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“And so did I.” A voice boomed around them.
Sunshine could never figure out how Miss Arlotta, who spent most of her time in the attic, was nevertheless able to hear all and see all and speak to them wherever they were.
“Sunshine! The bride is checking into your room.” Lavender was hovering behind the guest register.
“And the groom?” Mimi asked.
“The new section.”
“Well, that can’t be good,” Glory said.
“Why not? You know the groom isn’t supposed to see the bride on their wedding day until she walks down the aisle.” Sunshine sighed. “It’s so romantic.”
“Sunshine will assist this couple,” Miss Arlotta pronounced. “Older gentlemen are her speciality.”
“Thank you, Miss Arlotta!” Sunshine drew a deep breath as the others protested—but not too much—before gradually drifting away to other parts of the inn. Older men who were lonely and liked her youthful looks and innocent chatter had been, indeed, her speciality.
She felt a tug on her gauzy wrapper. Rosebud had abandoned her book and was watching the couple check in. “You can drop the act,” she murmured. “We’re alone.”
“What act?” Sunshine batted her eyelashes.
“They have blonde jokes now, you know.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Jokes about girls with yellow hair being dumb.” She tweaked one of Sunshine’s sausage curls. “Only you’re not dumb.”
Sunshine kept her smile in place. “And don’t you forget it, sweetie.”
“I mean…take all this romantic talk. This was a place of business.”
Sunshine laughed. “Sure was—monkey business.”
“It was sex for money.” Rosebud pushed her wire-rim glasses up higher on her nose. “The men gave us money and we gave them sex. It was as simple as that.”
Sunshine looked across the lobby at the couple. Other than briefly resting his hand on the small of the woman’s back, the man never touched her. And she didn’t touch him. They smiled politely instead of the wide, tooth-baring grins of people who can’t help smiling. Of people who are in love.
“Rosebud,” she murmured, “it was never as simple as that.”
1
WHEN ALEXIS O’HARA ARRIVED at the Inn at Maiden Falls, Colorado, for her wedding and encountered an ex-boyfriend also checking in, she gave him a cool I’m-looking-good-and-aren’t-you-sorry-you-dumped-me smile. When he informed her he was representing her fiancé in the pre-nup negotiations, she did what any successful, independent, modern woman did when faced with the unthinkable: she called her mother.
Abandoning her luggage in the center of a lovely Aubusson rug as soon as she got to her room, Alexis stared unseeingly out the window at the gorgeous Rocky Mountain vista, cell phone pressed to her ear. “Mom?”
“You’ve changed your mind,” Patty O’Hara said flatly.
“No! Why do you keep assuming that every time I call?”
“Oh, I don’t know—maybe the week-long engagement to a man I’ve never before heard you mention in a romantic context?”
“This isn’t that sort of marriage.”
“What sort of marriage is it?”
Alexis began to speak, fully intending to extol the virtues of compatibility, admiration and shared interests, but heard herself say, “It’s an I’m-tired-of-dating marriage.”
“Oh, one of those. I thought it was an old-fashioned marry-an-old-guy-for-his-money marriage.”
Alexis gritted her teeth, then craftily pointed out, “He’s fifty-four. That’s only two years younger than you. Are you saying you’re old?”
“I’m saying I’ve been married to a fifty-four-year-old man and I know what it’s like.”
She was talking about Alexis’s father. Alexis preferred not to think of her father in that context. “But you haven’t been married to a rich fifty-four-year-old man.”
There was silence.
“Mom?”
“I was giving you time to think. You’ve been rushing around like a madwoman and I know you haven’t fully considered what you’re doing.”
“I had plenty of time to think on the plane.” Actually, she’d fallen asleep on the plane. Missed the honey peanuts and everything. “I’m not changing my mind.”
“I’m still not cutting the tags off my dress until I have to walk to my seat.”
“Mom.” Alexis pressed the area between her eyebrows.
“Alexis, as with any mother, I just want you to be happy. Now, I know you didn’t call to argue and I’m in the middle of packing. What’s up?”
“Dylan’s here.” Alexis was proud that her voice sounded calm and matter-of-fact.
“Do I know her?”
“Him.”
“Well, you never know these days with one-size-fits-all names.”
“Like Pat?” Alexis asked dryly, although no one ever called her mother Pat.
“A nickname for Patricia. What’s Dylan a nickname for?”
Alexis exhaled. “Trouble.”
“Why?”
How could her mother have forgotten? “Law school? The guy who drop-kicked my heart into orbit around Planet Pity?”
“Oh. That Dylan.”
“Yes, that Dylan! How could you forget that Dylan?”
“There’ve been…so many…”
Yes, her heart had made many trips to Planet Pity since then. But it had orbited longer over Dylan than anyone else. “Mom, he’s negotiating the pre-nup for Vincent.”
“You be careful with that pre-nup. Don’t sign anything without reading it first.”
“Mom! I’m a lawyer, too! You’re missing the point. Dylan is representing my fiancé.”
“Do you still have feelings for him?” her mother asked carefully.
“Yes—hate!”
“I thought you were over him.”
“I…am.” The unguarded rush of pleasure she’d experienced when she’d seen him in the lobby was just a holdover from their school years. “And I don’t hate him. I haven’t thought of him.” Much. “But he’s going to be negotiating my pre-nup with Vincent!”
“He apparently doesn’t feel that it’ll be a conflict of interest.”
“That’s because he’s not interested. Forget I said that.” This conversation was not going well.
“So…what do you want from me?” asked her mother.
“Tell me what to do!”
“Wait…Alexis asks her mother for advice. Let me go write this date on the calendar.”
Alexis rolled her eyes. “Maybe if you weren’t so sarcastic, I might ask your advice more often.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“You’re probably right. But I am asking now.” Her mother was an investment banker. Analyzing was her forte.
“Let’s take a couple of steps back and look at the big picture. What do you want? And that’s not a cop-out.”
“I want him not to be here.”
“Because of Vincent or because of him?”
“Because it’s awkward.”
“If Dylan were female, would it be as awkward?”
“Yeeeees,” Alexis said slowly. “If I were close friends with a woman and we broke off our friendship, I would feel awkward having her as my fiancé’s counsel. Yes,” she said more firmly. “It’s that kind of awkwardness.”
“Hmm. If Dylan were female, would you ask Vincent to find other representation?”
Alexis skirted the question. “It’s too late now.”
“Isn’t Denver close by? Surely there are other lawyers available. But the point here is that you’d probably mention it to Vincent if Dylan were female.So why not tell him how uncomfortable you feel anyway? You’re marrying the man. You should be able to talk about such things with him.”
“Because…because…” Because she just wanted to marry Vincent and get it over with. “I don’t want Dylan to know he makes me uncomfortable.”
“Or you don’t want to chance Vincent discovering that you once had a relationship with his lawyer?” Her mother had found the core of the problem, as Alexis had known she would.
“That sounds so much worse than it is. Truly, this is no big deal and I don’t want it to become a big deal. But if I don’t mention it and Vincent already knows or finds out, then he’ll think I’m hiding something. If I do make a point of telling him about Dylan and me, then I’m drawing unnecessary attention to it, especially if he didn’t already know. And I don’t know if Dylan has told him or not. And I can’t ask Dylan because then he’ll think I care whether or not Vincent knows and then Dylan will think he has something over me. A bargaining chip maybe. Which is stupid because whether or not I was once in love with him is not important. But Vincent might think it is.” She stopped and drew a deep breath. “My head hurts.”
“Poor baby.”
“Oh, Mom. What’ll I do?”
“Okay. I suggest you treat Dylan the way you’d treat any other former classmate, male or female. You smile, make casual chitchat, go over your pre-nup and send him on his way.”
Smile. Chitchat. Pre-nup. Dylan leaves. Okay. She could do that. “But what if he says something?”
“If he actually has the poor taste to bring up your past personal relationship in front of the man who is his client and your fiancé, you smile, casually acknowledge it, express regret that you’ve lost track of each other and that you don’t have more time to catch up now, then leave.”
Casual. Leave. This could work. She especially liked the leaving scenarios. “Thanks, Mom.”
“Alexis?”
“Yeah?”
“A shot of tequila afterward wouldn’t hurt.”
“AND ON THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY of the marriage ceremony, if no petition for dissolution has been filed, Alexis O’Hara shall be entitled to receive from the Individual Property of Vincent Cathardy, the sum of one hundred thousand dollars plus the salary she would expect to earn if she is not employed. Said salary will be computed according to the formulas in attachment A. On the second anniversary of the marriage ceremony, if no petition for dissolution has been filed, Ms. O’Hara shall be entitled to receive from the Individual Property of Vincent Cathardy, the sum of two hundred thousand dollars plus the salary she would expect to earn if she is not employed. On the third anniversary…”
And so on and so on. It was a humdinger of a pre-nup, but then Dylan Greene had always thought Alexis O’Hara was a humdinger of a woman.
Not that he’d had any recent firsthand experience of her humdingerness, but if memory served…
However, memory shouldn’t be serving anything right now. Dylan should concentrate on the clauses he was reading. Alexis and her lawyer would be. Vincent would be, too, though he’d written most of the contract himself. Go figure.
Dylan needed to remain sharp. Yeah, he was good and had a reputation as the go-to guy in family law and, if pressed, would admit that the reputation was deserved. After all, he’d successfully faced-off against big-shot lawyer Vincent in a number of pre-nup cases. All things considered, he’d been flattered, enormously flattered—all right, make that totally stunned—when Vincent Cathardy had retained him to negotiate the prenuptial agreement prior to the man’s own forthcoming marriage.
Vincent, senior partner in Swinehart, Cathardy and Steele, was a legend. His name was spoken in hushed tones. A lawyer going up against Vincent Cathardy could expect to receive at least half-a-dozen bottles of sympathy Scotch. Since Vincent Cathardy was a corporate lawyer and Dylan’s firm specialized in family law, Vincent wasn’t a regular opponent. When he was, the case usually involved family businesses and disputed inheritances or, of course, divorces. High-profile divorces. Expensive divorces.
Dylan wasn’t much of a drinker and he thought he probably had maybe four bottles left from the last time he’d faced Vincent Cathardy. Anyway, he kept waiting to discover the catch. He and Vincent didn’t move in the same legal—or social—circles. So why had Vincent hired him?
And then he’d caught the name of the bride on the papers. Alexis O’Hara. Alexis. Brilliant and ambitious Alexis.
She was working on a pretty good legend, herself, being Vincent’s right-hand man, or woman, as it were. Had she suggested Dylan? Nah. Not judging by the pinched look on her face when she’d walked into the lobby.
He hadn’t prepared himself for his first sight of her because he didn’t think he needed to. He’d been wrong, as his body quickly informed him. His heart had kicked up a notch—several notches—his blood had warmed and things had definitely stirred in the southern regions. Just like that. Seven years since he’d seen her and just like that his every nerve was attuned to her. He’d barely stopped himself from sweeping her into his arms and kissing her with a pent-up passion that would have left no doubt as to their former relationship. But he had stopped himself and returned Alexis’s cool, polite smile with one of his own.
Vincent had been standing there, of course, and Vincent was the sort of man who would have made it his business to learn that Dylan and Alexis were once involved. But that was law school, Dylan reminded himself. Puppy love. Over long ago. A fond memory, very fond as his reaction just told him, but nothing more. Certainly no threat to the big guy.
No, the reason Vincent had hired him was more likely Dylan’s record when they’d gone head-to-head. That must be it. The man respected him. Figured he was one of the best.
