Accidental Fiancé - Preview #3
“Nice to meet you.” I shook her hand. She was pretty and at least ten years older than the rest of us, with chin-length brown hair and green eyes that crinkled when she smiled. By the depth of those crinkles, she smiled a lot. “Did you two meet in college?”
“You could say that,” she said with a shy smirk.
Tim explained, “Andra was my advisor.”
“He always had a thing for older women,” one of the other guys teased. His nametag read, Will Jones. The second man I didn’t recognize was Lewis Penn. Thank God for nametags.
Andra was unfazed by Will’s teasing. “That works for me. I’ve always liked younger men.”
We had a laugh, and I asked, “So, Tim, what are you doing these days?”
“Not much.”
“Not much?” Andra asked, astounded at his answer. She beamed. “He’s the lead researcher on a project that could end world hunger.”
“Oh?”
He shook his head, smiling at her. “She’s overstating it. We’re manipulating the genetic code in certain grains to be able to withstand drought, flood, and high wind conditions to help them survive climate change in order to maintain production while we get our weather back under control.”
Lewis tapped Tim on his chest with the back of his hand. “Sounds like ending world hunger to me, man.”
“See?” Andra insisted, still grinning at her husband.
“What about you, Lewis?” I asked.
He smiled. “Don’t follow sports, do you?”
“Not really. Are you an athlete?” He looked like he wouldn’t qualify for a bowling league, but what did I know? I wasn’t much of a sports fan outside of high school.
“Nah, I’m an announcer for ESPN.”
“That’s huge! Congratulations!”
He shrugged. “It’s not ending world hunger but it’s a fun living.”
Andra asked, “And Will, what about you?”
“I’m a vet.”
“Thank you for your service.”
“Sorry, veterinarian. No thanks needed.”
She giggled, then whispered into Tim’s ear, turning his cheeks pink. He’d always been too innocent for his own good. I was glad to see he was with someone who clearly appreciated that about him.
He cleared his throat. “Uh, I think I need to take her dancing. Gentlemen, excuse us.” He took her hand and led her to the dance floor.
“They make a good couple,” I noted. “How come no one asked what I do?”
Will and Lewis exchanged a glance and laughed. Will asked, “Are you kidding?”
“Everyone knows what you do,” Lewis added.
“We didn’t think you’d be able to come here and make time for us peasants.”
“Why wouldn’t I come here?”
“You run a multi-billion-dollar medical company,” Will said. “I would think that takes up most of your time. Black-Aster is one of the biggest companies in the market, hell, I think you make all of the products in my medicine cabinet.”
“And my shower,” Lewis mumbled.
I shrugged. “Okay, sure. I’m a busy guy, but that isn’t even our best stuff.”
“How’s that?” Will asked.
“Our best products come from our prosthetics and mobility devices. That’s the shit I’m proud of. The products in your bathrooms and medicine cabinets pays the bills for helping to develop all of that, so thanks for keeping us in business.”
“What do you mean?”
“Products for the disabled community have a lot of overhead. R&D, customization, training, materials—all of that is pricy and the backend cost of those products runs high. Since we try to provide them at the lowest cost possible, those costs are offset by the shampoo, the body wash, the boner pills, and everything else we make. The more of that stuff you buy, the cheaper we can make custom prosthetic legs for veterans.”
“I’m a humanitarian and even I didn’t know that,” Lewis joked.
Beyond the crowd I spotted Victor Clyburn. As I started to wave him over, a flash of teal blue caught the corner of my eye before the rest of the package, and I couldn’t look away.
Long, curly brown hair draped down her back, and the dress clung to her round ass.
My breath caught in my chest. I would have known that ass and that hair anywhere.
She pivoted to her left, and there stood Maggie Bryant, stuck in a sea of awful, a forced fake smile on her face.
It wasn’t the kind of smile the others wore.
This one was made out of uncomfortable desperation.
Hell hadn’t frozen over so there was no possible way she had become friends with Chloe Foster, Emma Gonzalez, or Harmony Piedmont, no matter how many years had passed since they used to torment her. There were forgivable things in the world, and then there were the things they had done to Maggie.
She was trapped, and just like in high school, I had to help her. “Excuse me. I see someone I need to catch up with.” I left before they could say a word.
Chapter Three
Maggie
“Emma, Harmony. Hi.” I knew the walls weren’t actually closing in on me, but that did nothing to stop the feeling.
Emma Gonzalez was still one of the prettiest people I’d ever met in person.
Jet black curly hair that sat perfectly at her shoulders the way I wished my curls would.
Whenever my hair was cut short like hers, it just frizzed out instead of laying tame.
A long time ago, I might have asked her for the secret to well-managed curls, but those days were long gone.
When she first came to Rosewood, we were friends for about two weeks.
But then she figured out I was not on the top tier of the social hierarchy when Chloe came around to make fun of my discount store notebook.
Emma and I drifted apart after that, but she was always kinder to me than any of the so-called cool kids.
Not kind enough to stand up for me, but she never piled on like the others did.
Her smile was genuine when she spoke. “Hey, Maggie.”
“Maggie, hi,” Harmony said, brown eyes glowing with malice. “Heard about your little bakery. That’s too bad, honey. I’m sure it would have been a big success.”
All thoughts dried up in my head. My voice went hoarse. “What?”
She shrugged, smirking at Chloe. “No secrets among friends.”
Chloe smiled. “That’s right, Maggie. No secrets. So, was it for the insurance money? You can tell us.”
My head swirled. I wasn’t even sure what she was asking. “I don’t… huh?”
“Well, I mean, come on. Fires don’t start by accident.”
Emma said nothing. She just sipped her champagne and looked uncomfortable.
The fire had been one of the worst days of my life.
All that work. All that hope. The freedom my bakery had offered was gone.
Every drop of my sweat and tears couldn’t put out that raging fire, no matter how hard I tried to stop it.
I stood there, crying with a garden hose, hoping that somehow it would be enough after the extinguishers had been exhausted.
The firefighters said they were lucky to put it out before it spread to the buildings next door. Even now, I could still smell the smoke. Flour had a distinct smell when burning. Kind of flat and sour. Not quite like bread, but almost. These days, burnt toast smells like cremated dreams.
It had only been a few months since I’d lost my bakery, and I had been struggling financially ever since. But I couldn’t tell them that. Why give them more ammunition? I was already the butt of their jokes.
Still, I tried to find my voice again. “Flour is… it’s flammable.
And combustible. When you see flour puffing around a bakery at three in the morning during deliveries, that’s the most vulnerable time.
When the bags are being dragged in it’s almost impossible to keep the flour from leaking out.
It’s too fine. So, it ends up hanging in the air.
And when it’s suspended in the air like that, all it takes is the wrong spark at the wrong moment, and there goes your dreams.”
Chloe’s wild stare darted over my face. “And I’m sure the fat insurance payment made up for that, right?”
“No,” I rasped. “It didn’t.”
She clicked her tongue at me. “You were always so dramatic, Maggie.”
“I need a drink,” I said, starting for the bar.
But she draped her arm around my shoulders, stopping me. “You don’t need any more wrinkles. Stay here. You’ll thank me later. Anyway, I’ve already told you about my selfless volunteering. Emma is also giving back, in her own little way.”
Maybe talking to Emma would take some of the attention off of me. “What are you doing?”
“Teaching English. At RHS, actually.”
“Oh. Um, congratulations.” Great. Just what the school needs. Mean girl teachers.
“I love it. Seeing kids improving their critical thinking skills through literary analysis…” A dreamy look appeared in her eyes, and suddenly the ache in my chest doubled.
I remembered the way professional pride felt, and I missed it so badly that I could have bawled right then and there.
“It’s the best feeling,” she went on. “Shaping young minds, knowing I’m making my mark on the next generation of thinkers?—"
“I’d hardly say you’re shaping minds,” Chloe cut in, chuckling. “You’re a high school English teacher, Emma. Calm down. You’re not curing cancer.”
Emma gave a tight smile to Chloe, and I wondered whether she thought sitting at the popular kids’ table in high school was worth this. As much as I had envied her back in the day, I was grateful for my outcast status. I couldn’t imagine putting up with Chloe by choice as an adult.
Wait. Isn’t that exactly what I’m doing right now? Screw this. What would Nora do? Think. I was done being steamrolled by Chloe, and I hated seeing her do it to anyone else, even if we weren’t friends. “Emma, you look like you could use another glass of champagne.”
“I just got this one?—"
I snatched it from her hand and downed the thing in one shot, before handing it back. “Nope, you need another. Let’s go to the bar.”
She laughed. “Oh. Okay.”
Once I took the lead, Harmony and Chloe followed, Chloe whining about calories and wrinkles the whole time. How had she made it this far in life without someone teaching her to be better? I could never understand that. Maybe her parents tried, or maybe they were worse.