Клео Коул - Espresso Shot

Clipped to the banner was the poster of a blown-up photo, obviously doctored. Matt was on all fours with a ball and chain on his foot and a rope around his neck; his beautiful bride-to-be was dressed to the nines in a floor-length burgundy gown, dripping in diamonds, holding one end of Matt’s rope like a pet leash.

“Surprised?” Koa yelled over the din.

“Am I ever,” Matt replied.

Oh, God. I could see the muscles in Matt’s face had frozen. He’d gone slightly pale, and sweat was starting to bead his upper lip. He glanced at me and then behind him, clearly in a panic about Randall Knox’s stalking gossip column photographer.

I looked behind us, but there were no paparazzi in sight. Then I glanced around the crowded party room. Apart from the embarrassing poster of Matt and Breanne, there was nothing here to warrant tabloid scandal. Sure, Matt’s friends had gotten a good head start on the consumption of alcohol. But it was a tavern , after all.

Two of Matt’s buddies thrust a mug of beer into his hand, pounded his back, and led him farther into the back room—the same one where Dylan Thomas purportedly drank himself to death (not a good omen).

“I should go,” I told Koa, turning to do just that.

“No, Clare, stay!” Koa pulled me back. “Have a drink at least, and say hello to the guys. You know a lot of them—look!”

I did, actually. Some of them were now smiling at me, waving me over.

“This part of the party’s going to be tame, anyway,” Koa confided.

“ This part of the party?” I frowned. “Sorry, I need a little more.”

Koa pointed toward Matt, now chugging his mug of beer in front of the room’s giant portrait of Dylan Thomas. (Actually, the entire room was a makeshift shrine to the dead Welsh poet, with pictures of his home, framed newspaper clippings, and a special plaque.)

“Once Matt gets drunk enough”—Koa paused to give me a meaningful wink—“we’re taking him to Scores.”

“The yuppie strip joint?”

“Gentlemen’s club.”

Okay , I thought instantly, I’m definitely staying .

What Matt did with women—fully clothed or otherwise—was no longer my business. What he did with his credit cards, however, was another matter. And I’d never forget the front-page story of the idiot corporate executive who’d gotten so drunk with his clients at one of those “gentlemen’s” clubs that he couldn’t recall racking up seventy thousand dollars’ worth of champagne and lap dancing charges.

“Matt! Matt! Matt!”

The guys had started chanting for my ex to chug a second beer.

Good Lord, I thought. If Matt goes to Scores hammered, we may lose the Blend.

“Listen,” I told Koa, “Joy’s not making much money as a Paris line cook, and she’s depending on us. I don’t want Matt ‘treating’ his friends to the tune of personal bankruptcy. Got it?”

Koa laughed. “Tell you what. Stick around until we’re ready to take him uptown. I’ll get his wallet from him and hand it to you to hold. How’s that?”

“Fine, get me his wallet. Then you have my blessing to drag him off—as long as you make sure not to let anyone take any embarrassing photos of Matt. Breanne would kill him.”

Koa laughed again. “You worry too much!”

“You have no idea.”

He laughed once more and patted my back. I knew he meant it to be a light tap, but the force nearly sent me off my low-heeled boots.

“Trust me, Clare. We’ll be discreet.”

A strip club. Heavy drinking. And discretion? One of these things was not like the others. But then what choice did I have? In the end, Koa was probably right, I decided, and there was no need to worry.

Obviously, Randall Knox’s photographer had taken the night off, and Matt’s surprise bachelor party appeared totally harmless, anyway: a lot of men, some enthusiastic beer drinking, but that was all, really. In fact, I thought, as I calmed down to take a longer look at all the faces in the room, the gathering was kind of touching.

The men around me had flown here from Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Kenya, Ethiopia, the Arabian Peninsula, Indonesia, and the Caribbean, virtually every coffee-producing region of the world. Some represented small, family coffee farms. Others owned large estates, exported for cooperatives, or worked in Europe or New York as importers for roasters.

Koa handed me a mug of beer, and I watched as Matt’s friends, one after another, stood up and toasted him, sometimes in broken English, often with tears in their eyes.

It was then that I realized what was happening here, and it was more than just a bachelor party, because these guys weren’t simply my ex-husband’s buddies. They represented the thousand quests my business partner had made to keep alive a coffee trade his great-grandfather had started, a business that was still standing, like this tavern, despite the here-and-gone swells and eddies of the past hundred years.

I smiled, thinking, Madame should be here to see this...

It was Matt’s mother, after all, who’d provided the money for the smaller farm owners to even come to Saturday’s wedding, which would have proved far too costly for most of them to afford.

With an inspired spirit, I strolled through the crowded room, saying hello to the guys, many of whom I’d met in passing over the years. Suddenly, we were interrupted by some loud demands that the best man now propose a toast.

Matt’s closest friend since his youth was Ric Gostwick. Ric would have been Matt’s best man, but he was currently serving time in a penitentiary (which was an entirely different story), so Matt asked Roger Mbele to do the honors.

A prominent member of the Nairobi Coffee Exchange, Roger had been like a father to Matt for years. He was also a very old friend of Matt’s mother. Eminently dignified, the Kenyan was tall and lean, with craggy features, hair the color of snow, and skin the hue of an earthy French roast. Moving to the center of the room, Roger lifted his half-empty mug and began an eloquent tribute. That’s when I noticed the door to the back room opening.

I watched to see who was coming in so late to the party, but no one stepped across the threshold. Whoever had cracked the door appeared to be waiting just outside the room.

My nerves bristled, and I slipped quickly through the crowd of men, toward the door. When I got close enough, I finally glimpsed who was standing there, spying on the festivities. But it wasn’t what I feared—some photographer with a zoom lens.

It was worse.

A leggy blond in a business suit stood peering into the room. She wore expensive, rose-tinted sunglasses that shielded much of her face, but I would have recognized her anywhere. She appeared to be surveying the gathering, and she didn’t look happy. No surprise, given her focus on the hanging banner, the one with the unflattering poster of herself holding Matt’s leash.

Matt hadn’t yet seen her. He’d been distracted by Roger’s toast, so I waited for the best man to finish and the gang to raise their glasses. Then I maneuvered through the guys to the center of the room and tapped my half-drunk ex-husband on the arm.

“She’s here, Matt.”

“Who’s here?” He looked down at me, his eyes slightly glazed.

“The woman who threatened you with homicide if you had a bachelor party.” I pointed to the half-open door.

Matt paled, his mug of beer freezing halfway to his lips.

“I’m a dead man.”

The door swung fully open, banging like a gunshot against the back wall (and barely missing the framed photos of Dylan Thomas’s gravesite and writing shed). The sudden noise quieted the men, and they turned their heads to find Breanne Summour fuming in the doorway.