Kaye Dacus - Stand-In Groom

“I will check the calendar to arrange a time.” He pushed a chunk of salmon toward the edge of his plate and speared a few pieces of romaine and a crouton. “Do you work with your aunt often?”

“I’ve worked with her since I was nine years old. My first paying job was as her catering assistant.” Anne dug the fingernails of her left hand into her palm. Why did she always run on at the mouth whenever he asked her a question?

His smile was inscrutable. “So, in essence, you entered the family business as well.”

She blinked a couple of times in surprise and then couldn’t stop her smile. “I’ve never thought about it that way, but I guess you’re right.”

“But she’s bossy, so she wanted to be the one telling everyone else what to do.” Jason swiped another shrimp off Jenn’s plate. “That’s why she started her own business.”

“I’m not bossy.” Anne laughed as Jason waggled his eyebrows at her. Six years her junior, he’d only been three when she’d come to live with his family after her parents’ death. “Okay, maybe I was a little bossy growing up.”

Jenn, Meredith, and Rafe scoffed.

Forbes leaned forward to look at her around George. “I hate to be the one to break it to you, my dear, but you do like to be the one in control…at least when it comes to your weddings. That’s why you work around the clock to make sure everything’s up to your exacting standards.”

“But that’s what makes you so good at what you do.” Meredith could always be counted on to defend her.

Anne laughed to keep from groaning. What kind of an impression was George Laurence going to have of her after tonight? Would he still respect her in the morning?

“Anne was featured in one of the bridal magazines a month ago.” Jenn jumped into the conversation, slapping Jason’s hand away from her plate as she regained her seat. “She’s gotten calls from brides all over the country since it came out. Of course, now we can get away with calling her an ‘obsessive perfectionist’ since it appeared in print from an objective outsider.”

“Jenn!” Heat crawled up Anne’s cheeks.

“Yes, I saw the article.”

George’s admission startled Anne.

“That is why Miss Hawthorne was hired to plan this wedding,” he continued. “The bride was very impressed by her credentials and the portfolio of photographs from other weddings that were featured.”

“So your fiancée decided to get married here just because she read an article about Anne?” Rafe asked.

George shook his head. “No. The bride is originally from Bonneterre and wished to get married in her hometown.”

“So that’s how you ended up here.” Jenn gave George an appraising glance. “You know, George, I’m going to keep bugging you about who you work for until I get it out of you.”

The servers returned to the table to remove their dinner plates and offer a dessert menu.

“No dessert for me,” Anne said as she handed him her plate, “but I would love a hazelnut cappuccino.”

“Brilliant idea.” George’s voice was soft, as if meant only for himself. “I’ll have one of the same, please,” he told the waiter.

The talk around the table turned to travel. Anne listened with unbidden fascination to George’s descriptions of the distant and exotic places he’d visited. She fought the desire to ask her own questions about his personal life. What had led him into his profession? For whom did he work? Was it someone famous or just wealthy? And how was Courtney—

She gasped, nearly choking on her cappuccino. His employer!

Coughing, she grabbed her napkin as Meredith pounded her on the back. “I’m okay—just went down the wrong way,” she assured her cousin, her voice raspy. She breathed a little easier when George excused himself from the table.

What he said he did for a living didn’t sound like a job that would make him try to shroud his wedding with mystery. What if it was his employer and not himself he was trying to protect? What if he did work for someone famous like Rafe had been teasing about, and that person was embarrassed by George’s marrying a girl so much younger?

She needed to go down to the Blanchard Leblanc bookstore, grab as many gossip magazines as she could find, and do some research. If his employer was someone famous, maybe there were pictures of him or her at some event with George hovering in the background—a movie premiere, a black-tie fund-raiser…. The coffee scalded her tongue, but she didn’t care. Somehow, she had to find out who George Laurence really was.

Yes. Focusing on figuring out who he really was might help her overcome her growing attraction to him.

The house lights lowered. Anne glanced at her watch. How had it gotten to be nine o’clock? She really needed to go back to the office and finish her to-do list for the next two days.

She leaned over to grab her purse from under the table but snapped back upright when the strains of “Volare” started—sung by someone who sounded so close to Dean Martin, chills danced up and down her arms.

She blinked twice just to make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks. Entranced, she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. George Laurence stood on the karaoke stage—now crooning the song’s bridge in Italian—sounding just like Dean Martin and giving every indication this was something he not only enjoyed doing, but did often.

Tears burned her eyes. Everything. Every detail about this man fit her long-held mental image of her soul mate. Cliff’s weaknesses, the things about him that had driven her crazy, were George’s strengths: his ability to socialize with grace, his discretion, his apparent good stewardship of his money…. She had a feeling George would never pretend to be in love with a woman just to gain his own end, the way Cliff had used her.

How could God do this to her? Bring the perfect man into her life only to force her to help him marry someone else?

She fled the restaurant. Her car’s engine came to life with a roar. But instead of putting it into gear and driving away, she pounded her fists on the steering wheel.

“This is my punishment, isn’t it, God?” she cried. “You’re punishing me because I’ve never been able to forgive Cliff Ballantine for what he did to me, aren’t You? I don’t want to forgive him! He ruined my life. I dropped out of graduate school to work and send him money, and then he dumped me so he could go off and become a famous movie star and I could work myself practically to death to pay off all the debt I went into for him. Why is it fair that You’re punishing me by showing me what I can’t have, and he’s had everything go right for him?”

She slammed the car into gear and screeched the tires pulling out of the parking lot. Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm down. “Lord, I know You have a plan for my life. But if it includes forgiving Cliff Ballantine, I’m not sure I can do it.”

The coffee shop inside the Blanchard Leblanc bookstore was Anne’s favorite place to unwind on a Sunday afternoon. She sipped her caramel-hazelnut latte and claimed one of the overstuffed armchairs near the front windows. Heavy rain pelted the glass, drowning out the low buzz of noise from the other customers.

She set the stack of magazines she’d just purchased on the floor and pulled People off the top. Most of the publications she’d purchased were running celebrity wedding issues, serving dual purpose as research materials. She retrieved an empty folder and scissors from her attaché to save any interesting articles or photos.

Usually she just flipped through the pages, not paying attention to anything but the wedding articles and pictures. Today she scrutinized every photo, read each caption in hopes of seeing George Laurence’s name.

The more she saw, the more thankful she was that she hadn’t married someone who was always in the public eye. She’d seen the shows on TV about how photographers stalked celebrities. They never got a moment’s peace.

She choked on her latte when she flipped a page and was faced with a double-spread layout of photos of Cliff Ballantine. Pushing aside her distaste for the man, Anne found the long caption at the bottom of the page: Hollywood is abuzz with rumors that America’s most eligible bachelor, and this year’s “Sexiest Man Alive,” is no longer eligible. According to sources close to the actor, his recent solo appearance at premieres and events may be due to a relationship he’s managed to keep out of the tabloids.

A few months ago, she’d thrown the local newspaper across her office after opening it to see Cliff’s face in full color on the front page when he’d come to town for his college fraternity’s one hundredth anniversary. Thank God his visit had coincided with her trip to Shreveport as an exhibitor at a bridal show. She didn’t know what she would have done or said if she’d run into him while he was in town.

She chewed the inside of her lip as she looked at the photos of Cliff at different red-carpet events in Hollywood and New York. His hair was shorter than he’d worn it ten years ago, his body more sculpted, his wardrobe top-of-the-line. But he was still the same full-of-himself Cliff with the smile that had charmed her out of all good sense…and thousands of dollars. To think that she was the one who’d enabled him to become what he was today—but no, she didn’t want to go there.

The surprise came from seeing him alone in all the pictures. In the past when the magazines featured him on the cover so that she couldn’t avoid seeing him, he had a buxom blond starlet hanging off his arm.

Anne shook her head and turned the page. She was tempted to send a letter to the editor expressing her condolences to the anonymous girlfriend.