Page 24 of Summer on Sunshine Bay

“Hey, Mom,” Lila said, frowning at the feel of cold water on her feet. She looked down to see her flip-flops drowning in a puddle of muddy water, courtesy of the hose hanging limply from her father’s hand as he stared open-mouthed at her mother. “Really, Dad?”

Dragging his glazed gaze from her mother, he followed Lila’s pointed stare. “Sorry about that.” He tossed the hose onto the lawn and held out his hand to her mother. “Let me take that.”

Lila was carrying two heavy bags, and he was offering to take her mother’s wicker hamper?

“Thank you,” Eva said, looking into Lila’s father’s eyes with a slow, sexy smile spreading over her gorgeous face.

Eva was the biggest flirt Lila had ever met, so seeing that familiar smile on her face shouldn’t have come as a surprise. But her mother did not share flirty smiles with her father, and her father did not look at her mother with a starstruck expression on his face.

Maybe Lila had been wrong in assuming that a fight breaking out between her mother and the Westfields over the wedding was the worst thing that could happen today.

“How did your meeting go?” Lila’s father asked her mother.

“Good. The staff shared some of what they’ve been hearing from customers and offered a few suggestions. I’d like to run them by you and get your opinion whenever you have time.”

Say what? Her mother wanted her father’s opinion?

“I’d be happy to. Maybe you can stick around after the Westfields leave and—”

“Hold it,” Lila said. “Since when do you want Dad’s opinion on anything, Mom?”

“Since the restaurant your fiancé will be managing cut our business by fifty-five percent,” her mother said at the same time David returned from bringing her bags inside.

Brilliant, Lila. Impeccable timing as always.

But in her defense, whatever was going on between her parents was setting her nerves on edge. Her mother wasn’t nicknamed a Heartbreaker for no reason, and the last thing Lila wanted was for her father to have his heart broken again. It was only in the last few months that he’d been more like himself. He wasn’t exactly an open book when it came to his feelings, but she knew her stepmother’s death had affected him deeply.

David gave her mother a weak smile. “Hi, Eva,” he said as he went to take the luggage from Lila’s hands.

“‘Hi, Eva’? Surely I deserve a hug at least.”

David’s cheeks flushed, and he lowered the bags to give her mother a perfunctory hug.

Eva stepped back and patted his cheek. “Such a brave, brave boy,” she said on a mournful sigh.

“Mom!”

“What? It’s true.” Her mother placed a hand on her voluptuous chest and widened her stunning green eyes. “Oh no, you didn’t tell him about the family curse, did you, darling?”

“Yes, Mom, I did, and David doesn’t believe in it any more than I do.”

“The arrogance of youth, I suppose. Still, to be on the safe side, I’d make sure your affairs were in order, David. Thirty percent of Rosetti women’s fiancés die before they make it to the altar.”

“Why don’t we go inside?” her father suggested, placing a firm hand at the small of her mother’s back.

“What happened to the other seventy percent?” David asked as he took the bags from Lila and they followed her mother and father down the garden path to the side door.

Lila nudged him. The last thing her mother needed was encouragement. If she sensed the slightest hesitation in David, she’d pounce on it.

Eva glanced over her shoulder as she stepped around the bags David had left in the entryway. “Fifty percent of their fiancés left them standing at the altar.”

David put down the two bags and smiled at Lila. “That’s not something Lila has to worry about.”

“I’m very glad to hear that, David.” Eva stopped Lila’s father with a hand on his arm as he began walking into the living room. “My daughter is precious to me, and the last thing I want is to see her hurt, which is why Sage drew up these.” She lifted the lid on the hamper and took out two manila envelopes, handing one to David and one to Lila.

David frowned, looking from his envelope to Eva. “What’s this?”

“The other twenty percent of Rosetti women who actually got past theI dos were left heartbroken, penniless, and pregnant within the first year of their marriages. And this”—she tapped the envelope in David’s hand—“will ensure it doesn’t happen to my daughter. It’s a prenup.”

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