The Player (20 page)

“She’s
my
grandmother too.” Neil’s voice was tight. He walked around the island toward Blair.

Several feet now separated her and Garrett, but she could still feel him tense up.

Neil stopped next to her, leaving a foot between them. “Where’s my kiss hello, darling?” He wrapped an arm around her back and leaned down to kiss her, but she couldn’t bear to kiss him after the way she’d just thrown herself at Garrett. She turned her head at the last moment, and his mouth skimmed the corner of her mouth.

“It wasn’t intentional, Neil,” she said, trying to keep it together. “Why did you stop by?”

“I was missing you, of course.”

Her gaze shot up to him in surprise. That was a bald-faced lie. He rarely told her he missed her, and even then, it was only after a separation of multiple days. But he took the opportunity to plant a lingering kiss on her lips. His mouth felt rough and possessive against hers, as if he were staking his claim. She resisted the urge to pull away, and part of her wondered why she even
felt
that urge. Was it because his kiss left her cold compared to Garrett’s fire? Or was it out of guilt?

“Is my cousin bothering you?” Neil murmured after he lifted his head, still looking down into her eyes.

Her face burned under his scrutiny.

“I can have him kicked out. I
am
the groom.”

Garrett crossed his arms over his chest. “I thought you had
other
plans tonight, Neil.”

Neil’s nostrils flared, and some unnamable emotion glowed in his eyes.
Oh, God.
He either knew or suspected she’d behaved inappropriately with Garrett. “My plans fell through. Besides, I know where my true priorities lie.”

“Funny how quickly they’ve changed. What spurred that?”

Blair glanced from one of them to the other, trying to understand their secret exchange, but the room was spinning and she could hardly stand, let alone form a rational thought.

Garrett took a step toward them, his hands fisted at his sides. “Don’t be so sure of yourself. There’s something we need to tell you.”

Neil’s eyebrows rose. “
We?
” Then he looked down at her, demanding an answer.

She pulled free of his hold and took a deep breath. In her office and in the courtroom, she was the epitome of confidence and control. Where was that woman now? But everything felt jumbled and out of sorts in her head. For the first time in her life, she literally had no idea what to do. “I . . .”

The back door opened, and Libby and Megan hurried through, worry in their eyes. Noah trailed behind them. “Blair, there you are,” Megan said, rushing over to her. “It’s time to open presents.”

Libby intercepted Garrett. “I think you two should hang out with the guys. What do you think, Noah?”

“Yeah.” Noah nodded. “There’s a Royals game on.”

“Sure, he should join you,” Neil said, his anger unmistakable. “But I’ll be staying with
my fianc
é
e
.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Megan smiled, but it was forced. “It’s girls only, Neil.”

His jaw tightened. “If Nana insisted that Garrett come, I’m sure she’d want her other grandson here too.”

Megan looked from Neil to Josh, her eyes wide.

Some of Blair’s senses began to return, and she realized she had to get things under control. “Megan’s right, Neil.” She looked up at her fiancé. “There’s a whole bunch of women out there along with your sister’s two kids. But if you’d rather come outside and play stupid shower games, then by all means, feel free.”

“
Blair.
” The disbelief in Garrett’s voice sent a stab of pain through her chest, but it wasn’t enough to get her to react. She couldn’t do this right now. She couldn’t spontaneously make a decision that would affect the rest of her life. Not when the future of her job depended on this wedding. The very fact that she was prepared to consider calling it off after one mere kiss scared the shit out of her.

She let Megan lead her outside and was surprised to see that everyone was sitting at the small tables around the pool now, eating and drinking. Presents and cards covered a small table to the side of the food table.

“Blair’s going to open gifts now,” Megan announced as her shoes clacked across the patio.

Knickers was shifting the food around on the platters, but she bolted upright at Megan’s declaration. “The presents aren’t until after the games.”

Megan released her hold on Blair and pulled a chair over to the presents table. “The schedule’s changed. She’s opening them now.”

“Neil!” Debra squealed as she glanced up and saw her son trailing behind the two women. She shot out of her seat and nearly tripped on the chair leg. “Thank goodness you’re finally here.”

Blair wanted to kill the woman. She was obviously the reason Neil had shown up. She hadn’t been able to accept the fact that Garrett was present and Neil wasn’t.
She
was the reason Neil had almost caught her in a compromising situation. But that wasn’t really true, and she knew it.

Blair was a cheater. And she wasn’t sure she could live with that title.

To make matters worse, that damn kiss kept replaying over and over in her head, and try as she might, she couldn’t banish it to the dungeon with all the other thoughts and feelings that had threatened to consume her over the last ten years since her father had abandoned her mother. Her mind was still reeling from the events of the last ten minutes, trying to sort through the mess of emotion. Give her facts and she could cut through them like a world-renowned surgeon with a scalpel. But feelings?

Did Garrett really still love her? And if so, what did it mean?

All she could process at the moment was that her world was toppling over like a tower of blocks, and she had no idea how to stop it.

Nana Ruby’s eyes narrowed as she glanced up at her grandson. “What are
you
doing here? Where’s Garrett?”

Neil slid next to Blair. When he spoke, his voice was tight. “He’s in the house. Where he belongs.” He wrapped an arm around Blair’s waist and pulled her hip against hers. “I’m here to open presents with my bride.” He leaned over and kissed her again, setting off a round of oohs and awws from the gathered audience. Blair just stood next to him, still in shock. He was showing more public displays of affection than usual, which was throwing her off almost as much as everything else that was going awry in her life.

“Garrett’s here somewhere,” Debra said, trying to untangle herself from a purse handle.

“I know,” he said coolly as his hand dug tighter into her hip. It was meant to show her that he was still there—seething but still there. She found it suffocating.

“Garrett’s in the house drinking a beer with Noah,” Josh said, walking up behind Neil. “Not to worry. He’s still here.”

Blair shot him a look, surprised by his confrontational tone.

“Debbie Sue,” Nana barked. “Sit down before you fall into the pool.”

Debra began to giggle, and Dena gave her a strange look before turning her attention to her restless children.

Clearly determined to single-handedly defuse the situation, Megan walked over and grabbed Blair’s wrist. “Present time,” she said, pulling Blair away from Neil and leading her over to the chair she’d set out.

When Neil started to drag a chair over to her, Megan held up her hand.

“Oh, no. You get to sit with all the other women.”

Josh dragged over two chairs and pointed to one of them. “Here you go, buddy.”

“But they’re my presents too. Don’t I get to help open them?” He flashed a charming smile to the gathered women.

“That’s not how showers work,” Josh said, pushing Neil into the chair. “It’s all about the woman. You wouldn’t want to steal Blair’s limelight, would you? You want her to be happy, don’t you?” The questions were barbed enough to surprise Neil into compliance. He sat down; Josh sat next to him.

“Isn’t that sweet?” one of Blair’s former high school classmates asked. She couldn’t even remember the woman’s name. Why had she been invited? Then again, this was Knickers’s party, not hers, so it made sense that Megan’s mother had invited the most perfect, and perfectly coiffed, people she knew—excluding Neil’s family, of course. Ordinarily, Blair would stand at the periphery and laugh at a spectacle like this, but she was stuck firmly in the middle of it, along with her confusion over Garrett and how to handle Neil, and she wasn’t laughing at all. Her brain was currently too stunned to process anything.

She was completely out of her perfectly organized comfort zone.

What was perhaps most startling of all was Megan’s behavior. While Blair had always been the natural leader of the trio, Megan was the take-charge girl in a crisis, and she was clearly in disaster recovery mode at the moment. What had Noah said to make her take control? Had her . . .
indiscretion
with Garrett been so obvious that everyone could tell? She was about to die of embarrassment, an emotion she found strangling.

She looked up at Megan with pleading eyes. “I don’t think I can do this, Megs,” she whispered. The quiver in her own voice frightened her.

Megan squatted a few inches. “You can. And you will. If we cancel the party, it’s going to raise red flags. We’ll get through it as quickly as possible, and then we’ll figure everything out. Okay?” The understanding and love in her friend’s eyes was probably the only thing that could have soothed her. She found herself nodding like a puppet whose strings had been pulled. The thought of being weak and malleable provided a spark of anger. She was familiar with anger. Anger was an old friend who’d kept her company more than half her life. Anger she could use. She grabbed hold and held tight before it slipped under the current of her other emotions.

Megan watched her face, then slowly shook her head and whispered, “Don’t you dare lash out at people, Blair. You’ll only make things worse. Libby and I are going to get you through the next hour—then when we’re alone, you can call the two of us every nasty name you have tucked in a file in your brain.” She smiled. “Trust me. Okay?”

Placing her trust in another person felt unnatural to her, and she could honestly say she never had. Not even with Garrett all those years ago. But she was drowning, and Megan was offering her a lifeline. Megan and Libby had been her best friends since kindergarten. They loved her and would do everything in their power to help her.

As if sensing her thoughts—and her need—Libby came out the back door, her face a study in determination. She’d gone into defense mode too. Yes, it was time to rely on her friends. After all, if she couldn’t trust her two best friends, who could she trust?

“Okay.”

Megan’s eyes softened. “Thank you.” Then she grabbed a gift bag off the table and handed it to Blair. “Mom, do you want to keep the list of gifts?”

Megan’s mother glanced around, looking even more flustered when she realized the party-goers were watching Blair in silent curiosity. “But I need to get the board to make her bow bouquet.”

“Bow bouquet?” Blair asked in alarm.

“
No bow bouquet
,” Megan said, picking up a pad of paper and a pen from the gift table. “Start writing.”

Blair went out of her way to avoid showers of any kind, but it didn’t take a fool to realize the present opening was proceeding at a much faster clip than it did at most parties. She knew she had her friends to thank for that. As soon as Blair opened the last gift—a twenty-dollar Target gift card from the high school friend she couldn’t remember—Knickers looked up at the group and beamed.

“Time for games!”

Shoot me now
.

Garrett watched in shock as Blair walked out the door and returned to her wedding shower, leaving him standing there.

“We need to chat,” Libby said, grabbing his arm and dragging him to the breakfast table.

He resisted her tug. “No. I need to get out there.”

“Hey, Libs. I’ve got this.” Noah clapped a hand on Garrett’s shoulder. “Why don’t we go outside for a minute?”

“I don’t think so,” he said through gritted teeth and took a step toward the back door. He had to put a stop to this.

Noah blocked his path. “Trust me, dude. If you want the girl, you don’t want to do this right now.”

Garrett blinked in surprise.

Noah smirked. “It’s not that obvious to anyone else . . . yet. But if you go over there now, everyone in the whole damn party will know. And that’s not how you want this to play out. And I
know
that’s not how Blair wants it to play out.” He grabbed two beer bottles out of the refrigerator, then motioned to the door to the living room. “Come on.”

Garrett studied both of them, unsure of their motives, but his mind was spinning too fast for him to think clearly.

“Do you still care about her?” Libby demanded, hands on her hips.

“What?” He blinked. So much was happening at once, he wasn’t sure he should answer. He felt like any hope of getting Blair back had just been yanked out from under him.

Josh, who’d been standing at the periphery of the room for most of the last five minutes, stared out one of the back windows, his jaw tight. “I don’t trust that prick, and I don’t want him out there with my wife.” Then he stomped out the door.