GINA WILKINS - The Best Man's Plan

She tugged her hand from his, annoyed to realize that it wasn’t quite steady when she reached for her water glass. “I think it would be better if—”

“Mr. Falcon. What a nice surprise to run in to you today.”

The man who had stopped by their table, interrupting Grace’s words, was tall, slender and very fashionably dressed. His bleached, moussed and sprayed hair swept back from a face tanned in a salon, tucked in a plastic surgeon’s office, and accented with vivid-blue contact lenses and pearly white dental caps. It took Grace only a moment to put a name to that striking face; she had seen him a few times on the entertainment channel, where he regularly dished celebrity tidbits and dissed their choice of clothing.

Bryan flashed one of his famous smiles, and Grace couldn’t help noticing that he needed no artificial enhancements to make him gorgeous. Nature had taken care of that quite adequately, from his silky black hair to those naturally blue eyes in a face that had made many a red-blooded woman go weak in the knees. Grace’s own knees showed a distressing tendency to fail around him—and she didn’t even like him very much. Or so she regularly reminded herself.

After exchanging a few meaningless pleasantries with the other man, Bryan turned to Grace. “I don’t believe you two have met. Grace Pennington, this is Terence Bishop.”

“Yes, of course. I’ve seen you on television,” she said, extending a hand.

His fingers were cold, his grip a bit weak—or maybe that was only in comparison to Bryan’s warm, firm touch. He seemed pleased that she had recognized him. “It’s delightful to meet you, Ms. Pennington. Are you enjoying your visit to our city?”

“Yes, very much, thank you.”

She could see him cataloging her simple hairstyle and the conservative cut of her emerald-green blouse and oatmeal linen slacks. He’d also noted the rhythm of her Southern accent. “You’re from Arkansas, aren’t you?” he asked as if he found it hard to believe that anyone would actually choose to live in such a place.

“Little Rock,” she confirmed with a determinedly pleasant nod. “Have you been there?”

“Oh, goodness no.” He appeared to be amused by the very idea. “I seem to always be flying from one coast to the other, with very few stops in between.”

“Then you’ve missed a great many fascinating places,” Bryan inserted smoothly. “I grew up in Little Rock, you know, and I still maintain a home there, though I don’t get to spend as much time there as I would like now.”

Bishop’s gaze turned speculative as he looked from Bryan to Grace. “I understand you’ve been spending quite a lot of time there lately.”

Bryan sent Grace a warm smile. “As much as I can manage.”

“You led the press on quite a chase, you know.” Bishop shook a finger in a gesture of indulgent reprimand. “That was very tricky of you to keep everyone guessing which lovely twin you were actually dating.”

Bryan shrugged. “My personal life is my business, of course. Still, I noticed that most got it wrong. You were one of the ones who reported that I was all but engaged to Grace’s sister, weren’t you, Terence?”

A faint touch of red stained the other man’s throat, but he managed a credible chuckle. “I’m afraid so. And you did nothing to set us straight. You practically confirmed that you were seeing Zoe—”

“Chloe,” Grace corrected in a mutter.

“Ah, yes, of course. But you must admit it appeared as though your old friend swept in and wooed your fiancée away from you. It’s quite a coincidence that you and Mr. Chance fell for sisters, don’t you think?”

Bryan’s grin deepened. “The dreaded love triangle—another bit of gossip fabricated through sloppy reporting. At least you’ve managed to avoid that one—haven’t you, Terence?”

“Certainly. I finally remembered how much you enjoy toying with the media. That wicked sense of humor just might lead you into trouble someday, Mr. Falcon.”

“I’ll keep your warning in mind. Yet, while the media was busy trying to figure out the players, Grace and I had a chance to get to know each other in relative private, didn’t we, darling?”

She only smiled when he took her hand again.

“So—” Looking searchingly from Bryan to Grace again, Bishop asked bluntly, “Can we expect another wedding announcement in the family soon?”

“One wedding at a time is plenty for my family, Mr. Bishop,” Grace replied. “Bryan and I are quite happy as we are for now. Isn’t that right, darling?”

He lifted her hand to his lips. “Deliriously.”

Their gazes met and held over her hand. Grace found herself momentarily unable to look away, captured by the gleam in his eyes and the brush of his mouth against her palm. Her fingers curled inward almost instinctively, as if to prevent the kiss from escaping.

Bishop cleared his throat. “Well. I’ll leave you lovebirds to finish your meal. Perhaps we’ll see each other again soon.”

Bryan looked away, breaking that disconcerting moment of connection with Grace. “I’m sure we will.”

“And you will let me know if there are any announcements in the future, won’t you?”

“You’ll be the first to know,” Bryan replied with such cheerful insincerity that Bishop was almost sulking when he strolled away.

Bryan turned back to Grace. “I think that went well, don’t you?”

His sudden transformation from devoted suitor to smug co-conspirator made Grace blink. Pulling herself together quickly, she snarled, “You licked my hand, you degenerate.”

He laughed softly. “And you taste delectable—as I suspected you would.”

She scooted nearer to him, gazing up at him through her lashes and keeping her voice a low, husky croon. “Bryan?”

His gaze fell to her moistened lips. “Mmm?”

Some evil impulse made her lean even closer, well aware that the neckline of her blouse gaped when she did so. In typical male fashion, his gaze dropped lower. “When this is all over—”

“Yes?” he prodded without raising his eyes.

She straightened away from him. “I’m going to have you killed.”

He laughed and reached for his water glass. “It’s always nice to have something to look forward to.”

Chloe and Donovan were waiting at the airport when Grace and Bryan arrived in Little Rock early that evening. Chloe rushed forward to greet them, Donovan following a bit more slowly at her heels.

It still startled Grace at times to see the short, fashionably choppy hairstyle her twin had sported for the past few months. They’d always worn similar styles in the past—and Grace had traditionally been the one to break rank and try something new. They’d stopped dressing alike in elementary school, and had maintained separate apartments for years, but their lives had still been tightly intertwined, both personally and professionally. Grace was aware that many things would be changing between them once Chloe and Donovan married and formed their own family.

Chloe hugged her, then stepped back to look at her as though it had been longer than a couple of days since they’d seen each other. “Did you have a good time in New York?”

“It was very nice,” Grace answered without a blink.

Glancing quickly around them, Chloe lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Do you think you accomplished your goal? Keeping the gossips confused about us, I mean.”

Grace smiled with a patience she reserved only for Chloe. “I know what our goal was. And, yes, I think we made some progress on that front.”

Bryan and Donovan had greeted each other with slaps on the shoulders—a ritual Grace had always considered the male version of a hug. Bryan then turned to Chloe, taking her hand in both of his and bending to brush a kiss across her cheek, murmuring a complimentary greeting as he did so.