Learning Curves - By Elyse Mady Page 0,55
smiling as though she were enjoying their listeners’ discomfort. “Is it, sweetie?”
Even if he’d been made of stone, he couldn’t have ignored her flirtatious appeal. “No, I don’t think either of us have any complaints in that department, do we, Lee?” An image of her lush breast in his mouth flashed across his mind and he had to work hard to suppress it or risk embarrassing himself. “No problems at all.”
Her mother’s glimmer of approval disappeared, and Jeremy chuckled. Only Gillian failed to react in any fashion. But when he looked at her, he knew she was the type with a very long memory and he felt a spurt of unease at the cold, calculating manner with which she sized him up.
Brandon didn’t know how Leanne could stand twenty-six minutes with most of the people he’d met during cocktail hour, let alone twenty-six years. He’d been forced to listen as guest after guest directed sly digs toward Leanne and her chosen career path. Of course, no one was rude to her face, but in a myriad of subtle ways, they communicated their condescension, and worse, their pity. When a tinkling bell had announced the meal’s readiness, he’d been all too happy escape the inquisition for the fixed arrangement of the dining room.
“Leanne, you sit here,” Barb Saunders directed, pointing to a seat at the far end of the elegant table, so distant from the bride and groom as to be relegated to insignificance. “And your friend can sit beside you.”
“Yes, Aunt Barb,” Leanne agreed, refusing to rise to the bait. Brandon held out her chair and she looked back at him, startled. He winked, waiting for her to accept his gesture. She smiled, her gaze lingering on his face for a moment, and then slipped gracefully into the chair.
Waitstaff descended, bearing salads. Brandon hadn’t even finished pouring the dressing across the elaborate plate of leafy greens before the woman seated across from them smiled.
“So, Leanne. Are you working yet?” she asked, stabbing her fork into a leaf of radicchio.
“No, I’m still in school, finishing my degree.”
“How many years is it now? Six? Seven?”
“Nine. But I expect to defend my thesis this spring.”
“Maybe you should talk to Paul.” She gestured toward the head of the table where the father of the bride sat. “He might be able to find you something in his office. Do you speak Spanish?”
“French and German, actually.”
“Pity,” the woman said dismissively, the thick platinum ropes around her neck and wrists glinting in the low light of the room’s chandeliers.
The elderly matron sitting on Leanne’s left wasn’t any better. Leaning over her, she’d subjected Brandon to a thorough visual examination, appraising his five-year-old off-the-rack suit with shrewd eyes.
In a piercing whisper, she said, “You’re looking surprisingly well tonight, Leanne. I do hope this relationship is more successful than your other ones. But only time will tell, I suppose.” And then she’d sighed, signaling how little faith she had in her own prediction.
Never lifting her eyes from the scallops in roasted red pepper sauce, Leanne nodded politely. “That’s very nice of you, Dora. Did I hear you had surgery lately? How are you feeling?”
The woman quickly launched into a detailed description of her hip replacement surgery, providing enough details to ensure that when the main course of sirloin, roasted fingerling potatoes and vegetable compote was set in front of him, he’d lost what little appetite he still possessed.
By the time the waitstaff carried out the elaborate dessert trays, Brandon’s jaw ached with the effort of holding his tongue. The final insult had been defending himself against the drunken groping of one of the bridesmaids who’d been seated next to him. He jumped as a hand insinuated itself beneath the linen napkin spread across his lap and squeezed his thigh, perilously close to his groin.
“So, are you seeing Leanne exclusively? Or do you have a more open arrangement?” she whispered, favoring him with a blast of the wine she’d been knocking back throughout the meal. The complimentary bottle had already been replaced several times.
Fighting down the urge to flee, Brandon returned the wandering digits to their rightful owner without comment and shifting his chair as far away from the blitzed bridesmaid as possible. She pouted, making a point of refilling her wineglass, but he was in no mood to jolly her along.
He didn’t know when he’d had a more unpleasant time. Only Leanne’s company made the three-ring circus bearable. But worst of all was Gillian. She scrutinized him from the