Page 128 of Tuxedos and Tinsel
‘Me too,’ she said. Hearing about his difficult youth, remembering her early loss was making her feel down. ‘I reckon we know enough about each other now to be able to field any questions that are thrown at us. After all, we’re not pretending to have known each other for long.’
She got up from her chair, walked to the edge of the pool, knelt at the edge and swished her hand through the water. ‘This is such a nice pool. Do you use it much?’
‘Most days I swim,’ he said, standing behind her. ‘There’s a gym at the back of the cabana too.’
She imagined him working out in his gym, then plunging into the pool, muscles pumped, spearing through the water in not many clothes, maybe innoclothes.
Stop it!
She got up, wishing she could dive in right now to cool herself down. ‘Do you like my idea to hire some lifeguards so the guests can swim on Christmas Day?’
‘It’s a good one.’
‘And you’re okay with putting a new swimsuit and towel in each of the children’s goody bags? Hannah pointed out that some of the kids might not have a swimsuit.’
‘I meant to talk to you about that,’ he said. Surely he wasn’t going to query the cost of the kids’ gifts? She would be intensely disappointed if he did. ‘I want to buy each of the adults a new swimsuit too; they might not have one either,’ he said. ‘I don’t want anyone feeling excluded for any reason we can avoid.’
She looked up at him. ‘You’re not really a Scrooge, are you?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘I don’t think people are going to be calling you that for much longer. Certainly not if I’ve got anything to do with it.’
‘But not a word about my past.’
‘That’s understood,’ she said, making a my-lips-are-sealed zipping motion over her mouth. ‘Though I think you might find people would admire you for having overcome it.’
The alarm on her watch buzzed. ‘I’m running late,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realise we’d been talking for so long.’
‘You have an appointment? I was going to suggest dinner.’
‘No can do, I’m afraid.’ Her first impulse was to cancel her plans, to jump at the opportunity to be with Dominic. But she would not put her life on hold for the fake engagement.
‘I have a hot date with a group of girlfriends. It’s our first Tuesday of the month movie club. We see a movie and then go to dinner. We’re supposed to discuss the movie but we mainly catch up on the gossip.’ She held out her hand, where the diamond flashed on the third finger of her left hand. ‘I suspect this baby is going to be the main topic of conversation.’
She made to go but, before she could, Dominic had pulled her close for a kiss that left not a scrap of lipstick on her mouth and her hair falling out of its knot.
It was the kind of kiss she could get used to.
CHAPTER TWELVE
ANDIESATATher desk in the Party Queens’ headquarters. ‘Headquarters’ was rather a grand term for their premises. It comprised an industrial kitchen where Gemma could do her thing; a workroom used for making props; a storage area; and an area loosely termed an office, where she and her two partners squeezed in their desks.
To say they were frantically busy would be an understatement. The weeks leading up to Christmas and New Year were the busiest time of the year for established party planners. For a new company like Party Queens to be so busy was gratifying. But it was the months after the end of the long Aussie summer vacation they had to worry about for advance bookings. Business brain, Eliza, was very good at reminding them of that.
Andie’s top priority was Dominic’s Christmas party. Actually, it was no longer just his party. As his fiancée, she had officially become co-host. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t flat-out with other bookings, including a Christmas Eve party for the parents of their first eighteenth party girl. Andie wanted to pull out all the stops for the people who’d given Party Queens their very first job. And then there was the business of being Dominic’s fake fiancée—almost a job on its own.
Andie had been ‘engaged’ to Dominic for ten days and so far so good. She’d been amazed that no one had seriously queried the speed at which she had met, fallen in love with and agreed to marry a man she had known for less than a month.
The swooning sighs of ‘love at first sight’ and ‘how romantic’ from her girlfriends she understood, not so much the delight from her pragmatic father and the tears of joy from her mother. She hardly knew Dominic and yet they were prepared to believe she would commit her life to him?
Of course it was because her family and friends had been worried about her, wanted her to be happy, had been concerned she had grieved for Anthony for too long.
‘Your dad and I are pleased for you, sweetheart, we really are,’ her mother had said. ‘We were worried you were so fearful about loving someone again in case you lost them, that you wouldn’t let yourself fall in love again,’ she’d continued. ‘But Dominic is so strong, so right for you; I guess he just broke through those barriers you’d spent so long putting up. And I understand you didn’t want to waste time when you knew what it was like to have a future snatched away from you.’
Really?She’d put upbarriers?She’d just been trying to find someone worthy of stepping into Anthony’s shoes. Now she’d found a man who had big boots of his own and would never walk in another man’s shadow.But he wasn’t really hers.
‘You put us off the scent by telling us Dominic wasn’t your type,’ Gemma had said accusingly. Gemma, who was already showing her ideas for a fabulous wedding cake she planned to bake and decorate for her when the time came. Andie felt bad going through images of multi-tiered pastel creations with Gemma, knowing the cake was never going to happen.
