You're Marrying Her?

“You’re wearing a suit—”

“There has to be a dress you could wear somewhere in this place.”

There was, of course. She bit her lip. What was wrong with her? She’d just been thinking how much she wanted to be friends with Brad again, and now here he was, wanting to renew their old relationship and share his happy news.

And it was happy news. She couldn’t quite figure out why it was affecting her so strangely. She was happy for Brad. Wasn’t she? Of course she was. He was going to get married and live happily ever after.

If that was possible.

She’d seen married people in action. She’d seen how couples could fight and tear each other apart. That was why Brad’s news unsettled her—she was worried about him. She didn’t want him to have to experience that unpleasantness.

“I really can’t. I’m expecting a client.” She glanced at her watch. It was almost seven-thirty. Apparently Mrs. Blogden wasn’t going to show.

“Can’t you call and cancel? Please, Sammy.”

“Well…” She wavered. She did want to meet Brad’s fiance´e. Heather Lovelace. The most beautiful woman in the world, Brad had called her. But Sam took that with a grain of salt. Brad was in love with Heather after all. He’d also described her as sweet and kind. That sounded like Blanche Milken, the girl he’d had a crush on in high school. Blanche had been a straight-A student with mousy, colorless clothes to go along with her mousy, colorless personality.

“Okay,” Samantha said, making up her mind. “Let me change and call Mrs. Blogden to make sure she isn’t coming. It’ll only take me a few minutes.”

“Great. I’ll go tell Heather. Come outside when you’re ready.”

He left, and Sam went into the office to call Mrs. Blogden. The housekeeper answered and informed Sam that Mrs. Blogden was at a party and wouldn’t be home until late. Sam wasn’t too surprised. Mrs. Blogden frequently didn’t show up for her appointments and rarely called to cancel.

Her conscience clear, Sam grabbed a short black dress off a rack, went into the dressing room and changed. Quickly, she slipped on some strappy, high-heeled sandals that increased her height from an insignificant five three to a much more respectable five six.

She brushed out her hair, applied enough makeup to conceal her freckles and surveyed herself in the mirror. Acceptable, she thought. The black matte jersey echoed the sheen of her dark curls and made her eyes seem more green than gold. She hurried outside.

A red sports car was parked there. Next to it stood Brad, his arm around the waist of a tall, slender blonde dressed in a form-fitting halter dress of glittering bronze.

Samantha stumbled on the asphalt. This was his fiance´e? The woman was gorgeous! Not a day over eighteen, she had the long, lean look of a model—except for the large, firm breasts that threatened to bounce right out of her low-cut dress. She was wearing heels, too, fantastic purple-and-bronze Jimmy Choo stilettos that lifted her at least four inches over Sam’s suddenly pathetic height. Sam felt like a troll next to her.

This was no Blanche Milken.

Sam pinned a smile to her lips and held out her hand. “Hi, Heather, I’m Samantha Gillespie.”

The blonde ignored her outstretched hand. A cloud of Chanel No. 5 enveloped Sam as Heather hugged her. “Samantha! Brad has told me so much about you!”

“He has?” Sam murmured faintly when she could speak.

Heather smiled blindingly. Her teeth were as white and perfect as the rest of her. “Oh, yes. I have to admit that when he first told me what good friends you were, I was the tiniest bit jealous, but now that I’ve met you, I can see that I didn’t need to worry at all.”

Startled, Sam glanced at Heather’s face. Had the woman—girl, really—meant that the way it sounded?

Heather was smiling, her large blue eyes clear and innocent.

Brad smiled, too. “I told you you were being silly. Samantha and I have always been just friends. Right, Sam?”

“Right.” You’re being oversensitive, Sam told herself sternly. She smiled at Brad’s fiance´e. “You’re marrying a really nice guy.”

“Nice?” Heather turned to Brad and drew a teasing finger down his chest. “I don’t know if I would have used exactly that word to describe you, darling.”

Sam frowned at the sexual implication of the blonde’s words. She glanced at Brad, expecting him to defend his character, but he only gazed at Heather, his hand closing over the blonde’s. The two of them stared into each other’s eyes, a silent communication of some shared memory passing between them. They appeared to have completely forgotten Sam’s presence.

She cleared her throat.

The spell was broken. The two lovers stepped away from each other. Brad glanced at Sam, his mouth curving ruefully. “Sorry. You know what it’s like to be in love.”

Sam forced herself to smile again, but inwardly she felt oddly defensive. Of course she knew what it was like. She’d had innumerable boyfriends in high school and college. She’d gone out with men from here to Chicago to New York to London, Paris and Rome. But somehow, none of them had ever looked at her the way Brad looked at Heather. Sam didn’t remember him ever looking at Blanche Milken that way. Talk about wearing your heart on your sleeve. She would’ve thought he would show more restraint.

“Shall we go?” she asked brightly.

Brad opened the passenger door.

“You don’t mind if I sit in the front, do you?” Heather asked Sam. “My legs get terribly cramped in the back.”

Sam saw Brad’s gaze go immediately to the impossibly long legs of his fiance´e. “Of course not,” she said, feeling like a child relegated to the back seat. She climbed into the tight space behind Heather and Brad.

With a roar of the powerful engine, they were off.

Chapter Three

Samantha sat at the dinner table of the West L.A. restaurant, watching the laughing couple across from her. They seemed giddy with happiness. There was a glow in Brad’s eyes that she’d never seen before—except, perhaps, when he was working on some complicated project. But this wasn’t the same. A sense of electricity seemed to envelop him.

Heather glowed, too. Sam had never met a woman who glowed so much.

Sam looked down at her menu and tried to subdue the wave of dislike she felt for Heather. So far, she’d seen nothing about the blonde that would justify Brad’s falling in love with her. Except for her gorgeous face and figure. But Heather must have more to her than that. Brad wasn’t the kind of man to care only about a woman’s looks.

Sam shifted her gaze to Brad as he raised a finger and a waiter rushed over. Watching him place their order, she was struck once again by a sense that he had changed—and not just on the surface.

Sam could restrain her curiosity no longer. “What happened to you, Brad?” she asked after the waiter left. “You used to be a strictly meat and potatoes man and now you’re ordering shrimp and jicama. And you look like you should be on the cover of GQ. Isn’t that an Armani suit?”

“Heather happened to me.” Putting his arm around his fiance´e, he smiled down at her. “She convinced me to try some new dishes and helped me make a few changes—new clothes, haircut and contact lenses. An improvement, don’t you think, Sammy?”

“I always thought you looked fine.” Forgetting her own attempts to change Brad’s wardrobe, Sam realized suddenly that she really didn’t care for this new style that Heather had foisted on him. Before, he’d looked like…Brad. Now he looked almost alien. He looked rich. Sophisticated. Masculine.

She shook her head. Brad was Brad, no matter how he dressed. That much she was sure of.

Heather had arched her brows at Sam’s response. “I think appearance is extremely important. Some women, especially older ones, don’t set any standards for themselves at all. I’m always careful to wear the right clothes and makeup and watch my weight. I count every calorie. I think it’s worth it, don’t you, Brad?”

Brad’s gaze wandered over Heather’s magnificent figure. “Sure, sweetheart.”

Heather beamed.

A waiter passed by with a dessert tray, and Sam resisted an urge to seize a slice of strawberry torte and stuff it down Heather’s throat. Instead she told herself that Heather probably hadn’t meant to imply that Sam was old and fat. Forcing herself to smile politely, she asked, “So, how did you two meet?”

“At the RiversWare Run,” Brad said. “Heather loves to run and enters competitions whenever she can.”

Heather sipped her drink. “Do you run, Samantha?”