Take a Chance (21 page)

She sighed with relief. Beside her an elegant pair of two toned heeled shoes appeared and a pair of men’s black dress shoes beside that.

“It’s not necessary to genuflect in my presence,” Mark’s amused voice said from above her.

Jem hit her head on the table as she backed out.

As she stood up she saw that Sabrina Price was standing beside him. Sabrina was a partner in a nationwide accounting firm they were hoping would use their software in all their branches. She was lovely to deal with but the other partner Ted Warner, to put it politely, wasn’t.

“What do you have there?” Sabrina asked Jem.

Jem looked at the plate in her hand. It looked relatively presentable as long as you didn’t know what it was.

“Pate,” said Jem.

“Looks good,” said Mark. “I think I’ll try some.”

Before Jem could do anything Mark had plucked a cracker from a tray and scooped up a bit of the “pate”.

“I think I’ll try some too,” said Sabrina as she picked up a cracker.

Jem swept the plate out of Sabrina’s reach. Mark’s hand holding his cracker stopped its journey to his mouth as he looked at her in surprise.

“I couldn’t possibly let you eat this. It fell on the floor,” Jem said desperately.

“I’m sure it’ll be okay – I’ll take a bit from the top which should be fine,” said Sabrina as she leaned forward to reach the pate.

Jem twisted away so the pate remained out of reach then watched in horror as Mark put his cracker in his mouth and chewed.

Inspiration hit Jem.

“It was made by Drongo,” she said meaningfully as Mark swallowed.

Mark, fast on the uptake, recalled Drongo’s problem during his earlier visit and was suddenly aware of the significance. His face paled as he realised what he had just eaten.

“I think you need to sit down,” Jem said.

Sabrina, seeing the change in Mark’s expression, dropped her cracker back on the tray and ushered him to a seat. Jem took the opportunity to race to the kitchen and dump the “pate” in the bin. Then she cleaned away the evidence and picked up a bottle of wine to take to Mark. Feeling generous, she was prepared to let him have the whole lot.

When she returned
Eben was already topping up Mark’s wine glass. They made eye contact from across the room and he tilted his head towards Mark, who had determinedly recovered and was now talking earnestly to Sabrina. Eben grinned.

So he knew what had happened. Jem grinned back.

A few minutes later she tried not to be irked when she saw Celeste, Nate’s girlfriend corner Eben and flirt with him. Celeste was a few years younger than Jem and her gym toned body looked dainty beside his. She had watchful dark brown eyes, enhanced red hair and she wore enough jewellery to significantly add to her body weight.

It had only been
several weeks since Nate had left his second wife, Mandy for Celeste. Jem still couldn’t believe Nate had chosen to be with a barracuda like Celeste over someone as lovely as Mandy. He had even indulgently let Celeste quit without notice after she talked him into having Cherie take over her workload so she could practise being a kept woman.

Upon receiving Celeste’s workload, Cherie had quickly learned that
her extra duties from Nate consisted of a few hours of frantic stress amongst weeks of minor paperwork. With Nate’s long absences from the office there usually wasn’t too much extra to do apart from exceptions like this evening and Cherie now knew how Celeste had filled her day. With
Duh
-boss.

She had also discovered that secretarial work was not Celeste’s strong point
despite the number of free hours she’d had to do it and was still trying to organise the mess of files Celeste had left behind amongst doing her regular work.

Aside from
her useless ability as a secretary, Cherie and Jem’s animosity towards Celeste was also due to the effect she had had on Nate’s relationship with his estranged wife and children. Mandy was a good friend of Martha’s and from comments slipped they had learned that Mandy was now considering Nate’s behaviour as a way of acting out a belated mid-life crisis and that she would be willing to take him back under her terms once he got it out of his system. However she wasn’t happy that Nate now seldom saw any of his five children, the youngest of which was in his last year of high school because Celeste didn’t get on with them.

Nate seemed determinedly oblivious to this because he was too busy doting on Celeste who, despite
having him walk out of a marriage for her, seemed to be on the prowl to trade-up. Jem suspected that was the reason behind her insistence to attend tonight.

Tonight
Celeste was wearing a red halter neck cocktail dress with a plunging neckline. Her dress wasn’t suitable for the season so she had added a wrap, only it was now draped across her elbows and behind her back rather than covering her shoulders. She hadn’t been here long enough to be that warm so the display of bare skin could only be for the purpose of attracting male attention.

You could use her nipples as coat hooks
, Jem thought caustically as she headed toward them to save Eben whether he wanted to be or not.

“Excuse me,” she said to Celeste with a phony smile. “I need Eben’s help in the kitchen.”

“I think I’ll follow you,” said Celeste airily, waving her now empty wine glass. “I could always do with a top up.”

Celeste followed Jem and Eben to the
breakfast bar in the family room where they came across Aidan sampling from a platter the wait staff were about to take out to the marquee. Sonia had obviously just bathed him as he was wearing his favourite Buzz Lightyear pyjamas and his hair was damp against his head with a cowlick sticking up at the front. Jem watched him suck dip off a stick of celery then replace the sucked celery on the plate.

She
quickly scooped up the sampled celery, stuck it in her mouth and chewed quickly, hoping that Celeste hadn’t noticed what Aidan had been doing.

“Oh aren’t you adorable?” Celeste cooed to Aidan as she stopped in front of him.

Adorable? Maybe. Before you realised he had a gremlin stuck inside him
, Jem thought as she dropped the empty wine bottle she had been absently carrying onto the kitchen bench.

Celeste picked up Aidan and hugged him to her chest.

“You are so cute!” she exclaimed.

Aidan leaned back in the stranger’s arms and suddenly noticed her cleavage. He put his finger in the bottom of the V of the neckline and leaned forward to look down it.

“I see your belly button,” he said.

I hope she’s wearing underwear
or he’s going to mention what else he can see
.

Someone snorted
behind her. She turned around to see that Martha and Nate had joined Eben. Judging by the amused looks on nearby client’s faces passing by to use the bathroom they had also heard Aidan’s comment.

This evening keeps getting better
, Jem thought.

Yet another distraction was required.

“Bedtime!” she gaily announced and sped down the length of the breakfast bar to take Aidan from Celeste. With her hands free, Celeste took the opportunity to peek down her cleavage and reddened when she looked up.

So Celeste is going commando
, thought Jem as she dropped Aidan into Sonia’s waiting arms.
That’s more information than I needed.

Beside her, Eben placed his hands on the b
reakfast bar and leaned in Celeste’s direction. He’d obviously figured it out too. Jem leaned forward and casually put one of her elbows on his hand and pressed down. Eben dragged his hand from under her elbow and looked at her.

“Oops,” said Jem.

“How about a story?” Sonia asked Aidan, as she shifted him to her hip.

“Five stories,” Aidan said.

“How about a story for every year old you are?” suggested Eben.

“Okay,” said Aidan.

“You have to lie quietly while I read them,” Sonia said.

“Okay. Kiss goodnight,” Aidan demanded and leaned towards his aunt.

Jem then Eben dutifully gave him a kiss and waved him goodnight as he disappeared up the stairs.

Daisy and Isabella
appeared, carrying the plate Aidan had sampled from between them and moved towards the group of adults conversing by the breakfast bar.

“Would you like to try the dip?” Daisy asked. “I made it myself.”

“Did you really?” asked Celeste as she scooped up a generous amount of cheese dip with a stem of celery and stuck it in her mouth.

“Mmmm,” said Celeste, as she sucked the dip off the celery and gave an enticing little shiver.
“Very nice.”

All male eyes in the room were glued to her performance. Jem grabbed a wine bottle and refilled Celeste’s empty wine glass. The sooner she sorted out Celeste the sooner she could send her back to join the rest of their
potential clients.

“How did you get it so smooth?” Celeste asked.

“I chewed the lumps up first,” said Daisy.

There were bursts of laughter around them. Jem grabbed her own glass and drained it. She put the glass back on the bench and carefully refilled it and took another swig. Daisy did
not
just say that to the boss’s wife in the hearing of both of her bosses and goodness knows how many clients. She bit back a groan.

How many had already sampled the cheese dip?

Jem considered finishing the glass of wine she had poured and rationalised it by deciding the way the evening was turning out she would need the rosy glow alcohol provided. She figured she was beyond the point of worrying how it would affect her judgement.

She look
ed up to see Celeste draining her own glass, maybe hoping that the alcohol would sterilise her mouth.

I’m sure she’s swallowed
worse,
Jem thought and slapped a hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle that was erupting in her throat.

Mark entered the kitchen and frowned at Jem, interrupting her
musings.

“I’m
almost ready to start the presentation but I need you to show me where you’ve put the receiver so I can connect my microphone. If you’re finished in here I’d like to get started.”

“Sure,” said Jem, feeling the warmth of the wine spreading through her. She offered the plate containing the cheese dip to him. “Would you care to try the dip? It’s homemade.”

“Okay,” said Mark, surprised, and swiped a carrot stick through the dip.

“This is very good,” he said after the first bite “and so creamy.”

He slid a couple of chips through the dip and munched on them. Jem stumbled forward on her high heels.

What the hell
, she thought and kicked them off.

She grabbed Mark by the elbow much as he had done to her earlier and led him away before anyone remaining in the kitchen could comment.

After connecting the microphone to the receiver under the buffet table she left Mark tapping through his powerpoint presentation on his laptop while she checked on the children who were now playing in the guest bedroom. Eben was in the process of setting up a laptop on the foot of the bed to play a movie in the hopes of settling them down. She would worry about the effects of almost continuous movie watching on the children tomorrow.

By the time Jeremy and the girls were seated and the twins settled down in the portable cot, Sonia had returned and took over.

When Jem and Eben returned to the marquee they found that in their absence Mark had started ushering a few people towards seats in anticipation of his presentation. Cherie came rushing up to them.

“I’ve just done a quick headcount and we’re two tables short,” she said urgently.

“Let’s move the dining table out here and set up the picnic table,” Eben suggested. “It’s about the same size and shape and once a tablecloth is on it no one will notice.”

“What about the table settings?” Cherie asked as Evie and Greg came up behind them.

“There are spare glasses in the crates and just grab cutlery from the kitchen drawer. If the caterers haven’t got enough plates then we can borrow some of Jess’s good dinner set as it looks similar enough not to be that noticeable,” Jem said, pleased with her quick thinking.

They worked quickly.
Eben and Greg moved the tables while Evie and Cherie brought in dining chairs and the seats for the picnic table to place around them. Jem hurriedly retrieved the glasses and cutlery and threw on table cloths. When that was done they assembled the cutlery and glassware on top.

Luckily a lot of the clients had been in conversation with each other so hadn’t paid much attention to Mark’s request or had noticed the speedily set up tables. Jem’s final touch was to relocate two ivy arrangements from either end of the serving table
to place in the centres of the extra tables.

“We’re still
six seats short,” Cherie groaned.

“Then we can
stand and have leftovers later,” said Jem, crossing her fingers as she hurried to the kitchen to speak to the woman in charge of the catering.

The elegantly coifed woman in black was not pleased to learn t
hey’d have to make the portions go further to accommodate another sixteen clients, not including Sachs Wall staff beyond Nate and Martha. In response Jem pulled out several packets of pasta from the freezer, a couple of jars of Jess’s homemade pasta sauce from the pantry and told the caterer to help herself to anything else in the kitchen or vegetable garden she needed.

The woman
nodded sourly even as she switched on the full kettle to get a head start on boiling water for the pasta and told Jem that Sachs Wall was going to be charged the full price for the extra guests despite the food being supplied. Jem agreed that was more than fair before returning to the marquee.