Better Than You (The Walker Family Series Book 3) (19 page)

Despite the slick black tile and modern art pieces bracketing the mirror, the bathroom at Aces was, after all, a bathroom, and it smelled like one. Jo snapped another paper towel from the dispenser and pressed it to her eyes, stiff, furious and shaking in her efforts to stem the unnecessary tears that clouded her vision.

“Jo,” her sister said, “don’t tell me you let those rich bitches actually hurt your feelings.” Even at her most supportive, Jess was too blunt. Jo was long since used to it. “I’m going to be embarrassed for you if you’re upset about the cherry comment.”

“I’m
not,” Jo said with a sniffle, patting at her eyes some more, and was being mostly honest. She could endure all the comments in the world; it was a night bombarded by leering, predatory men and being reminded of what she really wanted, under all her layers of indignation and hurt, that had left her eyes swimming.

Jess’s arm dropped across her shoulders. “Is this about…?”

“Yes,” she groaned. “I don’t mean for it to be, okay? It’s not like I want him back or anything. I’m not that stupid. I just…”

She just couldn’t stop comparing the men who sidled up to their table to him. Coul
dn’t stop envisioning his smile; couldn’t stop hearing his voice right in her ear, all those whispers over the years. The upcoming wedding, the inescapable knowledge that she would have to endure Tam again, was getting to her after all. She could blame it on the beer, but it was her stupid, overly emotional, too-attached little heart that was to blame for the sudden wash of tears.

“It’s okay,” Jess assured, and gave her a squeeze. “Better to get it out of your system now and not in front of him.”

**

The stink of cigar smoke hit Delta full in the face as she let herself into the townhouse later that night.
The boys were having a poker night, and from the sound of clinking glasses, it was coming to an end and someone had been put on dishwashing duty. She stepped out of her heels in the foyer and walked barefoot across the cool hardwood toward the back of the house.

Mike was at the poker table stacking chips and cards with his friend Ryan. “Hey, baby,” he called and she gave him a wave before she slipped into the kitchen. Tam was the one at the sink, up to his elbows in soapy water, washing their whiskey glasses by hand. He snuck a look at her from under the black spikes of his hair, frowned,
then dropped his gaze to the sink again.

Delta didn’t hate Tam, but she couldn’t bring herself to like him either. If anything, the year since Mike’s proposal had only hardened his already bleak opinion of her. They avoided one another at all costs, speaking only when strictly necessary, and Delta met every one of his disapproving, silent snarls with one of her own. It felt like they were two dogs fighting over the same bone, the bone being Mike. She’d heard, more than a few times, some hissed, dark
comment as she’d left the room: Tam wanting Mike to dump her, to ditch her, to move on, or however he chose to phrase it at the moment. Mike kept pacifying her with vague mentions of Tam’s “rough patch” or “shitty life” and so on, but the only thing shitty Delta had ever seen was Tam himself.

After her hellish evening with the Walker sisters, her patience was a thread at best.
Since she hadn’t had a chance to vent her frustrations on Jo, maybe she’d vent them on the next best thing – Mr. I-love-Jo.

She put on a neutral, pleasant expression and stepped around him to get to the fridge. “Did you boys have a nice night?”
she asked, all innocence, as she opened the door and pretended to search for something.

He murmured something in the affirmative as he took a sponge to his next glass a la Mrs.
Doubtfire.

“That’s good.” H
er voice was overly cheery. “We did too. I went out with Mike’s sisters, you know.” She reached for a bottled water and stole a quick glimpse of Tam’s profile. His hands had stilled on the glass and he was watching her with a frozen sort of alarm, blue eyes wide, chest still as he held his breath. The pathetic idiot – he was schoolgirl stuck on nothing-special little Jo. “Jo’s kind of plain,” she continued as she shut the fridge and turned to face him fully, “but she got some attention tonight. I think I could fix her up with someone.”

He let the tumbler go and it bobbed into the soapy water as his hands grabbed the edge of the sink. His head snapped
toward her, jaw clenched tight and, if it was possible, was more aggressive than the night he’d found her with his wallet. Only this time, Mike and the other guys on the other side of the half-wall were incentive to keep his cool.

“If you,” he started through his teeth, and Delta cut him off with a wide smile.

“If I what?” she asked, and spun away from him.

The sweet rush of satisfaction never came, though. That was a mean girl’s game
– the taunting and game-playing – and even if she was a bitch, she wasn’t a mean girl. As she slid into the living room and stepped into Mike’s offered hug, pressed her cheek to the soft front of his shirt and inhaled the laundry detergent and cologne smell of him, she felt a knot settle in the pit of her stomach. It was part guilt for never telling Mike what she knew about his best friend, part resentment of the hatred Tam and Jo felt for her, and part sadness to think that she would stoop so low as to provoke the hopelessly heartbroken.

**

“Was your mission a success?” Mike asked Delta as they were getting ready for bed.

She was standing in his bathroom, barefoot on the mat, flossing in front of the mirror in one of those short, satin nightgowns he still couldn’t believe a
nyone wore outside of catalogs. She might have frowned, but it was hard to tell because her upper lip curled back as she slid the floss between her front teeth.

“No,” she said, and then he knew for sure she was frowning as she dropped her hands. She bared her teeth for one last check, then trashed the floss and opened the medicine cabinet for her toothbrush. “Apparently the night club was a bad idea.”

“I coulda told you that, sweetheart.”

“Yeah, well…” she shrugged and laid a stripe of toothpaste on her brush.

Mike sat down on the edge of the bed and watched her: watched the light limn the silhouette of her legs through the thin satin. “What do you care about hooking Jo up with someone anyway? She’s tried her whole life to
be
a boy, but I don’t think she actually
likes
them,” he snorted.

“Your sister’s not gay,” Delta said with conviction, and took the toothbrush to her molars.

Mike wasn’t even sure he’d thought that, but her single status was starting to be suspect. “Even if she’s not,” he said, “it’s not like she’s doing anything to make herself look straight. Just…don’t waste your time.”

But when Delta spit out her toothpaste, she turned and propped a hip against the counter, fixing him with a look that had long since become familiar. She wanted something, and God knew why, but she wanted to play matchmaker with his little sister.

“Oh, come on,” he protested, “I didn’t even think you could stand her.”

“Did you ever think she might be more tolerable if she was happy?” she asked with lifted brows.
“If she had someone?”

“She’s my sister,” he said and knew he made a sour face, “I don’t really care if she has someone. I don’t like thinking about that, actually.”

“Well…” She lifted one of her feet and rolled her toes on the rug, took a lock of her hair between two fingers and twirled it like she did when she was nervous. Or thinking. Or distracted. Or trying to look cute. Tonight, in this moment, she was thinking, he decided, and there was a little glint in her eyes that belied how casual she was trying to be. “What if it was one of your friends? Someone you liked and trusted? Would any of them be interested in Jo?”

He made another face;
that wasn’t something he’d ever put any thought into. He started to tell her no, but a memory from the poker game before came back to him.
“Is your sister seeing anyone?”
Ryan had asked him and caught him off guard. Ryan, in his loafers and Dockers and big white baseball player smile, hadn’t looked the type to notice Jo. But Mike had shrugged and told him no, that she was as single as ever.

“Actually,” he said, and thought Delta perked up, “Ryan asked about her.”

“Ryan?” Her face fell, brows and lips pulling down at the corners, the sparkle fizzling away in her eyes. “Really? He did?”

“Yeah.
Why? Were you thinking about someone else?”

She turned away from him, but before she did, her lashes lowered over her cheeks and he had the suspicion she was lying to him when she said, “No.
No one else.”

25
.

“O
h my God.” Louise sounded like she might hyperventilate. “Oh my God…oh, Delta. It’s…it’s…” She clenched both hands together under her nose, eyes saucer wide, lips pulled back from her teeth in a clownish smile that was more than a little bit horrifying. “It’s…” She reached for an adjective again, huge eyes riveted on the mirror Delta stood in front of. “It’s
amazing
,” she finally said, shaking her head, highlighted dark locks spilling across her shoulders. “
Aaamaaaaziiing
, Delta.”

Then why
, Delta wanted to know,
did you fight me so hard on it?

The dress
was
amazing, though. A long slender flute of ivory, her Regency dress was cinched beneath her breasts with a belt of emerald ribbon and two ropes of pearls. Gossamer, it floated behind her as she moved, the little cap sleeves and tight, ruched bodice exposing her delicate collarbones and the round, white swells of her breasts above the plunging neckline. The back was open down past the points of her shoulder blades and embroidered with lace. Wanting nothing to do with the strapless ball gowns and mermaid dresses that were all the rage, Delta had been instantly drawn to the throwback she now wore. It was elegant and feminine and totally unexpected. If her mother was insisting on an English-named castle in Ireland, there was no more perfect a dress in existence.

Louise hadn’t thought so, though. Six months before, when the dress had been purchased, Louise had come into Delta’s dressing room dragging along six
poofy, opulent, taffeta nightmares that had screamed:
I’m trying too hard to look rich
. No offense to Cinderella, but Delta hadn’t wanted to look like her. Telling her mom as much had resulted in an argument that had left Delta in tears and Louise in the throes of a screaming tirade in the bridal shop.

Somehow, magically, during the final fitting, Louise thought the dress was
amazing
with too many vowels, and it was at least one small relief to Delta as she turned and scrutinized her reflection. The hem was a hairsbreadth too long, but in her wedding heels, would be just right. She nodded and presented her back to the seamstress so she could be untied, then stepped out of the dress.

Of course her mother decided to jump on her while she was standing in front of a three-way mirror in just her panties.

“Delta, dear,” Louise said in a tone that Delta had long since learned to be wary of. It was light and seemingly innocent, but there was a dark undercurrent to it, down beneath the shiny surface if you strained your ears and knew what to listen for. “I’ve just remembered something I forgot to tell you.”

Delta went rigid, fingers curling tight on the bra in her hand. “You did?”

“Yes.” Louise gave her an offhand wave and glanced into the mirror, two tiny frown lines marring her Botox-riddled forehead. “What’s that bruise on the back of your thigh? Oh – ” Knowledge dawned with a wicked smile. “The boy does have big hands…”

“Mom,” Delta cut her off and fitted the cups of her bra over her breasts, reaching behind her to fasten the clip, “you were saying?” She reached for her white linen crops.

“Right, right.” She sniffed. “Our arrangements at Billingsly are a week earlier than I originally told you.”

Delta fel
t her heart come to a complete stop before it lurched into an uneven rhythm. “
What
? The wedding’s been moved up? Mom, the invitations – ”

Louise cut her off with a wave. “Not the wedding.
The reservations. I forgot to tell you,” she said like it was nothing, like it had no bearing whatsoever on anyone’s plans, “that I thought it would be nice to spend a week at the castle before the wedding. All of us. It’ll give us more opportunities to take pictures and, well, I’ve been wanting to go back and your father won’t take me.” She shrugged. “So we’re all going.”

“And by all
” - Delta felt her temper starting to rise as she stepped into her crops - “just who do you mean?”

“You, me, us.
Michael and his family. The wedding party – all the girls and boys.” She gave another shrug. “It should be fun.”

“Fun?”
Delta asked, heart still beating unevenly. Anger was bubbling in her veins; as usual, her mother thought of nothing but her own amusement. The wedding invitations had gone out two months prior and doubtless flight arrangements had already been made, vacation time already asked for. Dennis had secured the rooms at Billingsly, but still, Delta could think that this new twist would only inconvenience everyone involved. “No one planned on an extra week.”
I’m not sure I can stand them all an extra week
, she thought. Trapped in a castle with all her idiotic friends and Mike’s bizarre, jealous family, to say nothing of his best friend, sounded like pure torture.

“You can go early, but I’m not asking anyone else to
inconvenience themselves,” Delta said, and reached for her shirt where it was folded over the back of a chair.

Her mom’s dark eyes cut up at her, hard and black as obsidian in a moment of rare show-through; sometimes, the harpy inside clawed and shredded the pretty outer shell until she was something fierce and monstrous, terrible to behold. This was one of those times. Her lips compress
ed, her nostrils flared. “Delta.” She made the name sound like it belonged to something sticky she’d found in the bottom of her purse, “I have only one daughter. Which means I get to have only one wedding. You
will not
rob me of that. Do you know how many girls would kill to have your father’s money in this situation? Hmm?”

Delta did know, but it didn’t make her any more thankful.

“I don’t give a damn about being
inconvenient
,” Louise said, voice all ice.

Delta paused with one arm thrust through the sleeve of her shirt, a cold tingle rippling up her spine.

“It’s taken you twenty-six years to finally settle your ass down with someone and I’m going to enjoy it. You can’t give me one extra week?” Her eyes flashed, daring a retort. “You shame and humiliate our family and now you want to fight me over
five extra days
?”

It was never going to stop hurting: having that particular sin flung back in her face. Dennis
used it as an educational tool: the heartbroken father wanting her to keep her legs closed from now on. But Louise used it as a weapon; she waited until Delta was vulnerable, threw out the barb to cripple her, then applied leverage until she had what she wanted secure in her claws. It bordered on evil. And because Delta – still haunted by guilt and some sense of parental deference that was long-since dead in the lower social orders – could only fight her fights for so long, she bowed her head and did up the buttons on her light poplin shirt. “Fine, Mom,” she said. “It’s only five extra days.”

But it wasn’t just five extra days. It was about five thousand too many straws on the camel’s back.

**

“Michael.
Afternoon.”

It was a good thing Dennis hadn’t said
good
, because this sudden visit from Delta’s father wasn’t improving his afternoon. Mike shoved up from his desk, ran a reflexive hand down his tie and reached to accept Dennis’s shake with the other, silently wondering how the man had gotten past lobby security and this floor’s secretary without him being alerted that he had a visitor. He was eating lunch at his desk, looking through his spam email. The napkin across his lap floated down to the floor when he stood, and with a fast glance, he saw it hadn’t been protecting his pants from crumbs anyway.

“Mr. Brooks,” he said and hoped his voice wasn’t too shocked. “I didn’t expect you.”

“Why would you?” Dennis was in another perfectly tailored suit – in the year he’d been with Delta, Mike had never seen the man wear the same thing twice – and the way he flashed his cuff links as he settled into one of the two chairs across from the desk seemed deliberate. He swept a hand back along the slicked silver wings of his hair and cast an assessing glance around the office.

It was an interior office, without windows, the walls white,
the lights fluorescent. Parrish may have been a money-making firm, but the offices were all standard save those up on the twelfth floor where the CEO reigned. Mike had a pinboard full of Post-Its and reminders, a calendar, two coloring book pages from his nephews, Chase and Logan, and a framed photo of Delta on the corner of his desk that his coworkers had insisted must be something he’d cut out of a magazine because no way did his girlfriend look like
that
. Everything was tidy and clean, but Dennis had his nostrils flared in distaste.

“So…”
Mike drawled as he took his seat again, wanting to get rid of him. He put the lid back on his takeout pasta and slid it over beside the wall. “The party’s still on for tonight, yeah?”
Yeah?
Who was he? Jordan?

“My house looks like the damn Macy’s Parade, so I can only assume,” he said. “But I wanted to talk to you about real estate.”

“Real estate?” Mike echoed stupidly.

Dennis propped his elbows on the arms of the chair and made a steeple with his fingers; it was so cliché a move Mike would have laughed if he hadn’t been afraid to. “I take it you and Delta
have talked about a detached house now that you’re marrying?”

Mike shifted in his chair. “We’ve talked about it. T
he market’s bad right now, so – ”

Dennis cut him off with a lift of his index finger. “The market’s immaterial. If the two of you want a house, I can make it happen.”

Of course he could. He could tell the sun not to come up tomorrow.

“We haven’t looked at anything yet,” Mike said, and felt his expression hardening. “She gave her notice on the apartment, so we’re going to stay in the townhouse until we find a place.”

“You’re going to move her into your bachelor pad? Trust me, son, that won’t go well. You need a place that’s both of yours, not just
yours
.”

Apparently, he was a relationship coach, too.

“And how would you ‘make that happen’?” Mike asked, and couldn’t keep the tension out of his voice.

Dennis gave him a knowing look. “That townhouse of yours hasn’t appreciated in the last four years. You’re under water with it.” Not a question. “Let me buy it – I’ll rent it out; the rental market’s great at the moment. And you and Delta can move on.”

It sounded like the perfect plan. Simple. Only it would indebt Mike to his father-in-law indefinitely. It was the sort of “favor” that wasn’t a favor at all, that would come back to bite him in the ass. He might have been a big jackass, but he wasn’t so stupid to think that he could let the man do such a kindness for him and not have it held over his head every day for the rest of his life. Delta’s abortion was a ghost her family wouldn’t exorcise, and the townhouse would be too.

“No, thanks,” Mike said, and forced a smile.

Dennis lifted his brows. “No, thanks?”

“Yeah.”
Mike felt his grin widen, become a little more true; the surprise on Dennis’s face was a sweet thing. “I don’t need the help.”

Dennis grinned back in a sinister way. “Michael, I’m not the sort of man who makes offers l
ike this twice. If you say no – ”

“No.”

His graying brows lifted, and then he pushed to his feet. “Very well, then.” Mike had closed the door, forever. “I’ll see you this evening.”

“Yeah.
See ya.”

“Change your tie,” Dennis said over his shoulder as he turned for the door. “There’s marinara on it.”

**

“You told him what?” Delta asked into the phone as she held it between her cheek and shoulder. Regina was holding up two pairs of strappy sandals and Delta motioned to the silver ones on the right; Regina nodded and set them at her feet, then went back to the closet.

“That I didn’t want his help,” Mike repeated. He sounded so proud of himself, or, at least, he had before her last question. “I mean, we don’t, right?”

“Mikey,” she groaned, the nickname his family used coming out of her before she could even register it. She blinked, shook her head. “You don’t tell my father ‘no’ about anything. It just isn’t done!”

Regina, on her knees in the back of the closet, searching for a pair of shoes she could borrow, looked around, her overdramatic shocked expression almost pulling a smile out of Delta.

He sighed on the other end of the line. “Sweetheart, he twists your arm all the time. I don’t want him to be able to twist mine. We don’t
need
his help with a house.”

“But if he offered
– ”

“Don’t tell me he was right – you can’t stand my ‘bachelor pad’?”

It truly was a bachelor pad, all his leather and chrome and glass and gray satin sheets. It wasn’t hideous, but it was nothing of her décor taste, and it wasn’t the sort of place to raise a family.