Jennifer McKenzie - Not Another Wedding

“Well, yes, but—”

“No buts.” Beck shook his head. “If you couldn’t get the job done in the allotted time, that’s your fault.”

He saw her temper flare. “My fault?” She elbowed him in the ribs, smiled when he blanched. “If you hadn’t horned in where you weren’t wanted—”

“Oh, I think I was wanted.” He cocked his head to indicate Jamie. “Did you get a look at his face, Red? He could barely wait to leap into the arms of his one true love.”

“Do. Not. Call. Me. Red.”

“Fine, Auburn.” He noticed she didn’t say anything about Jamie, just looked in his direction with a pinched expression on her face.

“Is it really so bad?” he asked. “They seem happy.” Marriage might not be his thing, but it seemed to agree with Jamie. And Emmy was nice enough.

“Hello?” Poppy whispered. “She’s a gold digger.”

He frowned. “A what?”

It wasn’t that he hadn’t heard the term before. But Emmy? Emmy was the opposite of a gold digger. Her father owned the company that provided the Lefebvre Group with all their linens, from bedding to napkins. Neither Emmy nor Grace would have to work a day in their lives, but Beck didn’t say anything. If he told Poppy now, she would end their business arrangement.

“A gold digger.” She stared up at him with those bright eyes. “Don’t tell me the thought didn’t cross your mind. Didn’t you run a background check on her or something?”

“No.” But only because he hadn’t needed to. “Look, Emmy’s not a gold digger.”

“How would you know?” She put her hands on her hips and did her best to stare him down. “You didn’t even bother to look into her background.”

“I just do.”

“Well, I’m not so sure and I’m not about to let Jamie get tied down to someone who’s only interested in his money.”

“Maybe they really love each other?” Beck suggested.

“Right.” Poppy snorted. Beck thought she looked adorable. All fired up and ready to protect her friend. “She just magically met Jamie and fell in love with him as soon as she found out he owned a winery.”

“Not everyone who owns a winery is rich.” He thought it was sweet that she was concerned on Jamie’s behalf. He couldn’t fault her for that, even if she was wrong about Emmy.

Poppy stopped trying to shrug his arm away and shook her head. “We both know that’s not the case with Jamie.”

It was true. Jamie’s father had left behind the land where the winery now stood, and Jamie had turned the business into a profitable one in a few short years. But Emmy still had far more money to her name.

“Poppy, has she done anything to make you think she doesn’t care about Jamie?” Beck hadn’t observed anything, but he wasn’t close to Jamie anymore. He ignored the twinge of guilt in his gut. Emmy might not be a gold digger, but people had reasons other than money to jump into marriage. Most of them bad ones.

“No, but she wouldn’t be a successful gold digger if she did.” Poppy turned to look down the dock.

Beck looked, too. Emmy’s family had started back up the path. His own parents stood off to the side, talking quietly. While Beck watched, his father reached out and stroked his mother’s cheek. He turned away.

“I need to talk to Jamie about it. Just to make sure.” Poppy poked him in the side. “Everything would be fine if you hadn’t intruded.”

Her demand to get some private time with Jamie made sense now, but Beck shrugged off her complaint. If he hadn’t intruded, the rest of the family would have come upon them like a swarm of locusts.

“Seriously,” she continued, “you haven’t held up your end of the bargain at all. You did nothing to get me this alone time. You just sat there molesting that orange while I did all the work.”

“Liked that, did you?” He smirked.

She sniffed. “Not even a little.” But he felt the way her body leaned into his for a moment and the desire of that long-ago summer flooded him.

She’d been so open and generous. Her laugh, her family, her life. And Beck hadn’t been able to get enough of it. Enough of her. He should have called her from Seattle. Should have tried to explain what happened, but it had been easier to ignore. To pretend he was like every other student at university, starting fresh with no excess baggage.

If he’d stayed with Poppy, he would have ruined her.

He’d only needed to look to his parents’ broken marriages to know he didn’t have good genetics when it came to long-term relationships. Falling into the cycle of university life where some people encouraged a no-strings attitude had seemed simpler.

“I’ve been doing my part,” Poppy said, dragging him back to the present. “Now it’s your turn.”

“I wouldn’t say you’ve made it easy.” To prove his point, he tightened his hold on her and brought her around so she faced him. Their hips pressed close together. She tried to wriggle away.

“You didn’t say anything about mauling when I agreed to this.” She continued wriggling. “Quit it,” she whispered.

He moved his head just before she banged hers into his chin. “Quit what?” he teased.

“We’re not dating, remember?”

“I remember.” But he didn’t loosen his grip. She was slippery and would scoot away if given the slightest opportunity. He knew his mother had one eye on them. All he needed was for her to see Poppy publicly end things. He’d spend the rest of the week fending off his mother’s prying questions as to why things hadn’t worked out.

“Then stop crushing me. I can’t breathe.” He wasn’t sure if she was being truthful, but he eased up a little. She made a big show of inhaling, but didn’t dart away. He figured that was a win.

Emmy and Jamie stared out at the lake, when they weren’t staring into each other’s eyes, and eventually called out they were heading back to the house because Emmy was cold. His parents followed suit.

Beck watched Poppy watch them. When they moved out of sight, she tried to shake Beck off again. But he was an immovable object. He could manage her weak attempts with one hand.

“What is the matter with you?” she asked once it became clear she wasn’t getting away from him quite so easily.

“What do you mean?” He played dumb and turned her in his arms so they faced each other again. “All my parts are in exactly the right places.” He leaned toward her so she could check for herself.

“That is not what I meant.” She wedged her elbow between her body and his so he couldn’t press up against her. “Why are you trying to convince everyone we’re dating?”

“That was the agreement.”

“No, the agreement was that I would act as a buffer and you would help me get some time with Jamie. A point at which you failed miserably.”

Beck didn’t think he’d failed miserably. He’d been the one to suggest Jamie head down to the dock to take a look at the view, and then casually mentioned to Emmy it might be chilly with the wind blowing. He’d even tried to prevent them all from coming down, but once his mother had mentioned going and his father had agreed, there had been no way to stop the entire group from making the trek.

But he shrugged in the face of her complaint. “If you think you can manage to get the time with Jamie on your own, that’s fine.”

It was a power play. A subtle one, but a play nonetheless. If she thought she could manage this on her own, she would never have joined forces with him.

“Maybe I will.” She crossed her arms and shot him a challenging look.

He recognized her bluff. Beck had seen enough of them in boardrooms to recognize the signs. The way she held his gaze without even blinking was wholly unnatural and not something a confident person did. If they were to shake hands, she’d probably try to squeeze hard enough to rub his bones together. Plus, she had a pinched curve to her lips and held herself stiffly as though waiting for the anvil to drop on her head.