“If you calm down—”
“Calm down!” Her mother’s next words were a bitter string of Italian words spoken too fast for Chrissy to follow.
“Mama, Mama, everything’s fine with Saks.”
“Saks! Who’s this Saks person!”
“Anthony Parks, the Rocco man. His club name is Saks.” Chrissy stood in front of the frozen fries, deciding whether to get hash browns or tater tots. She always had a bit of problem browning the hash browns correctly, and tater tots seemed too childish. When she hit upon the tater coins, she tossed those into the cart.
“Club? What club?”
“A motorcycle club, Mama.”
“What!” Her mother sounded horrified. “The Rocco advances a degenerate biker as someone to marry you? I won’t hear of it.”
Chrissy came to the eggs and pulled a half dozen from the shelf. “Whoa, Mom. Saks is a perfectly nice man. In fact,” she said, readying to stretch a point, “he’s totally forgiven me. I’m making breakfast for him. That’s why I’m at the store.”
“You. Making breakfast?” Her voice communicated her total disbelief.
“I think I can put together same eggs and bacon.” Chrissy passed by a display of English muffins, stopped, and tossed a package in the cart.
“And why are you making breakfast?”
“Please, Mom. It’s the twenty-first century.”
“Madonna!” Her mother spit out another string of Italian words, but this time Chrissy caught the gist of it this time. “Non sarà una vergine il giorno del matrimonio.”
Vergine. Virgin. Chrissy rolled her eyes. This is what her mother worried about? That she wasn’t a virgin? Oh, for Heaven’s sake. She almost spit out that she wasn’t one before she met Saks, but that wouldn’t be politic. She decided it was best that she pretend her mother’s words went over her head.
But at the mention of ‘virgin’, Chrissy debated the merits of getting a small bottle of olive oil. Perhaps Saks didn’t have any.
“Mom. I have to go. I’m at the cash register.” She wasn’t. She was still hunting for the ketchup to go with the tater coins and hadn’t made a decision on the olive oil yet.
“Chrissy! Don’t you hang up this phone.”
“I love you, Mom. ‘Bye.” She found the ketchup and olive oil in the same aisle. She tossed in a small bottle, then thought about lunch. If she was going to spend the day with him, she should probably have all the food necessary so she wouldn’t have to go out again.
What about dinner?
But the time she finished she had a hundred dollars’ worth of food in the cart: Italian meats and cheeses for the grinders she’d make for lunch, pickles, condiments, and then steak and fries for dinner. At least she could feed him well.
Then, for the hell of it, she bought a six-pack of beer. She figured her big bad biker would appreciate the gesture even if he couldn’t have much of it. She checked her watch and saw she’d wasted an hour at the store. She groaned. So much for getting back as fast as possible. She checked out at the cash register, only fainting slightly at the sticker shock. She could well afford it, or usually could if she was sure of her employment—which she wasn’t. Chrissy had told off Mr.-I’d-Like-To-Know-You-Better CEO Drummond Walker by announcing she had another job offer. That was job, if not career, suicide. Instead of shopping, she should be sending out a flurry of résumés right now.
Or seriously consider James Pearson’s offer. At three quarters of a mil yearly salary, no one in their right mind would say no, right? Except, in Chrissy’s heart-of-hearts, she didn’t like James Pearson, his smug arrogance, or his flippant way of handling potential employees. Test her? The ass-hat was lucky she didn’t toss her plate of expensive lobster salad at him.
Instead of dumping Eggs Benedict on poor Saks who, Chrissy admitted, she treated badly. Except she remembered that Saks, despite his panty-melting ways, was an opportunistic carogna who’d agreed to marry a woman he’d never met.
This last thought curled in her stomach. Chrissy hefted the groceries into her car as she considered all the strange turns her life. Forget one-woman demolition derby, she garnered the dubious honor of becoming an entire wrecking crew. She’d burned two jobs and strained her relationship with her family. Include a blazing-hot affair with a man her family expected her to marry but normally she never would, and she good and well fucked over her life.
She lowered the last bag of groceries into the trunk of her car and shook her head at the haul. What was she thinking? It looked like she was setting up housekeeping with Saks. She’d certainly spent more money than if they ordered out during the day. And more than one day’s worth of food filled the trunk.
Chrissy sighed and climbed into her car. Her head was running at a million thoughts per second. It was crazy. Her phone rang, and she pressed speaker without looking for it. “This is Chrissy.”
“Chrissy, where are you?” Charles Grayson, her headhunter, or rather the man who’d set her up with James Pearson, purred over the line, like a cat watching its prey.
“Not at the office. What’s up, Charles?”
“Mr. Pearson was expecting your answer today.”