Always a Bridesmaid Read online

  Max shook his head, trying to get Parvati out of it. He’d seen her off and on all week as he was getting his coffee at Common Grounds, but they hadn’t really talked since that night in his kitchen.

  The night when he’d almost kissed her.

  She’d been standing there, petting the marble with her expression a mix of covetousness and awe—and he’d wanted her to look at him that way. Possessive and passionate. He’d wanted to round the island and take her face between his hands and kiss the mouth that had consumed him for the better part of his teenage years.

  But she’d been in a vulnerable place and he didn’t do that kind of thing. Especially because he didn’t want her to think that his offers had come with strings attached. Not that she was going to take him up on either of his offers anyway. She’d said she would think about it, but he wasn’t sure he believed her.

  And he’d spent entirely too much time in the last week wondering what she would choose. It was probably better if she turned him down. If just the idea of working with Parvati was this distracting, he didn’t want to consider what the reality would do to his focus. He needed to be focused on his own business.

  The week had been busy at Elite Protection. Hank the Hammer continued to be a pain the ass, repeatedly requesting Candy return to “adjust” the system she and Tank had installed on Monday. His other bodyguards had been so overbooked on close protection details that Max had needed to step in and cover a couple jobs himself—though it had been good to remind himself that he wasn’t just a pencil pusher.

  And he wasn’t unreliable. No matter what Parv said about him being an island. Protecting people was his job—and yes, his job was harder to do when he formed emotional attachments with his subjects, so he was very good at keeping his distance. Which made him a professional. Not an island, damn it.

  He rang the bell, expecting his mother to open the door since her housekeeper took the weekends off, but when the door swung open it was Sidney glaring at him from the foyer.

  “Did you tell Mom that Josh and I wanted to have kids right away?” She snapped, barring the way like she might not let him in the house. “We aren’t even engaged.”

  “I didn’t tell her anything,” Max protested. “She may have said something about grandkids and I may have implied that she had a better shot with you than with me, but that’s all.”

  “That was enough,” Sidney grumbled, but she stepped back to let him across the threshold.

  “Speaking of Josh,” Max said as he strolled toward the living room, “I heard you guys were shacking up.”

  He threw himself onto one of the chairs and Sidney sank delicately down to the edge of the one facing his. Her brows drew together. “How did you hear that?”

  “I ran into Parvati.”

  Sidney’s expression tightened even further and Max felt a little stab of concern. He’d thought Parv was being overly sensitive where Sid was concerned, but maybe there was strife in their friendship after all.

  “Don’t tell me you wanted to help move furniture too.”

  Max shrugged. “I could have.”

  Sidney’s brows arched high, telegraphing her skepticism—no wonder she was on television, her face was incredibly expressive. She could call him a moron without even opening her mouth—or maybe that was a particular skill of sisters. “You never wanted to before.”

  The truth was it never would have occurred to him that Sidney might want him to help her move until Parvati pointed it out. Sidney knew she could rely on him for the big things, but the little things had never been important enough to bother one another about. Maybe he was more of an island than he’d wanted to admit.

  “I’m helpful.” Max heard the defensiveness in his tone and intentionally leaned back in his chair, taking an even lazier, I-don’t-give-a-damn pose. “I helped with security for that wedding.”

  Sidney rolled her eyes. “Fine. Next time I have more help than I need moving a couch down three flights of stairs, I’ll be sure to call you so you can supervise.”

  “Why are we moving couches?” Their mother entered the room, tucking away her cell phone in a silent admission that she’d snuck off to take a work call in true Dewitt fashion.

  “Sidney’s living with Josh.” Max grinned as he shamelessly ratted her out.

  Her mother turned instantly to Sidney. “Oh, Sidney, that’s wonderful. But why didn’t you call me for help?”

  Sidney shot him a death glare.

  Chapter Eleven

  Max pulled out of his mother’s driveway a few hours later, intending to head home, but instead his car seemed to point toward the Main Street district and Common Grounds.

  Lunch with his family had been good, but odd. The news of his parents’ divorce had broken on Wednesday, but there was a political scandal taking up most of the airtime on the twenty-four hour news channels so the Dewitt story had been barely a sidebar on the financial news shows. Titacorp stock had wavered and rallied quickly, while their mother’s company had leaked a projected earnings report and the stock price had gone through the roof.

  “I don’t know what I was so worried about,” their mother had said, smiling at the head of the table as if the stock price were the only thing affected by her soon-to-be single state. “We could have done this years ago.”

  Max had almost asked why they hadn’t, why now was suddenly the time for divorce, but Sidney had changed the subject and he’d held his tongue.

  Sidney’s relationship with their mother had been strained for years—his sister always convinced their mother was judging her and Marguerite not exactly being the touchy-feely type. Now they were making steady progress toward a good—if somewhat unconventional—mother-daughter relationship and he wasn’t going to disrupt that by stirring things up over quinoa and farro.

  The sunny Saturday afternoon had brought Edeners out in droves and Max had to park three blocks down from Common Grounds, but when he made it back to the shop on foot he found a new sign taped to the door with amended hours. It was only five past three, but she’d already closed for the day if the new sign and the locked door were to be believed.

  But when Max peered through the window, he saw Parvati seated in front of the fireplace inside. He rapped on the glass and her head jerked toward the sound, their eyes connecting through the pane. She came to the door, unlocking it and opening it wide enough to peek out. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was hoping for more cake pops,” he said, keeping it light and easy. “But I see you’ve changed your hours.”

  “Economizing.” She opened the door wider. “Come on in. I’ll sneak you some cake pops if you promise not to tell anyone else you’re getting special treatment.”

  “Deal.”

  He followed her into the shop, stopping to lock the door behind him. By the time he joined her at the counter, she’d already grabbed a pair of cake pops—one pink and one yellow and set them on a pair of plates. “Lemon or confetti?”

  “Lemon.”

  They took their cake pops to the fireplace seating area where she’d been before and settled into the chairs there. He saw Parv surreptitiously tuck a tablet down between her leg and the arm of the chair, but he didn’t comment on it—too busy going into silent raptures over the lemon heaven on his tongue.

  They ate in silence until he was chasing the last crumbs across his plate with the pad of one finger. “I take it your shortened hours are a sign you aren’t going to be expanding to Beverly Hills.”

  “No. But I appreciate the offer. And never in my life, not if I live to be a hundred, will I ever forget how you tried to stand me on my feet again.”

  He frowned. “Is that a quote?”

  A shadow of a grin flitted across her mouth. “The Philadelphia Story. I love that movie.”

  “Old one, right? Cary Grant?”

  “That’s the one. They should remake old movies like that. We need more C.K. Dexter Haven more than a seventh remake of Spiderman.”

  “Hey. Don’t knock
Spiderman. I always connected with Peter Parker.”

  She tilted her head, studying him. “I figured you for more a Batman type. Or Tony Stark. Hot zillionaire protecting the weak. Isn’t that more your shtick?”

  With anyone else he would have thought she was flirting, but Parv was so matter of fact—as if his hotness was just a fact. And not one that affected her personally.

  Her gaze tracked past him, toward the door over his shoulder. “I keep wondering if I should put up a sign saying we’re closing. Do you think people would stop coming if they knew we were going to be shutting down in a couple months?”

  “Some might. But it might rally support from some of your more loyal customers. You’ll have to put up a sign eventually, but until you know your actual closing date it might be a little premature.”

  She nodded, her gaze still distant. “I’m going to have to tell my parents.”

  “At some point,” Max agreed, but the look in her eyes as she stared past his shoulder was so miserable he immediately sought to change the subject. “What are you working on?”

  When she looked at him in confusion, he nodded to the tablet—and was fascinated to watch her cheeks darken with a subtle flush. He grinned. “Now you have to tell me.”

  “I was just…it’s an online dating site, okay? I’m trying e-dating.” She brandished the tablet. “And I’m sure my parents will be delighted that I’m using their Christmas gift in an attempt to finally land a man.”

  Max felt a strange, uncomfortable stirring in his gut at the idea. “Have you met someone?”

  “Not yet. I just started trying.” His stomach pitched again, until she continued, “And it’s awful.”

  “Awful?” he asked, hoping he didn’t sound too cheerful.

  “The first guy who messaged me actually seemed determined to hook me up with his dad. He wouldn’t stop talking about how his dad thought my profile picture was hot and how his father thought I was too much woman for him, so I should date him and his father back to back to see which one I liked better. And then when I said I wasn’t into Daddy figures, he told me that high school guys would line up to date a girl like me. Which is both creepy and extremely illegal since I’m almost thirty.”

  “So not the best first impression.”

  “You could say that.”

  “Why do you need to date online? You must meet men here all the time. Guys drink coffee.”

  “They do. And then they go home to their wives.” When he started to argue, she held up a hand. “I’m never going to be the sort of girl who writes her phone number on the side of a cardboard cup. And five minutes of friendly chit-chat over the pastry case isn’t the same thing as really knowing someone—especially when not every married or taken guy wears a wedding ring and I could cross a line with someone else’s man without even realizing it. No. The internet is safer.” She glared at her tablet. “Unfortunately, it seems like the good guys never email you back.”

  “Hey. You said yourself you just started. Give it time.”

  She made a face. “I just worry about what they’re going to think of me.”

  “They’re going to think you’re amazing. They’d be idiots not to.”

  “Really? A never-married nearly-thirty who’s slowly going out of business? I felt like I was lying when I filled out my profile. I said I owned a coffee shop, but my true passion was baking.”

  “Isn’t that your true passion?”

  “It’s the only time I don’t feel like the weight of the shop is going to crush me. Does that count?”

  “It wasn’t a lie. And no one will judge you based on what you do.” He’d kick the ass of anyone who tried.

  She snorted. “Of course they will. Have you never been on a date? That’s the first thing people ask. We’re all defined by what we do and e-dating is all about judging people. You don’t know anything about them—you have to judge them.”

  “I’m sure it isn’t that bad.”

  “Are you?” Her look said he was pitiably naïve. “It isn’t like dating someone you’ve known casually in another setting. You don’t have that prolonged exposure to build on. Or the chemistry of being attracted to one another and one of you making a move. Instead you have to take every little tiny scrap of information you get about a person and use it to figure out if you’re going to be a match. There’s already the weird pressure put on it that you have to have romantic feelings for a person you’re meeting for the first time.”

  “So why do it?”

  “Because how else am I supposed to meet the man of my dreams? I used to be so proud of the fact that I didn’t get married before I graduated college, but now it seems like the joke was on me because if you don’t meet your husband in high school or college, you don’t have the same chance to get to know one another without expectations and learn if you might like one another before you start dating. With e-dating you have to figure it all out based on a profile and a first date and everything is harder that way.”

  “Well, however you meet him, don’t settle for less than someone fantastic. You deserve that.”

  She snorted. “Right now I’ll settle for literate and breathing. And literate is optional.”

  * * * * *

  After Parvati closed the door behind Max a little while later, she propped her shoulder against the glass, watching him walk down the street. It had been surprisingly easy to talk to him about her online dating crap. She’d never thought she would be that comfortable around Max, but something had shifted in their relationship in the last few weeks. He wasn’t just Sidney’s hot brother anymore. He was a friend.

  A hot friend, yes, but she seemed to have finally gotten her stupid crush on him completely under control. If only she’d known that confessing it to him would quash it, she could have done that years ago.

  She abandoned her post at the door, checking to make sure it was locked before heading to the back office. She’d run the numbers this morning, looking at which hours of the day were the most profitable, and come away with the decision to shorten the evening hours. Which would give her the time to start looking into selling off the furniture and equipment, when the time came.

  Just part of the inevitable march toward closure.

  She looked at her cell phone—another step on the march taunting her.

  She had to tell her parents.

  She brought up their number, but hesitated before hitting send, staring at the photo saved for their contact on her phone. Their reactions couldn’t be any worse than the ones she was imagining.

  But their confusion when she explained that she was going out of business an inch ahead of bankruptcy was almost as bad.

  “I don’t understand,” her father’s voice hesitated over the words. “Do you need money?”

  “No. It doesn’t make sense to pour any more money into Common Grounds. I’ve been avoiding the truth for a long time, but I’ve got to face facts now. We’ll be closing soon.”

  “But what will you do?” her mother’s voice, more puzzled than anything else. As if the idea of failure was a complex math equation she couldn’t quite grasp.

  “I’m not one hundred percent sure yet, but I think I might try to get a job in a bakery for a little while. Just until I figure some things out.”

  “A bakery?” her father repeated, as if the word were Swahili.

  “Just for a while.” She looked around her office, searching for some excuse to get off the phone before they could ask more questions she didn’t have answers for yet, finally settling on the pathetic, “Look, I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you soon.”

  “We love you, Parvati,” her mother said hurriedly, squeezing the words in before she could hang up—and Parv could almost hear the word still inserted into the sentence.

  She was lucky to have her family. She knew she was lucky. But somehow it was a small comfort. All she could feel was the acute guilt that she’d let them down.

  Chapter Twelve

  She didn’t end up hanging a sign—grateful
for Max’s advice to wait until she had more firm details—but word began to spread anyway. The shortened hours had launched a frenzy of whispered speculation among the customers and Parv had given Anna and Madison permission to answer honestly if any of the customers asked point blank—not wanting to put the girls in the position of having to lie for her.

  By the next week when Angie and Katie arrived in town for their meeting at Once Upon a Bride, the closure of Common Grounds was the worst kept secret in Eden. But that wasn’t what had her nervous as she walked Angie and Katie across the street.

  She hadn’t heard from Sidney or Tori since she set up the meeting with Tori. Normally she wouldn’t worry that her friends would have double booked themselves or forgotten about her request—but normally she wouldn’t go for almost two weeks without talking to them every day. Everything had changed in the last few months.

  She listened absently to the rush of information Angie was pouring over Katie, her ears perking up when she heard the word caterer.

  “We’ve got Montague’s confirmed to cater, but the contracts the venue sent over were unacceptable—”

  “You already booked a caterer for the wedding?” Parv interrupted, nearly giving herself whiplash when she jerked around to stare at Angie. Katie and Jonah had only been engaged for a few weeks. Things couldn’t have progressed that far already.

  “It’s for the engagement party,” Angie explained. “Katie and Jonah have a three day weekend at the end of October and we’re going to have the party in Santa Barbara that Saturday so their local friends will be able to make it.”

  “The ones who aren’t away at college?”

  “That’s why we need to get the venue pinned down so we can send out the invitations right away—to give people who want to attend time to arrange travel. Katie, you need to get me updated addresses.”

  “Why can’t we just use email for the engagement party?”

  Angie’s eyebrows flew up and her mouth puckered lemon-tight. “If that’s the kind of tone you want to set for your wedding.”