AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Me too,” Brooke agrees. “My fiancé couldn’t make it. He’s doing his residency at Mass General Hospital,” she adds.
“Well, that just leaves you, missy.” The man sidles closer to me. “Guess you’ll need to save me a dance.”
He places a hand on my hip. I remove it, about to politely excuse myself when?—
“Bucky! There you are.” Robert takes his arm, steering him away from me. “I should have guessed you’d find the prettiest girls in the party, but Yolanda’s looking for you.”
Bucky sighs. “I’ll see you later,” he says, giving me a wink and some finger guns, too, before ambling back over to the bar.
“I’m sorry about that,” Robert tells us, once he’s gone. “Bucky means well, but let’s just say, he’s got a wandering eye.”
“And wandering hands,” Ivy mutters, as Bucky goes to hit on another leggy blonde.
“Oh no, that’s his wife,” Robert replies. “They’re newlyweds. Great gal.”
I nearly choke on my drink. “Wow. That’s lovely,” I manage to say. “Good for them.”
Robert stays for a moment of small talk, then goes to intercept some old friends, leaving us to take in the party.
“Is it just me,” Ivy says, looking around. “Or is there a theme here tonight?”
“You mean, the third wives club?” I reply, amused. Because it turns out, Bucky and his bride aren’t the only ones with aninterestingage-gap. The rest of Robert’s Rat Pack buddies have all been joined by their partners for the dinner, and there’s not a woman over thirty in sight: just fresh-faced, lithe yoga babes women in expensive jewelry, looking bored on the arm of their much older menfolk.
I can’t help remembering Josh’s not-so-casual questions in the Jeep, trying to figure out Avery’s reasons for the marriage. Looking around the crowd tonight, I kind of get his point. “Let’s just hope they all have a good prenup,” I comment, amused. “For when it’s time for Wife Number Four.”
Then I realize what I just said. “I didn’t mean…” I stammer to Brooke. “I’m sure Avery and Robert are different?—”
“Oh, please,” Brooke rolls her eyes good-naturedly. “It’s nothing I haven’t been thinking – and said to her, a hundred times. But Birdie swears they’re happy together,” she says with a shrug. “So, good luck to them.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
7
HAZEL
As the blazingsunset fades into a deep inky blue, the band begins to play, and we all take our seats for dinner. I was expecting to be relegated to a distant spot with the rest of the friends-of-friends, so I’m surprised to find my place card set at the main banquet table, across from Reeve and Ivy, and right next to?—
“Hey there.”
Josh’s familiar twang in my ear makes me shiver, and then he’s pulling out my chair for me; his eyes sliding over my body with an appreciative look as he helps me into my seat. “What a coincidence,” I smile, as he settles beside me.
“Nope.” Josh grins back, looking dapper in a suit, his white button down open at the neck. “I switched the place cards around. Why leave it to fate, when slipping the concierge a twenty works just as well?”
I laugh, feeling that shiver of anticipation again, snaking through my bloodstream. I smile at him, batting my eyelashes a little. “And what if I was planning to seduce… Stanley over there,” I muse, nodding to Robert’s ancient business manager, who’s talking up a storm with Ivy.
“What’s he got that I haven’t?” Josh protests.
“Hmm…” I pretend to think, teasing. “A house in the Hamptons? Founding stock in Apple? Only a few years left to live?”
“Good point.” Josh chuckles. “I’ll get you an introduction, if you want. But fair warning, the man will talk your ear off about tax policy if you give him half the chance. He cornered me up by the pool earlier. A man shouldn’t know that much about donor-advised deductible write-offs,” he murmurs, leaning closer so that his breath whispers against my bare neck, and I can almost feel the heat from his body, just inches away.
My pulse kicks. The scent of his aftershave is tantalizingly close, making me feel more lightheaded than my glass of champagne, but I force myself to stay cool as the waitstaff bring out the first platters of food; the hogs roasting over open fires a safe distance down the beach. Then a hush falls over the group, and all heads turn.
“What’s going on?” I ask, following their gazes – to where Avery is making her grand entrance.
“Our star has finally arrived,” Josh comments, and he’s not wrong. Avery is on glittering form tonight, dressed like a classic starlet in a stunning strapless silver gown. She sashays slowly towards us with her hips swaying, fluttering little waves to people as she goes. Marilyn Monroe couldn’t have done it better herself.
Robert rises to meet her, smiling proudly. “Darling,” he says, kissing her hand. “You look spectacular.”
