The Best Man's Plan
“It feels as if we’ve been here for a week. And do you have to call me darling every ten seconds or so?”
“Of course not. Sweetheart.”
Because punching one’s escort in the stomach was considered impolite, and because she had made a vow to herself to be on her best behavior that evening, Grace decided to let that one pass.
She happened to be looking at Bryan when his smile suddenly froze, then slowly faded. “Well, hell.”
Her left eyebrow rose. “What’s wrong?”
“My parents just walked in.”
Turning to follow the direction of his gaze, she tried to spot a likely looking couple among the well-dressed crowd. She’d never met Bryan’s parents, and he rarely spoke of them, at least to her. “I take it you weren’t expecting them?”
“I thought Dad was on a fishing trip in Belize.”
He didn’t seem particularly pleased to find out otherwise. Grace turned to study his expression, which was difficult to read. “You don’t get along with your parents?”
With a slight shrug, he replied, “We get along fine. Dad’s still a little annoyed with me for leaving the family business to go off on my own, but he rather enjoys the bragging rights that go along with my success. My mother has always had a fascination with celebrities, so she’s always nagging me to introduce her to movie stars and supermodels—even the ones I’ve never met. She knows everyone in the local social community, of course, but she’s always fantasized about mingling with the Hollywood elite—something my father couldn’t care less about.”
“Maybe you should have brought one of your starlet girlfriends tonight—for your mother’s sake.”
He responded to her flippant quip with a scowl. “I don’t happen to have any ‘starlet girlfriends’ at the moment.”
“I doubt that would have proven much of a handicap to you. I’m sure there are numbers you could call…”
Something glittered in his eyes that might have been a warning, but his smile didn’t waver when he said, “Why would I want to be here with anyone else but you, darling?”
Before she could answer, a woman’s voice crooned, “There you are, Bryan. I wasn’t sure we’d see you here this evening.”
Grace looked around curiously, studying the couple who had approached them. She knew their names— Richard and Judith Falcon. They were an attractive couple, as she might have expected, considering Bryan’s extraordinary good looks. She assumed they were in their mid-sixties, but both were in excellent condition. Richard was tall and straight, his silvered hair swept back from a tanned and strong-planed face. Bryan had inherited his bone structure and his piercing blue eyes from his father, Grace decided, but his charming smile had come straight from his mother.
Slender to the point of angularity and a couple of inches taller than Grace, Judith had kept her hair a dark auburn, worn in short waves around a carefully made-up face that bore few lines. Grace suspected that this was a woman on very close terms with at least one cosmetic surgeon, but she couldn’t deny that the efforts had paid off. Judith certainly didn’t look old enough to have a son who was pushing forty.
“Actually I’m surprised to see the two of you here,” Bryan said in answer to his mother’s greeting. “Dad, I thought you were in Belize. And, Mom, weren’t you going to France with a group of your friends?”
“My fishing trip fell through,” Richard explained. “Bob Wheatley had a heart attack last week. Since the reservations were in his name, Steve and I decided it would be better to cancel than to try to rearrange everything.”
It seemed to Grace that he was more irked by the inconvenience of changing his plans than concerned about his acquaintance’s health. Maybe Bryan was thinking along the same lines when he murmured, “I’m sorry to hear about your friend’s illness. I trust he’s recovering?”
“Oh, sure, he’ll be okay. The doctors did a couple of bypasses and they’ll be sending him home in a couple of days.”
“And what about your trip to France, Mother?”
“That’s been rescheduled until next month because of a problem with the tour service.” Apparently losing interest in the conversation, Judith glanced at Grace then. “I’m sorry, we’re being rude. You must be Chloe.”
Bryan sighed. “This is Grace, Mother. Chloe is her sister, who’s engaged to Donovan.”
“Yes, of course.” Judith didn’t seem at all embarrassed by her gaffe as she touched her fingers to Grace’s hand. “An understandable mistake, of course. The columnists linked your name with Chloe’s for several months before you corrected them about which twin you’re actually seeing.”
“I’ve warned you against believing everything you read about me in the tabloids.”
Her smile was tight-lipped. “How else am I supposed to find out about your social life? You certainly never tell me anything.”
“He probably doesn’t consider his personal life any more your business than the gossip columnists’,” Richard said bluntly. And then he nodded toward Grace. “Nice to meet you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to have a word with the senato
r.”
Grace had seen more warmth between Bryan and his business associates than he’d shared with his father. She looked at him through her lashes, wondering if his relationship with his parents had always been so strained.