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r /> Tamara spared Hawk a cursory look. “You don’t mind if I commandeer Pia, do you, Hawk…I mean, Your Grace?” And then not waiting for an answer, she turned Pia toward the pavilion. “I thought not.”
Hawk’s lips quirked. Tamara wasn’t one to stand on ceremony. Though she was the daughter of a British viscount, she’d been raised mostly in the United States and had the decidedly democratic tendencies of the bohemian jewelry designer she was.
She’d also obviously sailed in like a mother hen to rescue Pia.
“Not at all,” Hawk murmured to Tamara’s retreating back.
He watched the two women cross the lawn.
When Pia turned back briefly to glance at him, he returned her gaze solemnly.
He’d gleaned a lot from their conversation. He’d guessed correctly—as evidenced by her momentary distress just now—that Pia’s wedding business needed help in the wake of Belinda’s wedding. The fact that Pia’s firm had managed to survive for more than two years said something, however.
Pia obviously had talent, and she’d nurtured it since their one night together.
With that thought, as he turned back to the house, Hawk realized that a conversation with his sister, a prospective bride, was in order.
Three
As she and Tamara walked toward the pavilion, Pia noticed her friend glance at her.
“I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything,” Tamara remarked, and then paused at Pia’s continued silence. “On second thought, perhaps I hope I did.”
As Tamara suddenly stopped to speak with one of the staff who hailed her, Pia stood nearby and soon found herself lost in thought about the night that she and Hawk had first met.
The beat of the music could be felt in the bar stools, on the tables and along the walls. In fact, everything vibrated. It was loud and packed, bodies brushing past each other in the confines of the tavern.
A bar wasn’t her preferred scene, Pia thought, but she’d come here with a coworker from the event-planning business she worked for in order to rub shoulders with bright young things and their beaus.
People who liked a party—and needed event organizers—usually attended parties prodigiously. And it had almost been a job directive from her boss to be social after work hours, making connections and trying to bring in business.
Except Pia’s interest wasn’t in anniversary parties or coming-of-age celebrations.
Instead, she liked weddings.
Someday, she promised herself, her dream of having her own wedding planning business would become a reality.
In the meantime, she shouldered her way past other patrons and reached the bar. But at her height, she could barely see above those sitting at the bar stools, let alone signal the bartender.
A man next to her gestured to the bartender and called out an order for a martini.
She glanced up at him and, a second later, sucked in a breath as he looked down at her with an easygoing grin.
“Drink?” he offered.
He was one of the most attractive men she’d ever seen. He was tall, certainly over six feet, his sandy hair slightly tousled, and his hazel eyes, flecked with interesting bits of gold and green, dancing. His nose was less than perfect—had it been broken once?—but that added to his magnetism. His grin revealed a dimple to the right of his mouth.
Most importantly, he was looking at her with warm, lazy interest.
He was the closest thing to her fantasy man as she’d ever seen—not that she’d ever admit to anyone that, at twenty-four, she’d had a fantasy lover and no other kind.
Pia parted her lips—please, please let me sound sophisticated. “Cosmopolitan, thank you.”
He gave the briefest nod of acknowledgment, and then looked away to signal the bartender and order her drink. Within seconds, he effortlessly accomplished what to her had been blocked by multiple obstacles.
When he looked back at her, he was smiling again.
“Are you?” he asked, his low and smooth voice inviting intimacy.
