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“You know what I mean!”
“Does it matter if you can use the business?” Hawk replied.
Pia’s eyes widened. “I don’t know what you mean. In any case, I’m not that desperate.”
“Aren’t you?” Hawk said. “You’ve dropped hints that you’ve been less than busy lately.”
Pia’s eyes widened further.
“Never play poker.”
“Seeking to make amends?”
“In a sense.”
Pia placed her hands on her hips, contemplating him and his vague response. It couldn’t be that he was feeling guilty about his behavior toward her in the past. He was a seasoned player who had forgotten her easily. That much was clear from the three years it had taken for their paths to cross again.
There was only one other possibility, then, for his motivation in linking her to Lucy.
“I suppose you feel some sense of responsibility since it was your friend who torpedoed my professional standing by ruining Belinda’s wedding?” she asked.
Hawk hesitated, and then inclined his head. “I suppose responsibility is as good a term as any.”
Pia eyed him. He was holding out a lifeline to her business, and it was hard not to grasp hold of the opportunity that he was offering. What better way to signal to society that all was well than to be hired to organize the wedding of the sister of the man whom she’d bearded with baba ghanoush?
She was being foolhardy.
“Lucy isn’t part of New York society, but her future husband’s family is,” Hawk cajoled, as if sensing her weakness. “This wedding could help establish you. And Lucy has many ties to the theater world. I’m betting you’ve never planned a wedding for an actress before?”
Pia shook her head.
“Then Lucy’s wedding will let you tap into a whole new market for your services.”
“Wh-who would be employing me?”
She hated herself for asking—and hated herself more for stammering—but the question came out of its own volition. Rather than appear satisfied, however, Hawk’s expression turned into a study of harmlessness.
“I’d be employing you, but only as a minor, technical detail.”
“Minor to you.”
“I’m the head of the family, and Lucy is young—only twenty-four.” Hawk’s lips twitched. “It seems only fair that I support her bid to remove herself from under the imposing family umbrella. Lucy was an unexpected bonus for my parents more than a decade after my mother delivered the heir and the spare.”
Pia noted that Hawk had deftly turned an act that might be viewed as generous and loving on his part into a statement of sardonic self-deprecation.
She started to waver. She had liked Hawk’s sister even on the basis of a very brief acquaintance. She felt a natural affinity for Lucy. It had deepened on learning that Hawk’s sister was only three years younger than she was. Lucy was, in fact, the same age that Pia had been when she’d first met Hawk.
If her own tale with Hawk wasn’t destined to have a happy ending, then at least she could see to it that one Carsdale…
No, she wouldn’t let herself think of matters in that vein.
“You’ll be dealing with Lucy mostly, obviously,” Hawk continued, his expression open and unmasked. “I’ll try to make myself as unobtrusive as possible.”
“H-how?” Pia asked. “Are you planning to sequester yourself at your country estate in England?”
“Nothing so drastic,” Hawk replied with amusement, “but, rest assured, I have no interest in weddings.”
“Obviously—judging from your past behavior.”
