His Off Limits Best Friend - Vivian Wood Page 0,23

his father called. “Come here a moment and meet Mr. Lee. Sam, you don’t mind.”

She wanted to ask if that was a question or a statement, but kept her mouth shut. Suddenly, the secret champagne really did rush through her and she started to hunt for the restroom as Connor was engulfed in more small talk. She found one without a line upstairs, but the door was locked.

When it opened, out tumbled one of the most stunning girls she’d ever seen. Her platinum blonde hair was pinned up in a tight chignon, offsetting her gray eyes and perfect cat eyeliner. Behind her was her friend, in Havana twists with the most striking eyes Sam had ever seen.

“Hey! Hey, you’re the fiancée, right?” the blonde said, clearly drunk. Her friend dabbed at her nose.

“Connor’s fiancée?” she asked. “Yes, I am. I’m Sam,” she said, and smiled warmly at the girl.

“Oh my God! Then you know!” she said.

“Know what?” She really had to go to the bathroom, but the two girls blocked the doorway.

“You know… like, how big he is!” she said with a laugh.

“Shut up!” her friend said. “Don’t be rude.”

“I’m not, I’m congratulating her!” she said. The blonde leaned into Sam and put her arm around her. “Really though, like a friggin’ horse! Am I right?”

“Um. Yeehaw?” Sam said. This was the exact conversation she didn’t want to be having.

“No, though. I mean it’s been a few years since I was with him. Not since you, of course! But I give you mad props, girl, for snagging him. The first time we were together, I couldn’t walk right for like a week.”

“Jesus,” her friend said. “Can we go now? Sorry,” she said to Sam.

“Um, thank you,” Sam said to the blonde. The two girls stumbled down the hall.

Are they for real? she wondered as she closed the bathroom door. Could he really be that big? I mean, she’s assuming we’ve slept together so there’s no point in exaggerating, right?

She looked at herself in the antique mirror. “Get it together,” she told herself. Sam pulled her red MAC lipstick out of her purse and reapplied it. She pressed tissue between her lips and blotted her face next. “You can do this.”

When she exited the bathroom, an older man waited there. “Sorry,” she murmured.

“Not at all,” he said, his eyed glued to her cleavage. “It was well worth the wait.”

She hurried downstairs and started to look for Connor again. As always, he’d found himself in the middle of a cluster of women. These were younger, perhaps still in high school. She raised her eyebrows at him, and he shrugged. “This is my fiancée, Sam,” he told them. One of them audibly groaned. “These are the, uh, daughters of some of my father’s colleagues.”

“Oh, then I’m sure you all have a lot in common,” Sam said sweetly as Connor put his arm around her waist.

“You’re really pretty,” one of the girls offered.

“Thank you. So are you,” she said. “I love your shoes.” The group of girls giggled and wandered away. “You mind staying out of jail, sweetheart?” she asked.

“Hey, they came up to me—”

“That’s what they all say.” She teased him, but her eyes kept wandering down to his crotch. Was the blonde being serious? “I met one of your exes in the bathroom,” she said.

“I cringe to imagine which one,” he said as he directed her toward a group of retirees.

“Blonde, which I know is your thing of course,” she said.

“You’d have to be more specific. There’s a lot of blondes here.”

“A lot of blondes you’ve slept with?” she asked.

He shrugged, and her eyes roved once again to his package. She couldn’t tell much, what with the suit jacket.

“She was beautiful,” she admitted. “I think her friend was snorting blow in the bathroom.”

“I know who you mean,” he said. “And she’s hardly an ex. We hooked up a couple of times, she’s the granddaughter of one of my father’s investors.”

“She only had nice things to say about you,” Sam said.

“Well, there’s a surprise. Good evening,” he said to the group as he plastered on his business smile. “Have you met my fiancée, Sam?”

She got back into her groove with small talk. Still, she lost track of some of the details because she couldn’t stop checking out what the blonde had promised her. How big is big, though? I mean, isn’t it all relative?

“…don’t you think, dear?” the woman standing in front of her asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” she said. Sam had no idea what