Shopping for a CEO's Fiancee (6 page)

“Why would I want flowers in my ovaries, Mom?”

“I don’t know. But the basket was so pretty, and Lüq spent ten minutes reading my past lives. Hu said I ran a brothel in Paris during the Revolution!”

“What about the wine, Marie?” Dec asks.

“What about it?”

“What happened to the bottle?”

“I put it on the gift table after Lüq gave it to me. You and Shannon had just left when hu appeared.”

“And I hope you enjoyed it,” says a voice with an accent I can’t put my finger on. We turn to find Lüq standing next to us, wearing a Scottish kilt, knee-high riding boots, and a dashiki-like dress thing. He has a goat on a leash.

No one says a word about the goat. I wonder if it faints.

In his other hand is a Grind It Fresh! to-go cup.

Declan hired Lüq a few years ago, sniping hu from one of the top Parisian salons. I’ve met Lüq twice before. You don’t forget hu.

Dec stands. “Thank you for the wine,” he says, gracious and smiling.

“You are most welcome.” Hu holds up his coffee. “And the coffee company you gave to your wife is outstanding.”

Dec gives me a look but says “Thanks” to Lüq.

“I hope that you enjoy the wine someday. It is my own blend.”

“You’re a vintner?” I ask.

“No, although I do perform cleansing ceremonies for the grapes from time to time in Napa. I blend my own vintage for those who need to explore the many layers of love that we leave untouched.”

I frown. “What does that mean? Blend your own vintage?”

“I take the superior wine and enhance it.”

“Enhance?” My eyes dart to catch Amanda’s.

Enhance?
she mouths.

“For centuries,” hu intones, eyes going soft, voice taking on a dreamy quality, “mankind has—”

“Oh, brother,” Dec mutters.

“—sacrificed the very best of the past for the short-term hustle bustle of the now. We forget that our bodies are etched with the scratchings of the past. Our relationships form layers of centuries that must be explored if we are to live in the here and now as full and complete lovers.”

“What does any of that mean?” I mutter to Dec.

“Hell if I know, but hu gets people to pay $25 for a latte in the spa and the profit margins are insane.”

“You put something in the wine?” Jason asks. It’s the first time he’s said a word. The guy is Marie’s lapdog, but his question is the most cogent sentence I’ve heard since Lüq appeared.

“Of course.”

I tense. “You put ‘something’ in that bottle of wine? A blend of more than one wine, you mean?”

“
Non non non
. I enhanced the transformative properties of the already sacred and made it more in touch with—”

“You spiked my daughter’s wedding gift?” Marie hisses.

Lüq glares at her. “That was a special bottle of wine designed and made specifically for the bride and groom, for a ritual to bring their body-spirits together on a different plane of existence.”

“It was Three Buck Chuck with a bow and some glitter paint on it,” Marie says with an eye roll.

“I told you it was entheogenic!” he hisses. “Seventh-century druids died to make that wine.”

“Did they die from disbelief?”

Entheogenic.
Entheogenic?
There’s an SAT word if I’ve ever heard one. I dust off my ancient Latin lessons and start to dissect the word. 

“I haven’t heard that word since college!” Amanda says in a tone of marvel. “You added
hallucinogenic drugs
to the wine?”

She beat me to it.

“Oh, my,” Marie whispers. “Thank God Shannon and Declan didn’t drink it.”

“But it’s fine that
we
did?” Amanda snaps.

I turn to Marie, a dim flicker of memory stirring. “
You
told me it was
homeopathic
, which we assumed was a joke, and...”

“Entheogenic, homeopathic,” she says in a sing-songy voice. “Same thing.”

“It is NOT the same thing!” I roar.

“What the hell is homeopathic wine?” Declan sputters, “What do you do—put a drop of Merlot in a swimming pool and dip your wine glass in it and drink?”

“We’re not talking about homeopathic wine!” I hiss, my tongue embedded in my cheek, my muscles turned to sheetrock.

“Actually, we are,” he counters.

I turn to Lüq. “What the hell was really in that wine? Did you lace it with acid?”

“
Non non non
,” Lüq protested. “It was infused with a mind-blossoming drop of the spirit world.”

“What,
exactly
, was in that wine?” I try again. Declan is the brother with the temper, but...

“I can never tell, monsieur, for—”

“Tell me, or you’re fired.”

“It was mescaline,” Lüq says quickly.

Never underestimate the power of being someone’s boss.

“See! I knew you cared about keeping your job!” Marie crowed.

Never,
ever
underestimate the power of a woman who needs to meddle.

“Marie, this isn’t about you,” I growl as Lüq makes a hasty departure, diaphanous dress floating behind hu like a wedding train. 

Marie’s hand goes to her heart, eyes wide, lips trembling. “I am just trying to help you and Amanda! Amanda is like the daughter I never had!”

Shannon and Carol turn on their mother like a pack of feral dingoes.

You know what else you can never underestimate?

The ability of meddlers to get themselves into trouble on their own. All you have to do is let them talk without interruption.

I see two little kids in my peripheral vision, and without looking I know they’re Carol’s sons. If they’re carrying coffee cups with the Grind It Fresh! logo on it, I’m done.

Declan’s phone buzzes. He looks at it, face closing like a fist. “Time to go.”

He pulls Shannon to her feet. She clings to her latte.

“Where are you going?” I ask, my voice making it clear he does not have my buy-in.

“On my honeymoon,” he says slowly, one lip curling up in a sneer that says,
Dare you to stop me
.

“We can’t leave Amanda now!” Shannon gasps.

“She can’t come with us,” he declares, staring at me. “Unlike
some
people, we only marry one person.”

“Can’t we stay—” Her face changes expression as Declan whispers something in her ear, cheeks flushing. She readjusts her purse on her shoulder and gives everyone a kiss.

“Bye! See you in—”

Declan’s pulling on Shannon so hard we can’t hear the rest of her sentence. Carol and Marie follow, like a chattering batch of fishwives following a thief at a market. Jason sighs, shakes his head, and follows slowly, clearly accustomed to cleaning up emotional messes.

The sound level at our table drops by seventy-five percent, although it’s hard to be accurate given the constant ringing in my ears.

“So much for needing to be here for me,” Amanda mutters.

I nuzzle her ear. “You would have insisted she go anyhow.”

She huffs. “How do you know me so well?”

Amused by her tone, I slide my left hand over hers, threading the fingers. “Because I’m your husband.”

Chapter Five

“We don’t know that!” says an arch voice from behind us.

Josh.

Of course. Who better to interrupt this lovely, heartwarming moment than a man who can’t do Lamaze breathing exercises without a paper bag, and who is carrying a cat wearing a cone on its head, which he drops instantly as Chuckles makes a sound like he’s Dracula’s undead feline with a three-hundred-year-old hairball to cough up. 

I would not marry him even if I
were
into dudes.

Josh, I mean.

“Let’s just get this out of the way right up front, though,” Josh says with a long sigh appended to the end. His hand is outstretched, palm facing me, and his mouth is tight. The guy is the cleanest man I have ever seen. Slightly balding in the way that Prince William is getting thin up top, Josh wears rimless glasses, and has not a single stray facial hair. Does the guy wax his face?

He’s pale, like a desk jockey, and Rainbow Brite is with him, sporting a leather vest, no shirt underneath, and Bruce Springsteen jeans, complete with the red bandana in the back pocket. He is also wearing a Yankees cap.

And one more minor detail: he’s now dragging Shannon’s cat on a leash.

And by dragging, I mean
dragging
. The cat is on its side, stubbornly refusing to walk. Putting a cat on a leash is stupid. Might as well get a Bernie Sanders supporter to talk about how much they love Hillary.

“I,” Josh says dramatically, “am not married to you.” His eye contact would be unnerving if his words weren’t exactly what I wanted to hear. The look he gives me makes me feel like he’s patented a new technology for peeling off clothing with eyeballs. “I know this is sad news, but—”

“Thank God,” Amanda mutters.

I clap my hands once, then rub them together. “Great news.”

“For some,” he says sourly.

“How do you know you aren’t married to Andrew?” Amanda asks, then winces. Her headache’s still lingering.

“Unlike
some
people who can’t hold their liquor, I metabolize very quickly. My liver is pristine. It’s probably because of the wheat grass juice and goat colostrum protocol I started, along with my daily supply of Soylent,” Josh says, giving Geordi a wide smile.

Amanda gapes at him. “You mix your Soylent in with Diet Mountain Dew! You make chocolate fudge with Velveeta!”

“Liar!” he screeches, pointing at her, giving Geordi the side eye. “Velveeta is the tool of Satan. Do you have any idea what it does to the microbiome of the gut?”

“Is that a food hack?” Geordi asks. “I’ve heard the plastic in Velveeta can actually help to break down biofilms.”

“Really?” Josh’s eyes go wide.

Is this what public school does to people?

“Can we get back to who I’m married to?” I ask, as Geordi and Josh debate the merits of adding Kava to a mixture of CBD oil and Velveeta. I don’t get foodie geeks. Then again, my girlfriend—
wife?
—is a Cheeto-marshmallow freak.

“No one,” says a woman’s voice. We turn in unison.

I’ve never seen hackles rise. The room fills with ozone, the tiny hairs that dot my arms rising up slowly, like little tension boners.

“Kari,” hisses Amanda. Her eyes narrow, fingers curling into claws, and her face morphs. Gone is the sweet, open woman I love, who approaches the world with an attitude of possibility and trust.

She is replaced by Katniss facing off against Clove.

A tall blonde with brown eyes and a friendly, open expression looks at me. She’s wearing a red and white flower-patterned dress that hugs some very nice hips. Unlike Amanda this morning, she does not look like she was the unwilling drumhead for a bongo last night.

When her eyes flick to Amanda, they narrow, her expression guarded and suspicious. The change almost makes me laugh. Whatever the battle between these two, the stakes are low.

Which makes me wonder why they’re fighting in the first place.

“Andrew McCormick,” I say, reaching out for a handshake, introducing myself. Amanda’s hand immediately goes to my other arm, her grasp primitive and protective. She shuffles closer, her soft warmth radiating from my calf to shoulder, her cheek hovering above my shoulder, her chin defiant.

Mine
, she says with her body.

I stand taller, a predatory creep making my skin buzz.

Who in the hell is this Kari person?

“Kari Whitevelt. I’m a colleague of Amanda’s.” She takes my hand, her eyes shifting between mine and Amanda’s. Nothing special about her handshake, other than she’s not one of those limp-wristed women who give you their hand like it’s a wet, crumpled napkin they just sneezed in.

“Colleague?”

“She’s foked,” Amanda adds helpfully.

“I work for Fokused Shoprite,” Kari says through gritted teeth.

“Nice to meet you. I’m—”

She laughs, showing perfectly straight teeth, her smile making the skin beneath her eyes wrinkle in a friendly way. “I know who you are. Can’t work in Boston and not know who the McCormicks are. So nice to finally meet you.” A quick glance at both our left hands and she smirks. “You’re in much better shape today compared to last night.”

I tighten my grip on Kari’s hand. Amanda sinks her fingers into my bicep, like a claw.

“You saw us last night?”

“Saw you? You crashed my wedding!” Kari exclaims, eyebrows up to her hairline, her laughter a weird mix.

“Your
wedding
?”

“My work wedding.”

“What’s a work wedding?”

“It’s like a work date,” Amanda says with a sigh, as if I’m supposed to have this vocabulary.

“You’re evaluating DoggieDate, too? You married a dog?” These mystery shopping companies are hard core.

“Ewwww, no.” She gives Amanda an odd, smug look. “I am getting married fifteen times this week. You crashed wedding number eight. You insisted that the twenty-four-hour drive-up Elvis shop take your order before they finished my wedding. You appeared at the window and asked for a Venti mocha half-caf with cinnamon and peppermint, a twenty-pack of chicken nuggets with marmalade packets, and proceeded to shove marriage licenses through the window.”

“Marriage licenses!” Our first factual clue. I look at Amanda. “We had
marriage licenses
made?”

Plural. She’s saying this in plural. My gut tightens. If I’m going to be a bigamist, being married to two guys isn’t exactly how I’d envision this.

Four people. Two to the power of four. Sixteen possible marriage combinations.

Wait! Not exponential. Factorial.

Screw it. I can’t
math
right now.

Exactly how many of those combinations happened last night?

Hold on. I latch onto hope for the null set. Zero. Best case scenario,
zero
marriages happened last night.

Kari nods. “They made you come inside because you tried to have too many weddings done at the same time at the drive-thru. And they were out of chicken nuggets.”

“Too many? There really was more than one?” Amanda gasps, looking at her ring, loosening her grip on me.