Susan Mallery: Before We Kiss

Which it appeared Dellina just might be.

She opened the door. He instinctively stiffened and saw they were still there. Racks holding covered white gowns. Like plastic aliens, hanging and shrouded, waiting to be returned to the mother ship.

“Isabel pays me to store her dresses,” Dellina said. “I would do it for free, but she insists on a small monthly payment. These are not my dresses.”

“Okay.” He tried to adjust his collar only to realize that his shirt wasn’t buttoned all the way and any pressure he felt was the result of being an idiot.

He cleared his throat. “So, ah, that clears up the problem with the wedding dresses. What about that?”

He pointed to the dry-erase board. It still stated Ten Ways to Get Him to Propose, but there weren’t any suggestions by the numbers.

Dellina sighed and sagged back against the wall. “It’s Fayrene.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“My younger sister,” she clarified. “Fayrene met Ryan last spring. They fell in love, but she didn’t want to get married because she wanted to focus on her career. Ryan was fine with that and they agreed to wait four years.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“She’s changed her mind and wants him to propose now.”

He waited, knowing there had to be more.

“Ryan isn’t getting the message.” Dellina rubbed her temples. “Probably because she hasn’t told him. Fayrene doesn’t want to tell Ryan she’s changed her mind. That wouldn’t be romantic. She wants him to guess on his own.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Sam told her. “If Ryan loves Fayrene, he’s going to respect her wishes no matter how much he wants to get married sooner. This isn’t a winning strategy.”

“Thanks for your insight. I happen to agree with everything you’ve said, but unless you want to take that up with Fayrene, you’re telling the wrong person. My point is, the list isn’t about me.”

Dellina faced him. “Look, Sam, I know you have no reason to believe me, but I don’t bring home guys I just met. Ever. Last Valentine’s Day was the first time I’d done anything like that.”

She kept talking but he stopped listening long enough to revel in the fact that she’d picked him for her first one-night stand. Okay, it wasn’t up there with curing a disease, but still, nice to know. He returned his attention to her.

“...and when you took off, I couldn’t figure out what had happened. Then I remembered this room and I knew you’d freaked.”

“Understandably,” he added.

“Yes. It is a bit off-putting. But you could have asked me what was going on.”

He thought about the other women who had been in his life. His family. If Dellina knew about all that, she wouldn’t be expecting a rational response. But she didn’t know any of it and he preferred it that way.

“You’re right,” he told her. “I should have asked. I reacted. It was late and we’d had sex and this room scared the hell out of me.”

She smiled. “You run fast.”

“I’ve had training.”

Her smile widened, drawing his attention to her mouth. “You’ve done a good job avoiding me. Fool’s Gold isn’t that big.”

“I noticed. You’re in a lot of places. You didn’t make it easy.”

“I didn’t want to,” she admitted.

“Then you must have been happy to find out about the party.”

Her expression turned impish. “A little.”

Because getting the party together had fallen onto him. Normally he would have simply hired someone. But the only party planner in town was Dellina. So he’d put off dealing with her as long as he could.

“Now that you’ve had your fun at my expense,” he told her, “there’s still a problem to solve.”

“Right. Score is putting on a party for its best clients. Three days of fun and frolic.”

“Frolic? Did you really just say that?”

She pushed off the wall and walked across the hall. “You know I did. Come on. Let’s go talk about how much extra you’re going to have to pay me to pull this all together in four weeks.”

* * *

DELLINA WAS MORE relaxed having Sam around than she would have thought. Now that they’d dealt with the past and the awkwardness of that night, they could get down to business.

He followed her into her office. Unfortunately she hadn’t been prepared for visitors so there were stacks of papers everywhere. She wanted to point out that usually she went to clients’ offices or the venue, but knew that one of the key rules of business was not to apologize unnecessarily. There was plenty of time for that if she actually messed up.

She reached for a pile of papers on a chair at the same time Sam did. His hand settled on top of hers. Instinctively, she looked at him and saw his gaze locked with hers. Probably because of the roaring heat, not to mention sparks, flaring from that single point of contact. Unless only she was feeling the attraction, in which case he was probably wondering what on earth was wrong with her.

She pulled back, as did he, and the pile of papers thudded to the floor.

Dellina stared at the mess. “Okay,” she said, circling around the desk. “Leave them. They can’t fall any farther.”

Her office was in the smallest of the three bedrooms. It was maybe ten-by-ten, with her big desk in the middle. There were a couple of chairs, two file cabinets, corkboard on one wall, a window and a long table, which she mostly used to stack yet more piles. One of these days she really had to come up with a filing system.

She sat down and reached for a folder. She colored-coded her projects and the Score party was going to be crimson. One of the L.A. Stallions colors. Something that made her smile even if no one else noticed.

“About the party,” she began, and picked up a pad of paper. “What are you looking for?”

“Taryn must have told you something.”

“She did, but I want to make sure I understand what you’re expecting. So you tell me.” She smiled. “Don’t worry. I won’t get bored if it’s a repeat.”

“How reassuring.” He leaned back in his chair. “We’re inviting twenty couples for a total of forty adults. Between them they’ll be bringing twelve children. Ages six to thirteen.”

She began to write.

“Our clients include sports celebrities, a company that manufactures rum and a jet time-share.”

She looked up. “A what?”

“A jet time-share. Private jets?”

“I know what they are.”

“With a time-share, you buy hours rather than having to own a whole plane. There’s an annual membership fee. You can buy a hundred hours, two hundred. Whatever you need.”

She supposed that owning only part of a jet was better than having to pay for the entire thing. If one were in the position to worry about that sort of thing. She didn’t fly much, but when she did, she looked for a bargain online.

“Another client is an international headhunter.” He paused, as if waiting for a question.

“I know what that is,” she told him. “They fill executive positions for large companies.”

“Very good.”

There was going to be a lot of money in the room, she thought as she took more notes. Not a big surprise. The owners of Score were rich, successful guys. Or in Taryn’s case, a rich, successful woman. They would attract like clients. She wondered why they’d chosen to settle in Fool’s Gold. A quiet, family oriented town with an obsession with festivals. According to Taryn, the guys had been the ones to push for the move. Which made Dellina wonder if they had been trying to get to something or away from something.

Her gaze returned to Sam. He was just over six feet, with broad shoulders and a lean, muscled build. As a kicker, he wouldn’t need to be huge. Jack and Kenny were physically bigger. While she preferred Sam’s physique, she would ignore his hunky maleness and the recent sparkage and remember this job was a big deal for her. She was going to dazzle the partners and come away with both a healthier checkbook balance and a kick-ass recommendation.