Jilted in January (10 page)

“Give me three seconds to look at the guy and I’ll tell you what’s going on. I can sense these things. I’ll know the minute we walk in if he’s pulling a Bradley on you.”

“Don’t even joke. I can’t go through that again.”

“Trust me, you won’t. It’s different with Grant.”

“And you know this because of the five minutes you’ve spent with the two of us?”

Audrey shrugged beneath teetering boxes. “Yes, I do.”

“Okay. I bow to your supreme awareness of all things. Let’s hurry this stuff inside before the candles crack from the cold.”

A
uniformed waiter let them into the lobby and led them to the main ballroom. Grant didn’t seem to be anywhere around, which troubled Harper even more. He worked every event, so he had to be on hand. The fact that he hadn’t come to say hello didn’t bode well.

She eyed Audrey as they began setting up. “Something’s definitely wrong.”

“Chill. It’s fine. He’s probably busy.”

“Okay. You’re right. The dark blue arrangements go on the round tables, and the white and blue ones go at the head table over there. That table in the back is for the gift baskets
, and that roll of red tickets goes next them. They’ll be raffled off.”

“
Aye-aye.” Audrey got to work placing centerpieces and fluffing bows, fixing blooms, and gently stripping off the occasional bent flower petal.

Meanwhile, Harper paced.
Her heart fluttered. Where was Grant?

When he appeared her stomach dropped
, and the butterflies she’d been battling turned to giant bats. She caught her breath. He looked incredible in a charcoal gray suit and red tie with matching boutonniere. He looked six inches taller than she remembered, and he moved with a sophisticated grace that had her damn close to swooning like a delicate Southern belle.

He didn’t smile when he saw her, but instead crossed the room at a determined pace and took her arm. “Hi, can we talk in my office for a second?”

“Sure…what’s—”

“My office. Let’s go this way.” He steered her toward the back entrance of the ballroom that would lead through to the kitchen. With a curious glance at Audrey, Harper followed Grant, running to keep up with his long strides.

“Do you mind telling me—”

He stopped walking so quickly she almost bumped into him
, and when she peered around his shoulder to see what had halted him in his tracks, she caught Mrs. Moriarty’s dark gaze.

“Oh. There you are,” the Auxiliary Club President said. “May I have a word, Ms. Shaw?”

Ms. Shaw? During their last meeting it had been Harper. Harper glanced up at Grant, whose jaw was so tight it was twitching. Why was he so angry? What had she done? “Of course. Is there a problem, Mrs. Moriarty?”

“Yes
, there is.”

“Mrs. Moriarty,
your guests will be her in less than ten minutes. Is this the time or the place for this discussion?” Grant’s voice was like sandpaper. Clearly the two were at odds.

“I would like her to know how I feel.”

“Grant, what’s going on? Did I miss something?”

“Ms. Shaw, I don’t know if you’re aware, but the Auxiliary Club holds certain standards of behavior for its members and by default for the contractors or organizations
with which it does business.”

Harper just raised a brow and waited for Mrs. Moriarty to start making sense.

“While I understand your personal life is not of public concern, I do feel it necessary to note that in the future our organization won’t be utilizing your services or those of Taverna Fiora, and had it not been for Mr. Addison’s…intervention, we would not be using them tonight.”

“Mrs. Moriarty, I’m completely sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You’ve said your piece, ma’am, now why don’t you go get ready to receive your guests?” Grant wrapped his hand around Harper’s wrist and literally pulled her away from the seemingly irate club president.

Stumbling after him, Harper wasn’t sure whether to laugh at the absurdity of it all or cry. She still had no idea what she’d done to make Mrs. Moriarty and Grant so angry.

Without uttering a word, he led her into his office and slammed the door.

“Do you mind telling me what the hell is going on? What was that out there? She looked at me like I kicked her puppy.”

Grant was fuming. He paced back and forth for a second, breathing deeply. Harper just stared, completely flummoxed. “Sit down,” he said finally.

“No, not until you explain what’s going on. What did I do?”

He took a deep breath, and finally his expression softened. “You didn’t do anything. I was trying to hustle you in here to keep you away from
her
.”

Harper put her hands on her hips. “Why?”

“I got a call from her earlier this week. It seems she’s acquainted with Mrs. Georgia Dawson, and Mrs. Dawson told Mrs. Moriarty some things Mrs. Moriarty found objectionable…about you.”

Harper narrowed her eyes. Her blood began to simmer. “I see.”

“She wanted to cancel the decorations for tonight, but I told her she had two choices. She could drop the decorations from her order, but she still had to pay seventy-five percent of the cost because you’d already prepared a lot of the baskets, or she could act in a professional manner and not let gossip influence her business decisions. She was not happy with my tone, but she saw the merit in not wasting her money.”

Her mind reeling, Harper finally lowered herself into Grant’s office chair. “She said Taverna Fiora wouldn’t be getting her business either. She’s taking this out on you, because Mrs. Dawson told her about us?”

“No, that part doesn’t have anything to do with Brad. Our…discussion got pretty heated after she said she didn’t like your moral character. I said a few things I should probably regret, but I don’t, and she informed me this would be the last Auxiliary Club event held at TF as long as she remained President. She probably would have canceled tonight all together, but there was no way she was getting her deposit back.”

Harper’s shoulders slumped under the
thousand-pound weight he’d just laid on them. Now she was responsible for TF losing business, and it was all because of what people thought. “It’s like the eighteen hundreds. I’m some kind of fallen woman, and now no one wants anything I’ve had my hands on.”

Grant knelt down in front of the chair and took her hands in his. “Mrs. Moriarty is an old fool
, and Mrs. Dawson is…well, my mother told me never to say those words about a lady, but she’s no lady.”

“I’m sorry, Grant. I don’t want to hurt the business. After tonight—”

“No. You do amazing work, and I want your designs for TF. I don’t care what Mrs. Moriarty thinks or what Mrs. Dawson says about you. This whole thing is ridiculous, just because you hurt Brad’s feelings. I actually felt sorry for the guy. Losing a girl like you is something he’s never going to bounce back from, but now…he deserves what he gets if he lets his mother go around bad-mouthing you. Besides, Mrs. Moriarty is just one person.”

Harper shook her head. “
There’ve been others. Brad has a lot of family around here, and they all know I spent the night with you.”

He held her gaze, his eyes steady and deep. “Then they know what a hell of a lucky guy I am.”

“Grant…this is causing so many problems. It’s too soon. I shouldn’t have…”

He rose. “You’re regretting what we did?” His voice hardened again
, and that only added to Harper’s misery. The last thing she wanted to do was to hurt him, but the weight of everyone else’s disapproval mattered to her. She hated herself for that.

“I can handle people making snide remarks about me, but your job depends on this place doing well. Mrs. Moriarty has a lot of influence. The Auxiliary Club is big around here
, and if they put the word out that they don’t like TF…”

“
They probably already have. We’ll get through it. Don’t worry about it.”

“I have to worry about it. It’s my fault.” Harper rose. She pulled herself up, straightening her spine and dragged her gaze away from Grant’s. “I’ve got to go finish setting up before the guests all get here
, and then I have to take Audrey home.”

“So it’s over between us?”

She couldn’t look at him. “I don’t know. I think…we should have given it more thought.
I
should have given it more thought.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way.”

“I have to go.” Harper let herself out of the office. She stormed through the narrow hallway between the kitchen and the main ball room and launched herself into the now beautifully decorated room.

Audrey met her halfway.
She jerked a thumb in the direction of Mrs. Moriarty, who stood by the main entrance looking haughty and put upon. “That woman…that woman is
this
close to getting a candle stick up her nose. If I wasn’t a nurse…”

“Let’s go. I’m finished here.”

“What happened with Grant? Was he mad at you? That woman said some things—”

“Let’s just go.” Harper grabbed Audrey’s arm and yanked her toward the door. They passed Mrs. Moriarty without a word, though Audrey glare
d at her evilly before they headed out to collect their coats in the lobby. Fortunately, Harper managed to hold back her tears until they got into her car.

Grant didn’t call. Not that she expected him too, but the more time passed, the more Harper hated herself for walking out on him, and the harder it became to think up a way to apologize.

He’d looked so hurt when she’d carelessly told him she should have given more thought to their liaison. Making love with him was not a mistake, and she didn’t regret it, but she couldn’t get over the
specter of the trouble she’d caused for Taverna Fiora.

By Saturday morning she’d cried all the self-pitying tears she was ever going to cry
, and she’d worked through all the really bad words she wanted to say to Brad and his mother. She’d reached a point where she thought she could make it through her speech to them both without breaking down.

So she stood now on Mrs. Dawson’s front porch, ready to knock. Her knees
wobbled, and she shivered a bit, this time not from the biting cold. The last day of January had dawned even colder and meaner than the first, but she was determined to start a new month with a new attitude, and, if she could make it through this day, a new man in her life.

She lifted the brass knocker and tapped it a couple of times as hard as she could. It took a full two minutes for someone to answer. Brad’s father swung the door open and offered the glare she knew was reserved for the people who disturbed his breakfast. Harper wanted to crumble into dust and blow away. The man was that imposing, but she had to stand up to him as well as his wife and say her piece.

“Good morning, Mr. Dawson. Is Georgia at home?”

For a second the man looked stunned. Bushy eyebrows crashed together in the middle of his broad forehead before he stepped back to allow Harper into the foyer. “Come in, Harper. I’m very glad you’re here.”

She gulped and crossed the threshold. She hadn’t seen Brad’s car around, so at least she wouldn’t have to deal with him too. She had a special rant reserved for her ex if she ever found herself face-to-face with him again.

Mr. Harper yelled for his wife, a bellow that shook the large house. A moment later, Mrs. Dawson came down the stairs into the foyer. Her expression froze, cold as the January wind, when she saw Harper.

“I think you have something to say to Harper, don’t you?” Mr. Dawson scowled at his wife who scowled back.

Harper had no desire to get in between the older couple. She only wanted to tell Mrs. Dawson she wouldn’t be intimidated by gossip, no matter how small this town was. “Mrs. Dawson, I’m sure you don’t want to speak to me, so I’ll make this short
—”

“Georgia? Don’t you make this girl apologize to you.”

Harper shifted her determined gaze to Mr. Dawson. “Excuse me?”

“She told me about what happened at the Club Dinner,” Mr. Dawson said. “I was
not happy about it.”

“Well, Mr. Dawson, I really don’t
—”

“Let me finish. Harper, you’re a nice girl
, and you were good for Bradley. He screwed things up with you, and you have every right to kick him to the curb. What you do from here on in is your own business, and as much as it pains me to think you will never be our daughter-in-law, I think the two of you made the right decision to break up, if that’s what you did. Georgia?”

Mrs. Dawson took a deep breath and clamped her lips shut, obviously not about to agree with her husband. He continued
, “There are a lot of hurt feelings all the way around, and if my wife can influence the Auxiliary Club not to do business with you, well, I can’t change that. I’m not a member, so that choice is up to them. I don’t have to like it, but I can’t stop it. On the other hand, I told my wife, I won’t stand for her talking about you in public, or saying things about the restaurant where that other young man works. If you’re seeing him, well, I’m disappointed, not in you, but for Bradley because he shouldn’t have been such a fool.”