Page 14 of She Doesn't Have a Clue
So it hadn’t been a clerical error; Kennedy had made Jake her plus-one. That was…
“Surprisingly devious,” Kate said out loud.
“I know,” Kennedy said with a mischievous smile.
“Kate,” Spencer said, in that tone that meant he was about to launch into a lecture. But then his eyes flickered over her shoulder, his expression turning sour. “Ah, is this the reason why I don’t have my Loretta pages yet?”
“Is what… why?” Kate asked, at a loss.
“What did I miss?” Jake asked, handing her a glass. “Got the drinks, darling.”
“Darling?” Kate repeated stupidly, as if she’d never heard the word in her life. Come to think of it, she’d definitely never heard it directed ather. And certainly not from Jake Hawkins.
And as if that wasn’t enough, he slid his arm around her waist, pullingher in close and nuzzling the soft spot of skin behind her ear with his nose, instantly turning her entire body to jelly. “Play along, Katey cakes. There was some chatter among the guests that’s best not repeated, but suffice it to say you could use a lifeline right now.”
Kate glanced at the guests trying their best to act like they weren’t shamelessly eavesdropping. She should have expected as much, after the stunt with Kennedy and the gift table and Spencer’s odd behavior toward his bride. Still, she wasn’t going to stay upright on these damn stilettos if Jake nuzzled her one more time.
“So, it’s true, then,” Spencer said, taking his glasses off to fidget with them so hard he bent one of the arms. “When did this happen?”
“Well, Spence, when was it you and Kennedy got together?” Jake asked, so casually Spencer didn’t feel the barb until it was buried in his gut. “Must have been right around then.”
For the rest of her life, as long as she lived, Kate would cherish the memory of the look on Spencer’s face just then. He looked as if someone had put their fist straight into his gut right as he took a whopping bite of a meatball sub, and the guy to do it had been Cary Grant or Ryan Gosling. His back bowed out, his cheeks sucked in, and his eyes went glassy.
“That long?” Kate managed to get out. “Why, it feels like only… today.”
“Such is the nature of love, darling,” Jake said, tightening his arm around her waist, scattering her last coherent thought. The look he gave her was pure sin, and he leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. But she anticipated it and turned her head so that his lips pressed against hers. His eyes widened in surprise for a moment before he drew her in.
Kate had meant the maneuver as a form of proof to Spencer that she had indeed moved onward and upward. But Jake held her there, so much of him pressed against so much of her, his lips lingering on the fullness of her lower lip. He was holding back, she could swear it, but even at that the contact tingled all the way down to her toes. His lips lingered— regretfully, punishingly—as if to say he knew what she was doing and he didn’t approve. Kate was certain of one thing—the full power of his kiss would be absolutely devastating. She wouldn’t survive it.
“Thank you,” she huffed as he pulled back.
Jake chuckled. “If you’re going to thank me for kissing you, Katey cakes, we’ll have a long night ahead of us.”
Spencer made a choking noise, Kennedy sighed softly, and Kate was positive she’d died and gone to heaven or hell. Or a hot and sweaty combination of both.
“Oh my gosh, Iloveit!” Kennedy practically squealed, drawing both of them into a spontaneous hug. “Love at my wedding! We need to toast this. Oh, I had a champagne glass, didn’t I? Where did it go?”
They searched around the wreckage of the guest table, and it was Kate who discovered the cut-crystal glass with the wordBridelaser engraved on the side. “Here it is! Oh, but it looks like whatever you were drinking might have gotten… drunk.” More like spilled into a hundred-year-old carpet, but Kate didn’t need any more black marks on her record at this point. “How about I get you a refill?”
“Let a server handle it,” Spencer said. “You and I still have business to discuss.”
“Business?” Kate said, backing away from the conversation and the threat of discussing pages she hadn’t written. “At a wedding? Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll be right back!”
She slipped away before any of them could stop her, setting a determined course toward the bar.
Chapter Eight
Kate reached the bar and held out the glass absently to the bartender, who brought out a hidden bottle of chilled Dom Pérignon when he saw the wordBrideon the glass. It even had a tiny wedding dress around the neck with a red sash marked “for the Bride” in case the staff got distracted and tried to serve the top shelf to the bottom-feeders. Kate guessed you didn’t stay old money by splashing out on expensive champagne for the plebians.
Kate was in no rush to return to Kennedy and Spencer, not to mention Jake’s overwhelming presence. What had he been up to with that whole fake dating ploy? It was bound to come back and bite her in the ass, but she was powerless to stop him now. Not when he spread his fingers against the small of her back like that. Asshole.
She lingered by the bar, taking in the lavish decorations. The ballroom was certainly a centerpiece of the Manor, a two-story affair with observation railings above and crystal chandeliers hanging from an ornately carved wooden ceiling. The dinner tables were covered in rose-hued linens and coordinating mauve napkins. Each place setting had at least four forks, which felt like two forks too many to Kate, but what did she know about multicourse meals? She considered eggrolls, friedrice, and a fortune cookie a three-course meal. Glass sculptures filled with vibrant pink tulips adorned each table, which Kate heard had been cultivated for Kennedy by a Dutch tulip master. The bar served a signature cocktail made from small-batch liquors distilled especially for the wedding weekend.
Kate had never gotten very far in her wedding planning with Spencer—truth be told, she’d held three cake-tasting sessions and zero dress fittings—but she knew it would have been a far simpler affair than this. It wasn’t that Kennedy flaunted her wealth, but it was obvious in the designer quality of her clothes, the Lexus she drove, the expensive sheen to her hair. Kennedy had never worried about money; she’d never really thought about it. That was the security that inherited wealth afforded her, and try as she might to be egalitarian about it, Kate couldn’t help envying such stability.
“It’s a fucking disgrace is what it is,” someone slurred beside Kate in a husky voice with the faintest hint of a posh accent Kate was never quite sure was authentic. “All this money on a party, and they can’t pay authors a living wage. An absolute disgrace.”
“Serena,” Kate said, turning to the voluptuous older woman draped halfway across the bar beside her. “I didn’t know you would be here this weekend.”