The Marriage Pact (1) (34 page)

Rick
returned the smile with warmth. He also seemed to notice he’d been talking
about himself for too long. “So tell me how you got started in the party
planning business.”

Suzanne
recounted briefly how she had been an art history major at the University of
Georgia, desperately wanted to work as a museum curator, and how she’d taken
the job on the event staff at the High Museum right after college. “Originally,
I hoped the foot in the door at the museum would land me a job in procurement
or something, but it never happened.”

“Oh,
I’m sorry,” Rick said sympathetically.

Suzanne
shrugged. It turned out she had a knack for event planning. Something about the
combination of creativity and crisis response. After a couple of years at the
High, she had been hired away by a large event planning agency. She stayed there
for a few years before creating her own boutique agency. Now she had one of the
most successful, prestigious agencies in the city. People were often shocked to
discover she and Chad were the only permanent staff. “We actually won an award
last year,” she told Rick.

“Sounds
like you are quite the little rock star in the event planning world,” he said.
“Or do you just plan events for rock stars?”

Normally
very discreet about her clients, Suzanne couldn’t resist the opportunity to
brag a little. “Actually, I am doing a benefit in a couple of weeks for Dylan
Burke. Of course, he’s more a
country
star…”

“Seriously?
I was kidding about the whole rock star thing.”

A
Southern lady is always modest
,
her mother’s voice chided her. “Well, it’s not that big of a deal,” Suzanne
hedged. “It’s at my old stomping grounds at the High, which is probably why I
got the job.”

“Don’t
sell yourself short,” Rick countered enthusiastically. “That’s awesome. He’s
totally famous.”

She
waved away the words with a manicured hand, but Rick was undeterred.
“Seriously, you should be really proud of yourself. That’s a huge deal.
Obviously you’ve earned quite a reputation for someone like Dylan Burke to
choose you.”

His
eyes held hers sincerely.
Okay, Rick, ease up. We’ve already slept together.
You can dial it down a tad.

“Really,
his manager chose me. I haven’t actually met him yet. We’ll see how it turns
out,” she said, and pretended to be engrossed in the highlights of spring
training on the TV over the bar. “How do you think the Braves will do this
year?”

A
few hours later, Suzanne awoke suddenly, unable to breathe. She gasped for air
in the darkness, desperately trying to move, to figure out where she was. There
was no light anywhere. Her chest tightened painfully, heart pounding, lips dry.
As she struggled to move, she heard Rick groan softly nearby and roll over,
releasing her from his grasp. She was in his hotel room, she remembered, and
relaxed a little. When his breathing was soft and steady she moved again to
slide out from between the crisp sheets.

I
can’t do it.

She
found the clock face down on the floor. Almost four a.m. She crept into the
bathroom and shut the door before finding the unpleasantly bright light. She splashed
water on her face and breathed deeply. After a few moments with her hands
steadying her against the sink, she looked in the mirror.
Jesus, I look like
crap.
Mascara was smeared beneath her eyes, her formerly perfect hair was a
rat’s nest behind her head, and the evening of cocktails had weathered her face
like a sailor’s. Suzanne looked and felt much older than thirty-three. She made
a mental note to have Chad schedule a facial before the benefit.

Silently,
she began gathering her things. The hotel room was pitch black, so she
scrounged in her purse for the tiny keychain light, shaped like a pig, which
Marci had given her years ago. The expensive pumps had been kicked off near the
door. Skirt and blouse were in a heap nearby. After a few moments of searching,
she located her bra hanging off the desk lampshade across from the bed. Her
panties, however, had gone completely missing.

She
covered the room with the tiny pig several times, freezing periodically when
she heard Rick shift or grunt in his sleep. Opening the blackout curtains a
fraction gave her enough light to shimmy into the rest of her clothes and make
one more sweep of the room. She kicked herself for wearing her favorite pair of
La Perla underwear, as they were about to become a casualty to an early-morning
getaway.

Sorry,
girls.

She
decided to add “Leave favorite underwear at home,” to her list of dating rules.
The rules were sort of Suzanne’s cross between Emily Post and Julia Roberts in
Pretty
Woman,
mostly resulting from her own bad experiences: Never bring a man
back your place. No emotional talk during sex. Never get naked with the lights
on. Always undress yourself. No dating guys with kids or dogs. No sex in cars.
And so on. She thought one day she could publish these rules and make a
fortune.

She
closed the curtain and crept toward the door. She was nearly out of the room
when she lost her balance and bumped against the closet door. It rattled
loudly. Rick stirred behind her. “Suzanne? You okay?”

Damn.

“Yes,
I’m fine.” Her voice was sheepish despite her best efforts. “I just need to get
an early start today.”

“But,”
his voice in the darkness was slow and softened by sleep, “it’s Saturday.”

“Yeah,
I just have so much going on with this benefit; I really need to get home.
Thank you for dinner and…everything.”

She
waited as she heard him fumble for the lamp and got it turned on. “Um, sure.
You’re welcome?” he said, looking around, befuddled. In the sudden light, his
bare chest looked a little pudgier, and furrier, than she remembered. He ran
his hand through the thick brown hair standing up all over his head.

“Okay,
well…bye, Rick,” she said, as sweetly as she could. She turned back toward the
door.

“Wait,”
he said softly.

Please
don’t make an ass of yourself,
she willed him.
Please just hate me and let’s be done with it.

She
didn’t have to worry. As much as he liked her, Rick the Salesman knew a simple,
cardinal rule of all relationships: never beg. He simply asked the exact
question to which he wanted the answer. “This is ending right now, isn’t it?”

Suzanne
noticed that there was neither hope nor despair in his tone. Obviously, he
genuinely liked her, and yet the question only sought to confirm, rather than
to convince or retaliate. She hesitated only for a split second. “Yes.”

She
hovered there momentarily, waiting for the usual barrage of questions or
arguments to commence, but Rick just nodded slowly and said, “I’m sorry to hear
that. It really was very nice to meet you, Suzanne.”

Her
face flushed. The stark contrast between this courteous ending and last night’s
very primitive activities embarrassed her, as did standing in her professional
clothes and heels with no underwear. “You, too, Rick. Take care, okay?”

She
hurried out, made her way down the stairs, and exited the side door. She had
the phone number to the cab company on speed dial.

 “You
look awful,” Chad said when she got to the office Monday morning, handing her a
cinnamon latte. He was right. She’d barely slept all weekend.

“Thanks,”
she replied. “I would say the same for you but I have to say you actually look
great in jeans. I didn’t know you owned any.”

He
pretended to be offended. “Hey, just because I don’t dress like a homeless
person every day doesn’t mean I can’t pull off casual when it’s appropriate.
You just never get to see me on my days off. Except
today
.”

The
snarl was tiny but hard to miss. Typically their office was not open on
Mondays, because the nature of event planning required them to work so many
weekends. But the gala was coming up in two weeks, and Chad had been bribed
with the promise of a week’s paid vacation and several free dinners to work
three Mondays in a row in preparation. It was a raw deal for Suzanne and she
knew it, but Chad was indispensable to her and the thought of his being unhappy
was more than she could handle. She considered it an investment in her own
sanity.

“Thank
you again. Your sacrifice has been duly noted.”

Chad
gave her a tight smile and walked deliberately to his desk, about ten feet away
from hers. They worked in a converted studio loft space in West Midtown, with
floor-to-ceiling windows, brightly painted exposed pipes, and old red brick
along the outside walls from the building’s days as a textile mill. Normally
neat as a pin, today the office was cluttered with event paraphernalia. Two
hundred goodie baskets with tiny guitars hot-glued to ribbons hanging from the
top. Silent auction items ranging from original artwork to an autographed pair
of boots. Piles of pop culture magazines and music industry trade publications
from which Suzanne and Chad had tried to glean everything possible about Dylan
Burke before the benefit.

Suzanne
took the latte to her workstation and began retrieving voicemail messages:
seventeen since she’d checked in on Saturday. The routine questions and
confirmations from vendors she forwarded to Chad. She’d have to handle herself
the several semi-panicked messages from Dylan Burke’s squeaky manager, Yvette.
 When anxious, Yvette had the shrillest high-pitched voice Suzanne had ever
heard. She groaned as she jotted things down on several sticky notes, lining
them up in order of priority as she went through the voicemails. Yvette
apparently never slept, never took a day off, and never stopped worrying about
her young boss’s desires and reputation.

Dylan
Burke, twenty-six, was the quintessential small town Tennessee boy made good.
Known for his gritty persona and anthem-style country-rock, he had become
country music’s latest rising star. He’d had several chartbuster hits in the
last two years, including “Country Rules” and “Sticking Up for the Sticks.”
Each of these featured plays on words, guitar solos, and rhythms that seemed to
have been designed with line dancing in mind. His most recent hit, “Duct Tape
Fixes Everything,” was a cutesy ballad-type song that featured a young boy
trying to repair his parents’ broken marriage. Suzanne, not a country fan, had
never listened to it, but the mere mention of the song sent Marci weeping.

Women
loved Dylan Burke for his winning smile, tight jeans, and ever-present faded
camouflage baseball cap. The mainstream media loved taking pictures of him with
an acoustic guitar in beauteous settings, gossiping about his endless stream of
busty young girlfriends, and chronicling his fairly predictable rebellious
behavior. The tabloids loved his large and conspicuous family most of all.

The
Burkes were Nashville’s take on the
Brady Bunch
. Dylan’s rough,
outspoken mother had moved to Nashville from a rural Georgia trailer park,
hoping to make it as a singer and dragging her two young daughters with her.
She had met and married Dylan’s father, a divorced music producer who had two
teenage daughters of his own, while waiting tables at a diner. Dylan and his
younger sister Kate had come along shortly thereafter. By the time Dylan was
eight, Donna Burke had abandoned her own hopes of a singing career in favor of
her talented only son.

It
seemed to Suzanne—as she and Chad pored over articles, researching their famous
client together—that after Dylan’s career began to take off, his family had a
competition to see who could ride his famous coattails farther while
embarrassing him the most. Every other week it seemed that his mother or one of
his five sisters said or did something ridiculous, and nearly always there was
photographic evidence to document it. Dylan must have a terrible publicist,
because not only did their behavior never seem to faze him, he continued to be
seen with them at even his most prominent award ceremonies and press
opportunities.

She
suspected that the gala in Atlanta was designed to soften all of that—as well
as to demonstrate Dylan’s more urbane side. Even before reading
People,
Suzanne
knew that Dylan was making a foray into acting, having been recently cast
across from Reese Witherspoon in a romantic comedy set in Atlanta. The benefit
at the High was supposed to show his sophisticated side, while subtly promoting
both the movie and his current album,
Fireflies
. A tall order, but
Suzanne had every confidence she would be able to pull it off.

The
evening was a “cowboy meets culture” kind of event, and the biggest deal to hit
the High in a long time. The guest list was loaded with an eclectic mix of
celebrities—everyone from Travis Tritt to Gore Vidal, along with Dylan’s
verbally uncouth mother, well-connected father, and the more attention-hungry
of his five sisters. And of course, several other artists from country music’s
freshman class of wild boys would make an appearance, accompanied by a gaggle
of aspiring starlets. These last were mostly the stick-thin, silly types who
wore sunglasses indoors and carried tiny dogs in their purses. It promised to
be an entertaining evening.

Naturally,
several local and national media outlets had representatives attending,
pretending to be focused on style or the arts, but primarily to await the
inevitable spectacle bound to occur when black ties and boots met vast
quantities of booze.

This
was why Suzanne had been hired, in fact. The High didn’t have the internal
staff to handle all the intricacies of dealing with the event itself along with
the press, agents, handlers, and celebrities. Suzanne’s insane dedication to
perfection and diplomatic skills, along with her experience at the museum, made
her the perfect choice. When Betsy Fuller-Brown had called Suzanne personally
to request a bid, she’d suspected they were pretty desperate to hire her and
put in for twice her normal project fees on a whim. To her shock, they had not
batted an eyelash, much less tried to talk her down.

Three
months later, Suzanne realized she had already earned every penny of her fee
and then some. Apparently, Dylan Burke and his staff knew he was the hottest
thing going and planned to make the most of it by being the highest-maintenance
celebrity entourage ever. Starting the first week after she’d taken on the
project, Suzanne had received reams of faxes from Yvette every week detailing
special requests for the event. A boot-shaped ice luge that dispensed Southern
Comfort into chilled shot glasses. Mason jars full of live fireflies as
centerpieces—promoting Dylan’s
Fireflies
album. Several large suites at
the Four Seasons for Dylan’s family and friends, as well as a VIP lounge area
at the museum. As Yvette enthusiastically described Dylan’s apparently very
specific vision over a breakfast meeting, Suzanne thought,
This is why I
don’t do weddings. The brides.

Today’s
crisis had apparently been brewing over the weekend. Yvette’s high-pitched
voice was especially shrill. “Suzanne, it’s Yvette. Listen, we are having some
major issues here with the seating arrangement. Donna Burke is insisting that
she needs a table near the stage, but you already have the VIP tables full for
the major donors and the partner sponsors. I also need a press table on the
right side of the stage so that the photographers can capture Dylan’s left
profile for the pictures.”

Suzanne
dialed back Yvette’s number and, of course, reached her voicemail.
If this
is so important
, she thought,
answer your damn phone
. “Hi, Yvette,” she
trilled as sweetly as she could. “Suzanne here. Just got into the office and
got your messages. I totally appreciate your concerns; thank you for voicing
them so well. Why don’t you just buzz me back and we’ll talk?”

“Ick,”
Chad said, putting a file on her desk as she finished her message. “Just
promise me you’ll never talk to me like that, okay? If I annoy you or
something, just tell me. Don’t do the whole sweet Southern girl,
smile-through-your-teeth-while-you-stick-the-knife-in-my-back routine.”

“You’re
annoying me,” she replied flatly. He grinned and turned back to his desk.

“You
told her about the problem with the press table?” Chad called over his
shoulder.

Shit.
Suzanne knew she probably
should’ve left that on the message so Yvette could talk to Dylan before getting
back to her. Otherwise they’d have another long, exhausting conversation to
come to a mutual decision that would then be overturned by Dylan anyway. She
picked up the phone again.

“Hello?”
A man’s voice. She paused.

“Oh,
I’m sorry. I must’ve dialed the wrong number.”
Wait, didn’t I just hit
redial?
She was about to hang up when the voice returned.

“Not
if you were calling Yvette Olsen, you didn’t. Can I, uh, can I help you?”

Suzanne
thought she remembered Yvette mentioning that she had a new assistant. Maybe
she had started trusting him with phone duty. “Well, is Yvette available?”

“I’m
sorry, she stepped out. Is there something I can do for you?” She heard voices
in the background—other men—and for a second she thought she heard suppressed
laughter.

“Well,”
Suzanne sighed. “I’d just left her a message a few minutes ago responding to
some concerns she had about the benefit —”

“We
were actually just meeting about that, so your timing is great.” His voice
sounded farther away now.
Had he put her on speakerphone? Who else was in
the room?

“Okay,”
she started tentatively. “I just remembered that I had an additional question
about the press table, so if you’ll just have her call me when she gets back,
that would be great.”

“Why
don’t you just ask me the question?” he said.

“Well,
it’s complicated.”

“The
question is complicated, or the reason you can’t ask me is complicated?”

Wow
. She thought
Chad
was a
nervy assistant. This guy was bordering on rude. If this was what the music
industry peons were like, she was going to charge more to plan their ridiculous
parties. “The question is complicated. It’s about the press table.”

“I
don’t think we should have one. Let the vultures stand.” She heard more
laughter in the background.
Man, was Yvette going to be pissed when Suzanne
told her about this
.

“Well,
that wasn’t really the question. Obviously there are enough major outlets
planning to attend—I think we have to accommodate them. It was just a question
of how to keep them separate from the Burkes—”

“Afraid
one of those hillbillies will make a scene and ruin the whole event?”

“Well,
yes, frankly. Those are the kinds of things we have to be concerned about—the
comfort of the attendees, the reputation of the museum…. You know what? Just
have Yvette call me if you don’t mind.”

“I
do mind, as a matter of fact.”

Suzanne
was completely taken aback. “I beg your pardon?”

“I
realize, Miss Hamilton, that my family may not have the blue-blood heritage
that yours probably does. We may not be conventional, exactly. But we’re good
people.”

“My
family?” Holy shit.
Suzanne collapsed into her chair, mouth gaping.
Oh God, oh God, oh God. Tell
me this isn’t happening.

She
now realized why the assistant’s masculine twang sounded familiar. She had a
sudden—and belated—memory, crystal clear, that Yvette had mentioned her new
assistant’s name was Lisa. She’d been talking to Dylan Burke. For the first
time.
Holy shit.

“Mr.
Burke, I—” she stammered, gripping the phone in panic. Across the room, Chad’s
eyes went wide in shock as he put it together, too. “Please accept my
apologies. I—”

But
it was too late. “Yvette,” she heard Dylan call to the murmuring room behind
him. She heard a static rustle as he presumably tossed the phone to her. Yvette
made a startled, squeaking noise as she fumbled it. From farther away, Suzanne
heard country music’s golden boy say, “It’s for you.”