Diva (The Flappers) - By Jillian Larkin Page 0,70

and stood under the entrance’s red awning.

At first, Clara was light-headed at the coincidence. Then she remembered: Not only was Sherry’s the site of the beginning of the end of Clara’s relationship with Marcus, it was also where Marcus and Deirdre’s rehearsal dinner was taking place.

Clara crouched behind a bush and peeked around the side. Marcus was devastatingly handsome in a traditional tuxedo. His hair was Brilliantined, and a handkerchief that matched his eyes peeked out of his pocket. Clara could remember the way the Brilliantine mingled with his spicy cologne, how she would practically taste it on her tongue when she kissed his neck.

Deirdre’s coppery hair was expertly curled and pinned away from her face with diamond barrettes. She wore a sleeveless deep-green velvet gown. The top was sheer, but it became opaque at just the right point on Deirdre’s chest to remain respectable enough for the tables of old society biddies inside. The girl was positively glowing. And why wouldn’t she be? Half the Eastman fortune was about to be hers.

Marcus lit a cigarette and held it to Deirdre’s to light it. His hand lingered on her tiny waist as he did so. “I hope tonight hasn’t been too painful for you,” Clara could dimly hear Marcus say.

“Painful?” Deirdre gave a charming little laugh. “I adore your entire family. Your fazzer ees so kind and welcoming, and your muzzer ees beautiful! Zough zat ees not so surprising, you being as wonderful as you are.”

He tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “I’m glad you like them. They’ll be your family too soon enough.”

Clara looked away as the two leaned in for a big Hollywood kiss. Even though she’d heard the truth from Deirdre’s own lips, it was hard to believe someone so seemingly lovely was a con artist. And Marcus looked so happy.

She was beginning to understand what Marcus saw in his fiancée. Through all her lies and sneaking around, when was the last time Clara had remembered to tell Marcus something as simple as how wonderful he was?

As soon as she heard the door creak closed, she stalked away from the restaurant. It wasn’t fair—she should be the one standing across from Marcus on Saturday, telling him how much she loved him and how happy she would be to spend the rest of her life with him.

Instead, she’d show up to the wedding with a former criminal as her date, and would work her hardest to ensure that Marcus’s bride-to-be would be walking out in handcuffs rather than walking down the aisle.

Clara loved Marcus so much. And yet she was about to do something that would make him never want to speak to her again.

LORRAINE

Lorraine was sure the Eastman-Rijn wedding was the reason words like swanky and elegant existed.

Tramp though Deirdre was, it was kind of a shame such a gorgeous event was destined to go down in flames before it even began. It would be like that time Lorraine had dropped the latest issue of Vogue in the bathtub while she was still flipping through the ads in the front.

Melvin whistled. “What do you figure they spent on candles alone?”

Lorraine shook her head. “I don’t even want to think about it. I’m all for extravagance, don’t get me wrong. But spending a fortune on sticks that are just going to melt? That’s just applesauce.”

Though as Lorraine looked around the ballroom, she couldn’t deny the romantic, almost ethereal effect the dim lighting and hundreds of candles had. The candlelight bounced off the coffered ceilings and onto the enormous arched mirrors that lined the walls. The white linen canopy set up on the sleek wooden platform at the end of the aisle and draped with wisteria glowed with some sort of inner light.

Lorraine grabbed Melvin’s hand and pulled him deeper into the crowd. There must have been at least a hundred and fifty people milling around the rows of cushioned gold chairs, and probably twice that were still munching on hors d’oeuvres in the lobby downstairs. Lorraine had spied her own parents talking to Mr. and Mrs. Eastman in the lobby when she and Melvin had arrived—exactly why she’d hightailed it upstairs. She’d have to suffer through dinner with her mother and father later—she didn’t want to give them more opportunities to bore her than necessary.

Lorraine smiled with approval at the sight of her pink lips and rouged cheeks in one of the mirrors. The low lighting made her look positively angelic. She looked around for Gloria. She