“No,” Charlotte said, shaking her head and wincing. “I have to be here. We have our presentation, Kit.”
Kit nodded. “Yeah. She thinks she’ll be okay. She took some medicine and said it’s starting to work.”
“Okay, my car will be here in a few minutes, so I need to get to the lobby. I will miss you.” Melanie rose on her toes and kissed his cheek. “It was really nice being here with you, Kit.”
Kit smiled and gave her a squeeze. “I’m glad you came.”
Charlotte tried on a smile. “Safe travels, Melanie.”
“Thanks. And I hope you feel better.”
Charlotte straightened, throwing back her shoulders. “I’ll be fine. After all, I have a good partner who will take care of me.” She placed a possessive hand on Kit’s arm.
Melanie tried not to growl. Because Kit had just spent the entire night kissing every inch of her body and telling her things that would make a, well, not a whore, but a woman with really loose morals blush. So Melanie should feel good about waltzing out the door and leaving her husband behind. But Charlotte made that hard to do.
Kit smiled at Charlotte and patted her shoulder. “I’m happy to be here for you.”
Charlotte smiled at him. And then she smiled at Melanie with all her beautiful straight, white teeth. The spark in the woman’s eyes said all that needed to be said. “And I’ll take care of Kit for you, Melanie. Don’t worry.”
Melanie swallowed and thought about ripping Charlotte’s hair out and then maybe beating her head against the tasteful gray wallpaper behind them. Really give her an effing headache. “I’m sure you would like to, but Kit’s pretty good at taking care of himself. So just focus on yourself, honey.”
Melanie jerked Kit’s head down to hers and kissed him. Hard. Like a warning.
He seemed to understand.
“Okay, tell Emma I love her, and I’m very, very sorry to miss the shower. Also, try to behave. I have heard rumors of tents and peacocks,” Kit said, stepping away from both women and putting his hand on the door to the conference room.
“Peacocks?” Melanie repeated.
“You know Teeny.”
Melanie had nodded and strolled away, leaving a now flushed Charlotte moving to catch up with her husband. She longed to turn around, remind Kit of his vows, to suggest he think hard about replacing Charlotte before she ruined their marriage, but she didn’t. Because ultimately Kit had to decide what he wanted in his life. He had a wife who loved him, who wanted to make things work, who got a blipping bikini wax and shaved her legs on back-to-back days in order to look like she cared. She’d let him do things to her she’d only read about. They had two children, a beautiful life, and a dog who occasionally chewed up their shoes. And if he wanted to toss that for a younger piece of ass, he’d do it with or without her reminding him what he’d be destroying.
She couldn’t spend her life running around trying to stop her husband from cheating.
“Hello, everyone,” Tennyson said, jarring Melanie back to the carnival in which she now stood. Her nemesis, who was starting to feel less nemesis-y, glided up to them with a martini in hand and Marc Mallow on her heels. Tennyson wore the electric-green dress she’d bought in Dallas with a pair of sky-high heels that allowed her to tower over everyone around her. Her hair had been piled upon her head in a manner designed to look haphazard but was likely secured within an inch of its life. Blingy earrings swished at her earlobes. She looked rich, attractive, and utterly interesting.
“Tennyson, this is so incredible and so are you,” Melanie said, because it was true. She’d never attended anything remotely similar to this party. Not even close.
The opera singing grew louder, and Tennyson winced and looked annoyed. “Thanks. Is he singing louder? It seems like he’s singing louder.”
They all turned to the man gesturing wildly and singing passionately as if the gondola was about to go down and his life was at stake. Everyone else seemed to be watching the performance, too.
“I had to pay him extra to get in the gondola. He was very miffed I wanted him to pretend to be a gondolier,” Tennyson yelled over the soaring notes Cesar amplified as he approached the high C note.
“He’s really going for it,” Melanie murmured as the opera singer spread his hands and drew them together as his voice rose so high she half expected a gang of cats to join in. Finally, he peaked, his body sagging as he fell forward, almost pitching into the bow. The whole performance was rather astounding, if not totally odd to be occurring in the middle of a bridal shower.
People around her clapped.
Cesar smiled, nodding his thanks, before extending his hand to his assistant, who had pulled the gondola to the side of the pool. Cesar swayed only slightly before stepping from the vessel onto the pavers. He was a rather large man, so the boat wobbled under duress before he thankfully righted himself by grabbing one of the potted, lit trees. Several kumquats plopped off and fell into the pool. The celebrated tenor headed straight for Tennyson. “I quit.”
Tennyson’s eyes bugged as he brushed past her. “You can’t quit. I paid for you for the entire evening.”
Cesar didn’t stop. He kept trucking toward the triple pairs of French doors that led into Tennyson’s house, one of which was open so guests could presumably use the facilities. The three-piece ensemble just inside stopped setting up and watched open-mouthed as the opera singer stomped by. Before Cesar disappeared, he turned and shouted, “I, madam, am not for sale. I am no common hired singer. A gondola! Who sings Franchetti or Puccini in a swimming pool? It’s madness.”
Another man, presumably Cesar’s assistant or manager, threw Tennyson an apologetic look before he followed his meal ticket out the door. Many guests stood wide-eyed, paused in their imbibing and gossiping, as all this took place.
“When they say opera singers are temperamental, they aren’t lying. Oh well, he was a bit too uppity anyhow,” Tennyson said, throwing Marc an irritated look. “What are we going to do for music?”
“Don’t worry, Tennyson. I’ll pull the three-piece ensemble out onto the veranda. And we’ll have the Amazon Echo play something Italian inside the house,” Marc said, moving toward the house. The guests seemed to sense the drama was over and went back to the Aperol spritzes.
Andrew strolled over. “What was that all about? Did Marc just call our patio a veranda? Do we have a veranda?” Her daughter’s fiancé was all smiles and good humor in spite of the scene with the opera singer. Maybe the cake throwing had prepared him for the ups and downs of doing a wedding with his mother and her sworn enemy. Melanie rather liked his ability to defuse situations.
“Temperamental artists,” Tennyson said with a wave of her hand. “Now, where were we? Oh, yes, I was saying hello to you and . . . ?”
“Tennyson, this is my friend Sandy Vines. She’s in my book club. Her son went to preschool with Emma,” Melanie said, glad Tennyson had decided to let Cesar go and not stubbornly demand he come back. After all, the man had a point. She had put one of the premier tenor singers in a swimming pool.
“Nice to meet you,” Sandy said, extending her hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”