Secure Location - By Beverly Long Page 0,29
Antonio. She really hoped she didn’t screw up too badly.
Beatrice pointed to a chair. “Here we are.”
Place cards were already at the table. Meg Montoya. Cruz Montoya. Silver script on a pale blue background. Almost seven years earlier, there’d been very similar cards. The room had been smaller, the tables less lavish, but there had been laughter and love and great anticipation.
At their wedding.
When she’d been packing to leave Chicago, she’d come across the place cards. Unable to destroy them, unable to leave them, she’d stuffed them into the side pocket of her suitcase. When she’d arrived in San Antonio, she’d left them there. Sort of the same way all her things from her office in Chicago had been left in a box when she’d arrived in San Antonio. She couldn’t bear to part with them, nor could she bear the daily reminders of the life she’d left behind.
Her spot was next to the podium, with Cruz to her right. There were three more chairs on their side and on the other side of the podium, a matching five. Ten spots at the head table. Places for Beatrice and her husband as well as for the other three directors of A Hand Up and their guests.
A cocktail server approached with a tray of champagne glasses. Meg took one, Cruz shook his head. She sipped and glanced around the room. “Big place,” she said.
“I think that’s what I tried to tell you,” Cruz agreed. He was scanning the room.
“Got the exits identified?” she asked. Since their very first date, the pattern had been established. They’d go to dinner, a movie, heck, even the zoo. Cruz would choose his chair or spot with care. He’d have at least a couple escape routes in his head. Just in case there was fire, flood...locusts.
She’d teased him that he was ready for everything but nuclear fallout. But secretly she’d appreciated his common sense. She had always felt safe with Cruz.
The other directors arrived and Meg shook hands and made introductions. She kept it simple. “This is Cruz. He’s visiting from Chicago.” Then it was time to eat.
And Cruz, being Cruz, caused just a minor disturbance when the servers tried to deliver their plates. He shook his head when the server tried to give Meg her dinner. “We’ll take two off that tray,” he said, pointing at a tray that another server was carrying. The young man looked at him, started to protest, then apparently recalled the part of his training that said the customer is always right. He nodded and fetched two plates from the other tray.
Meg figured the waitstaff would be talking about them for weeks. Making jokes about the weird things people did. “I really don’t think there is somebody in the kitchen trying to poison me,” she whispered.
Cruz simply shrugged and buttered his roll.
The chicken might have been delicious. But Meg was too nervous to really taste it. She cut it and her roasted potatoes and asparagus into teeny bites and ate a little but mostly pushed the rest around her plate until she gave up altogether. Public speaking always made her nervous but she’d gotten used to it. For many years now, she’d been regularly speaking at shareholder events or at employee meetings.
But this was different.
These people were strangers and they’d paid five hundred bucks a plate to hear her. Plus, she didn’t want to make a fool of herself in front of Charlotte and Scott and the other staff who rounded out the BJM table. As promised, they were near the front. Charlotte wore a beautiful silver gown and Scott, like Cruz, had on a tux.
He looked...nice. Not hot and alpha like Cruz who seemed to simply own his space. Scott was polished, sophisticated. And that certainly wasn’t bad. He and Charlotte had arrived late, just as the salads were brought out. She knew Cruz had seen them arrive. Heck, the man saw everything. But he didn’t say anything and didn’t acknowledge the table.
He hadn’t talked to her during dinner, either. But once the server cleared her plate, he leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Calm down. You’re going to do great.”
“This could be a disaster,” she whispered back.
A disaster. Yeah. Maybe so. He wasn’t worried about Meg’s speech or her ability to deliver it. She’d always underestimated herself while he’d always known just how smart and talented she was.
He probably should have tried to talk her off the ledge during dinner. But while he’d made it appear as