Barbara Dunlop - High Stakes

Candice glanced from man to man. Both were tall and broad shouldered, with short dark hair and those startling blue eyes. Tyler was slightly slimmer, and he always looked a whole lot happier.

“Did the reception move up here?” she asked.

It was one thing for her to duck out on Erin and Striker. She was just another wedding guest. But Derek and Tyler were in their brother’s wedding party.

“I just need to check on something,” said Tyler, holding out his hand for the phone.

Derek looked confused, but he reached into the pocket of his tux jacket. “Yeah…Sure…”

“Thanks,” Tyler nodded, taking Derek’s phone and heading back out the door.

“No problem,” said Derek.

Candice wondered why Tyler hadn’t used a house phone downstairs. There had to be a hundred of them.

While she puzzled over his presence, he paused in the doorway. Then turned back to face them, tapping the phone against the bottom of his chin. His expression shifted from affable to stern.

“You two are upsetting my wife,” he said.

“Upsetting Jenna?” asked Candice, instantly worried. Jenna had been fine when she’d left her ten minutes ago. It couldn’t be that important to her that Candice get a date.

Tyler reached for the two doors. “And I’ve decided you need some time alone together to work things out.” He quickly pulled the doors shut and clicked the dead bolt into place.

“What the hell?” Derek was at the doors in three long strides. “Tyler? My phone!”

“Jenna suggested a time-out,” came Tyler’s muffled voice from the other side of the solid oak.

“Time-out from what?” called Derek.

“Like in kindergarten. You two kids see about settling your differences before the crew shows up on Monday.”

SETTLE THEIR DIFFERENCES? Candice darted a glance at Derek’s rock-hard jaw and narrowed eyes. “What does he mean Monday?”

Derek’s lips thinned, but he didn’t answer.

She quickly turned her attention to the dead bolt. It was keyed from both sides, and she didn’t have a key.

Tyler had locked them in the restaurant.

“Tyler?” she asked hopefully, moving up against the oak, testing the knob. “Uh, Tyler?”

No reply.

Derek let out an exasperated curse. “I don’t think he’s out there.”

“He’ll be back,” she said, nodding confidently, stepping back and gazing up at the oversized doors. “This has to be a joke.”

“I didn’t hear Tyler laughing.”

“Jenna won’t let him leave us here.”

“What makes you think he’ll tell Jenna?”

“Well…Because…” Candice hated to admit it, but that was a good question.

Brushing past her, Derek tested the knob, then he rattled the doors. “I sincerely doubt he’ll tell her.”

“She’s his wife. Isn’t there something in the wedding vows about honesty?”

Derek stepped back beside her to survey the doors. He let out a hard sigh, shaking his head in pity, voice dropping to that intimate timbre. “Candy, Candy, Candy—”

“I asked you not to call me that.”

“Tyler thinks he’s saving Jenna.”

“Well, that would be your fault.”

Derek held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “How is it my fault?”

“Jenna’s frustrated, because you keep picking fights, undermining my instructions—”

“I do have veto power.”

“Over the stain color? The wainscoting? The positioning of the wine rack?” If Derek would just let her do her job, they wouldn’t be in this fix. She was really quite easy to get along with.

“Over any little thing I want,” he said.

“You have taken things way beyond the spirit of the contract.”

“Your threatening to bankrupt me takes things beyond the spirit of the contract.”

“I did not threaten bankrupting you.” Candice folded her arms across her chest. “I am a professional.”

He gave a dry chuckle. “You said, and I quote, ‘I have a contract for three-point-five million of your dollars, and I intend to spend every cent.’”

Candice shifted uncomfortably. “I was upset.” It hadn’t been the most professional moment of her career. But, Derek did that to her.

He ran his fingers around the seams of the doors. “The true measure of a professional isn’t what she does when things are going well.”

“You don’t think you and Tyler lying to us, conspiring against us, hiding your identities amounts to extraordinary circumstances.”

“Tyler was working undercover.”

“Tyler was also sleeping with Jenna.”

“She seems to have forgiven him.”

“He deserved to be forgiven.”

Derek stared at her in silence for a moment. “Unlike me.”

“You’re still a problem, Derek.”

“We’re still locked in a restaurant, Candy.”

“It’s Candice.”

He grinned.

“Okay, fine. You’re right. Let’s table it for now.”

He nodded in agreement. “We can always pick up the fight after we’re free.”

She nodded in return. “Deal. So, did you bring your master key?”

“Won’t fit this lock.”

“It’s a master key.”

“The door and the lock are old. And unique. We haven’t locked it in years.”

Candice eyed the carved oak slabs. “You think you could break it down?”

“It’s solid oak. Besides, isn’t it pivotal to the flow of the room or something?”

“True.” It was a feature she’d planned to use. They’d refinish it, replace the brass. Maybe change the lock in case this kind of thing ever happened again.

It would be a shame to break it. But she was starting to feel claustrophobic. Not that the room was small. In fact, it was huge. It was just that Derek took up so darn much of it.

Suddenly, inspiration hit. The kitchen. She headed across the dining room. “There’s a door through the kitchen.”

“Blocked by the new refrigeration unit,” Derek called after her.

“We should at least check it out.”

“Waste of time,” he said, but he followed.

“Pessimist,” she countered.

“Realist,” he corrected.

“Cynic.” She stopped in front of the crated refrigeration unit. It was huge. She suspected even former linebacker Derek wouldn’t be able to budge this thing.

“Jenna will be here soon,” Candice said with more confidence than she felt.

“Maybe.”

“I’m sure she’ll notice we’re missing.”

“She’s probably got her mind on her Tyler right now. I hear weddings make women feel romantic.”

Candice had to admit, Derek had a point. For some women. “Not me.”

“Why does that not surprise me?”

Candice lined her hands up against the rough wooden crate and pushed as hard as she could. “I am not staying in here until Monday. I have things to do, places to go.” She had the library redecorating proposal to finish this weekend. The deadline was Wednesday and there were still a hundred details to check.

“Are you hinting that I don’t?”

“Well you’re not acting like it.” She pushed harder. For a big-time international conglomerate executive, he seemed pretty blasé about losing a huge chunk of his time.

“Candy—”

“Don’t call me that.”

Derek leaned back against a butcher’s block. “It weighs a ton.”

She glared at him as she peeled off her high heels. “Wimp.”

He straightened and opened one of the drawers under the counter, pawing through the contents. “I’m speaking literally. It weighs two thousand pounds. Sometimes you have to accept defeat.”

“How’d you ever get to be a millionaire with an attitude like that?” She turned her back on the crate and tried pushing it butt first.

“How do you manage to keep clients with an attitude like yours?”