“Only because your daughter is a class act.”

“Quit defending her. She fired you.”

“She needed to fire me. And the two of you haven’t been able to stop smiling at each other all evening, so don’t bother playing the tough guy.”

“We talked. That’s all.” He pointed to the corner of his mouth, indicating she had something on her face. Embarrassed, she snatched up her napkin, but she didn’t get the right spot, and he ended up dabbing at her with his own.

She grabbed her water glass when he was done. “It must have been a great talk.”

“It was. Remind me to tell you about it the next time I’m drunk.”

“I can’t imagine you ever getting drunk. You’re too self-disciplined.”

“It’s been known to happen.”

“When?”

She expected him to brush her off, but he didn’t. “When my wife died. Every night after Georgie fell asleep.”

This was a Paul York she’d only just begun to know. She gazed at him for a long moment. “What was your wife like? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

He set down his fork. “She was amazing. Brilliant. Funny. Sweet. I didn’t deserve her.”

“She must have thought differently, or she wouldn’t have married you.”

He looked slightly taken aback, as if he’d gotten so used to regarding himself as a second-class citizen in his marriage that he couldn’t comprehend it any other way. “She was barely twenty-five when she died,” he said. “A kid.”

She rolled her pearls between her fingers. “And you’re still in love with her.”

“Not in the way you mean.” He toyed with the spun sugar miniature of the Scofield mansion resting above his plate. “I guess the twenty-five-year-old inside me always will be, but that was a long time ago. She lived in her head a lot. I was as likely to find the car keys in the refrigerator as in her purse. She didn’t care anything about her appearance. It drove me crazy. She was always losing buttons or ripping things…”

Gooseflesh crept along the base of her spine. “It’s hard to imagine you with anyone like that. The women you date are all so elegant.”

He shrugged. “Life is messy. I look for order wherever I can find it.”

She pleated her napkin in her lap. “But you haven’t fallen in love with any of them.”

“How do you know? Maybe I fell in love and got rejected.”

“Unlikely. You’re the grand prize in the ex-wives sweepstakes. Stable, intelligent, and great-looking.”

“I was too busy managing Georgie’s career to remarry.”

She heard his leftover self-rebuke. “You did a good job with her for a lot of years,” she said. “I’ve heard the stories. As a kid, Georgie couldn’t resist either a microphone or a pair of dancing shoes. Stop beating yourself up about it.”

“She loved to perform. She’d climb up on tables to dance if I wasn’t watching.” His expression clouded over again. “But still, I should never have pushed her so much. Her mother would have hated that.”

“Hey, it’s easy to criticize when you’re standing on the celestial sidelines watching somebody else do the heavy lifting.”

She’d had the audacity to make light of his sainted wife, and his expression grew still and cold. In the old days, she’d have fallen all over herself trying to make up for it, but she didn’t feel the urge, even as his frown grew more pronounced. Instead, she leaned closer and whispered, “Get over it.”

His head snapped up, and his killer glare turned his eyes into bullets.

She met his gaze straight on. “It’s time.”

Withdrawal was Paul York’s weapon of choice, and she waited for him to turn away, but he didn’t. The ice melted from his eyes. “Interesting. Georgie said the same thing.”

He retrieved the napkin Laura had dropped and gave her a long look that melted her bones.

Chapter 23

At first Chaz noticed the waiter because he was really cute and he didn’t look like an actor. Too short, but with a nice body and a dark, burr haircut. As he passed the hors d’oeuvres trays, he kept stealing glances at everybody, a little sneaky, but she was doing the same thing, so she didn’t think much about it. Then she noticed the awkward way he kept turning his body.

When she finally figured out what he was doing, she was totally pissed. She waited until the meal was nearly done before she excused herself and slipped into the service hallway, where she found him arranging dishes on a metal cart. As she came up next to him, he took in her halo with a cocky grin. “Hey, angel. What can I do for you?”

She glanced at his name tag. “You can hand over your camera, Marcus.”

His cockiness faded. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You have a hidden camera.”

“You’re crazy.”

She tried to remember where television investigative reporters hid their cameras.

“I know who you are,” the waiter said. “You work for Bram and Georgie. How much do they pay you?”

“More than you’re getting.” Marcus wasn’t tall, but he looked like he worked out, and it belatedly occurred to her that maybe she should have gotten someone from security to handle this. But there were people around, and it seemed better to keep it quiet. “You can either give me the camera, Marcus, or I’ll have somebody take it off you.”

She must have sounded like she meant it because he looked uneasy. The fact that she could intimidate him, even a little, made her feel good.

“It’s no skin off your nose,” he said.

“You’re only trying to make a living. Yeah, I understand. And once you hand it over, I’ll forget about it.”

“Don’t be a bitch.”

She moved quickly, reaching for the top button on his vest, the one that didn’t quite match the others. The button came off in her hand, and as she pulled it free, she met resistance from a thin piece of cable.

“Hey!”

With a jerk, she yanked it free. “No cameras allowed. Didn’t you get the message?”

“What do you care? You got any idea what the photo agencies pay for shit like this?”

“Not enough.”

He’d turned red, but he couldn’t wrestle the camera from her without everyone seeing. She started to walk away only to have him come up behind her. “You could sell your story, you know. About working for them. I’ll bet you could get at least a hundred grand. Give me my camera back, and I’ll put you in touch with this guy. He’ll handle the whole thing for you.”

A hundred thousand dollars…

“You wouldn’t even have to say anything bad about them.”

She didn’t answer. She just walked away.

A hundred thousand dollars…

A funny video montage of Skip and Scooter clips played after dinner. Shortly before the cake-cutting ceremony, Dirk Duke appeared with a microphone. He was the most popular DJ in town-real name Adam Levenstein-and Poppy had hired him to spin music for dancing, which wasn’t scheduled to begin for another half hour. Dirk was short, with a bullet-shaped head, tattooed neck, and Ivy League education he did his best to hide. Tonight he wore a badly fitted tuxedo instead of his customary jeans. “Yo, everybody! This is a great party! Let’s give it up for Georgie and Bram.”

The audience dutifully gave it up.

“All you Skip and Scooter fans. Seeing Bram and Georgie married is great, right?”

Applause and a couple of whistles, one of them from Meg.

“We’re here to celebrate a marriage that happened two months ago. A marriage none of us was important enough to be invited to.”

Laughter.

“And tonight…We’re going to do something about that…”

Four waiters appeared bearing an arched bridal bower draped in white tulle caught up with blue hydrangeas. Poppy trailed behind in a floor-length black dress, her face smug with anticipation.

Georgie poked Bram with her elbow. “I think Poppy’s just unveiled her surprise. The one you told her to go ahead with.”

Bram grimaced. “You should have hit me over the head. I don’t like this.”

Georgie liked it even less as she watched the waiters position the bower at the front of the ballroom. Bram swore under his breath. “That woman is officially fired.”

“As an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church”-Dirk paused for dramatic effect-“it is my honor”-another pause-“to ask our bride and groom to step forward and”-raised voice-“repeat their vows in front of all of us!”

The guests were eating this up. Even her father. Poppy’s glossy, inflated lips formed a triumphant smile. A muscle ticked in the corner of Bram’s jaw. Poppy had no right to stage something this personal without consulting them.

Bram clenched his teeth and rose. “Put on your game face.”

Georgie told herself it didn’t mater. What was one more public performance after so many? Her crystal gown rustled as she stood.

Dirk elongated his vowels like a game-show host. “Dad. Come up and join them. Mr. Paul York, everybody! Bram, choose your best man.”

“He chooses me.” Trev shot up, and the guests laughed.

Georgie felt as though she were suffocating.

“Georgie, who’s your maid of honor going to be?”

She looked at Sasha, at Meg and April, and thought how lucky she was to have these wonderful women as her best friends. Then she cocked her head. “Laura.”

Laura’s face registered shock, and she nearly tipped over her chair as she got up.

They assembled at the bridal bower. Her father, Trev, Laura, and the reluctant bride and groom.

Dirk thoughtfully turned his back to the room so that Bram and Georgie were facing their guests, then he cupped his hand over the microphone. “Is everybody ready?”

She and Bram gazed at each other, and a moment of perfect, un-spoken communication passed between them. He lifted an eyebrow. She told him with her eyes exactly what she thought. He smiled, squeezed her hand, and pulled the microphone away from Dirk.