one pile to another.

  ‘The Princess’ was her goddaughter, Molly Blue, a six-month-old diva who had them all wrapped around her chubby pinkie finger. Merri launched into a far too descriptive monologue about teething and nappies, interrupted sleep and baby food. Ellie—who was still having a hard time reconciling her party-lovin’, heel-kickin’, free-spirited friend with motherhood—mmm-ed in all the right places and tuned out.

  ‘Okay, I get the hint. I’m boring,’ Merri stated, yanking Ellie’s attention back. ‘But you normally make an effort to at least pretend to listen. So what’s up?’

  Her friend since they were teenagers, Merri knew her inside out. And as she was her employee as well as her best friend she had to tell her the earth-shattering news. Sitting in her tiny office on the second floor of her bakery and delicatessen, Ellie bit her lip and stared at her messy desk. Panic, bitter and insistent, crept up her throat.

  She pulled in a deep breath. ‘The Khans have sold the building.’

  ‘Which building?’

  ‘This building, Merri. We have six months before we have to move out.’

  Ellie heard Merri’s swift intake of breath.

  ‘But why would they sell?’ she wailed.

  ‘They are in their seventies, and I would guess they’re tired of the hassle. They probably got a fortune for the property. We all know that it’s the best retail space for miles.’

  ‘Just because it sits on the corner of the two main roads into town and is directly opposite the most famous beach in False Bay it doesn’t mean it’s the best...’

  ‘That’s exactly what it means.’

  Ellie looked out of the sash window to the beach and the lazy ocean beyond it. It had been a day since she’d been slapped with the news and she no longer had butterflies about Pari’s, the bakery that had been in her family for over forty years. They had all been eaten by the bats on some psycho-drug currently swarming in her stomach.

  ‘Why can’t we just rent from the new owners?’

  ‘I asked. They are going to do major renovations to attract corporate shops and intend on hiking the rents accordingly. We couldn’t afford it. And, more scarily, Lucy—’

  ‘The estate agent?’

  ‘Mmm. Well, she told me that retail space is at a premium in St James, and there are “few, if any” properties suitable for a bakery-slash-coffee-shop-slash-delicatessen for sale or to rent.’

  After four decades of being a St James and False Bay institution Pari’s future was uncertain, and as the partner-in-residence Ellie had to deal with this life-changing situation.

  She had no idea what they—she—was going to do.

  ‘Have you told your mum?’ Merri asked quietly.

  ‘I can’t get hold of her. She hasn’t made contact for ten days. I think she’s booked into an ashram...or sunning herself in Goa,’ Ellie replied, her voice weary. Where she wasn’t was in the bakery, with her partner/daughter, helping her sort out the mess they were in.

  Your idea, Ellie reminded herself. You said she could go. You suggested that she take the year off, have some fun, follow her dream... What had she been thinking? In all honesty it had been a mostly symbolic offer; nobody had been more shocked—horrified!—than her when Ashnee had immediately run off to pack her bags and book her air ticket. She’d never thought Ashnee would leave the bakery, leave her...

  ‘El, I know that this isn’t a good time, especially in light of what you’ve just told me, but I can’t put it off any longer. I need to ask you a huge favour.’

  Ellie frowned when she picked up the serious note in Merri’s voice.

  ‘Anything, provided that you are still coming back to work on Monday,’ Ellie quipped. Merri was a phenomenal baker and Ellie had desperately missed her talent in the bakery while she took her maternity leave.

  The silence following her statement slapped her around the head. Oh, no...no, no, no! ‘Merri, I need you,’ she pleaded.

  ‘My baby needs me too, El.’ Merri sounded miserable. ‘And I’m not ready to come back to work just yet. I will be, but not just yet. Maybe in another month. She’s so little and I need to be with her...please? Tell me you understand, Ellie.’

  I understand that I haven’t filled your position because I was holding it open for you—because you asked me to. I understand that I’m running myself ragged, that the clients mi
ss you...

  ‘Another month?’ Merri coaxed. ‘Pretty please?’

  Ellie rubbed her forehead. What could she say? Merri didn’t need to work, thanks to her very generous father, so if she forced her to choose between the bakery and Molly Blue the bakery would lose. She would lose...

  Ellie swallowed, told herself that if she pushed Merri to come back and she didn’t then it was her decision...but she felt the flames of panic lick her throat. They were big girls, and their friendship was more than the job they shared—it would survive her leaving the bakery—but she didn’t want to take the chance. Her head knew that she was overreacting but her heart didn’t care.

  She had too much at stake as it was. She couldn’t risk losing her in any way. She’d coped for over six months; she’d manage another month. Somehow.

  Ellie bit her top lip. ‘Sure, Merri.’

  ‘You’re the best—but I’ve got to dash. The Princess is bellowing.’ Now Ellie could hear Molly’s insistent wail. ‘I’ll try to get to the bakery later this week and we can talk about what we’re going to do. Byeee! Love you.’

  ‘Love you...’ Ellie heard the beep-beep that told her the call had been dropped and tossed her mobile on the desk in front of her.

  ‘El, there’s someone to see you out front.’

  Ellie glanced from the merry face of Samantha, one of her servers, peeking around her door to the old-fashioned clock above her head, and frowned. The bakery and coffee shop had closed ten minutes ago, so who could it be?

  ‘Who is it?’

  Samantha shrugged. ‘Dunno. He just said to tell you that your father sent him. He’s alone out front...we’re all heading home.’

  ‘Thanks, Sammy.’ Ellie frowned and swivelled around to look at the screens on the desk behind her. There were cameras in the front of the shop, in the bakery and in the storeroom, and they fed live footage into the monitors.