So he didn’t so much as grimace when he found out I was dating Ian. I think he was grateful I was dating the son of a man he considered a peer. Not to mention, Ian is successful in his own right, and prime to inherit his father’s company, like I’m prime to inherit a ton of my father’s wealth when he passes on, but my father is still pretty traditional in other regards. He would expect Ian to ask him permission to marry me. He would give it, after scaring the crap out of my boyfriend, but he would still expect it. They have as good of a relationship as a man can have with his girlfriend’s father. We have Sunday dinners together once or twice a month. My father doesn’t bat an eyelash at us sharing a bed under his roof.
This, though? I think that would test his patience so badly that Ian would find his ass on the floor.
“Right. Don’t tell anyone.” I almost forgot that I have Eva on my phone. If I leave her to her own machinations long enough, she’ll go out and tell Page 6 everything’s that happened just to watch the chaos reign. Ian and I created a few waves when we started dating a while ago. People were mad that one of the most eligible bachelors around was suddenly taken, and adding me to the mix made it more salacious. The only way it could’ve been better for the high society press was if I was pregnant. Ugh.
“Oh, man, don’t be surprised if I text you endlessly. This is too good. I need an outlet.”
“Shut up!”
“You called me!”
I toss myself onto the bed I should be sharing with Ian. The bed I should be making sweet love to him in. The bed I should be chaining him to. Drat, there goes my imagination. All that work to make sure I would be good to go for endless sex in Vegas... and here I am, not allowed to see him until we get this marriage business taken care of. “I called you because you’re my best friend and I had no one else to talk to.”
Someone knocks on my door. Must be Clarence here to serve me with the papers. I get up, dragging my bedraggled ass off the bed and toward the door.
“This will all be taken care of soon. I’ll be home before you know it.” I open the door.
I close the door.
“I’ve, uh, gotta go.”
“Wait? What happened? Who’s there?”
I shut my phone off, cutting Eva’s words off before things get good for her again. Because if she finds out that Caroline Grant-Mathers is at my door, holding some official looking documentation? I will hear Eva laughing almost 3,000 miles away.
“Oh, she’s not answering. Guess we have to go.”
I hear that. I also hear Clarence telling Caroline to wait at least a few minutes, and promising her that they would be back later anyway. Fuck me. I’ve gotta answer it.
“Kathryn!”
Yeah, I instantly regret it.
I open the door a tinge, and right away Caroline bowls into it, arms wrapping around me as if I’m her long lost daughter. What in the world is she doing here? Did Ian call her? No way! He would never. I would blame Eva, but she just found out. Caroline is good, but not that good. Not cross half a country in five minutes good.
If my father is okay with Ian, then his mother thinks the sun rises and sets on my glorious ass. She and I were good acquaintances even before I started dating her son. In fact, back in the days when Ian was more likely to drive me crazy in the bad way than the good, I separated him from his mother to the point I dropped the “Mathers” from my memories of Caroline. We would often meet up in the same social circles to talk politics, feminism, family and the latest sales. You know. Girl talk.
Then I started dating her son, and now she sees me as a walking grandbaby factory. So much for feminism.
“Oh, Kathryn!” She squeezes me. Air leaves my lungs. Clarence closes the door behind him and gestures to the bathroom. “Let me look at you!”
Her hands clutch my arms as if I’m going to run off somewhere—I might, actually. But Caroline looks anything but concerned about my fleeing. She’s taking in my form, staring at my face, my breasts, my hips, and of course the hair sprouting from my head like a daffodil.
“I want to take a look at you... as my daughter-in-law.”
I groan.
“Shush. Ian told me everything.” She releases her grip on me and somehow regains her composure, not that she ever has much to begin with. Oh, Caroline is formidable as hell when she gets serious. There’s a reason she has Dominic Mathers by the perpetual balls, even when they’re not together, but she’s more apt to be so emotional that you wonder where one keeps the Xanax to slip into drinks before we all go crazy in her presence. “I know what happened. Doesn’t mean I’m happy about it, though.”