Chapter Twelve
ALICE
Lacey radiated smug happiness cut only by the triumphant glance she sent in my direction.
I stumbled, catching myself before I could do a header into the polished hardwood floor. It didn't take me long to put the pieces together. Lacey had ordered Cooper a date.
Seriously?
Cooper was thirty-eight years old. He didn't need his mother to set him up.
The woman on his arm was tall and gorgeous and blonde. Taking in the sparkle of diamonds at her ears, neck, and wrists, I could guess she was a member of the club like the Sinclairs. Exactly the kind of woman his mother would choose for him.
Catching the faint apology in Cooper's eyes as they met mine, the sight of the blonde princess holding onto his arm cut a hole in my heart.
This was who he’d leave me for. Maybe not her exactly, but someone like her. Glamorous and wealthy, with the right pedigree.
Someone who was someone.
Not a divorced office manager from a normal middle-class family. I sipped at my champagne and tried to disappear into a potted palm on the side of the room, wondering if I’d need an excuse to leave early.
There would be no sneaking away for stolen kisses tonight. Not when Cooper already had a date. The dress and the black lace underwear felt stupid.
I wasn’t Cooper's girlfriend.
He was my boss.
My boss and my temporary hookup. That was it.
The blonde glued to Cooper’s side offered him an hors d'oeuvre from a plate, her fingertips brushing his lips as she fed it to him.
I felt his eyes on me and studiously avoided them, examining the guests of honor across the room, hoping for their sake the receiving line would end soon. Evers looked like he was about to snap. Summer was miserable beneath her polite smile.
Lacey Sinclair was a fucking bitch.
An arm slid around my shoulders, a familiar voice in my ear. “Smile at me like I'm Cooper and kiss me on the cheek. It'll drive Lacey bat-shit crazy.”
I glanced up to see Griffen looking down at me with a spark of mischief in his eye. Like me, he wasn’t a fan of Lacey Sinclair. He’d spent too many years watching her make his best friends miserable.
Feeling Lacey's eyes on us, I gave Griffen my most radiant smile and kissed him on the cheek. He turned his face, bringing us so close our lips almost touched.
Devastating in a dark suit, his sandy blond hair cut short to reveal perfect bone structure, Griffen’s sea-green eyes were filled with mischief.
“Nice job. Try not to look so miserable, and we might pull this off.”
“What are you doing? I thought you were coordinating security.”
Griffen led me away from the bar, taking a position by the French doors to the gardens, still on the side of the room but far more visible than I would have liked. Lacey's triumph had melted into confused anger.
A flick of my eyes to the man standing beside her and I saw that Cooper wasn't confused, he was furious. His eyes were arctic, the vein in his temple pulsing red.
Answering my question, Griffen said, “I delegated. There's not much to manage now that all the guests are here. And I'm not leaving you alone while Cooper has that harpy on his arm.”
Griffen wasn't talking about Lacey, he meant the woman feeding Cooper another hors d'oeuvre. What was her deal? He wasn’t a toddler. He could feed himself.
Don't be a bitch, I chided myself. “Just because Lacey set this up doesn't mean she's a harpy.”
“I know Heather Spencer, and she is a harpy. She's been engaged three times. She's holding out for the big score.”
Not knowing why I was defending the woman who was currently hanging all over my not-actually-a-boyfriend, I argued, “Charlie Winters was engaged three times.”
Griffen just laughed, snagging another glass of champagne off the tray of a passing waiter and shoving it in my hand, taking my empty one.
When did I finish my champagne?
“Charlie dumped three gold-digging assholes. Not the same thing. Heather traded up each time. Cooper is exactly what she’s looking for.”
“Why would Lacey do that to him? Doesn't she want him to be happy?” The moment the words left my mouth I heard my own foolishness. Lacey hadn't given Cooper’s happiness a single thought.
If she thought about her children’s happiness she never would have ruined Evers and Summer's engagement celebration this way.
If she thought about their happiness she wouldn't have done a lot of things.
The strains of music began, couples drifting to the dance floor. Cooper’s date tried to tug him in that direction, but he was unmovable.
Griffen smirked. “Want to dance?”
I sucked back a slug of champagne and tried not to sigh. “No. I want to go home,” I said, honestly. “I think I’ll just call for a ride and—”
“No fucking way,” Griffen said, his arm tightening around me. “You two are being dumbasses, you know that?”
“Can we not talk about this?”
“Nope. If you don’t want to talk, you can listen. This is stupid. You're both adults.”
“Exactly.” I emptied my champagne and shoved the glass in Griffen's hand, aggravated that he was butting into something that was none of his damn business. “We're adults, and what we do outside work is nobody else's business.”
“You're outside of work right now. So why are you over here with me while he has Heather Spencer on his arm? It’s a fucking waste of that dress, for one thing.”
My righteous indignation deflated. It was a waste of this dress. I should have saved it for something else.
For what? It's not like Cooper was ever going to take me to a party. The champagne turned sour in my stomach. “I don't want work to get weird when this whole thing fizzles out.”
“What makes you think it's going to fizzle out?”
I leaned back and stared up at Griffen, uncomprehending. He had an equally disbelieving expression on his face.
“Griffen. Don't be an idiot. Look at her,” I tilted my chin in Cooper and Heather's direction, “and then look at me. There's a reason he's at the party with her and not me.”
“Yeah, because his mother is a raging bitch. And I'm not the one who's an idiot.”
“Are you calling me an idiot?” I demanded, champagne bubbling through my brain, muddling the emotions swirling through me until I couldn't tell if I was mad, or depressed, or indignant.
I was something, and it wasn’t happy. Griffen shoved a mushroom tart in my mouth to shut me up.
“I call it how I see it, kid. You two are dumbasses. Life is short. You're wasting it playing a stupid, fucking game.”
I chewed as fast as I could, swallowing so I could fire off the uninspired retort of, “It's not a game.”
“Exactly my point,” Griffen agreed. He slid another glass in my hand and tightened his arm around me. “Heads up. Incoming.”
I sipped to wash down the remains of the mushroom tart. I was drinking too much, and I didn’t really care. When I looked up, Cooper loomed over us, his mother and his date nowhere in sight.
“What the fuck do you think you're doing?” he growled at Griffen.
“I'm Alice’s date,” he said, easily. “I'm sure you don't mind, considering you have your own.”
The vein in Cooper's temple pulsed harder. I took another sip, murmuring, “Griffen—”, not sure what I was going to say but knowing I had to say something or Cooper was going to hit Griffen and this whole thing would go to hell.
The band struck up a slow song. Griffen plucked the champagne glass from my fingers and shoved it at Cooper with an amused, “Excuse us.”
He steered me to the dance floor, leaving Cooper glowering after us in frustrated silence.