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“I’ve tried that. He just gets me confused with Jennifer.”
One of the many disadvantages of having sisters identical to oneself in appearance. Jane looked over Lacey’s shoulder and saw Luke standing in the doorway, motioning her over.
“Why don’t you try wearing name tags, then,” she said. “I’ve got to go.”
She hurried to the doorway, as Lacey stood there staring after her. “Jane…! Janie?”
Once she’d escaped the kitchen, she whispered her thanks to Luke.
“Sister problems?”
“You have no idea.”
“What do you say we slip out of here early and find some place that serves food you have to eat with a fork and knife?”
Jane glanced around at the crowd, her gaze settling on Bradley for a split second before she looked away. That giddy-barfy feeling appeared again, and she frowned. It had to be a physical reaction to making out with one guy while the object of one’s affection was sitting in the next room.
She’d feel guilty leaving her sister’s wedding shower early, but she was all showered out for the night. And then she spotted her mother—whom she’d somehow managed to avoid all evening—headed straight toward her. Visions of a discussion about using the bathroom with her bodyguard popped into her head.
“Let’s go, now! Hurry!” She tugged on Luke’s hand and wove her way past a clump of couples to the front door.
“Shouldn’t we give our regards to your sister and Michael?” Luke asked as she hurried them out the door and onto the porch.
“No time for that. They’ll never notice we left, there are so many people here.”
When they’d made it safely inside Luke’s sport utility vehicle, he gave her a quizzical look. “Care to tell me why we just flew out of there like demons were chasing us?”
“That’s not as much of an exaggeration as you might think.” She glanced at the front door to make sure her mother hadn’t followed them outside. “My mom was coming.”
Luke started the engine and pulled away from the house, then steered the SUV out onto the neighborhood street, lit up in the night by wrought-iron roadside lamps.
“Is Italian food okay?”
“Sounds great,” Jane said.
“This is quite a neighborhood,” Luke murmured as they passed stately home after stately home. “I’ve had a few clients in this area.”
“We grew up in that house. The people who live around here, they’ve got problems like everyone else—probably more than the average family. Money screws up most people.”
“Don’t I know it,” he said without elaborating.
“There was a family that used to live next door to us—the parents are divorced now—whose lives would have made a good soap opera. Daddy boinking the maid and the pool boy, Mommy too high on drugs to notice, kids running so wild you wouldn’t believe it. I think they must have forgotten they had kids until the older daughter drove her dad’s Ferrari into the side of the house.”
“What about your family? Are they screwed up like that?”
“No, I guess I’m pretty lucky compared to them. We’re just garden variety dysfunctional.”
Luke gave her a questioning look that she guessed meant he wanted details.
She wasn’t quite sure what else to say. For a moment, she just studied his profile as he drove. Strong jawline, perfectly straight nose, thick, dark hair hanging loose on his shoulders.
“You’ve met my parents and sisters. You see what they’re like.”
“I want to hear it from your perspective.”
“Well, my dad, you’ve probably seen him on the evening news doing the weather report. That handsome airhead act of his isn’t totally an act. That’s pretty much what he’s really like. Some dads teach their kids how to play ball—he taught me suntan oil application strategies.
“My mom is the original Southern belle. She still thinks women go to college to find a husband, and she can’t imagine why I’d want to focus on a writing career instead of trying to bag a wealthy man. And my sisters—they’re every guy’s fantasy. They’ve never had to do much but sit around and look pretty to get by in life.”
“They’re not my fantasy.”
She flashed him a suspicious look, but she couldn’t help asking, “What is your fantasy, then?”
“Lately, I seem to have developed a taste for sexy relationship gurus with bad attitudes.”
Jane couldn’t think of a witty response, so she squirmed in silence, staring out the window. Did he really expect her to believe she was his fantasy woman? Maybe a one-night kind of fantasy, but not an enduring one.
