Kiss the Bride (52 page)

“And we’re granting you exclusive video rights. Yours will be the only movie camera allowed into the party.”

“Really? An exclusive of the first daughter’s engagement? I don’t know what to say, Elysee.”

“Say yes. The party’s on Saturday. Please don’t tell me you have another wedding scheduled for next Saturday.”

“No.”

“Great, so you can do it?”

“Yes.”

She thought of having to spend the afternoon at the Benedict ranch with Shane, looking through old photo albums, and felt sick to her stomach.
This is how Julia Roberts’s character must have felt in
My Best Friend’s Wedding.
Trapped into being nice to a woman she wanted to despise, but couldn’t because she was just so darned nice.

She stared at the phone, stared at the check, stared at the teller who was raising her eyebrow, waiting for Tish to make a move.

Taking a deep breath, she rolled down the window and did the irreversible. She handed the teller her deposit slip and the check.

It was official. Like it or not, she was committed to seeing this thing through.

“You’re out of your mind, you know that,” Elysee’s secretary, Lola, told her as they entered the WorldFem meeting, Secret Service escorts leading the way. “Leaving your man alone with his ex-wife. It’s insanity.”

“They won’t be alone. The ranch is crawling with people.”

“Yes, but you won’t be there to put a stop to any hanky-panky.”

“There’s not going to be any hanky-panky. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”

“Do you?”

Elysee wasn’t going to let Lola’s opinion rattle her.
She trusted Shane implicitly and odd as it might sound to someone else, she also trusted Tish. Whatever her faults, whatever the reason she and Shane had broken up, Elysee couldn’t help feeling Tish had integrity.

“They need time alone to heal the old wounds without me peeking over their shoulders.”

“If you say so.”

Elysee chose to ignore Lola and any niggling doubts she might have of her own. She was very excited that the WorldFem conference was right here in Houston. When the organizers had learned she wanted to attend, they instantly made her a guest speaker. It was a last-minute invitation, so she hadn’t prepared a speech. She intended to speak from her heart.

Being in the presence of like-minded women fired her up. There were several celebrities on the panel—including a famous actress, a cable news anchorwoman, and a late night talk show host’s wife who’d been instrumental in drawing attention to the plight of women in Afghanistan long before the second Gulf War.

Toward the end of the conference, Agent Ackerman came over to whisper to Elysee. “There’s a woman who wants to speak with you. She says it’s urgent. A matter of life or death, but I don’t advise you to see her.”

“What woman?” Elysee asked.

Cal Ackerman pointed her out. She was waiting near the exit, dressed in a sari with a veil cloaking her face.

“I’ll speak to her.”

“For security reasons…,” Agent Ackerman began, but Elysee cut him off.

“I’ll speak with her in the limo. You can secure that easily enough and check her out before bringing her to me.”

“Yes, Miss Benedict.” He didn’t seem happy about it, but a few minutes later Elysee and Lola were waiting in the back of the limousine. He brought the woman over, opened the car door, and she slid in.

Agent Ackerman started to get in as well but Elysee raised her hand. “You can wait out there.”

His body stiffened in response and his eyes narrowed. He did as she asked, but he didn’t look pleased.

“Hello,” Elysee said to the veiled woman sitting across from her. “Do you speak English?”

The woman dropped the veil. “It is me, E-lee. Your Nana Rana.”

“Rana!” Elysee threw her arms around Rana’s neck and hugged her tightly. “Thank God you’re alive. I saw your picture in
People
magazine and that’s when I knew I had to get involved with WorldFem.”

“I am so proud you are here.” Tears streamed down Rana’s face. “This is such a happy moment for me. To see you all grown up and passionate about human rights. Your mother would be so proud.”

They both swiped at tears then. Lola extracted tissues from her purse and passed them around.

“Agent Ackerman said you needed to see me on a matter of life and death. Do you need me to hide you?”

“It is not my own safety that concerns me,” Rana said. “I come to you on behalf of another.”

“Yes?” Elysee leaned forward, eager not to miss a single word.

“The young woman’s name is Alma Reddy. Her father is a cabinet minister in India. He was very distressed when she dishonored her family by secretly marrying an American student attending university in Bombay. The young man’s visa was revoked and he was thrown out of India.
Alma’s father demanded she renounce the young man and have the marriage annulled. Alma refused and her family has hired attackers to kill her. WorldFem managed to hide her, but we need to get her out of India. Her beloved husband lives in Texas, but we don’t have the funds or proper entrance visa to get her into the U.S. Can you help?”

“How much money do you need?”

“One hundred thousand dollars.”

Elysee sat back against the seat. “That’s a lot of money.”

“We must bribe many people. Pay hush money. Plus the route to smuggle her out of the country is an arduous one. There are many planes, trains, and boats she must take. She must change transportation modes often to ensure she is not followed. We must also hire a decoy and send her on a similar journey. Alma’s father is ruthless. He has put a price on my head. This all must be kept as secret as possible. He has many spies, many eyes.”

“I don’t have access to that kind of money here, Rana. Since I’m not yet twenty-five I can’t withdraw funds without my father’s permission. I do have a safety-deposit box with antique coins left to me by my grandmother. They are worth at least that, but the safety-deposit box is in DC. I’m headed there this coming weekend for my engagement party. If you can meet me there, I’ll give you the money on Saturday.”

“Thank you, thank you.” Rana kissed Elysee’s hands. “You are an angel.”

“I’ll make sure you get an invitation to the engagement party. We can make the transfer there.”

“She’s playing you,” Lola said after Rana exited the limo. “Want to bet you never see her or your money again?”

“Shame on you, Lola,” Elysee scolded. “Rana was my nanny.”

“And that precludes her from being a con artist?”

“You always think the worst of people.”

“That’s why your father hired me as your secretary. You need a counterbalance.”

“Well, I don’t care what you say. I’m giving her the money and I forbid you from discussing the matter with my father.”

Lola shrugged. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Squeeze it. Push. Go for the burn.”

Shane grunted against the grapefruit-sized rubber ball the physical therapist, Pete Larkin, had dropped into the open palm of his right hand.

Once upon a time, he could hurl a fastball sixty miles an hour. Those days were gone. Sweat beaded on his brow as he struggled to contract his fingers around the spongy ball.

I’m half the man I used to be,
he thought, and tried not to feel bitter. He’d been doing his job for his President and his country. He couldn’t complain when injury and painful rehab came with the territory.

What was he going to do if, no matter how hard he pushed, it didn’t work? Would he be happy with Marshal Vega’s job, running the Secret Service? Did he even want it? What in the hell did he want? He’d never had this kind of self-doubt in his life and it was troubling.

After ten measly squeezes, his throbbing hand forced him to drop the ball. Shane swore loudly.

“Don’t get discouraged,” Pete said. “You’re making steady progress.”

“Doesn’t feel like it.”

“You’re distracted, dude. You’re not focusing on the squeeze. You gotta focus.”

Shane shook his head. He already knew that. After driving back from Louie’s, he’d spent the remainder of the night tossing and turning, unable to get Tish and the impromptu dance he’d instigated off his mind. Hiring her as their wedding videographer had been a huge mistake.

Elysee was convinced working with Tish was the only way he was going to get her out of his system. Shane was determined to prove to Elysee that he had let go of the past and was ready to embrace the future with her.

But his fiancée was naïve. She didn’t understand the complexities of marriage, how emotions lingered long after the legal bonds had been severed.

Shane remembered how it had felt being locked in the bathroom with Tish. The hairs raised on his arms just thinking about how close he’d come to kissing her. Even after being away from her for two years, she still affected him like no woman on earth. Hell, to be honest, the powerful pull she held over him was scary.

If you’re so hot for Tish, why are you marrying Elysee?

Because he’d been down that road before with Tish and he knew exactly where it led. They were oil and water. No matter how hot the chemistry between them. Passion was a very dangerous thing and after Tish, he’d sworn to avoid it at all costs. The thing he had going with Elysee was much safer.

Since when have you opted for safe?

Shane stared down at his hand.

“You wanna talk about it?” Pete asked, casually curling twenty-pound dumbbells, making it look as easy as kneading bread.

“Talk about what?”

“What’s got you tied up in knots?”

“Who are you?” Shane growled, wiping sweat from his brow with a gym towel. “Oprah Winfrey? Dr. Phil?”

“I’m just saying. If you need to talk, I got two ears and a quiet mouth. I know how to keep secrets.”

“Nothing to talk about.” Shane didn’t like dissecting his feelings. He wasn’t about to open up to a stranger.

“Still, it can’t be easy. Going from the Secret Service agent in the background to center stage as the President’s son-in-law-to-be. I can’t imagine it. But things are just going to get worse, you know, when the media get wind of the engagement.”

“Yeah,” Shane mumbled. He’d already considered that.

And it would happen soon. The wife of the Speaker of the House was throwing a party for him and Elysee this upcoming weekend in DC to officially announce their engagement.

“Elysee hired my ex-wife to videotape our wedding,” Shane confessed.

“No shit.” Pete gave him a grin that said
you poor dumb bastard
. “Weird coincidence.”

“No coincidence. Elysee hired her on purpose. She wants us to get along. Be friends.”

“Dude”—Pete shook his head—“that’s so screwed up. No wonder you can’t concentrate on physical therapy. Your mental lifting is a helluva lot heavier.”

Shane sank down on the weight bench. His knees seemed suddenly to be made of paper. His nerves poked like sharp spikes, sticking him all over.

His injuries had brought him close to death. Closer than he’d ever been. Was his mortality the problem? Was that what had him questioning everything? Was that what had him missing Tish? Was that what had him fearing that divorcing her was the biggest mistake he’d ever made?

Ah, there it was. The thought he’d been running from
all night long. It felt like a dash of ice-cold water in the face. Frigid and sobering.

“Forgive me, Tish,” he muttered. “I was such a damn fool.”

“You talkin’ to me?” Pete racked the dumbbell.

“Yeah.” Shane shoved his thoughts away. The damage was done. He couldn’t turn back the clock. All he could do was make damn sure he didn’t commit the same mistake with Elysee. He couldn’t allow his relationship with his ex-wife to get in the way of their wedding. “Hand me those three-pound weights. It’s time I moved on.”

T
ish arrived at the ranch to find Shane behind a push mower with his shirt stripped off. She didn’t know which was more unexpected. Seeing Shane mowing the President’s lawn, or catching a glimpse of his incredible bare body.

She pulled to a stop in the driveway, slung the backpack that served as her camera bag over her shoulder and got out of the car, bumping the door closed with her hip as she went. Tish shaded her eyes and a rivulet of sweat slid down between her breasts—not because the weather was hot, but because Shane was.

Every chest muscle was perfectly honed and defined, ripped and rock hard beneath the silk of his skin. Her gaze slid over him, her mind remembering how firm and thick his skin had felt beneath her fingers. She remembered and ached to touch him again. His denim jeans hugged his hips, molded to his thighs. His dark hair glistened in the sunlight

She swallowed hard and felt the movement of her gulp track all the way down her throat, leaving her feeling dry and breathless. She’d never been so aware of his body.

Or of her own.

Her heart knocked against her rib cage. She moistened her lips, tasted cinnamon-flavored gloss.