Starfire (Erotic Romance) (Peaches Monroe) (18 page)

His green eyes twinkled. “You recognized me right away, Nancy.”

“Come here!” She didn’t wait, though, but strode right up to him and grabbed his cheeks in her hands. “Wook at dat widdle face.” As she fawned over him, she wiggled her butt like a happy pet greeting a favorite family friend.

“Good to see you, too,” he said.

“Why won’t you eat?” she exclaimed. “Have you heard of this wonderful thing? It’s called pastry.”

I have to admit, I liked Dalton even more now that this stylish woman was squeezing his cheeks and telling him to eat a cinnamon bun from time to time.

“Are you trying to set a trend?” she asked, pointing at his leather pouch.

“These are so practical,” he said. “I should design my own line of man bags.”

She snorted. “Man bags. Honey, think about what you’re saying.”

As he unzipped his fanny pack to brag about all the stuff he could carry, I looked around the storefront. The front was just a vestibule, and an arched door led, presumably, to the actual dresses. The adjoining hallway was also white and minimal, decorated with white objects, including a white vintage-looking telephone on the wall. If I wasn’t mistaken, it was the exact same model as the yellow one at Peachtree Books.

“Where are my manners!” Nancy said, turning her excitement back to me. “Here’s your beautiful fiancée. I can’t wait to get her clothes off.”

Dalton slung his arm around my shoulder protectively. “I know exactly how you feel.”

Nancy tossed her head back and laughed. “Except I want to get her dressed in taffeta and lace, whereas you’re a very naughty boy.”

I interrupted to ask, “How exactly do you two know each other?”

“Nancy was our original costume designer on the show.”

I gasped, realizing I was in the presence of greatness. “You did the zombie bride dresses?”

“And all the zombie bridesmaids,” she said, smiling sweetly as her cheeks flushed with pride.

I started to gush, “You’re amazing! My best friend and I both dressed up as zombie bridesmaids last year for Halloween. We used a hot glue gun to attach all the bones and jewelry to our corsets. We tried to imitate your beautiful designs. I had skeleton hands cupping my peaches, just like the slutty zombie bridesmaid.”

She clapped her hands together. “Tell me you took photos. Show me, show me!”

I pulled out my phone and showed her the best pictures, while apologizing for modifying her beautiful, original designs. She told me to not be silly, and that she was beyond flattered.

Dalton interrupted us, saying, “I hate to be a downer, but I can’t marry a zombie bride. Not again. Nancy, you promised you had some designs for the living?”

A tall, slim woman in a gray dress appeared in the doorway. “Everything’s ready,” she said to Nancy.

“No skeletons,” Dalton said.

Nancy rolled her eyes at Dalton’s comments. “D-man, don’t you wrinkle your forehead like that or you’ll need Botox before you’re thirty, unless you already are, ha ha. I’ve got something much better in mind for your fiancée, based on the notes you gave me.”

She waved us through to the next room, which was mostly white, but with some relief in the form of a gray carpet and gray furniture. Dalton took a seat on the chaise lounge and unzipped his Golden Gate Bridge sweatshirt. He held his hand out to accept a tall flute of champagne from one of the three gray-clad assistants in the room.

Nancy herded me over to a curtained changing area, moving like a border collie herding a reluctant lamb. One of the other ladies handed her a gown, which she handed to me.

“This is the mermaid gown,” she said. “If you look closely, you’ll see it’s not white, but hues of iridescent blue and green.”

The dress looked like it had floated out of my dreams, shimmering and beaded with everything from crystals to tiny starfish. Nancy wasn’t a less-is-more designer; she was more of a fuck-yeah-let’s-add-more-beads designer, and she made it work.

After a few moans of wordless appreciation, I finally said, “That is so fucking gorgeous, I could eat it. Sorry about my language, but you’re a genius. Get me a fork and I will eat this dress.”

Nancy laughed and called over her shoulder, “You’re right D-man, I do love her already!”

“That’s why I’m locking it down,” he replied.

Nancy rolled her eyes again. “Locking it down?” she whispered. “Please tell me the proposal didn’t include that particular phrase.”

“Hard to say. The whole thing happened so fast.” That wasn’t entirely a lie.

She backed away, still smiling. “This is where I leave you, my dear. Gwendolyn and the others will see to your needs, and as far as I’ll ever know, you love everything. But you must be honest with the girls about what you like or don’t like, and don’t worry about my feelings. This is your dress, for your special day.”

Nancy disappeared, and the tall woman took her place and officially introduced herself as Gwendolyn. At her beckoning, I took off my clothes, down to my underwear. She lightly patted my face with a tissue to ensure my makeup didn’t transfer to the dress, then she was joined by another girl and they lifted the gown up, over my head.

To my relief, this dress wasn’t a tiny-sized sample. It was actually
too big
, and they used plastic clamps to take up some space at the back.

The dress was so breathtaking, I could barely look at myself in the mirror, for fear of bursting into tears and flooding the whole corset.

“Show your fella,” said Gwendolyn.

I walked out of the changing room slowly, trying to pretend this wasn’t a big deal. The staff assured me that it wasn’t that unusual these days to have the groom be part of the dress-selection process.
Bulldoodle
. They were humoring me, but they were so nice about it.

Dalton looked me up and down, and he didn’t say anything at all for several minutes. I started to worry, and sweat, and worry about sweating, then worry-sweat some more. Was he getting cold feet?

Finally, he shared his thoughts, his voice husky and cracking. “The mermaid of my dreams is real.”

“He likes the dress,” Gwendolyn said, translating helpfully.

“Me, too,” I whispered, wrapped up in Dalton’s adoring gaze—his cool, green eyes the water for my mermaid dress.

Gwendolyn said, “Not so fast. We’re not going to take it easy on you just because we like you. Now get back in that change room because you have at least ten more different dresses to try on.”

“Like hell! Not until I get a glass of champagne.”

Laughing, she agreed to this, and they brought me a glass in the changing room. I got back down to my underwear to cool off, tossed the champagne back and said, “Gown me up!”

~

After a dozen gorgeous wedding gowns and almost as many glasses of champagne, I walked out of the boutique feeling like royalty.

“Did you pick the mermaid dress?” Dalton asked. “Or the one with the pink ribbon thing?”

“Not telling.”

“You seem really into your dress, for someone who keeps using the word
fake
to describe our wedding.”

In response, I zipped open the fanny pack he wore right under his belt buckle and started rifling around in the contents. “Got any gum? You should keep gum in here.”

“Keep looking.”

“You don’t have any gum, you pervert.”

He made a silly face, sticking his tongue out to the side. “No need to stop looking.”

After a few moments of furtive digging and face-making, I noticed people were staring, so I stopped. I zipped the little bag closed and linked my arm with his, resting my head on his shoulder as we meandered down the sidewalk.

For the rest of the afternoon, we wandered in and out of stores, including an enormous Bloomingdale’s.

Every time I looked at something for more than a second, Dalton tried to buy it for me. It took a while to convince him that sometimes I was looking just because I was curious, and I didn’t actually
want
a diamond-encrusted gold and pewter egg.

I did, however, find a watch that was so pretty, it made me want to wear a watch. Dalton had his credit card out before I’d even finished dropping my first hint.

I wore the watch out of the store, admiring it in the bright sun.

“That watch will go perfectly with your ring,” he said.

“You’re right.”

“You haven’t even looked at the ring.”

“You don’t know everything, D-man.”

He shook his head, smiling. “Only Nancy calls me that.”

“How about David?”

His smile disappeared at the mention of his original name, and he started walking faster. I had to trot to keep up, as we headed up a hill. San Francisco really is as hilly as it looks in movies.

I caught up and linked my fingers with his. “Dalton, I want to know who you are, and I want to know who David Blake is, especially if I’ll be marrying him.”

“My name’s been legally changed.”

“So, I’ll be Mrs. Deangelo?”

“I don’t know. Will you?”

“I have to. I signed the agreement that I’d do ANYTHING.”

“If you change your last name, you’ll be Peaches Deangelo. Hmm.”

“I could hyphenate. How long is your publicist planning for us to be married?”

“How do you know I have a publicist?”

“
Someone
was posting pictures of an egg white omelette on your social media accounts while
you
were drinking champagne in the bridal boutique. Plus you told me, back when we first met.”

“I can’t get anything by you.” He stopped and peered at the menu posted outside a restaurant with a sprawling sidewalk patio. “Dinner here?”

“Sure. And then what?”

“After dinner, I’ll take you back to my hotel room and make sure you know your wifely duties.”

My jaw dropped and I held my hand over my mouth. “Excuse me, but I told you I
have
a boyfriend.”

“Yes, but you’re both seeing other people, so don’t act like you’re not going to spend tonight in my bed. He’s with that little blonde right now, probably. I know things too, Peaches. I have my little birdies who tell me stories.”

“Who told you?”

“I took your little friend out for a milkshake. Not the tall one. The short blonde. She’s cute as a button.”

I staggered back two steps. It’s hard to explain exactly how Dalton talking about Golden made me feel, but I kinda wanted to projectile vomit all over his face.

I stammered, “Why would you do that? Talk to my friends, about my life?”

He tilted his head to the side. “Is talking to your friends really so different from you asking my butler about me?”

“Very different. Vern is smart, and he wouldn’t tell me anything you didn’t want me to know, I’m sure. Golden, on the other hand, is… excitable.”

“She sure is.” He grinned his Drake Cheshire, devious vampire grin.

“If you so much as touched one of her perfect little curls, so help me, I will never look at you again.” I started looking around for something to beat him with.

He kept grinning, enjoying my jealousy.

The nearest thing was a plastic bucket full of water, put out for people’s dogs. I picked it up and tossed the water on Dalton. “Stop smirking!” I yelled.

I doused him.

If we hadn’t already attracted the attention of some people sitting on the nearby sidewalk patio with the yelling, my throwing dog water on Dalton had certainly done the trick.

CHAPTER 18

Dalton slowly wiped the water from one eye then the other.

Calmly, he said, “I wasn’t smirking for any particular reason. This is just how my face looks sometimes.” He slowed down his speech for emphasis, sounding like a Jack Nicholson impersonator. “And you should
know
about my
resting smirk face
by now if you watch a
certain
popular TV series.”

People were taking photos and video of us with their phones now.

“What did you
do
with Golden?” I demanded.

He wiped more dog water off his face with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. People were definitely staring, and recognizing him. He nodded for us to get walking again, draping his arm behind my back.

I shrugged his arm away, not wanting him to touch me.

“Don’t even tell me what you did with her,” I said with disgust.

“Vern and I were getting milkshakes at the ice cream shop, and she was there. She asked to take her photo with me, and we got to talking.”

I covered my ears with both hands. “Shut up!”

He leaned over and spoke loudly enough for me to hear him clearly through my hands. “I bought her a milkshake and we talked for a bit, then I left with Vern. You can ask him yourself, since you don’t trust me.”

I slowly lowered my hands, feeling like a jealous idiot. What had come over me? Temporary insanity? Could I blame the plane trip, the bridal shop, the champagne, or all of the above?

We were walking downhill now, and moving pretty fast. I didn’t think anyone around was watching anymore, but my rage had given me this weird tunnel vision, where I could barely see in front of me.

“You surprise me,” Dalton said.

“I’m sorry about the dog water, but maybe I shouldn’t be. I think you were trying to provoke me.”

“Oh, the dog water didn’t surprise me. I saw the bucket, and I knew what you were going to do before you did. No, I’m surprised how jealous you are. Honestly, it’s kind of sweet.”

I held one hand up to the side of my face to prevent him from making eye contact with me. “Please don’t say I’m sweet. I’m a horrible person. I went to LA to stay with you, and went right to another man’s apartment. Then as soon as I found out you were coming to town, I latched onto the nearest guy, just to throw him between us.”

“You’re free to kiss who you want. I don’t own you, despite what the agreement says.”

“If you want to date Golden, you have my permission. She’s a really nice girl, and you could do much worse.”

He chuckled. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m starting filming for the show next week, plus I have to get married to another blonde. She’s a real cutie.”

“You’d better be talking about me, or I will find another bucket of water.”