The Last Plus One Page 7

  “And you!” Laurel Ramsey was petite and gorgeous and every bit suited to being a kindergarten or pre-K teacher, with her soft voice and kind eyes. But now she drilled them with the stern look her mother had just given her. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. I’m so happy for you two. How long has this been going on?”

  She paused to sip some club soda, but neither Maggie nor Cruz could get a word out.

  “Oh, it’s probably been years, right, and I just never caught on? I should have known by the way Maggie lights up when she talks about you. I mean, last time she was in the city—”

  “Griffin, why don’t we head over to the bar and let the ladies catch up?”

  It was an offer he couldn’t refuse. Even though he was suddenly rapt by the conversation and, yes, do explain exactly how Maggie had lit up about him while in New York last.

  He and the man of the hour went over to the bar, ordered a bracing drink, though their attention kept drifting over to the two women with heads together on the couch.

  Shooting the breeze with Ty was more like shooting into a headwind, his golden retriever enthusiasm amplified by the upcoming wedding, and Cruz had to fight to keep up. Fortunately, it wasn’t long before another guy was making his way over to the bar. He hailed them with a friendly wave and a smack on Ty’s back.

  His military posture and haircut were unmistakable, but he was dressed in a freaking seersucker suit. It threw Cruz off his game, to have the signals crossed like that—and with Maggie across the room and not by his side to help him out.

  “There’s the last bachelor standing. Though not for much longer,” he joked, then took a healthy sip of his drink.

  Once the guy opened his mouth, Cruz placed him instantly, without Tyler’s introduction—though Tyler James executed a proper introduction.

  “And Cruz Griffin, you sonofabitch. How the hell are you?”

  “Not in lame seersucker, Matthews, so a damn sight better than some.”

  Tyler looked back and forth between them. “I take it you two know each other?”

  “Something like that.” They laughed and hugged—something he and Matthews would’ve never done as RATs, or even once they’d become cadets. “I was lucky to not be on slop duty every day thanks to this guy. Even once he was RC.”

  “RC?”

  Collin filled Ty in on some of Cruz’s more groan-worthy stunts, and Cruz gave them his best company’s-here smile. He’d been a hurt little boy when he entered the institute, and he didn’t often dwell on that time in his life. But by God, he’d come out with his life turned around, determined to do good. Be good. Even if he wasn’t headed off into the service like so many of his classmates.

  Speaking of good, he let his eyes roam the room until he found Maggie—not that he’d ever really lost track of her. She was chatting animatedly with Laurel and a tall blond in a long and loose dress that was more Maggie’s usual style than what she had on now. Cruz listened with half an ear as his youthful indiscretions were aired.

  Maggie was tugging on her left ear—a sure signal to him—but he ignored it and turned back to his old friend from military school. “Ready for me to start in on Cadet Matthews stories? I seem to recall the time you ralphed after running your first mile in full gear.”

  “I’ll, uh, drink to leaving the past in the past for now.”

  “Collin here is one of Laurel’s dad’s go-to guys on the hill. Big, fancy title eight times longer than it should be. Deputy assistant, something something. Anyway, big brass.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that, but it’s an honor to serve.”

  Must be a newish development. Last he’d heard Collin had been stationed in some undisclosed location. And it had been Maggie to watch the political goings-on, fill him in. She’d mentioned something about a new assistant or deputy secretary of defense for Senate affairs a while back, but he’d never thought he’d know the name.

  This could make things very interesting.

  “Yeah, yeah. Not surprised to find out he’s one of your old friends. Lucky SOBs. The jerkwads I went to school with aren’t worth knowing, and you’ll find that out this week. I’ll leave you two to catch up,” Ty said, and added with a wink, “Should probably go rescue that poor dog from Bits before she pets all his fur off or lets him drink her bourbon.”

  “So you’re here on business or…” Collin said, scanning the room. “We’ve known the Ramseys for a while now, obviously. Attending this weekend with my own bride.”

  “Oh, hey, man, I didn’t know you got married. That’s great.” And Cruz was glad to be spared from explaining his presence there when he hardly knew himself. They caught up, filling in the blanks the years had left in their wake. They weren’t exactly men to flock to social media, what with their jobs. He hoped there’d be time for cigars or some kind of dude-only activity this week before the wedding.

  Cruz watched Collin stand up a little straighter, and his own sixth sense went on high alert. He knew, without turning, that Cinco must have made an appearance.

  “I can’t believe Auggie’s son is such a soup sandwich.”

  Cruz tapped his glass against Collin’s and they both drank deeply.

  It wasn’t long before Cinco bellied up to the bar. “Look at you two. So chummy over here in the corner. I wouldn’t think you’d know anyone here, Cruz.”

  “We were in school together,” Collin answered, and left it at that. Which was just as well, because Cruz wasn’t certain he could unlock his jaw.

  “Oh,” Cinco said, drawing out the syllable. “I didn’t know you served.”

  “I didn’t.” Something he’d bet Cinco knew full well. But hadn’t Cruz just thought about how he’d vowed to do good once he left the institute—and he had. He wouldn’t mess that streak up now by biting the guy’s head off. Especially in his own home. “We were in high school together. And then went our separate ways.”

  Collin tried to make a joke about Cruz abandoning his compatriots and going over to the allied forces, but it went right over Cinco’s head. “He went to Cambridge, man.”

  “Did your father go there?” For someone who sure seemed to make it his job to know everything about everyone, he’d missed that when he did his homework. “Oh, no. I guess your father didn’t attend university.”

  Hmph. Guessed the bastard had done his homework.

  Collin excused himself—couldn’t get away fast enough. Traitor. Cruz looked longingly over at the women. Hell, he’d rather talk to the drapes than Cinco Ramsey, but he wouldn’t make a scene for Maggie’s sake. And Laurel’s. And for any potential DOD contract they might be in the running for.

  “Let’s get another drink,” Cinco offered, all smooth man-of-the-house posturing. “Refresh your glass.”

  “No, thank you. Good with this one.”

  “It’s a party. Cambridge Man shouldn’t have a problem keeping up. Unless…sins of the father. Tight rein on things?”

  “Nope,” Cruz said, and drained his glass for effect. He plunked the crystal down on a passing waiter’s tray and nodded. “Just keep looking at Maggie. That little tie around her waist.” He leaned in like they were best buds, like they’d traded war stories for years. “Imagining all the ways it could come in handy if we ‘happen to get lost in the woods’ on the way back to her house.”

  Cinco’s face went tight.

  “Hey, man.” Cruz clapped him on the back, taking perverse pleasure in the way the little turd winced. “Sorry we got off on the wrong foot earlier. Maggie didn’t tell me she had an old friend who lived here. I just assumed you were on staff. No hard feelings?”

  Maggie couldn’t keep her eyes off him. All night. Of course he’d be decked out in a hot-stuff suit. Cruz was particularly adept in dressing in hot-stuff suits. Thanks to the time he spent in the UK refining his style under the tutelage of the Savile Row playboys, he was probably the best-dressed man in the room.

  Any room.

  But now she was focused on him in this room, this moment.
The way the pink sky of that heartbreakingly classic Maine twilight mixed with the golden glow dripping from crystal chandeliers and wall sconces to settle on him. That halo of soft light burnished his skin, teased out those few strands of silver at his temples, made her wonder what might have happened had they been alone on the beach this afternoon. If he were her plus one, in truth, and not just an inconvenient reality.

  “But I told Mom you’d be okay with swimming out to the barge and lighting the Roman candles, then piloting the boat with all the circus monkeys since you were used to multitasking.”

  “Sounds— Laurel!” Maggie couldn’t rub away the sting because she’d been away from the Cove too long to master juggling a dog body and a cut-crystal double old-fashioned. “Did you seriously just pinch me? I could have hurt this precious creature.”

  “Well, you’re hurting my precious feelings.” Laurel laughed and plucked the dog from her grasp, setting him on the antique silk rug like it was nothing more than a puppy pad. “I’m really trying to avoid the total Bridezilla transformation, but if you don’t quit staring at your secret lover and start paying attention to the very important—”

  “He’s not my secret lover,” Maggie hissed, hoping the yards and yards of brocade draperies—and the yowling of dogs—muted the sounds since Laurel had practically stood on the cream-colored Louis bergère with hands cupped around her mouth. Loudmouth. Loudmouth Laurel, that was what she’d start calling her.

  Great, she was regressing to fifth grade.

  “The very important Wedding Weekend details I’m trying to discuss with you—”

  “I feel fairly certain Jacqueline Ramsey would never permit anything as déclassé as circus monkeys at her daughter’s wedding.”

  “So you were listening.” Laurel arched a perfectly sculpted brow. “While totally checking out his ass in that suit.”

  Maggie resisted the urge to stick out her tongue. “I’m an excellent multitasker.”

  And so she listened attentively to Laurel and couldn’t help but be heartened by the sheer joy in her voice as she looked forward to the rest of the week. Instead of endless gushing about linens, flowers, and assorted bridal fripperies, Laurel couldn’t stop talking about the complex arrival timetables of those she was anxious to celebrate with. She was a good egg, that Laurel Ramsey—even if she was a golden egg. And if Maggie’s thoughts happened to drift to the way the summer-weight wool trousers clung to Cruz’s undeniably fine backside, Laurel would never know.

  “And speaking of,” Laurel broke off and held out her arms, “Candace, Collin! I’m so glad you were able to make it in tonight. I don’t think you’ve met Maggie Kennedy”—kiss kiss—“my partner in crime here at the Cove. She’s down in Austin now, absolutely killing it as a titan of industry. SD9 is her brainchild.”

  She’d never tire of Laurel’s amazing pride in her.

  “Maggie, Candace and Collin Matthews. Collin works with Daddy on the hill now. He’s a genius.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” the tall, thin man with the unmistakable military bearing said as he shook her hand. “But if you’re heading up SD9 then you must be. Or possibly insane, since that means you’re working with Cruz Griffin, right?”

  “Maybe a little of both. You know Cruz?” Maggie had to give herself major points for sounding as smooth as the special reserve scotch in her glass.

  “I do. Or I did.” He leaned in, conspiratorially, and asked, “Is he still as hyperactive and freakishly verbal as he was in high school?”

  Laurel clapped her hands and beamed. “Oh, I can’t believe this! Why don’t you go see for yourself? He’s over there with Tyler.”

  At the mention of Auggie, Maggie’s chest had gone tight. They’d dodged a bullet, since he wasn’t here tonight, but the second Laurel made the connection and Collin excused himself from the girl talk to wander over where Ty and Cruz were laughing, panic mode set in. Not like it had ever really left.

  The world was too small. Maggie had known about Cruz’s time in military school, of course, but it had never crossed her mind that he might have connections from then—it was high school, for heaven’s sake!—especially ones that would lead him straight to Auggie.

  Shoot, shoot, shoot. If Candace’s husband was all but instrumental in keeping Auggie informed as the ranking member of the Senate Defense Committee…

  No, Cruz had promised.

  Besides, they were probably just over there shooting the bull. Old friends catching up. Once he realized what Collin was now, who Collin was now, he’d see oh-so clearly why Maggie herself had been dragging her heels about the acquisition all this time.

  There were just some lines you couldn’t cross.

  Cruz was a model of ethical entrepreneurship. She knew that, trusted that, but Maggie could not get away from the other girls fast enough. She’d been sending him the emotional distress signal for the past ten minutes, and he had completely ignored her. Her poor ear would be sore tomorrow.

  “You’re so lucky to already have your home set up, Laurel. After our honeymoon, I had to pack two households to move across the country—Collin was totally useless,” the cool blond confided. “I’m exhausted! All that honeymoon glow just disintegrated in the face of finding a new normal inside the Beltway.”

  “I can’t imagine. I’m so ready for this all to be over and just be married.”

  Maggie had absolutely nothing to contribute to the conversation, but smiled and nodded where appropriate, searching for the moment she could make an elegant exit.

  Ah, there it was. The moment Candace brought up the phrase “married to your career,” Maggie shoved a puppy at her and pretended to notice the time. What she really noticed was the way Laurel’s brother had snaked his way over to where Cruz was standing. Alone.

  “We’ve got to run,” she told Laurel in the midst of an air-kiss exchange, “but I’ll catch up with you both tomorrow.”

  She had no choice but to walk slowly over to the two men, though she wanted to sprint. There would be no blood spilled in the Ramseys’ parlor, if it was the last thing she did. Plus Maggie wanted to leave before the dinner bell—and that would be happening at any moment if Cinco just strolled in.

  “Cruz,” she said, ignoring Cinco’s presence completely, “we’ve got that conference call with California in thirty minutes. We’d better head back and get everything set up.”

  It was a total lie, and they all knew it, but it was all she could manage at the moment.

  She went to find Bits—even at her most awkward, she couldn’t forget the most important part of the evening—and said goodbye like the perfect guest, getting a Chihuahua thrust at her for her efforts.

  Maggie put the little guy down by the door. He promptly scrambled on the wood floor and went back to join the fun. Cruz brushed some fur off her sleeve and took her hand.

  “Do we wanna get your mom to drive us back? Walking in those shoes might not—”

  “We are going out the front door.”

  They got all the way to the grass when a member of staff materialized, politely but firmly telling them access to that part of the estate was restricted. She waved him off, but it was clear he didn’t recognize her when he followed them, reaching for his radio.

  “Sir, ma’am, I’m sorry, but—”

  “Just taking the shortcut back to Mom and Dad’s, Jim. These heels are hell, you know?”

  The man squinted into the sunset, and finally gave a low chuckle. “Night, Miss Maggie.”

  Cruz, wisely, didn’t say a thing. Just stood still as she used him for support to toe off her shoes that were, in fact, actual hell.

  Once they’d rounded the back of the house and were well out of earshot, Cruz blew out a tense breath. “That was interesting.”

  “Welcome to my life.” They walked until the grass became woods, and she did regret a little not taking a golf cart back. “Now do you get why I don’t come home?”

  “Yeah, I get it.” And she knew he did.

  He’d
grown up in Nowhere, Texas, with his grandmother, never knowing his mother or a thing about her. Other than the hushed whispers that she’d chased his rock-star father down a dark path she never returned from. In Cruz’s quieter moments, back in the early days of SD9, he’d sometimes let slip a glimpse of how it felt to grow up straddling two worlds. Knowing there was privilege and glamour on one side, but he’d lived in another world. And she’d known, oh, she’d known that feeling, but had never commiserated. Because it hadn’t really been anything close to what he’d experienced.

  “I so get it,” he reiterated. “Never felt like I fit until I created something of my own.”

  “Cruz…” Shame of enormous proportion washed over her, magnified when he grabbed her hand. She should have said something. What a selfish being she’d been.

  “But not on my own. SD9 is you, too.”

  Chapter 4

  He should have snagged one of those crystal decanters on his way out. Though the tool named Five would have probably found a way to pin it on him. Which he’d be dead-to-rights to do. The “just borrowing” excuse probably wouldn’t work with this set.

  Didn’t work with any set, really. But still, he wished he had another drink. Tonight was going to be—well, Cruz would say interesting, but he had a feeling “torture” was going to be more accurate.

  He’d made her cry. Right then, when he’d meant to be reassuring but instead got super real. And it was real; it was the absolute truth; the company DNA was him and Maggie. But he hadn’t expected silent tears.

  She was wound so tight, Cruz didn’t know how she was going to make it through the rest of the week. This hadn’t even been on the pre-wedding itinerary—just a friendly invitation for drinks. Though he still thought it was total bull her parents hadn’t been included. Nor had they been offered an invitation for dinner.

  “You have to know, now, why I am against this acquisition.” Her voice, breaking through the noise of surf and the critters who made their home along the woods that ringed the shore, was thin. Only years of sharing the same workspace, and therefore being attuned to every nuance of her thought and speech patterns, allowed him to hear her.