The Heiress Takes A Husband

A really funny story, about the one hundred and thirty-two packages of red food color she had put in her parents’ pool at their home in Highwoods in California when she was a kid.

Mr. High-and-Mighty hadn’t even laughed. He’d looked bored and then looked at his watch as if counting the minutes he’d have to put up with her.

Still, he had a certain physical allure—that same almost electrical sensation she had felt when he touched her hair—exuding from him, that made it impossible to pretend he did not exist.

Not that he was ever going to know it from her.

Now, the dance had started, and Brittany focused more intently on the couple who held center stage. Brittany was not sure she had ever seen such a beautiful sight.

Her sister, Abby, the train of her long ivory wedding dress held up from sweeping the floor by a lace loop attached to her wrist, was dancing her first dance as Mrs. McCall. She and her husband, Shane, moved around the room with the grace of two people who had been born to dance together.

There was something in the way they were looking at each other that made Brit want to believe all over again in possibility. Fairy tales. Happy endings. True love.

Her sister and her new husband danced as if they were alone in the room. The light that shone from their eyes combined wonder and tenderness and passion to such a degree it made a lump rise in Brittany’s throat.

Be happy, she ordered herself sternly, taking another quick, soothing gulp of the champagne, especially when it felt like the tears pricking at the back of her eyes were going to fall. As if she’d ever cry in front of him.

“Did you want another glass of champagne?” His voice was ice and steel, tinged with an underlying disapproval, as if she were drinking too much.

Brit noticed, with some surprise, that her champagne glass was empty.

“Why not?” she said.

Her escort looked like he was debating giving her a few reasons why not, then with a shrug snagged her a drink off a passing tray. None for him, though, Mr. Control.

“Loosen up,” she told him. “Be happy. It’s a wedding.”

He studied her for a moment. “You don’t look that happy.”

“I am so,” she said, taking another swig, recognizing just a touch of defiance in the gesture. Her sincerest wish was to be happy for her sister, but the truth was she felt envious.

It just wasn’t fair. Her sister had been given a house. With a man in it. A gorgeous man, who had fallen hopelessly and helplessly in love with Abby in the space of weeks.

It just wasn’t fair. Her sisters were the ones who had been appalled at the prospect of having to get married to retain their gifts.

Brittany had been the realistic one! Marriages were about gaining security or prestige or power. Love?

Abby had all the luck.

And I got a bakery.

“How is the bakery?” he asked.

She realized she had spoken out loud, and that maybe she should take it easy on the champagne. Having made that decision, she took another swig.

“Fine,” she said, smiling with fake brightness. He had asked only to meet the minimum requirement for politeness. He didn’t want to know the truth—that the bakery was a disaster. A little hole in the wall on main street, with aging equipment, horrible decor and no guy, unless she counted Luigi, the grouchy, middle-aged man who did the baking.

Still, in her better moments, she clung to its potential, was nearly dazzled with all the possibilities. Outdoor tables facing the ocean, a fuller menu, a French chef, famous artists vying for space on her walls…

His voice cut through her daydreams. “Did I notice it was closed last week?”

“I officially took over last week, and closed for a few days,” she said. “I’m redecorating for the grand reopening on Monday.”

When she had first sat in her bakery, with her sisters, at one of the six tiny little card tables, it had been so easy to dream. New floors, cute tablecloths, fresh flowers, pink paint, wallpaper. She hadn’t really realized how hard it was to turn a simple dream into a tangible reality. But still, in a few days, the hard part would be over. And it would be worth it.

“Ah, the paint,” he said. “What made you decide to tackle painting?”

Money seemed like too crass an answer, so she shrugged.

“You don’t exactly seem like the handy type. Rollers and overalls, paint thinners. A hat.”

She had never wanted to be the handy type, so why did it annoy her so much that he could see she wasn’t? The hat was an unnecessary dig. She had thought of a hat, but didn’t like the way hats flattened her hair.

“So what type do I look like?” she asked, tilting her chin up proudly.

“The Yellow Pages type.”

Why did she feel so aggravated that he was seeing her so accurately? The truth was that’s exactly what she would have been if she’d had the money to indulge herself. But when she’d phoned several painting companies, she’d been appalled at what they wanted to paint one little room. Her budget for the redecorating was a thousand dollars, the price she had gotten for her last piece of jewelry, a pair of beautiful emerald earrings set in platinum. There was no more jewelry to sell, which had been just about the most frightening feeling of her entire life.

If she didn’t count that bottom-falling-out-of-her-world feeling she was getting every time she took another sip of champagne and looked more deeply into his eyes.

She hadn’t figured painting would be hard work. She’d actually entertained the notion it would be fun. It had been fun. For the first fifteen minutes.

“What made you choose bubble gum pink?” he asked.

“Frosted dawn!” she snapped, though the awful truth was that was exactly what the inside of her shop looked like—a bubble of gum that someone had exploded all over her walls. Between her inexpertise and the old surfaces of the walls, the paint had not taken evenly. In some places, where she had impatiently put the paint on too thick there were ghastly dribbles, teardrop shaped, down the walls. In others, where she had tried to do a second coat before the first one was dry enough, the paint looked rough and angry.

“Did you get any on the walls?” he asked.

She tilted her chin a little more, and wondered, just a little fuzzily, if he was laughing at her. “As a matter of fact, the walls look great.” This was a lie. But she knew they would look great once she covered the worst of the mess with wallpaper and posters. Which meant tomorrow, Sunday, when the rest of the world would be sleeping in and frolicking on the beach with their families, she would be working. And it was darned hard work, especially for a girl who had never even cleaned her own bathroom.

“Well,” he said, “just be thankful you didn’t try wallpapering. An amateur can make a real mess of that.”

“Really?” she said, and successfully hid her panic by taking another slug of champagne.

“What made you want to repaint? I thought it looked fine. My Dad and I go there for morning coffee most weekdays.”

It occurred to her he was actually making conversation, probably only in an attempt to slow down her champagne consumption, which was really none of his business. Still, this was an improvement over icy, disapproving silence.

That little Cinderella hope inside her flared to life.

“The paint reflects a change in mood,” she told him earnestly. His Dad and he came to the bakery. Why would she care that it wasn’t one of the secretaries, that he wasn’t meeting his girlfriend there?

“A moody bakery,” he said, the finest edge of mockery in his voice.

“You’d be amazed what I’m planning on doing with that place.”

His expression made her want to convince him, and the champagne loosened her tongue.