Her Frog Prince

Both Phipps-Stovers rose and greeted her in turn. “Is that Miss Hammond or Mrs.?” Joyce asked.

“Miss. I’m afraid I haven’t been as lucky as you.” Parris put a broader smile on her face as all three of them sat down. “I’ve yet to find a man who suits my taste.”

“Luck hasn’t much to do with marriage,” Brian said, spearing a strawberry with his dessert fork. “I’ve had better luck in Vegas.”

Joyce pursed her lips and cast him a sour look but didn’t say anything.

“First, I wanted to thank you for your support of the Victoria Catherine Smith Memorial Aquarium Fund,” Parris said. “It’s a wonderful cause and your donation will enable us to showcase the wonderful marine life in this area for everyone to see.”

“I like fish. They entertain me.” Brian shrugged, popped the strawberry in his mouth, then took a sip from the flute of champagne.

“Darling, you sip the champagne, then bite the strawberry,” Joyce said. “That provides the maximum epicurean effect.”

“If I do that, pookie, I get seeds stuck in my teeth. I eat the berry first and then wash it down with champagne.”

Joyce’s smile strained against her cheeks. “Really darling, people will think you’re uncouth if you do that.”

Brian’s gaze narrowed. He put down his fork and crossed his arms over his chest. “People? Or just you?”

Uh-oh. The bloom was already off the Phipps-Stover rose. Their union more resembled a bunch of thorns covered with a few lingering petals.

“Let’s discuss what you’re donating to the auction,” Parris said, interjecting a change of subject before the strawberries became the beginning of a food fight.

The Phipps-Stovers recovered their manners from somewhere off the floor and slipped back into proper society mode. Brian reached into the breast pocket of his suit and withdrew a checkbook. “If you’ll just give me a pen—”

“Oh no, darling.” Joyce laughed. “We aren’t writing a check. That’s so…impersonal. I thought we’d donate a piece of art.”

“What piece of art?”

“That painting in the parlor. The one over the fireplace.”

“My great-aunt painted that.”

“Darling, it’s just a bit risqué for our tastes, don’t you think? I mean, all those orchids and lilies. It’s…well, it doesn’t send the right message.”

“Are you trying to say my aunt’s painting is the equivalent of an HBO special?” He was half out of his seat.

Oh God. This wasn’t going well at all. Parris had no idea what to do. The only event planning she’d ever done was RSVPing to a party invitation. She had to save the situation. But how?

“Your aunt was institutionalized, dear. For her overabundance of men.” Joyce put on a tight smile and gritted her teeth. “Her paintings reflected her…needs, shall we say? And they certainly are the talk of the town. They’d fetch quite the price.”

“My great-aunt was a Stover. That makes her someone to be respected, not gossiped about.”

It looked like the Phipps-Stovers were about to come to blows. Parris wished for the hundredth time that Jackie was there to help her. But no, Jackie had to go off and get married. Granted, Jackie deserved a happy life, but still, couldn’t it have waited until after the auction was over?

“I’m sure we can work it—” Parris began.

Brian got to his feet. “I’m through with this. Forget the whole thing.”

“Please stay. I’m sure we can—”

Joyce rose as well. “I’m not staying, either. In fact, I’m not even staying on the island.”

“Good. There’ll be more room on the beach, considering all you do is take up sand and bake yourself to a crisp.”

Joyce let out an indignant gasp. “I do not!”

“Before you know it, you’ll look as old and wrinkled as that sculpture your grandmother dumped on us.”

Joyce put a hand over her gaping mouth. “I cannot believe you said that. That marble bust of Great-Grandfather Phipps is an heirloom. A piece of history.”

“It’s a piece of—”

“There’s an easy way to settle this,” said a male voice Parris had hoped she wouldn’t hear again.

She spun around and found Brad Smith standing a few feet away, a small bag in one hand. He was freshly showered and in a different T-shirt, but he still looked more like a California college student than a grown-up.

Both the Phipps-Stovers had stopped arguing, though. Either they were waiting with bated breath for Brad’s solution or they’d been stunned into silence by the appearance of a beach bum in The Banyan Room.

Brad dug into his pocket and tossed a quarter at them. Brian caught it in his right hand. “There’s your solution,” Brad said.

“Flip a coin?” Joyce looked horrified.

“It’s a true fifty-fifty chance. And the best way to end a battle between two people who both want to be right.”

“We’re not battling…exactly.” Joyce said.

“We’re newlyweds,” Brian added.

“That explains everything,” Brad said with a smile. “Try it. You don’t really want to fight, do you?”

Joyce looked at Brian. Brian looked at Joyce. Then he shrugged. “Why not? I’m a betting man.” He jiggled the coin in his hand. “Call it, babycakes.”

She pursed her lips, let out a sigh. “Heads.”

Brian tossed the quarter into the air, caught it and slapped it onto the back of his hand. Before revealing the coin’s position, he paused. “Whatever this is, we abide by it. I don’t want to fight with you anymore, honeybunny.”

“Oh, me either.” Joyce nodded.

Brian lifted his right palm. “You win.”

“No, we both win, sweetums.” Joyce grasped his arm and gave her husband a loud, smacking kiss on the cheek.

And just like that, the storm between the Phipps-Stovers had passed. “We’ll donate the painting,” Brian said. “Someone else will surely love it as much as I do.”

“And then we’ll go shopping for something together. Something that’s just us,” Joyce said.

“Oh, truffle lips, you’re so perfect.”

Happiness had been restored. Within a few minutes, the Phipps-Stovers had completed the paperwork for their donation and had left the restaurant, snuggled once again in newlywed bliss. Brad and Parris wandered out of The Banyan Room and onto the veranda.

“Now you owe me twice,” Brad said, smiling at her. “Actually, three times.” He handed her the bag.

When he smiled, his eyes lit up and something traveled between them, like a connection of energy. How could that be? She’d known the man, what, forty minutes, and spent most of that time dripping wet and mad as hell at him.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Your glass slipper, Cinderella. You left it in my boat.”

She felt her face flush. For the briefest of seconds, she had felt like she was in a fairy tale. Who was she kidding? She was an heiress and he was a squid hunter. That was fairy-tale hell. “Thanks,” she said. “Again.”

“I want more than a little gratitude.”

“What…money? Are you some mercenary rescuer who goes looking for damsels in distress?”

He cocked his head, considering that for a minute. “If I could find a way to make it lucrative, I might. Make my time on the ocean a little more productive.”

“I’m not paying you for rescuing me.” She raised her chin. “It’s the deed of a good citizen. And you look like…”

“Like what?”

“Well, like you could be a good citizen.” The last thing she wanted to be was indebted to him. That meant spending time with Brad Smith. A man like him—who drove her crazy and sent her thoughts careening into wild, impossible corners—wasn’t what she needed right now.

“If I cleaned up a bit. Put on a tie, you mean?”

“Well…” She glanced at his T-shirt. Plain, un-adorned, no beer-swilling logo or sea life on it. “Yeah.”

“Good.”

“Good?”

“You said you’re available for personal consultations. And I want one.”

Oh no. No way. She knew what he meant. It wasn’t a “consultation” at all. He wanted some kind of sex thing, she was sure. No one hired her. She didn’t have any experience. “Is this some weird way of asking me out on a date? Because—”

“I want to hire you.”

“Hire me?” She blinked. “As in pay me money to help you with a project?”

“Yeah, is that so unusual? I mean, that is what you do in your business, right?”

“Oh yeah.” She let out a hiccup of a laugh. “All the time.” At least all the time in the past few weeks. Before that, the only thing she’d been good at was signing her name on charge-card receipts.

“Good. Then you can help me.”

“Help you with what?”

He patted his chest. “Become more of a tie guy.”

She didn’t believe him for a second. Most men were happy with the way they looked and had a heart attack if a woman changed the brand of athletic socks they wore. There was no way this guy was for real. He wanted something else. Something definitely not involving “consulting.”

Besides, he didn’t look like the kind of guy who could afford her fee, whatever it might be, since this was her first real customer, other than organizing the auction for Victoria Smith. “And how were you planning on paying me?”

“I already paid in advance. With the rescue in the water and by helping that couple. I’m low on cash otherwise.”

Parris held the stack of auction papers close to her chest. There were a hundred details yet to take care of before the auction on Saturday, just four days away. With Jackie gone, she couldn’t afford to lose her focus, not for a second. If there was anything Brad Smith would surely make her do, it was lose her focus. Even if he was sincere about hiring her—which she couldn’t imagine he was since he didn’t need a tie to pull up squids—she didn’t have time for him. “I can’t right now. I’m too busy with the auction.”

“Let me guess. The auction to benefit the Victoria Catherine Smith Memorial Aquarium, right?”

“You’ve heard about it?”

“Often.” Brad scowled. Apparently he hadn’t heard anything good. Was her PR campaign that bad? “I can see why that might be more…demanding.”

“Yes, it is. So, you understand why I can’t take you on right now.” There. She had a valid excuse not to get involved with him, whether she owed him a favor or not. She’d write him an IOU and hope he’d forget about it.

He took a step forward, invading her space, forcing her to deal with him. “No, I don’t. But if you say you can’t, I intend to find a way around that.”

A soft breeze whispered through the veranda, lifting her hair. Resort guests came and went, drifting down to the beach or back up to their rooms for a nap.

“There is no way around that, Mr. Smith. If I say I’m busy, I am. My apologies.” She started flipping through the paperwork, hoping she looked too consumed to deal with him.

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