Stand-In Groom (20 page)

On her way back, one of her younger cousins waylaid her at the entrance to the sunroom and pulled her back into the now-empty kitchen.

“What’s up, Marci?” Anne reached over and pushed a lock of the twenty-four-year-old’s honey-streaked red hair back from her face. She knew the young woman was struggling to get her parents and even Jenn, Mere, and Forbes to recognize her as an adult. But there was a lack of maturity in the way she acted around her family, compounded by the fact that she still hadn’t chosen a college major after five years, that kept her a perpetual child in their eyes.

“Annie, you’re the only person in the family who’ll tell me the truth.”

“Of course I will. What do you want to know?”

“Earlier, when I asked about Cliff Ballantine, I know Forbes was lying to me about not knowing him. Did y’all know him in high school?”

Anne’s stomach twisted. She didn’t want to lie to her cousin, but she also didn’t want the story to get beyond the family. She crossed her arms and leaned against the edge of the island. “If I tell you, you have to promise me it goes no further. There’s a reason
why he’s not discussed by anyone, and that’s because of me. I’ve asked everyone in the family to keep my secret, which has become harder as he’s gotten more famous.” She took a deep breath. “Yes, we knew Cliff in high school. I tutored him in English and helped him write several papers.”

“Even though you’re two years younger than him?”

Anne harrumphed. “He was only a year ahead of me in school, but I was in advanced placement classes. He wasn’t. When he started college, I kept helping him. You have to understand—I was very shy as a child and had very low self-esteem from all the teasing I got because I hit a growth spurt and was nearly six feet tall by the time I was thirteen. I never had a boy show the kind of attention to me that he did just for doing something I was good at. When I got to college, though, I wasn’t just helping him with English—it was all his classes: history, anthropology, even his drama classes. When I told him I didn’t have time to continue, he really turned on the charm. We started ‘dating.’ ” She made quotation marks in the air with her fingers. “I’ll spare you all the gory details. But when Cliff moved out to Hollywood my first year of graduate school, I sent him money every month to help him make ends meet. It got to the point where I was getting every credit card I could and maxing it out with cash advances just to have money to send to him. When the loan company threatened to repossess my car, I told him I couldn’t afford to send him any more money. That was when he suggested we get married. I was naive and wanted to be married, especially to someone as handsome and talented as he, so I agreed. I quit grad school and went to work full-time as the event planner for B-G.”

“The job Meredith has now?”

“Yes. I started planning my wedding. It was going to be small, just our families. We couldn’t afford much, and I didn’t want to ask Uncle Errol and Aunt Maggie for money because they’d already helped me out by giving me a loan to pay off all of my past-due bills and letting me move back in so that I could use my rent money to pay them back. Half of each paycheck went to them, half to Cliff in
California. We set a date. I reserved the chapel, the reception hall, worked out the menu with Maggie, and had a gown on layaway at Drace’s.”

“What happened? I mean, obviously you didn’t end up marrying him…
did you
?”

Anne had to laugh at Marci’s incredulity. “No, I didn’t marry him. Two days before the wedding, he called me and told me to cancel everything. He’d gotten a callback on a movie role he’d auditioned for and would have to stay in California another week.”

“What a pig.”

“Yeah. So I canceled everything and lost most of the money on nonrefundable deposits. For a month, I didn’t hear anything from him. The next thing I know, I see a photo of him with some blond bombshell of an actress on the front cover of one of the gossip rags at the grocery store. Time went by, and eventually I gave up hope that I’d ever hear from him and accepted the fact he’d only been dating me to get me to do stuff for him.”

The glaze of admiration for the actor in Marci’s eyes had been replaced by disillusionment at the revelation of the man’s character. “It’s no wonder you don’t want anyone else in the family to talk about it. Did he ever pay you back all the money?”

Anne shook her head. “Nope. Never saw a penny. I suppose I could have blackmailed him by threatening to run to the media and show them all the canceled checks with his signature on the back, since he takes great pleasure in telling everyone how he struggled to make it on his own in Hollywood until he got his big break. It was a hard lesson to learn.”

“What lesson is that?”

“Don’t pour all of your emotions and energy into a relationship unless both parties are willing to give one hundred percent to it. Cliff was a taker, and he was willing to take whatever I was stupid enough to offer—my skills and education, my emotions, and my money. I’m just glad he’s out of my life.”

H
ow could you not tell me?” George brushed past the secretary who’d opened Forbes’s office door to announce his arrival early Monday morning.

Forbes gave his assistant a curt nod and laid his gold pen atop the paperwork on his desk. “And what is it I’m supposed to have told you?”

Although the woman closed the door behind her, George strained to keep his voice low. “That Anne was engaged to be married to Cliff Ballantine!” He crossed the office and leaned on the desk, his hands on either side of the desk blotter. “Have you lost your senses? How do you think she’s going to feel when he arrives in town next week for the engagement party and I turn around and say, ‘Surprise, you’ve been hired to plan your ex-fiancé’s wedding’?”

“It wasn’t my place to tell you.”

“Not your—” Fury clogged George’s throat. Was it all just a game to Forbes? He liked Anne’s cousin, had thought they were getting on famously and becoming fast friends. But now…

“You are the only person in this farce who knows all the players and their roles. How could you let Anne take on this contract?”

The lawyer leaned back in his chair, his fingers steepled and resting on his chin. “Are you more upset because you didn’t know or because of how you think this might affect Anne?”

George straightened and dropped his hands to his sides. “Don’t
play the barrister with me, Forbes.” His so-called friend’s calm exterior only fed his anger. He wanted to see some kind of emotion, some kind of remorse or embarrassment. He took a calculated risk. “Did it make you feel powerful, knowing that you could manipulate this situation? Or do you hold some kind of shares in Anne’s business to make you trick her into taking this wedding on just to increase the return on your investment?”

Forbes exploded out of his chair, and it slammed against the credenza behind him. “There are a lot of things I’ll put up with.” Menace edged his low voice. He braced his fists against the edge of his desk. “But being insulted isn’t one of them. A hundred years ago, we would be headed to a field with dueling pistols about right now.”

“And gladly would I have defended Anne’s honor and my own.” George matched his pose, trying not to let the other man’s larger build and height intimidate him. “I’ve read about the corruption of lawyers in Louisiana, but I never expected to see it in you. To use your own flesh and blood—”

Forbes grabbed the front of George’s shirt and nearly dragged him onto the desk. “You have no right to accuse me of wrongdoing. I love Anne, and I would die before I brought her harm or unhappiness.”

Some of George’s anger dissipated at Forbes’s passionate speech. “Then tell me everything. Make me understand. Because from where I stand, you look guilty as sin. And I don’t want to be caught in the middle.”

Forbes released him, and George stumbled back a step. Balance regained, he smoothed his shirt and tucked it back into his trousers.

Letting out a low growl, Forbes straightened his tie and raked his fingers through his hair. He pulled his chair forward and sank into it with a sigh. “I never meant for you to be caught in the middle, George, and I apologize if you feel that way.” He motioned for George to sit. “How did you learn of Anne and Cliff’s engagement?”

George perched on the edge of one of the leather armchairs, guilt nibbling away at his anger. “I did not come by the information honestly. I overheard Anne telling the story to your younger sister
yesterday, after you’d already left your aunt and uncle’s home.”

“Then to answer your first question…” The lawyer had replaced the outraged man again. “I didn’t tell you about Anne and Cliff because it wasn’t my secret to share. Just as you swore to Cliff not to reveal his identity to anyone, I swore to Anne I would never tell anyone she had a relationship with him.”

“But…” Logic and reason failed George. A man had to honor his promises. That still left the second issue. “Why didn’t you counsel Cliff against hiring Anne as the wedding planner?”

Sheepishness overcame Forbes’s professional demeanor. “Cliff doesn’t know Anne is the wedding planner. As you may have experienced, he’s leaving the details up to Ms. Landry.” He spun his pen on top of the papers that were now strewn across the desktop. “Anne needs to plan this wedding. I think it’ll be cathartic for her.”

George frowned. “How is planning the wedding for the man who bilked her for thousands of dollars and practically left her standing at the altar going to bring her healing?”

“Two ways. She needs to forgive him; but until she gets closure, until she’s able to show him what she’s made of herself—and maybe say a few things to him that she’s had locked up inside of herself for years—she’ll never be able to close that chapter of her life.”

Manipulation for Anne’s own good. It still didn’t sit well with him, but was easier to understand. “And the second way?”

“How much is he going to end up paying her to plan this wedding?”

Understanding rolled in like a London fog. “So she gets closure and revenge all at the same time.”

“Oh no, not revenge…just what he owes her—with interest.” Forbes gave him a conspiratorial wink. “Now was there something else you needed to see me about?”

8

George left Forbes’s office with twenty minutes to get from downtown to Town Square to meet Anne at her office.

Anne had been engaged to his employer. Wanted to marry him. Loved him enough to drop out of graduate school so she could support him. Thought he was
handsome
and
talented
. She would have gone through with it. She would have married Cliff all those years ago if he hadn’t gotten his big break and discarded her like a used tissue.

Oh, Anne
… The disillusionment she must have suffered from being so ill used. No wonder she’d reacted with such vehemence when she discovered his own deception of her…on behalf of Cliff Ballantine.

The old adage couldn’t be truer than in this situation:
What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive
.

If she’d been so angry at him for simply pretending to be getting married, how angry would she be when she discovered whose wedding she was really planning? And would that anger, justified though it would be, destroy any chance of their relationship growing into something serious?

By the time he reached her office, he dreaded walking in and looking her in the eye. Would she see his misgivings? Would she sense something amiss? He needed to distance himself until the truth came out. If he allowed himself to fall in love with her and then lost her when she found out about Cliff, his heart would never mend. “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life,” King Solomon had written in Proverbs. And Solomon had had his own issues with women, so he knew from whence he wrote.

George parked in the alley behind Anne’s office and killed the engine. With trepidation, he mounted the steps to the back door. He crossed the threshold into the kitchen, and cool air washed over him. Making his way from the kitchen through the hall to the front office, he could hear voices. He didn’t want to interrupt and stopped out of sight of the doorway.

His skin tingled at the sound of her voice. She would be sitting in the wing chair facing the bow window, her sapphire blue eyes sparkling as she discussed wedding details with her clients.

He leaned against the wall and enjoyed listening to her guide the potential clients through the same questionnaire he’d been given to fill out at Courtney’s first appointment. When he heard the telltale jingle of the bell over the front door, he entered the front office.

Anne rose; the intensity of her gaze nearly unraveled him.

“I am so glad I heard you come in.” She dropped into the wingback chair. “I’m not sure I want to sign a contract with the couple who was just here. They can’t make a decision to save their lives, and all she did was ask me about Cliff Ballantine. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think they were undercover reporters trying to dig up some kind of scandal from his past.” She cut her gaze at him. “Of course, if that were the case, why would they come to me?” Her laugh had a nervous quality to it.

What had she said about honesty? If she wanted him to be honest with her, she needed to grant him the same courtesy. He needed to know she was over Cliff, that she’d forgiven him and could move on with a new relationship without the specter of being hurt in the past coming between them in the future.

“What’s wrong?” She stood and crossed to stand in front of him, resting her hand on his crossed arms. “I do declaiyah, you look jus’ like an ol’ thundahcloud.”

He loved it when she put on that thick Southern accent. His tension started to melt, and he smiled at her. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s just been a busy day already.”

She gave his arm a gentle squeeze, then went around her desk to retrieve her handbag and keys. “You ready to go to the rental lot and choose decor for the engagement party?”

Cliff’s engagement party. The event where Anne would learn the true identity of her client. The thundercloud returned to his heart, but he schooled his expression to mask it. “Certainly. Lead on.”