Chapter 13
Austin
String lights hung around the towering, exposed beams at the charming restaurant and wine bar a block over from the hotel.
It had an entire cellar below and was known for being the place where every renowned sommelier chose their favorite vintages.
I waited for Isa at the bar.
After having to take care of something for Selena, Isa told me she wanted to get a glass of wine from the cellar. On her way
back, I watched her stop to talk to everyone within eyeshot. And while that was fine—I wouldn’t have minded enjoying the soft
French jazz at the bar by myself—I was cornered by the mother of the groom, who proceeded to ask me a slew of pretty personal
questions without much thought.
Once the older woman left, I turned my glass of whiskey and took a long sip. Eventually, the familiar lavender scent of Isa’s
perfume neared. I glanced up to my side. “Were you making the wine?”
The soft light skimmed over the silky green fabric of her dress. It clung to the gentle curves on her chest, the swell and fall around her hips, ending just above her knees. The hypnotic swish of her skirt with each switch of her hips was broken when she stood next to me at the bar.
“I wasn’t gone that long.”
“Twenty-seven minutes.” I blinked away the stare.
“Oh no.” Isa cocked her head to the side. “Did you have to make small talk?”
“I did, actually.” And I’d never had to lie so many times in a row.
“Well, I promise it was for a good cause.” She gave me a cheeky smile and patted my chest patronizingly. “Selena’s soon-to-be
brother-in-law, Xander Sutton, runs a capital firm. I set you two up on a playdate.”
“Playdate?” I grimaced.
“Sorry, man date,” Isa clarified. “He played soccer in college. Since this group is a captive audience for a while, he and some of the
other guests are going to play a friendly game. I told him you’d love to come. Let him win and . . . you know, be nice.” She
flicked her hand in the air. “The foundation will be set in no time.”
Ignoring that I felt a little bit like Joseen in that moment, I smiled. It was progress and we’d only been here a few hours.
“Well, I guess I should hold up my end.” I took another sip of the whiskey I’d been nursing while waiting on Isa to return.
“Where’s the idiot that fumbled Dr. Isabelle Mercado?”
“Not here yet.” She tapped her fingers on the polished wood. “But, in the meantime, we have a tiny assignment from the bride.”
I lifted an eyebrow.
“That guy over there is Malcolm Parks, the Voulez reporter,” Isa explained. “I need to keep him entertained and make sure he’s playing by the rules. And since you might want
to practice some of those social skills, why not do both at once?”
At a small iron-framed table in the corner, Malcolm sipped a glass of red wine, watching his surroundings like a bird perched
over a building. His curly brown hair was slicked back a bit, exposing rounded, wire-rimmed glasses. He looked down at his
notepad, scribbled some notes, then went back to people watching.
“Yeah . . .” Now I definitely felt like I was Joseen being set up on playdates. “Jesse mentioned he’d be here.”
Jesse also said talking to him might be the perfect way to create—what he called—organic interest. Whatever the hell that
meant. All I knew was I had to be interesting and strike up conversation. It was easier said than done, but luckily Isa was
with me.
I was sure she had memorized the perfect encyclopedia for the occasion.
“Great.” Isa put her drink on the bar. “Also, why did Beatrice Amari tell me that four children was the perfect number?”
“She cornered me, asked me a million questions, and honestly, it’s your fault.” That woman had lured me in with her kind,
motherly smile, but her crisp British accent sounded like the Queen’s, and she asked me questions with the speed of an Interpol
agent.
“My fault?”
“You didn’t tell me I’d be interrogated.”
“What is so hard about saying, I’m not sure?”
“If I was good at thinking on my feet, I wouldn’t need you to help me with the foundation,” I reminded her. I didn’t have
an easy grace with everyone like she did. That’s why being here was great, but I still sort of needed her to be the charming
know-it-all she was at the auction. “Besides, you want us to seem committed and deliriously happy, right?”
“So you thought the best way to show that was turning me into a human gumball machine?”
“Pretend human gumball machine.”
Her lips stayed in a tight line across her face, but the corners tipped up rebelliously. “No more kid talk.”
“I’m sure little David, Marta, Christian, and Alex will understand.”
Isa choked on her drink, her brow crinkled. “You named them?”
“She kept looking at me.”
“And you happened to have names at the ready?” she said in hushed tone.
“Why does it matter?” I whisper-shouted back. “They’re make-believe.”
She straightened. “Who said I even want kids?”
“I had a quarter second to give that woman an answer. You’re lucky I stopped at four.”
“Well, get a handle on your biological clock, Cade. We need to keep Malcolm Parks busy, not create a fictional family.”
“Right,” I conceded.
“Talk about the foundation,” she suggested, hearing the unsure dip in my voice. “Or sports, or, I dunno, anything. Anything else except children.”
“You sure?” That stupid flutter moved through my chest again. “One more and we have a band. Few more and we have a starting
lineup.”
The back of her hand smacked against my chest again. I moved my head in the direction of the reporter, who was gesturing for
us to join him on the other side of the restaurant.
“You know, they aren’t the kinds of bones I work with,” Isa warned. “But keep talking and I’ll fix you myself.”
She closed an eye and drew a few smooth curves in the air with her finger. I raised an eyebrow.
I had a feeling she was used to getting the last word. And I was curious as hell as to what happened when someone else did.
“I dunno.” I leaned in, feeling a surge of that something from earlier. Confidence, nerves, excitement. “I have a feeling you’d change your mind if you got your hands on it.”
She stopped, her eyes snapped up to mine—wide—and her mouth hung open just slightly, staying like that for another few seconds,
at a complete loss for words.
Shit. Maybe I read that whole thing wrong. “Sor—”
“Well played, but offsides,” she warned seriously. But the smile and tiny laugh that floated over each syllable made me believe
it landed how I’d intended it to.
Whatever else she planned to say was cut off when we arrived at Malcolm’s table, and Isa pointed to the empty seats. “These
seats taken?”
He motioned for her to take a seat.
We settled in and Isa quickly dominated the conversation, asking him about what he was doing at the Amari wedding, as if she didn’t already know.
“I have to admit, I’m a fan your work,” Isa said. “Particularly when they had you on the politics column.”
Of course she’d researched him. I found myself spellbound by how easily she could shift to become an expert in anything.
That turned the conversation to Malcolm’s early reporting days, when he’d dreamed of doing more substantive work. “With all the corporate interests in news media now, fair reporting doesn’t really exist,” he bemoaned.
Isa leaned on her elbows, hands folded on each other as she focused on him like a boxer waiting for the bell.
“Didn’t you write that five-page hatchet job on a singer who happened to be connected to some copyright scandal years ago
that amounted to nothing?” Isa mused. “Was that fair reporting?”
I coughed into my drink.
Admittedly, I wasn’t great with the press, but I had enough media training to know not to antagonize them—not that I always
listened to that advice. But a gut reaction to something ridiculous or inflammatory was a lot different than Isa running up
to a conversation to simply start a fire.
“Offsides,” I whispered into her ear and squeezed her thigh beneath the table. Then lifted my voice in warning. “Honey.”
“It’s fine, truly.” Malcolm pushed his black-rimmed glasses back up the bridge of his nose with an intrigued smile. He leaned
into the table toward Isa, and looked at her like she was a puzzle. One he wanted to figure out. “This evening is more interesting
than I expect this entire wedding to be.”
A tiny curve peaked up at the side of Isa’s mouth.
Malcolm’s eyes shifted between the two of us. “So, how did you two meet?”
Isa tensed.
“Off the record,” Isa demanded. That didn’t help. It looked like she was guilty of something.
The words feathered like flames across the table.
He laughed, putting his hands up. “A society fluff piece is bad enough; I wouldn’t debase myself with tabloid fodder.”
“She was doing research with the team doctor. I happened to see her a lot after my injury.” I ran my hand down her back, surprised
at how easy it felt. Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard.
At least not for me. Isa was a different story. She stiffened.
I gave her a confused look. A hand on her back wasn’t much, and we were doing this for her. Why was she bombing the performance all of a sudden?
“Yeah.” She put her hand on my thigh and scrunched her nose at me unconvincingly. Turning back to Malcolm, she began, “So,
tell me about the state of . . .”
And they were back at it. Malcolm put down his notepad seconds later.
Hours into the night, Isa and I ended up back at the bar at the front of the tasting room.
“Well, Malcolm is dealt with.” She looked over her shoulder at Malcolm, who was essentially passed out in the small corner booth. Isa may not have been overly believable, but her sometimes domineering conversation style drove him straight into too many glasses of Beaujolais. “For tonight anyway.”
“Good thing. I don’t know how much longer he could survive your cross-examination.”
“I was nice,” she defended halfheartedly.
“That was not nice.”
She waved it off. “Reporters haven’t exactly been kind to my best friend. I wanted to see how easy he is to knock down.”
“And the verdict?”