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It was an annoying habit that Victoria was happy that she didn’t inherit. “Someone get me a phone.”
“Sweetheart, what did Lolita mean about Marcus not wanting to marry you? Where is he?”
All eyes turned toward her. “I don’t know, Mother. She probably made it up. Lord knows she’s evil enough. All I do know is that he’s not here.”
Everyone’s eyes shifted away.
Victoria resisted the urge to scream and instead turned around and stormed from the living room suite and to the elegant master bedroom with her torn chapel train sweeping the floor behind her.
“Oh wait, sweetheart. Your train.” Her mother fretted behind her.
Victoria continued her steady march away from everyone’s gazes. They probably couldn’t wait until she was out of sight anyway so they could start calling and texting everyone that she had just been dumped at the altar. “Dumped! Me? I don’t believe this.”
“Well have you tried to call him?”
She sucked in a breath and rolled her eyes. “That’s why I’m looking for a phone, Mother.” Victoria grabbed her cell phone from the nightstand and speed-dialed Marcus. On the first ring, she impatiently tapped her foot. On the second, she was pacing the room. By the third, she was mentally threatening to kill her tenuous fiancé if he didn’t answer his damn phone.
“This is Marcus. I’m sorry but I can’t come to the phone right now. But if you leave a message, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.” BEEP!
“Marcus Lawrence Henderson, I don’t know where you are, but I know that you better be on your way to our wedding.” She turned her back toward her mother and then added in a low hiss, “I swear. If you embarrass me today, there’s not a rock on God’s green earth that you’ll be able to hide under. Get your butt here. Now!” She disconnected the call but still felt the need to stomp, scream or hit something.
“All right now, sweetheart,” her mother said, coming up behind her and wrapping her arm around her waist. “Calm down. I’m sure that everything will be all right. He and the boys probably just hung out a little too late at their silly bachelor party.”
Victoria’s eyes rolled back so far that she could almost see behind her. “I know Kent is behind this.”
Her mother sighed but didn’t refute the comment. That was enough to make Victoria feel like she was on the right track. Kent Bryce had been doggedly pursuing her hand since college. Not because he loved her, but because he wanted to position himself with her billionaire father and his successful investment company. She wasn’t a fool. She saw straight through Kent and all his lame attempts to woo her. So when she pivoted and selected Marcus Henderson, a simple paper pusher out of account receivables, as an attempt to spur his calculated affection, Kent proved to be quite adept and positioned himself to become Marcus’s new best friend.
Marcus, being a shy man, didn’t know what to make of his rise in social standing and popularity and was snookered into Kent and Victoria’s chess game before he ever knew what had happened. Relentless, Kent beat out Marc’s own brother for the position of best man and was primarily responsible for this harebrained idea of having the bachelor party out in Las Vegas.
Victoria protested the idea, but she was seen as feebly trying to prevent the groom from his one rite of passage. Her father even poo-pooed her concerns and said that she was just being paranoid. So here she was, waiting for the groom along with all of New York’s elite society.
Victoria took another deep breath while the fear of becoming a laughingstock rose like a tidal wave. Marcus wasn’t much of a party man. He didn’t drink or indulge in anything crazy. All of that played a part in her selecting him as her husband in the first place. Sure. She would’ve liked to have done this the old-fashioned way. You met someone, there’s a connection, you fall in love and then you walk down the aisle. In Victoria’s world that was just a fantasy sponsored by the fairy-tale spinners out of Hollywood. In her short thirty-two years, she had found one constant in life: people only liked her for her family’s money and prestige.
She was irrelevant.
Her father, Mondell Gregory, made his fortune in hedge funds and this year cracked the top twenty on Forbes’s list of richest Americans. A worthy accomplishment to be sure, but it resulted in her having a rather difficult upbringing. When you can’t trust those around you because you suspect their intentions had nothing to do with you, but everything to do with them trying to boost their social standing, it leads to a rather lonely existence. So she built a wall around her heart and protected herself the best way she could. As a result, she had little patience for fools and it could be argued that she was a little anal and controlling.
It was the best way to avoid getting hurt.
When Victoria attended prep school, she was dubbed the poor little rich girl because she isolated herself from the crowd. By the time she was in college, she was the ice queen—and the loneliest person in the world. The years that followed didn’t improve much. She’d become an investor herself and was rich in her own right. She had plenty of acquaintances, but no real friends. She just learned how to play the game. Smile and pretend she was happy during long, tedious society events. Men did find her attractive. After all, she did have her mother’s long legs and coke-bottle curves. But after a while, those same men would show their true hand and start talking more about her father than about her.
Again, she was irrelevant.
Now, despite all her careful planning and maneuvering, she was about to be left standing at the proverbial altar. Turning, Victoria walked over to the bed and plopped down. All she could do was just sit, wait…and pray for a miracle.
Forever an optimist, Celya stayed next to her side and insisted. “Everything is going to be all right. You’ll see.” She smiled and squeezed her daughter’s shoulders.
Despite her struggle not to succumb, a tear skipped down Victoria’s face.
So much for that damn brick wall.
Chapter 3
Eamon woke feeling like he was riding an out-of-control carousel. So much so that it was difficult for him to even lift his head. He lay still, trying to recall his last moments of consciousness—without much success. He certainly remembered making a ridiculous agreement with his brothers to babysit their spoiled cousin, Quentin. And there were vague memories of him rejoining the Hendersons’ bachelor party. Looks were deceiving when it came to those New York Wall Street types. Those men really knew how to party. That was saying something from a man who specialized in running bachelor parties.
Bachelor Adventures was his brainchild and operated as a side business for The Dollhouse. There was definitely a market for this type of service and it struck Eamon as a no-brainer when he’d read how much the wedding business actually made. But with everything primarily geared toward the brides, it seemed only logical to give the grooms’ last night of singlehood the sort of send-off it deserved. It took some time, but soon word-of-mouth spread among soon-to-be-married guys like a modern underground railroad. They came from near and far, filling The Dollhouse’s calendar in all three club locations resulting in an extensive waiting list.
So what in the hell happened last night that resulted in him sleeping on a floor? The floor?
At last, Eamon’s eyes fluttered open and verified that he was indeed curled up on a carpeted floor. Despite the spinning and the pounding going on in his head, he forced himself to glance around. He found little comfort in the fact that there were at least twenty other people sleeping among throw pillows, colorful fabric that he thought he recalled one of the belly dancers wearing, food, shoes—hell, the list went on and on. The bottom line was the place was wrecked.
“Neah. Neah.”
Eamon slowly turned his head and came face-to-face with a billy goat. “Morning.”
“Neah. Neah.” The goat responded and then with his thick tongue he proceeded to lick Eamon’s face.
“Eeeww.” Eamon jumped back and tried to wipe the foul-smelling saliva from his face. It was nowhere near enough to make him feel clean so he hopped up, spinning room and pounding temples be damned, and went in search of the bathroom. It required him jumping over quite a few sleeping bodies. The hotel suite’s wreckage continued as he made his way to the bathroom and still he had no recollection of all that went on last night. Had he hit his head or something?
Amazingly the bathroom had survived whatever shenanigans they had indulged in last night and it was thankfully empty. He went straight for the sink and started splashing cold water on his face. It was an instant relief to soothe his headache and to wash away his unusual morning kiss. After he shut off the water and grabbed a towel, he finally took a look at his reflection in the mirror.
“What in the hell?” He leaned in close because he didn’t quite trust his eyes. But he wasn’t seeing things. Someone had written in permanent marker across his face: BOY TOY. Eamon took the towel and roughly rubbed at his forehead. The words remained. “No. No. No.”
But it didn’t matter how many times he pleaded or rubbed his forehead raw, the bold letters stayed stubbornly in place.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Eamon jumped and then turned toward the door. “Who is it?”
“How long are you going to be in there, man? I gotta pee,” a woman whined.
Eamon gave himself one last look in the mirror and then tossed the towel down. “Here I come.” He opened the door and the unidentified woman raced in and hopped on the toilet before he had a chance to clear the threshold. Shaking his head, he closed the door behind him and went on to try and inspect the damage.
A few more people were starting to stir, a couple of them had more to do with the goat licking their faces and the others just look like extras in a zombie film.
“Damn. What the hell happened?” one of the men he recognized from the bachelor party asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Eamon told him. Though everything was a mess, he didn’t see anything broken. That definitely came in handy in case the hotel came after him and The Dollhouse.
“What time is it?” the guy asked, looking at his wrist and seeming disappointed to discover that he didn’t have on a watch.
Eamon thought he’d help by looking at his own watch, but his was gone, too. “It’s a hair past a freckle, apparently.” He glanced around on the floor.
“Ohmigod! The wedding! Where’s Marcus?”
“That’s a good question.” Eamon started looking around at the faces on the floor, but didn’t see the groom anywhere. “I guess he has to be around here somewhere.”
They worked their way around the living room and then finally headed back to the master bedroom. However, the moment he opened the door, something came whizzing toward Eamon’s head. He ducked but the object hit the man behind.
“Ooof!”
Eamon shut the door and turned around. “Are you okay, man?”
The dude placed a hand over his left eye for a moment and then declared, “I’m okay. What the hell was that?”
They looked down to see that it was only a plastic bowl full of colored popcorn. Then something else hit the closed door, drawing their attention.
“What the hell is in there?” Eamon asked, almost afraid to try to open the door again.
“I think I saw a monkey,” the brother behind him offered.
“A monkey?” he asked for clarification. I don’t remember a monkey being ordered.
“Robert!” Another brother from the bachelor party called out and then raced down the hallway to join them. “Man, we’re missing the wedding.”
Robert, the monkey-bowl victim, shook his head. “I don’t think there’s a wedding without the groom.”
“Is he in there?” the guy asked.
“We’re just about to check, but he might have been killed by a raging monkey.”
That explanation succeeded in making the new guy look just as confused as they were.
“Okay,” Eamon said, starting to crouch before he opened the door again. “Everyone, be prepared to duck.”
“That warning would’ve come in handy the last time,” Robert snipped.
“Sorry.” Eamon turned the knob and slowly pushed the door open.
Oooooh ooohhh aaaah aahhh!
Sure enough there was a white-face capuchin monkey, clearly losing his mind while he jumped up and down in the center of the bed. Eamon found himself echoing his brother from last night.
“Now, there’s something that you don’t see every day.”
“With good reason,” Robert whispered. “Do you see Marcus anywhere?”
While the monkey was busy having a fit, Eamon glanced around the bedroom and came up empty. “No. He’s not in here.”
At the sound of his voice, the monkey whipped his head around and with lightning speed, grabbed one of the bed’s pillows and hurled it at him. Though Eamon wasn’t normally afraid of pillows, he quickly jerked back and slammed the door again before the fluffy bomb smacked him in the face.
Exhaling as if he’d just saved their lives, he turned toward the men and asked, “Is there any chance Mr. Henderson left without you guys?”
“Highly unlikely,” Robert said.
They turned and headed back toward the front of the villa, checked the dry and the steam sauna, then the courtyard and then lastly the private pool. No Marcus.
“I don’t know what to tell you guys,” Eamon said. “He’s not here. Maybe he went and got breakfast.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. After a couple of rings, he reached Johnson’s Cleaning Crew on the line. “Hey, it’s Eamon. Can you go ahead and send your guys on over to the Henderson suite? Yeah.” He glanced around again and spotted the goat still roaming around. “Wait. Actually, wait an extra hour. I need to call animal control first.”
The moment he disconnected the call, the villa’s front door opened and in walked Marcus Henderson, smiling and gushing at…Delicious. “Good morning, everybody,” he said with a goofy smile.
The rest of his friends started peeling themselves off the floor while most of the women were making a beeline to the bathroom.
“Where have you been?” Robert asked.
Another guy in the villa, smiled just as broadly. “Everyone, gather around. Marcus has an announcement to make,” he broadcasted like he was the King of England or something.
Intrigued, Eamon folded his arms and wondered why Delicious—a.k.a Michelle—was bouncing around and holding Marcus’s hand, but he had a suspicion that he wasn’t going to like it.
It took a few seconds, but everyone gathered around and waited.
“All right, Marcus,” the man said. “The floor is all yours.”
“Thank you, Kent.” Marcus smiled at Michelle, squeezed her hand and said, “First, I want to thank you all for giving me a wonderful bachelor party. I’ve never had anything like it.”
The small crowd clapped and Eamon was pleased that he had indeed pulled off another successful party.
“However,” Marcus continued and then started gushing as much as the woman beside him. “There’s been a change in plans…or rather…a change in brides.”
“Please no,” Eamon moaned, filling in the blanks a second before Marcus held up Michelle’s hand and announced, “Delicious and I just got married!”
Eamon groaned. “Oh God.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, may I please have your attention?” Mondell Gregory announced in the center of the Waldorf’s Park Avenue lobby. Three hundred sets of eyes zoomed to the larger-than-life man with rapt attention. He took a deep breath and with his head held high he continued. “First of all, I want to thank you all for coming today, but I regret to inform you that the wedding has been called off.”
As expected there was a collective gasp followed by a low, steady murmur as most of the invited guests turned to one another to express their surprise.
“However, since we are all here and since we have a mountain of food and good music arranged for you, I don’t see why we can’t just turn this into an old-fashioned brunch party and take pleasure in one another’s company.” He held up his glass of champagne, though he wished that it was something stronger. “Enjoy!” Mondell nodded his head and then downed his drink in one gulp.
Plastering on a smile, he strolled briskly back out of the grand ballroom, ignoring a few questions being thrown at him as he passed. “How did I do?” he asked his wife, Celya, once he exited the room.
“Great. Given the circumstance,” she answered as she began the difficult task of trying to keep up with his long strides. “What do you think has happened?”
He took an impatient breath and then shook his head. “He better be lying in someone’s hospital bed. That’s all I know. If not, he’s going to be once I get my hands on him.”
Celya didn’t like the sound of that. Instead of enjoying her daughter starting a new chapter in her life today, it looked like she was going to have her hands full trying to calm and soothe two people. That meant a full plate when dealing with her husband and daughter. They were too much alike when it came to temperament. If Marcus was smart, he’d forget that the whole state of New York even existed, because if he ever came back, it would be to attend his own funeral.
When they returned to Victoria’s suite, they found her exactly where they left her. Sitting on the edge of the bed and staring at her cell phone as if willing it to ring. Grace hovered around closely, though it was clear they were also at a loss as to what to say. No one saw this coming. Marcus Henderson seemed as dependable as they came.
Mondell swore under his breath. He didn’t like seeing his daughter looking so distraught and it was clear that it was eating him up inside.
“Is it done?” she asked without looking back at them.
Celya instantly went to her side. “Yes, sweetheart. Your father took care of everything.” She squeezed her daughter’s shoulders.
Exhaling a long sigh, Victoria leaned over and rested her head on Celya’s shoulders. “Did they laugh?”
“Of course they didn’t laugh!” Mondell thundered. “They wouldn’t dare.”
