He looks nothing like his son, Brett, who’s a spitting image of his mother.
In fact… he looks an awful lot like his nephew.
***
The air at our table is tense, to say the least.
Phoebe keeps catching my eye, looking more confused by the minute, and I can’t exactly blame her. I’m pretty confused, myself.
Chase’s jaw is clenched so tight, I’m worried his teeth are going to break. He hasn’t taken a single bite of his dinner, and he’s sipping his glass of soda water like he wishes it were something a helluva lot stronger.
Brett, for once, doesn’t look gloating or gleeful — he looks pissed. He’s gulping down glasses of scotch like he’s actively trying to end up under the table, a dark expression on his face as he looks from me to Chase to the man next to him.
Jameson.
Who, I might add, is the reason for all the tension.
He arrived at the table, gave a stiff nod to Chase, another to Brett, and settled into his seat without bothering to introduce himself to me or Phoebe. Even his wife got little more than a murmured hello. Mere seconds after he sat, a waiter appeared at his elbow with a short-stacked tumbler of clear liquid on ice — which he’s been sipping steadily for the past ten minutes.
If the fact that the family patriarch, who just so happens to be dying of liver cirrhosis, is gulping down vodka shocks anyone at the table, they certainly don’t say as much. They don’t even look surprised — their expressions range from resigned (Brett’s mother) to enraged (Chase) to regretful (the cousins at the far ends, who no one seems to be speaking to).
We eat in total silence, picking at arugula salads with sweet-roasted pecans and pretending it’s not odd that our dinner table is quieter than a monastery. For all I know, it’s not odd, for the Crofts. Maybe every dinner they eat is shrouded in silence and strained conversation. Somehow, I doubt they’re the kind of family who share stories about their days or bicker over the last bread roll in the basket.
Phoebe’s eyes meet mine across the table and she widens them to the extreme in an unmistakablewhat-the-hell-is-happening-hereexpression. I shrug my shoulders up in a slighthell-if-I-knowmovement. She grins and returns her eyes to her plate.
I start to smile myself, until I feel the weight of eyes on my face. My gaze slides to the left, and I find Brett is watching me, a calculated gleam in his ice-blue irises. Instead of flinching and looking away, I meet his stare head-on, raising one eyebrow at him in a cool, composed,what-the-hell-do-you-think-you’re-looking-atgesture. The smug twist of his lips is the only answer I get in return, so I just stuff more arugula into my mouth and pray that the second course is almost ready. Anything, to get me away from this world of silent conversations and strained relationships.
***
Dinner finally ends, but the night’s not nearly over. I’m pushing the remnants of my chocolate cake around my plate, half-listening to the first of many speeches we’ll be forced to endure before we can finally go home.
One of the cousins is at the podium, giving a long-winded summary of the company’s many accomplishments from the previous year.
“Chase.”
He looks at me with eyes that have glazed over, raising his brows in question.
“I have to pee,” I whisper.
He grins. “Gemma, this isn’t kindergarten. You don’t need my permission to leave.”
My cheeks flame in the beginnings of a blush.
“Go,” he says softly, eyes warm on mine. “Just hurry back. I don’t know how long I’ll last without you, here.”
I smile at his words, slide back my chair, and beeline for the doors. My grin falters when I catch sight of a familiar hulking frame at the back of the ballroom — it’s Brett’s personal Bruce Banner henchman, standing in the shadows in his ill-fitting suit, looking intimidating as ever with that wicked-looking scar on his neck. Our gazes meet for a fraction of a second as I walk past, and the darkness in his eyes sends such a chill through me, I’m still shivering as I cross into the empty atrium and enter the women’s room.
As soon as I close the stall door behind me, a huge sigh of relief escapes — in part because I really,reallyhad to go, but mostly because I needed a break from Brett’s sidelong glances, Chase’s too-tense muscles, Jameson’s rapidly-emptying tumbler, and even Phoebe and her funny facial expressions. Every time she catches my eye and grins, like we’re both in on the same joke — like she’s already a close friend — my heart clenches.
How long until Brett tells her?
How long until she hates me?
After I’ve taken care of business — not an easy feat in a floor-length dress, by the way — I head out to the bank of sinks. With a full lounge, a towel attendant, and several baskets of complimentary toiletry supplies laid out on the countertops, the bathroom clearly caters to an elite crowd. I’m moisturizing my hands with one of the mini-bottles of almond-scented lotion, when the door swings open.
As soon as I lock eyes with the blonde in the mirror, who’s scowling at me with more vehemence than the guy I once spilled a two-hundred degree cappuccino on at my old job, I go still as a deer in headlights.
Vanessa.