She bit back a sigh, as she always did when her gaze settled inevitably on Garrett’s mouth. His mouth was at once soft and fierce, inviting and wary, luscious and forbidding. Much like the man himself, she thought.
She shrugged. “There’s no reason you can’t enjoy it now, though,” she said, clutching her coat more tightly around her. “Seems harmless enough for the time being.”
“The operative word here being ‘seems,’” he said.
She smiled. “Or maybe the operative words would be ‘for the time being.’”
“Or maybe it’s the ‘harmless’ part I should be worrying about,” he said. “Maybe that’s what’s really so deceiving.”
Renee eyed him thoughtfully. “Something tells me we’re having two totally different conversations here.”
He chuckled, but the sound was less than happy. “Yeah. Story of my life.”
The moment he uttered the words, Garrett Fortune realized they were stained with bitterness. And his new companion noticed, too, because her smile—a smile that had nearly blinded him, so dazzling had it been—immediately fell. And when it did, suddenly, somehow, he felt as if a door slammed shut deep inside his soul.
Man, his emotions must be rubbed raw tonight if he was reacting like this to a woman like Renee Riley. Oh, sure, she was cute and everything, even seemed kind of sweet, from what he’d seen of her at last night’s rehearsal and tonight’s wedding. But harmless? Not bloody likely. Not to him. She was exactly the kind of woman he knew to avoid.
God, he hated weddings. Why hadn’t he made up some lame excuse to give Mac—like he was bleeding from a mortal wound or something—and just stayed home?
His cool reception didn’t deter Renee. She covered the distance between them in a half-dozen easy strides. Then she took up a place beside him at the wall, adopting a stance much like his. Well, except that her stance was nearly a foot shorter than his, and she probably weighed a good hundred pounds less.
Garrett fought back a smile at the sight of her and enjoyed an idle sip of his champagne. He frowned when he noted her attire. Of course, she was the maid of honor, he reminded himself. But the least she could have done was put on a decent pair of shoes before coming out in the cold. The snow was only a few inches deep on the terrace, but it easily brushed her feet where her shoes ended and her stockings began. At this rate, she’d be taking home frostbite as a wedding favor.
Dim debutante, he thought. Then again, at least she was wearing a coat, which was more than he could say for some people standing on this terrace. But he was bad-tempered and self-destructive, right? Everybody said so. He was entitled.
“So…what did you think of the wedding?” she asked, clearly striving to end what was fast becoming an awkward moment.
Relieved at the introduction of small talk, Garrett took another sip of his wine. “I thought the wedding was beautiful,” he said amiably, “especially for one thrown together so quickly.”
“Yeah, me, too,” she agreed as she hugged her coat to herself again. “Mollie did a wonderful job. Of course, she’s a friend of Kelly’s so I’m sure she added a lot of extra special touches.”
“And I also think marriage is a complete waste of time and a total farce,” Garrett added as if she hadn’t spoken. Funny, he wasn’t sure when, exactly, he’d decided to say such a thing aloud.
His companion blinked in surprise at his announcement before expelling a soft sound of disbelief. “Well, gosh, don’t hide your feelings,” she said dryly. “If you want to voice an opinion, just spit it out.”
He smiled at that, then uttered another rough chuckle. “Sorry,” he replied, even though he felt not one iota of regret. “That just kind of popped out.”
“Yeah, I’ll say it did.”
He sighed and turned, leaning his shoulder against the wall so that he could observe her more intently. She was young, probably still in college. Pretty, though, in an uptown-girl kind of way. Dark curls tumbled riotously about her face, falling low over pale green eyes encircled by long, sooty lashes. The cold air had stained her cheeks with red, and her lips… He bit back a restless sound. Her lips, too, were touched with crimson, though whether the color resulted from cosmetics or the cold, he honestly couldn’t have said.
If he kissed her, he bet he could find out for sure.
Startled by the thought, Garrett pushed it away and forced himself to focus on the conversation at hand.
“I’ve just seen too many people get married for the wrong reasons, that’s all,” he said by way of an explanation. “Then things start going bad, and a messy divorce clinches all the nasty feelings.”
“Gee, you sound like you’re speaking from experience,” Renee said quietly.
For a moment, he wondered where she got off making such a personal observation about someone she barely knew. Then he realized that he’d been the one to start it. He had no one to blame but himself.
So he replied frankly. “Maybe that’s because I am.”
Renee eyed him thoughtfully for a moment, but instead of pursuing his confession, she asked, “Are you suggesting that Kelly and Mac married for the wrong reasons?”
Garrett shrugged. “Well, it’s not exactly a love match when a man marries a woman who got herself knocked up by his little brother, is it?”
“Excuse me,” she said indignantly, quick to jump to her friend’s defense, “but a woman doesn’t get herself pregnant all alone, you know. Chad Fortune—that jerk—had a little something to do with the whole thing.”
Garrett expelled an impatient sigh. “Yeah, and now Mac is the one paying for it.”
“You make it sound like he was forced to marry Kelly against his will.”
“Wasn’t he?”
“Of course not. He was the one who made the offer.”
“And she was the one who jumped at the chance to be a Fortune wife.”
“Oh, come on,” Renee said, straightening to her full height of what couldn’t possibly be more than five feet four inches, clearly spoiling for a fight.
Garrett smiled the most predatory smile he could summon and straightened to his own six-feet-plus, fully ready to take her on.
But she didn’t back down. “The baby that Kelly is carrying is a Fortune. Why should she deny the little nipper its birthright?”
“Its birthright is Chad Fortune, not Mac,” Garrett pointed out. “But Chad’s always been good at leaving a mess for Mac to clean up.”
“A mess?” she echoed incredulously. “That’s what you call a pregnant woman who’s been abandoned by the baby’s father? A pregnant woman who was recently attacked, by unknown assailants, no less, and needs someone to keep an eye on her now? You think that’s a mess?”
He frowned. “You know what I meant.”
She nodded. “Yeah, unfortunately I do. You’re one of those snotty rich guys who think the only thing women want out of them is their money, and that said women will stop at nothing to get it. You never look at the big picture.”
“And you,” he countered, hating himself for rising so quickly to the bait, even if what she said did cut way too close to home, “are doubtless one of those greedy opportunists who think snagging a rich husband will insure a cushy life of ease where she’ll never have to lift a finger.”
She gaped at him, as if she were trying to decide