Crush on You (38 page)

“Surely not,” Stevie agreed. Six months ago, at Allie’s instigation, they’d started offering the original founders’ cottage as a venue for couples to exchange their vows. They’d been desperate for any revenue stream to keep the ailing family business afloat—still were, as a matter of fact—and the nuptials had taken off in a modest manner thanks to her younger sister’s hard work and some well-timed TV promotion. “Your day will go as planned, I guarantee it.”

“Exactly what Giuliana said.” Emerson nodded. “Roxanne and I are sure you’ll step in and do a fine job as our event coordinator.”

“What?” Stevie’s eyes widened. Event
coordinator
? Of course she knew that Allie had assumed more control over details of the ceremonies and receptions as time went on, but . . .

A new male voice entered the discussion. “We all look forward to working with you.”

Stevie’s gaze jerked to the man who’d come to stand behind the princess. It was her pseudo-vampire, her Mystery Man, the shadow from the corner of the portico. In the light he held no more secrets. Now she saw him as thirtysomething and dark-haired with handsome, chiseled features. Under his overcoat—cashmere?—he wore a tuxedo three times more elegant than Emerson’s. He gazed on her with an attitude that struck her instantly as ten times more entitled.

There was no explaining it; no single precedent or simple reason for some man to, in an instant, make her feel as exposed as a raw nerve, but there it was. Everything about him rubbed her the wrong way, including his smile, set so clearly on charm.

Her hackles rose. “Who the hell are you?” she demanded.

A shallow dimple scored one lean cheek. “Definitely going to be a fun time,” he murmured.

Underneath the starched cotton and black wool of her own clothes, a heat rash prickled her skin. “What’s your name?” she asked again.

“Jack.”

Still disliking the arrogant, amused gleam in his eyes, she raised a brow. “LaLanne? O’Lantern? In-the-Box?”

He had a husky laugh.

As it feathered down her spine, Stevie decided to ignore him and address the more salient issue. Turning back to Emerson, she attempted to force out the question. “Let’s get this straight. Are you . . .” But she couldn’t say it. She could barely
think
it. Hadn’t she just promised herself that after tonight she’d have nothing whatsoever to do with her ex again?

Curling one hand into a fist, she tried once more for clarity. “Are you certain that Jules told you that I . . . that
I
. . .”

“Yes.” It wasn’t Emerson who answered. The handsome stranger was looking at her again with those knowing, smiling eyes. “Your sister promised that it’s you who’ll handle each and every fine point of the upcoming Parini-Platt nuptials.”

With her clients inside their first stop of the evening, the Von Stroman winery, Stevie closed her eyes against the glare of the icicle lights dripping from its Alpine- inspired eaves. The back of her head bumped the cushioned rest and she tried visualizing herself removing the tension that clung to her spine like ivy climbing a trellis. She would never get coiled up like this again, she vowed.

New Year’s Resolution #1: Stay away from men.
Because if she’d avoided the species from the very beginning—

The passenger door popped open. Her nervous heart jolted, and she slapped a palm over it as she swiveled right. A body dropped into the seat beside hers.

“Surprise!” Her friend Mari Friday grinned at her, smile the same white as the uniform shirt she wore, a twin to Stevie’s. “I’m parked right behind you.”

A glance back confirmed a second limo had pulled up to her rear bumper. Mari moonlighted with Stevie’s friendly competitor, Golden West Limousine, on occasion. “You scared me! I almost jumped out of my clothes.”

“Hah. I’d like to witness Emerson’s reaction to that.”

Stevie slid a look toward the winery entrance. “You saw him?”

“Oh, yeah. And I demand a simple answer to a simple question. Why the hell do you have your unworthy ex and his princess bride in your backseat?”

Stevie hesitated.

It caused her friend to roll her eyes. “I get it. You don’t want him to know he broke your heart.”

“He didn’t break my heart!” Stevie denied. Too loudly? “Look, Mari, if he wasn’t embarrassed to book my services, how could I possibly refuse to provide them?”

“By saying, ‘You’re a smarmy two-timer and I wouldn’t chauffeur your lying ass on a bet’?” the other woman suggested.

Except Emerson hadn’t lied. He’d been honest—brutally—about why he’d broken it off with Stevie. The two-timing part wasn’t true either. He’d dumped her eight months before and weeks had gone by before he’d been spotted in the area wrapped around another woman. It had taken even more time for word to filter back to her that Emerson’s new honey had a “her highness” attached to her name.

The people of Edenville had wanted to protect her. They had a habit of that when it came to the Baci sisters, and it only made the situation more humiliating. By taking the job tonight she figured she’d shut down the pity party the whole town had kept going in her honor.

She was proving to them she didn’t need it. That nobody, no how, could upset Stephania Baci’s equilibrium. She was the brash Baci sister. The tomboy her mother had despaired about.

“So who’s the other guy?”

Once again, Mari gave Stevie a jolt. “Uh . . . other guy?”

“Tall, dark, and dashing?” her friend said. “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice.”

She’d noticed. From the moment he’d stepped out of the resort. But tall, dark, and dashing didn’t make up for rich, self-important, and rude. “He’s haughty.”

“I’ll say,” Mari agreed. “My sister gave me a Hottie-of-the-Month calendar for Christmas and I bet he’s in there.”

Stevie frowned. “Haughty, not hottie.”

“That’s what I said.”

“I . . .” She shook her head. “Never mind.”

“Just tell me his name,” Mari urged. “I’ll find out his phone number myself.”

Another frown dug between Stevie’s brows. Her friend had a headful of blond spiral curls and a black book that rivaled any Hollywood bachelor’s. But it was Stevie who had spied tall, dark, and dashing first, and didn’t that give her . . .

No. Hottie, true. But the haughty got him permanently expunged from her own Bachelor Book, if she’d actually had one. And not to forget, there was that very recent resolution she’d just made.
Men are off-limits.

“I think he’s with the princess,” Stevie said to her friend. When she’d told her clients they had to get moving or miss their tasting appointments, he’d climbed into the back with Emerson and his fiancée. “His name’s Jack.”

Mari gasped. “Jack! Of course! ‘Jack’ is Prince Jacques Christian Wilhelm Parini. I read about him in one of those magazines at the hairdresser’s—you know, the pulpy ones with paparazzi pics of movie premieres and Euro trash boogeying down in flashy discotheques. He’s some kind of notorious playboy and the Princess Bride’s big brother.”

That made sense. He struck Stevie as a royal pain in the ass because he
was
a royal pain in the ass. She loved being right.

Though she should have made the Jacques-Jack connection on her own. Blame it on her ex-anxiety. She knew of the man, not from a magazine, but because he was college friends with the Bennett brothers, childhood neighbors and not-so-silent partners in the Tanti Baci winery. Liam and Seth, she recalled, knew Jack through the University of California Davis Viticulture and Enology program and had mentioned during one of their regular poker nights that their old buddy was coming for a visit.

“It’s a small world of wines,” Stevie murmured.

“Yeah, and—” Mari’s curls swung in an arc as her attention shifted to the side window. “Oops, gotta go. My peeps are coming out. Happy New Year!”

She was gone in a blast of chilled air, leaving Stevie alone once again. Mari wasn’t soothing company, but she missed her anyway, because now there was nothing else to think about besides that little threat she’d been putting off contemplating.

Closing her eyes, she groaned. Had Giuliana really made that guarantee? Could she actually expect Stevie to honor it?

The passenger door clicked open a second time. Stevie, eyes still shut, blessed her buddy and the distraction she’d prove to be. “Mari. Thank God, you’re back. I—”

Her throat closed as heat prickles took another dash across her flesh and that weird hyperawareness she’d experienced at the resort tightened her belly. Opening her eyes, she saw a long male body fold onto the seat beside her. “Jack,” she said.

He smiled at her, the wattage bright enough to bring up the temperature in the front seat. “You remember my name.”

And his scent. It reached her again, subtle and smooth, a top-shelf cologne, one ounce likely costing more than her new boots—and probably her monthly rental check as well.

“What are you doing here? You belong there,” she said, jerking her thumb toward the winery.

“I belong wherever I want to belong,” he answered, smiling that easy smile he had as his body slid nearer to hers on the bench seat. “Just like I do whatever I want to do.”

Stevie crowded close to the driver’s door. It didn’t stop his left thigh from grazing her right, his knee from bumping hers. One long finger reached out to adjust the heater that she’d left running.

Forcing her gaze off his lean hand, she narrowed her eyes at him. “And what you want to do is . . . ?”

Her suspicious tone didn’t appear to offend. He relaxed against the leather seat, sliding an arm across its back, obviously comfortable in his own privileged skin. His charming smile deepened. “Nothing for you to worry about. I only thought we might take these few minutes to get better acquainted,
ma belle fille
.”

Not for a winter’s worth of bookings would she let him know that just for a second—a nanosecond—she found the soft foreign phrase as disarming as he most certainly intended. Even as her insides recovered from their quick melt, she made her expression blank and raised both brows in inquiry, all tomboy bumpkin.

His smile was rueful, his shrug European. “What can I say? I know five languages and how to compliment a beautiful woman in each and every one.”

Wide-eyed, she pretended to appear impressed. “Wow.” Then she dropped the innocent act. “I only know how to say screw you in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese.”

He blinked, then laughed.

“Oh, and in English it’s fu—”

Leaning forward, he clamped his palm over her mouth. At the contact, they both froze and the smile on his face died. Her lips tingled, her skin burned, and another shot of adrenaline punched into her bloodstream.
Fight or flight.

Uncertain which order to follow, her body twitched.

His hand dropped.

They stared at each other.

Refine that New Year’s Resolution, Stevie thought, despising her breathlessness.
Stay away from
this
man
.

She cleared her throat. “You should go back to Emerson and your sister.”
Please go back to Emerson and your sister.

His gaze didn’t move from her face. But he settled back in his seat and after a moment humor gleamed again in his eyes.

“What are you laughing at now?” she demanded.

He shrugged again. “Me, maybe.”

Nothing felt the least bit funny to Stevie. She sent him another suspicious look, but his attention had shifted to a small item he was withdrawing from his jacket pocket.

A crystal bud vase.

A familiar crystal bud vase.

“That belongs in the back of the limo,” she said, puzzled.

He glanced up. “I thought so. I found it outside. It must have fallen from the car.”

Frowning, Stevie accepted it from his outstretched hand, careful to avoid another touch. Then she held it toward him. “If you wouldn’t mind, you can return it to its place in the back.”

His tall body didn’t budge. He regarded her with another of those faint, almost-mocking smiles. “I wasn’t kidding, you know.”

“About what?”

“Until the end of the month I’m going to be your new best friend—”

“I don’t think so.”

He shrugged and that shallow dimple flashed again. “All right. The fly in your champagne. The thorn on your rose.”

Champagne and roses. He was just that kind of guy, she supposed, barely suppressing a snort.

“Point is, I’m sticking close,
mon ange
.”

Again with the French. Rolling her eyes, she ignored a second surge of traitorous warmth in her belly. “Why?”