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“I’m going to head for the bathroom before we have to mingle,” she repeats so I can hear her. “Are you coming?”
“Yes, good idea.”
As I follow her I’m so aware that Liam is still watching me. I glance over my shoulder once more, and he isn’t smiling anymore. There’s a darkness to his eyes that I could get lost in if I wanted to.
“Watch the—oh shit!” Lisa calls out, as I slip on something on the floor. My arms flail like windmills as I feel gravity doing its thing, pulling me down toward the ground. Lisa lunges forward and wraps her crazily strong arms around my waist, catching me right before I hit the patch of what looks like spilled champagne that caused my stupidly high heels to lose their footing.
“Oh my God,” she says. “I’m a fucking hero. I just saved you.”
“Does that mean we have to get married now?” I ask her.
She grins. “Definitely.”
We both start to laugh because it’s such a ludicrous situation. She’s swept me into her arms like I’m Scarlett and she’s Rhett except she’s only five feet six and definitely doesn’t have a moustache.
She hauls me upright, and though my dress is wet at the hem it’s barely visible.
“Okay?” she asks.
“I’m okay.” I nod. Then I glance behind me – and Liam is still standing there watching.
But that dark look that shook me to my core is gone. Instead, he’s laughing and so is Myles while Ava is shouting at both of them, though I can’t hear what she’s saying.
And it’s weird, but I prefer this. Being around Liam is so much easier to deal with when he’s not being dark and dangerous.
I can take the mocking, laughing Liam.
It’s the one who looks like he wants to eat me instead of the three course charity banquet I find scary.
CHAPTERNINE
SOPHIE
When I get back from powdering my nose, the hotel ballroom is filled with Charleston’s finest, all dressed to the nines and making awkward small talk, waiting for the moment that the string quartet stops playing so they can actually sit down.
The staff members at WVFY haven’t been allocated our own tables – which is just as well since each table of ten costs twenty thousand dollars. Instead, our job is to sit at a different table for each course and make sure everybody is having a good time. For the first course – carrot and coriander soup – I’m put with a table of old school Charleston grandees.
One of the men on my left takes pity on me and asks me what I do.
“I present the weather on WVFY,” I tell him.
“Ah, you’re on television,” he says. “I don’t watch that. Prefer the radio, always have.”
“Ah, she’d be wasted on the radio,” the man on my other side says. “Too pretty for that.”
He’s at least eighty and there’s nothing lecherous in his words. He’s just trying to be a gentleman, so I smile at him.
“I worked on the radio when I was a student,” I tell him. “It’s a lot harder to do a forecast when you don’t have a map behind you.”
“I wouldn’t be looking at the map anyway,” he says. Then the woman next to him slaps his arm. “Sorry, darling,” he mumbles. She shakes her head then smiles at me.
“I think you’re wonderful,” she tells me. “You haven’t steered me wrong yet. You were the only one who said it was going to rain last weekend, and you were right.”
This isn’t strictly true, but I take it anyway. And as I’m about to ask them if they’re planning on bidding on the auction tonight I feel a tap on my shoulder.
“Can I have a word?” Michael asks. He looks annoyed. I can only imagine that he’s seen the auction list.
“I’m busy,” I tell him with a whisper, pointing at the table. As soon as he sees nine other pairs of eyes looking at him, he puts on an easy smile. All trace of annoyance disappears into the air.
