Stand-In Groom (13 page)

“I’ve brought a guest tonight.”

Anne twisted around and nearly fell off the seat. Behind Forbes stood George Laurence, looking handsomer than ever in a cobalt blue button-down and khakis. The shirt hugged his muscular shoulders, and the bright blue hue turned his eyes from cinnamon brown to a deep chocolate.

Anne had to tear her gaze away from George before he caught her staring at him as Forbes introduced him around the table. When Forbes had called her half an hour ago, she’d been begging God to take away the attraction she felt toward her client. God hadn’t answered her prayer.

“We’re so glad you could join us, George,” Meredith said after shaking hands with him. “I believe the seat beside Anne is unclaimed.”

No!
Anne wanted to yell at her cousin. The last thing she needed was to spend time with George Laurence outside of work.

She was forced to paste on a smile when George looked at her. She couldn’t be rude to him. He was her most valuable client, after all. “Yes, please. There’s always room for one more.”

George sat next to her; Anne’s nerves crackled like a live electrical wire. He had some kind of magnetic aura that pulled at her soul, drawing her to him, making her want to know him better. She buried her nose in the menu and tried to calm herself with a few deep breaths.

“Hey, y’all. Sorry I’m late.”

The final member of the party, Rafe Guidry, tall and slender with strawberry blond hair like his older sisters, arrived and took the last available seat beside Forbes.

Before Forbes or Anne could make the introduction, Rafe half stood and extended his right hand to George. “Rafael Guidry.”

George stood. “George Laurence.”

“What kept you?” Jenn leaned over Rafe’s shoulder to hand a menu to her younger brother.

“Meeting ran late.” Rafe didn’t even look at the menu before he handed it to the server while giving his food and beverage order. “Forbes, I now understand why you decided to go to law school instead of taking over the family business.”

“Rafe—no business talk at the table, please.” Forbes gave him a look only an older brother could get away with, then turned to George. “Our parents are the proprietors of Boudreaux-Guidry Enterprises—the company that owns most of the convention spaces and several hotels and buildings in town. We got our fill of shoptalk around the dinner table when we were kids.”

“Which is why Forbes and Jenn got out.” Meredith’s entry into the conversation surprised Anne, as she usually let Jenn and Forbes overshadow her around nonfamily members.

“But not you.” George leaned forward a fraction, though his posture remained perfect.

Anne recognized the same interest in his expression he’d had when their conversation had become personal over lunch the other day. Annoyance filled her for being disappointed her cousin could illicit that reaction from him, too. The man was already engaged to someone else; any interest he’d shown in her had been strictly on a professional level.

Meredith’s mouth twisted ruefully. “I decided to major in art history in college. Needless to say, since I didn’t want to teach, there really weren’t many opportunities out there, so I started working as Anne’s assistant at B-G. I took over when she left to start Happy Endings.”

George turned to look at Anne. “I’d be interested in hearing, sometime, why you decided to start your own company.”

“Anytime.” She tried to still the fluttering in her stomach at his intense gaze. At thirty-five, she was far too old to have a schoolgirl crush on a man who was completely unattainable.

“George, do you find Bonneterre to your liking?” Meredith asked.

George answered, and Anne let out a relieved breath. She hated when everyone’s attention was on her.

With each word that came from his mouth, Anne’s pulse skipped and jumped like a kid on the last day of school.
He’s engaged. I’ll never work in this town again if word gets out that I’ve fallen in love with a client. Lord, please help me!

“All right, George, we’re all curious,” Rafe interjected, shoveling crawfish cheese dip onto a small plate. “What do you do for a living?”

When George didn’t immediately answer, Anne’s gaze snapped to him. Why would being asked about his job cause his smile to vanish, his posture to stiffen? She hadn’t asked him personal questions because she was afraid that the more she knew about him, the more she’d like him.

He cleared his throat. “I am a household manager and personal assistant.”

Anne frowned. Not what she’d expected.

“Okay…” Her cousin Jason drawled the word. “What does that mean?”

She was torn between throwing her spoon at her cousin and thanking him for voicing the question in her own mind. She didn’t want her family to alienate George and make him decide he didn’t want her to plan his wedding, but she really wanted to know everything about him.

“I oversee and attend to all of my employer’s personal needs— such as travel plans, social calendar, household organization, setup for entertaining.”

“So you’re familiar with event planning?” Meredith asked.

He smiled, and his posture eased a bit. “Quite. My employer entertains large numbers of guests at home frequently.”

“What a great help for you, Anne.” Jenn slipped into her seat as the servers arrived with the entrées. “Who do you work for, George? CEO of a major corporation? An ambassador? A Hollywood megastar? Come on, fess up.”

He shook his head, the lines around his eyes tightening. “Part of my job is maintaining discretion.”

“I know who it has to be,” Rafe said, winking at Anne. “I’ll betcha he works for Mel Gibson.”

Everyone laughed, and Anne saw George’s posture ease again.

“Sean Connery? No? Tom Hanks?” Rafe continued teasing.

Eating gave a much-needed diversion for everyone’s attention. Jenn had to excuse herself twice and disappear into the kitchen, and Rafe and Meredith talked shop for a few minutes.

Exhaustion rested heavily on Anne’s shoulders. She’d only gotten about four hours of sleep the last three nights. She picked at her crawfish étouffée, eating only the chunks of meat.

“Hey, Annie.” Jason speared a shrimp from Jenn’s unattended plate. “I talked to Mom on the way over here. She said that she may have to bring the cake for Amanda and David’s wedding earlier than planned on Saturday, since she has a birthday cake she has to
finish for someone else that afternoon.”

“I’ll call her first thing in the morning. But it shouldn’t be a problem.” Anne was keenly aware of George listening to their conversation.

He had a thoughtful expression on his face when she glanced at him. “You have a family member who makes wedding cakes?”

She nodded. “My Aunt Maggie. I would like to set up a time after Courtney gets back in town to do a tasting so y’all can choose the flavor of the cake and the fillings.”

“I will check the calendar to arrange a time.” He pushed a chunk of salmon toward the edge of his plate and speared a few pieces of romaine and a crouton. “Do you work with your aunt often?”

“I’ve worked with her since I was nine years old. My first paying job was as her catering assistant.” Anne dug the fingernails of her left hand into her palm. Why did she always run on at the mouth whenever he asked her a question?

His smile was inscrutable. “So, in essence, you entered the family business as well.”

She blinked a couple of times in surprise and then couldn’t stop her smile. “I’ve never thought about it that way, but I guess you’re right.”

“But she’s bossy, so she wanted to be the one telling everyone else what to do.” Jason swiped another shrimp off Jenn’s plate. “That’s why she started her own business.”

“I’m not bossy.” Anne laughed as Jason waggled his eyebrows at her. Six years her junior, he’d only been three when she’d come to live with his family after her parents’ death. “Okay, maybe I was a little bossy growing up.”

Jenn, Meredith, and Rafe scoffed.

Forbes leaned forward to look at her around George. “I hate to be the one to break it to you, my dear, but you do like to be the one in control…at least when it comes to your weddings. That’s why you work around the clock to make sure everything’s up to your exacting standards.”

“But that’s what makes you so good at what you do.” Meredith could always be counted on to defend her.

Anne laughed to keep from groaning. What kind of an impression was George Laurence going to have of her after tonight? Would he still respect her in the morning?

“Anne was featured in one of the bridal magazines a month ago.” Jenn jumped into the conversation, slapping Jason’s hand away from her plate as she regained her seat. “She’s gotten calls from brides all over the country since it came out. Of course, now we can get away with calling her an ‘obsessive perfectionist’ since it appeared in print from an objective outsider.”

“Jenn!” Heat crawled up Anne’s cheeks.

“Yes, I saw the article.”

George’s admission startled Anne.

“That is why Miss Hawthorne was hired to plan this wedding,” he continued. “The bride was very impressed by her credentials and the portfolio of photographs from other weddings that were featured.”

“So your fiancée decided to get married here just because she read an article about Anne?” Rafe asked.

George shook his head. “No. The bride is originally from Bonneterre and wished to get married in her hometown.”

“So that’s how you ended up here.” Jenn gave George an appraising glance. “You know, George, I’m going to keep bugging you about who you work for until I get it out of you.”

The servers returned to the table to remove their dinner plates and offer a dessert menu.

“No dessert for me,” Anne said as she handed him her plate, “but I would love a hazelnut cappuccino.”

“Brilliant idea.” George’s voice was soft, as if meant only for himself. “I’ll have one of the same, please,” he told the waiter.

The talk around the table turned to travel. Anne listened with unbidden fascination to George’s descriptions of the distant and exotic places he’d visited. She fought the desire to ask her
own questions about his personal life. What had led him into his profession? For whom did he work? Was it someone famous or just wealthy? And how was Courtney—

She gasped, nearly choking on her cappuccino.
His employer!

Coughing, she grabbed her napkin as Meredith pounded her on the back. “I’m okay—just went down the wrong way,” she assured her cousin, her voice raspy. She breathed a little easier when George excused himself from the table.

What he said he did for a living didn’t sound like a job that would make him try to shroud his wedding with mystery. What if it was his employer and not himself he was trying to protect? What if he did work for someone famous like Rafe had been teasing about, and that person was embarrassed by George’s marrying a girl so much younger?

She needed to go down to the Blanchard Leblanc bookstore, grab as many gossip magazines as she could find, and do some research. If his employer was someone famous, maybe there were pictures of him or her at some event with George hovering in the background—a movie premiere, a black-tie fund-raiser…. The coffee scalded her tongue, but she didn’t care. Somehow, she had to find out who George Laurence really was.

Yes. Focusing on figuring out who he really was might help her overcome her growing attraction to him.

The house lights lowered. Anne glanced at her watch. How had it gotten to be nine o’clock? She really needed to go back to the office and finish her to-do list for the next two days.

She leaned over to grab her purse from under the table but snapped back upright when the strains of “Volare” started—sung by someone who sounded so close to Dean Martin, chills danced up and down her arms.

She blinked twice just to make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks. Entranced, she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. George Laurence stood on the karaoke stage—now crooning the song’s bridge in Italian—sounding just like Dean Martin and giving every
indication this was something he not only enjoyed doing, but did often.

Tears burned her eyes. Everything. Every detail about this man fit her long-held mental image of her soul mate. Cliff’s weaknesses, the things about him that had driven her crazy, were George’s strengths: his ability to socialize with grace, his discretion, his apparent good stewardship of his money…. She had a feeling George would never pretend to be in love with a woman just to gain his own end, the way Cliff had used her.

How could God do this to her? Bring the perfect man into her life only to force her to help him marry someone else?

She fled the restaurant. Her car’s engine came to life with a roar. But instead of putting it into gear and driving away, she pounded her fists on the steering wheel.

“This is my punishment, isn’t it, God?” she cried. “You’re punishing me because I’ve never been able to forgive Cliff Ballantine for what he did to me, aren’t You? I don’t want to forgive him! He ruined my life. I dropped out of graduate school to work and send him money, and then he dumped me so he could go off and become a famous movie star and I could work myself practically to death to pay off all the debt I went into for him. Why is it fair that You’re punishing me by showing me what I can’t have, and he’s had everything go right for him?”

She slammed the car into gear and screeched the tires pulling out of the parking lot. Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm down. “Lord, I know You have a plan for my life. But if it includes forgiving Cliff Ballantine, I’m not sure I can do it.”

T
he coffee shop inside the Blanchard Leblanc bookstore was Anne’s favorite place to unwind on a Sunday afternoon. She sipped her caramel-hazelnut latte and claimed one of the overstuffed armchairs near the front windows. Heavy rain pelted the glass, drowning out the low buzz of noise from the other customers.

She set the stack of magazines she’d just purchased on the floor and pulled
People
off the top. Most of the publications she’d purchased were running celebrity wedding issues, serving dual purpose as research materials. She retrieved an empty folder and scissors from her attaché to save any interesting articles or photos.