The Wedding Party, page 2
He looked away from Julie’s green eyes, so much like Ellie’s. How the hell was he gonna get through this weekend? He should’ve stayed in LA, or headed to Cabo—
Ellie bustled out of the kitchen, tray of glasses in one hand, bottle of Moët in the other. Bending over to set everything on the coffee table, she gave him an excellent view of her excellent ass.
“God, she looks great,” he murmured. “Better than ever.”
“Better than ten minutes ago, for sure. Her cheeks are pinker. Her eyes are shooting sparks.”
“It’s her pissed-off face.” He knew it well.
Ellie twisted the cork and it exploded from the bottle. Champagne foamed out, spilling over her fingers. “Shit,” she sputtered, giving her hand a quick shake.
Then she proceeded to suck her fingers. Ry’s lungs collapsed, releasing a silent groan. She didn’t even know how sexy she was.
Longing must have been written on his face, because Julie sounded almost sympathetic. “Listen, Ry, I’m probably violating some kind of sacred mother/daughter code here, but you need to know—she ate her heart out after you left.”
He wanted to believe it, but . . . “Not possible. She said—”
“Forget what she said three years ago. Think about her reaction right now, today. You said it yourself, she’s pissed off, right? But we both know she doesn’t get pissed at her exes. She just”—Julie fluttered her fingers—“lets them go.”
That was true. He’d seen it happen to other poor schmucks before he got involved with her.
“But you, Ryan Murphy,” Julie added with another arm punch for emphasis, “she never let go of.”
Ellie let a long, icy swallow of champagne slide down her throat.
Then another.
She wasn’t usually a chugger, but as of five minutes ago she’d decided the weekend would look a lot better through the bottom of a wineglass.
Kate came up beside her. “Thanks for that moving toast,” she said dryly, snatching the bottle from Ellie’s hand.
“Oh please. You’ll get plenty of fanfare this weekend without me fawning over you.”
“I knew I should’ve asked Carol to be my matron of honor.”
“It’s not too late. I can pack in ten minutes, be back in Boston for supper.”
“You wish. And it wouldn’t matter anyway. He’d be right behind you.”
“Who?”
Kate snorted. “You’re the genius. Figure it out.” She filled two flutes and went off to play slap and tickle with Mike.
Ellie glugged another long swallow.
“Mom,” Julie called from across the room. She mimed a drinking motion with one hand.
Ellie made a Do I have to wait on everybody face back at her.
Julie gave her an exaggerated Yeah you do nod.
Caving in to the inevitable, Ellie poured two more glasses, reluctantly abandoned her own glass on the coffee table, and strode smartly toward her daughter, pretending to ignore the two hundred pounds of heartache standing alongside her.
Julie snatched a glass with a snide, “It’s about time.”
“I’m so sorry,” Ellie sweetly replied. “I didn’t realize your legs were broken or I would’ve rushed right over.”
Ryan accepted his with a much more gracious, “Thanks, Ellie.”
She spared him a cool nod, but the deep, familiar rumble of his voice triggered a fevered response all the way to her core.
She turned away, meaning to douse it but good with another frosty slug of champagne, but Julie caught her hand and held on to it. “I was just about to fill Ry in on the schedule of events,” she said.
“There’s a schedule?” That deep rumble again, with a startled lilt at the end.
“I’ll email it to you,” Julie said. “But here’s the quick and dirty. Seven-thirty dinner tonight at Magnolia’s for the wedding party—”
He held up a large calloused hand. “Who else is in the wedding party?”
“Well, there’s Mike and Kate, of course. And you and Mom.”
“Just the four of us?”
Ellie made the mistake of meeting his eyes. Lord, they were blue. And they were all over her.
Well, actually they were staring deeply into hers, but it felt like he was taking her in all at once, absorbing every part of her and stripping her naked while he was at it. She was hyperaware of him too, from chiseled jaw to the hard body she knew as intimately as her own, now hiding under a faded T-shirt and jeans.
She unlocked eyes with him. “About dinner,” she said to Julie. “I told Kate that you and Cody want to come.”
Julie’s eyes popped. “I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to. I knew you felt left out. Your sister too. So I took care of it.” She patted Julie’s arm. “I always take care of my girls.”
And with that, she slipped her hand free from her daughter’s and beat a—sedate, measured—retreat across the room to her glass.
Behind her, she heard Julie complaining to Ryan. “There go the only two waking hours of the weekend I would’ve had alone with my husband. Thanks a lot for that.”
“Me?” Ry said in that mesmerizing voice.
“She doesn’t want to be alone with you,” Julie informed him.
That was the God’s honest truth. Ellie shuddered at the thought. Kate and Mike would be all over each other, leaving her to make conversation with Ry. What if he told her he was seeing someone? In love? Engaged!
She took a pull on her flute. She’d be glad for him, of course. He was young, healthy, virile . . .
She fanned herself, threw an accusing glance at the air-conditioning vent.
Anyway, yeah, he was all that, so she’d definitely be happy for him if he’d finally found a girl his age—meaning someone at least nine years younger than herself. That’s what he needed, not a cougar like her.
Fun and games, well, that was one thing. She and Ry had had plenty of those. But that was before he’d lost his mind and proposed, spouting nonsense about love and destiny.
Honestly. They’d been good together, sure. Deliciously good.
But Destined To Be Together? No way. She’d given Destiny a try thirty years ago, and that bitch had ripped her heart out and run it through a meat grinder, then shoved it back in her chest and expected her to get on with her life.
She’d done her best. Survived. Even managed to enjoy it.
But a wound like that never healed. You just learned to live with the pain.
So no, she wouldn’t be giving Destiny another chance to gut her. That was the whole reason she made a point of dating younger men, so she wouldn’t get serious about them. So that even if someone like Ry came along to tempt her, vanity would keep her from giving in to temptation. Because really, who wanted to grow old ten years before her husband? To sag, and wrinkle up, and watch her hair go thin while he was still strong and vital and handsome?
Not Ellie Marone. She’d make that long, slow decline on her own, thank you very much. And when she died, she wouldn’t leave behind a husband to face the world alone.
Or worse yet, to face it with a twenty-four-year-old blonde on his arm—
A finger tapped her shoulder. “What time should I pick you up?” Ry said from about two inches behind her.
She giant-stepped forward before turning to answer him. “I don’t need a ride.”
He smiled, putting a dimple in his left cheek.
She loved that dimple.
“Then you can drive me,” he said.
“Nobody’s driving anybody. The restaurant’s two blocks from here.”
“So we can walk over together.”
“I don’t want to walk with you.”
“Why not?”
“Your legs are too long. And you think everything’s a race.”
His smile widened. She noticed his front tooth was chipped. How did that happen? She set her jaw, refusing to ask.
“I promise to walk as slow as you want.”
“You always say that, then you lope along like a cheetah.”
“Maybe I’ve changed.”
She looked him up and down. At thirty-nine, he was all hard muscle on the outside, hard-won confidence on the inside. His stance, his expression, everything about him spelled “powerful” with a capital P.
“Well, you’re scrawnier,” she deadpanned, “but I doubt that’ll slow you down.”
He crossed his arms, so his biceps stood out like grapefruit. Allowed her a minute to absorb their awesomeness. “I could walk backward.”
Great. Instead of watching his butt pull ahead of her, she’d see his face the whole time.
Face. Arms. Butt. She didn’t want to see any of it!
She hardened her resolve. “Walk on your hands, for all I care. But you’re not walking with me.”
CHAPTER THREE
Ryan dropped into the chair across the table from Ellie. “How the hell?” he asked her. He’d kept an eye on her door for the last hour and never seen her slip out.
She gave him an innocent look.
Yeah, right.
He signaled the waitress, ordered Dewar’s on the rocks.
“Another cabernet for me,” Ellie added.
He eyed her. Rosy cheeks, a permanent half smile. She probably thought getting drunk would make it easier to deal with him.
No such luck, Ellie. He’d damned well be in her face all night, doing his best to make her regret pushing him out of her life.
He lifted an eyebrow at her. “So the wrong number from the front desk, that was your doing?” The call had drawn him away from the window for a crucial thirty seconds. “Clever.”
A smug smile. “Haven’t you heard? I’m a genius.”
“A genius who has the desk clerk in thrall.”
“You make me sound like a vampire.”
He glanced meaningfully at her glass. She raised it, swirling the bloodred wine, then drank down a swallow.
He laughed. So did she, a lovely, intimate sound.
And just like that, three lonely, shitty years fell away as if they’d never happened. As if he and Ellie had never been apart. Happiness flooded through him. Bantering with Ellie, watching her eyes light up when she got off a good one, was better than having sex with anyone else. Her laughter was music, his favorite sappy song.
Back in his room, he’d vowed to himself that he’d get through the weekend without letting her see how deep his hurt ran, and his love. That he’d play it cool, keep it light, keep it fun. That he’d get himself back to LA in one piece, back on the job by next week.
But now, gazing into her smiling eyes, her beloved face, he knew that nothing else in the world would ever look as beautiful to him. Not the coastline at Big Sur, not the sunset off Malibu. He could stare at her forever and never get tired of the view.
Forgetting all the promises he’d made to himself, he spoke from his heart without stopping to check in with his head.
“God, Ellie, you’re gorgeous.”
For a long moment Ellie held Ry’s gaze, bluer than the sea, before she managed to break the connection.
And that right there was the downside of wine—it lowered her resistance to a nice pair of eyes. Not to mention a crooked smile, long muscular arms, and large tanned hands with magic fingers, five of which were splayed on the pristine white tablecloth.
She dragged her eyes away from those fingers too. They were every bit as dangerous as his eyes, immutably associated as they were with the best sex of her life.
She needed help here, a distraction, because things were getting way too intimate. His words had gone straight to her heart—and straight to the heart of her fears. Sure, she looked good now, but in a few years . . .
Ry moved his hand like he might reach for hers. Casually, she leaned back and dropped her own hands to her lap.
Where were her daughters when she needed them?
She shot a glance over at Kate and Mike. Their foreheads were touching, their fingers entwined. No help there.
“Ellie—”
“You look good too, Ry,” she said matter-of-factly, cutting him off before he could say something else that would make her heart leap and ache all at once. “LA must agree with you. All that sand and surf.”
“It’s okay.” His gaze fell, and she felt disconcertingly like the sun had set, leaving her in twilight.
“Take up surfing yet?” she asked, then wanted to bite her tongue. It was too personal. He’d know she remembered their plans for a week at surf camp in Mexico, a trip that never happened thanks to his stupid proposal.
Sure enough, he lifted his eyes again. The sun came out from behind a cloud.
“Actually no,” he said after a telling pause. “I guess I felt—”
“Too bad,” she cut in again, keeping her tone light, “you’d love it. I do.” She hated to get nasty, but damn it, he was pushing her into it.
“So you learned to surf without me?” The hurt in his voice was a knife in her gut.
But there was anger in his tone too, and that was a good thing, because if he got mad enough he’d stop looking at her like he wanted to eat her up, or kiss her, or throw her down on the table and tear her clothes off.
Sipping her wine, she eyed him innocently over the lip. “Of course I did. Not at a camp. In Hawaii.”
He nodded slowly. His posture hadn’t changed but his shoulders had tensed. “Let me guess. You met up with some international surfing phenomenon and he offered you private lessons.”
She huffed a short laugh. “Not exactly. I mean, he’s big at the national level—”
He leaned forward suddenly, rocking the table. “Goddamn it, Ellie, you never gave a rat’s ass about surfing. I had to talk you into that camp.”
She widened her eyes. “So I was supposed to drop every activity we ever did together?”
“Yes!” His raised voice drew a startled glance from the waitress, who set their drinks down and fled.
Ellie leaned forward too, anger driving her voice down instead of up. “Does that mean you haven’t had sex since you left? No California girls heating up your sheets?”
He sat back, lips taut. “Don’t even, Ellie.”
“No, don’t you even, Ry. We broke up three years ago. Three years. I haven’t been sitting around in a chastity belt, and neither have you.”
“Did you even wait till I left Boston? Did you even care that I left?”
Her turn to sit back. “I didn’t ask you to leave.”
“You didn’t ask me to stay.”
She threw up her hands. “I didn’t ask you to come to this wedding either! Why are you here anyway? I thought you were indispensable to the LAPD.”
He snorted. “Who told you that?”
“Your brother, who else? He brags about you constantly. The hero in the family.”
The anger leached from Ry’s eyes. His whole face seemed to shut down.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, more worried now than mad. “Did something happen?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Why would you think that?”
“Why are you answering every question with a question?”
He looked away, past her shoulder. Nothing to see there but a blank wall, yet he stared hard at it as seconds ticked by.
Ellie waited. And waited.
She’d been down this road before. Ry was better than most men at airing his feelings, but there were things he was even better at, things like taking on blame he didn’t deserve, shouldering guilt he had no business bearing, and generally feeling responsible for every screw-up no matter who made it. And in a job like his, screw-ups could have fatal consequences.
It was those things he was always reluctant to share. But if she waited long enough, gave him her silent attention while his brain circled around and around like a dog before it settled, he’d eventually come out with it.
In bits and pieces, he’d come out with it.
His arms uncrossed at last. He reached for his scotch but left it on the table, rotating the glass, making damp rings on the tablecloth. She waited, tuned into him, oblivious to everything else around them.
A long moment passed before he raised his head. Maybe ready to give her that first bit or piece.
Instead he said, “So where is he? Your surfer. When’s he getting here?” When she didn’t reply, he raised mocking brows. “What, you ditched him already? No date for the wedding?”
Pushing her glass away and folding her hands, Ellie assessed him coolly. Despite the pain in his eyes, she recognized the challenge in his tone. He was baiting her. Distracting her and salving his wounded ego at the same time. Looking for leverage to start a fight.
Well, she wasn’t born yesterday, not by a mile. She knew exactly how to deal with Ryan Murphy.
Curving her lips in a half smile, she said ruefully, “I would’ve brought the supermodel I’m currently sleeping with, but she had a photo shoot this weekend.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Relief coursed through Ry. For a minute there she’d thrown him off with the supermodel crack, but if there was one immutable truth he knew about Ellie, it was how she liked her sex—hot, hard, and hetero all the way.
So why try to persuade him otherwise? What was she trying to hide?
Could Julie be right? Did Ellie still want him? Was she afraid she’d give in to her feelings if he pushed her?
That would explain a few things. Like how pissed off she was to see him here. The cruel way she’d thrown the surfer in his face. Her feeble attempt to make him believe she’d switched teams.
He couldn’t help grinning, which made her eyes narrow, which only made him grin wider. Ellie thought she was so clever, but he was onto her. If nothing else, she’d given the game away when he’d stupidly let on that something had gone wrong in LA. Worry had furrowed her brow.
She still cared about him.
Now he had two days to make her admit it. Two days to remind her how good they were together, to convince her to quit pushing him away. Two days to get back into her bed, and into her heart.
It wouldn’t be easy, but when had Ellie ever been easy?
