Ann Evans - After That Night

Victoria tossed back the last of her chardonnay, then poured herself another glass from the bottle they’d ordered. “It’s Cara,” she said morosely. “She wants to quit school and traipse off to Europe with that moron she’s dating. She’s not listening to me at all. I swear, if I could convince her to come home, I’d lock her in the attic and toss the key off the top of Stone Mountain.”

Jenna laughed. “And I thought I was the only one being tortured by overprotective older siblings. Poor Cara.”

“You know I’m not like that. But after Mom and Dad died, I worked hard to get her future settled. I won’t let her toss away law school just because this guy gives her multiple orgasms.”

Lauren’s brows arched. “Multiple? Wow. Sounds like someone I’d like to meet.”

“Well, he’s not. He’s crude and ill-mannered and unemployed. Last week he almost talked her into having a nipple pierced.”

“Ouch!” Lauren said with a grimace.

“I’m not a prude, but honestly, he’s…” Victoria made a low, annoyed sound and raked her fingers through her long hair. “Forget him. I refuse to let him spoil our celebration. Now where were we?”

Again Jenna exchanged a glance with Lauren. She was concerned for Vic, but they both knew her well. Vic wouldn’t elaborate further if she didn’t want to. There would be another time, another place to tackle the problem of free-spirited baby sister Cara who just wouldn’t listen to reason.

Lauren said calmly, “You were telling us about the one who bit the dust.”

Victoria turned her attention back to the file folder she’d set on the table in front of her. She opened it, and Jenna saw that it contained the guts of an article the magazine had run the year before—a fluff piece listing the Ten Most Eligible Bachelors in the South. Lauren had taken the pictures. Victoria had written and edited the text.

Jenna vaguely remembered that it had been well received. No reader really expected it to help them catch one of these paragons of manhood. But there wasn’t an unmarried woman in the world who wasn’t at least curious to know what kind of high-end matrimonial material was out there.

That was the heart of Fairy Tale Weddings’ appeal—dreams and fantasies. Besides the latest trends in catering and wedding attire, it specialized in the fantastic. Honeymoon locations that no one else had found and spoiled yet. Weddings that could be performed in mountaintop yurts or underwater on a sunken ship. And though the publication was a pretty small fish in the publishing pond, FTW, as they referred to it, had seemed to find its niche at last.

“So which one is getting married?” Jenna asked, leaning over to get a better look.

Truthfully, she wasn’t all that curious. She might be an equal partner in the magazine, but most of the time she was strictly back office: paying the bills, budgeting and because she was so savvy with a computer, helping with the layout of each bimonthly issue. Occasionally she helped out in other areas, but the content of FTW was generally left up to Vic.

And since her divorce last year, Jenna found that the idea of men and dating and all that matrimonial hype had about as much appeal as yesterday’s cold soup.

Victoria sorted through the stack of glossies with their attached profiles, then edged the photos apart. Lauren had done a great job with them. Ten gorgeous-looking men surrounded by boats, planes and polo ponies marched in a line toward Jenna’s side of the table.

“Number six,” Victoria said, rescuing one picture from the row. “Mark Bishop.”

Lauren moved her chair so she could see better. “I remember him. Ivy League college. Newspaper business. A very intense way of sizing you up. I’m surprised he’s the first to get married.”

“Why?” Jenna asked.

The picture of Mark Bishop revealed a good-looking, dark-haired man in a custom-made suit. Unlike most of the other subjects, he wasn’t surrounded by the playthings of the rich. He sat perched on the edge of a boardroom table, arms crossed, unsmiling. His eyes were locked with the camera in a way that made him seem dangerous, in spite of the tasteful civility of his clothing and surroundings.

Lauren pursed her lips as though searching her memory. “He wasn’t very cooperative about having his picture taken. He didn’t seem to care one way or the other whether women found him attractive. Wasn’t that your take, Vic?”

“I don’t think he believed our readers would find him interesting.”

“Too shy?” Jenna asked. The picture didn’t seem to indicate a guy who was at all reticent.

Lauren took a sip of wine. “Too arrogant, if you ask me.”

Victoria seemed to mull over that comment. “No, not arrogant,” she said at last. “Just very self-assured. He only agreed to the interview as a favor to Debra Lee.”

“Debra Lee Goodson?” Jenna asked in surprise.

“How many Debra Lees do you know?” Vic asked with a smile. “When I first had the idea for the article, I called every woman I could think of who might know someone, and she suggested her boss. She didn’t want to ask him at first, but eventually she caved in.”

“That’s because she adores you,” Lauren pointed out. “If you asked her to take a swim in toxic waste, she’d dig out her snorkel and fins.”

That was certainly true. Back in high school, Debra Lee Goodson had idolized Vic, who had taken the gawky teenager on as her pet project and been the one to introduce her to her future husband.

Still, it didn’t sound as though Mark Bishop had wanted to do the original interview at all. Debra Lee, persuasive and extremely loyal, had probably been impossible to turn down.

Jenna flipped up the picture to scan the attached bio and Mark Bishop’s answers to the list of questions that had been posed to every one of the Ten Most Eligible. Thirty-two. A Leo. Educated at Princeton. No siblings.

Aloud she read, “‘My life’s passion is…my work’?” Jenna smiled at her friends. “Gosh, every woman’s dream. A workaholic.”

Lauren frowned. “Yes, and if I remember correctly, Debra Lee shared with him a few of our more embarrassing tales of adolescence. The nitwit.”

“He found them amusing,” Victoria said. She seemed determined to raise Mark Bishop’s profile. For my benefit? Jenna wondered.

Lauren shook her head. “Ha! He blew us off professionally. I got the distinct impression he thought we were goofy, naive teenagers who grew up to be goofy, naive adults.”

Jenna looked at Vic. “And you think he’ll make an interesting follow-up piece?”

A tiny frown marred Victoria’s brow. “He’s the first one to get engaged. I think it will be interesting to follow each of these guys as they come off the list. What made them choose the woman they’re going to marry? What made—” she checked the back of the profile, where she’d added a notation or two “—Shelby Elaine Winston the one for Mark Bishop? Why her?”

Lauren snorted. “Why should we care? So the rest of us can copy good old Shelby and hope that one day we’ll snag a Mr. Right for ourselves?” She shook her head in disgust, sending loose auburn curls over one shoulder. “God, sometimes I think we need to give up on that fantasy.”

“What makes you think some of us haven’t?” Jenna surprised herself by saying. Damn Jack Rawlins! He really had soured her on any notion of happily-ever-after, hadn’t he?

Victoria looked genuinely disconcerted. “What’s wrong with you two? We’re all firm believers in fairy-tale endings, remember?”

“Not lately,” Lauren said, playing with her wineglass.

Something in her tone made Jenna wonder just how much trouble there was in Lauren’s current relationship. Earlier she’d mentioned that Brad had begun to pressure her to make more of a commitment. She’d responded by taking an assignment for a travel magazine that would have her flying to New Zealand next week. Get some breathing distance between them, she’d said.