Kit’s smile was as carefree as possible given the stress
level of its owner as she sped to the eighteenth floor and walked
down the lushly carpeted hallway to The Carnaby Suite where she
took a moment to take a deep breath and center herself before
knocking.
The door opened.
“Hi,” said the attractive dark-haired man standing
on the other side wearing a crisp white shirt, blue slacks and
a tie that needed knotting.
For a moment everything went still. She couldn’t breathe,
her heart didn’t seem to beat. She couldn’t hear anything.
In that instant she was standing in her wedding gown, reliving
the moment when she accepted she’d been jilted at the altar.
She stared at the man she’d planned to marry. She hadn’t
seen him in the three years since the night before their wedding
day, and such a barrage of emotions slammed into her that she
couldn’t process any of them.
Another woman might have railed, or fainted or kicked him in
a strategic spot. Not Kit, even though she felt like doing all
three. Her famous smile wobbled a little but she hung on to it,
just as she hung onto the pink clutch that started to slide out
of her grip.
“Peter,” she said. “What a surprise.”
“Kit. It’s good to see you.” An awkward moment
passed when he didn’t move back or speak but simply stared
at her. She glanced at the discreet bronze plaque announcing that
this was indeed the Carnaby Suite.
Whether Peter turning out to be the winner was a cosmic stroke
of fate, or she was unwittingly starring in some particularly
cruel new reality show, she had no idea, but neither her ex-fiance
nor some controversy-loving TV audience was going to see her falter.
She’d faced a ballroom full of escaped crocodiles. One snake
she could handle. “So, do I take it you are the lucky winner
of the fantasy weekend?”
He seemed to pull himself together with an effort. “Yes.
I’m thrilled.” He stood back. “Come in.”
“Thanks.” She was thinking fast as she stepped into
the luxurious, sensuously appointed suite with the man she’d
once planned to spend her life with. There was no way she could
bail on dinner tonight, not with the Times photographer coming.
But tomorrow, as another famously jilted woman once said, was
another day.
“I’m here to take you to dinner,” she said
briskly, then raised her brows in a challenge. “Is that
a problem?”
“There’s no one I’d rather have dinner with,”
he said.
Bite me. “Fine. Anytime you’re ready to go.”
“Look. Would you like to have a drink here first? Maybe
we should talk before we go out into public together.”
She simply looked at him and let her brows ride higher. Soon
they’d take off in flight.
He fiddled with the ends of his tie. “In case there are
any hard feelings you want to get off your chest. From before.”
“By before, I assume you mean when you left me standing
at the altar on our wedding day?”
He nodded, and she had the satisfaction of seeing a reddening
above his collar that meant he was embarrassed. Damn straight.
