Lip Service. Susan Mallery
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Certified, organic beef means…”
Arturo kept talking but Mitch wasn’t listening. A hundred years of tradition over in a heartbeat. Nothing was the way he thought it should be. Nothing was right.
He headed for the door. Every step sent pain shooting up his thigh to his hip. His back throbbed.
“You need to know about this,” Arturo told him.
“You handle it.”
“You’re the boss. This is all for you, Mitch. That’s why I did it. For you.”
Mitch turned slowly. He was sure the old man meant it. That his intentions had been good. “I don’t want it,” Mitch said slowly. “Any of it. Not the chickens or the organic beef. I want things back the way they were.”
What he meant was himself. He knew that. Arturo would know it, too. Nothing about his statement was subtle.
He stepped into the house and stumbled when his prosthesis caught on the threshold. Arturo grabbed him to keep him from going down.
Mitch shook off the help and walked as steadily as he could back to the room Fidela had converted into a bedroom. Once inside, he closed the door, then sat on the bed.
His toes twitched, his ankle moved, his calf tensed. He could feel it. All of it. It was real, as was the pain…and the loss.
Nothing was as it was supposed to be. Everything was screwed up and broken. Even him. Especially him.
SKYE FINISHED rubbing down her horse, then walked back toward the house. For once, the sight of Glory’s Gate rising tall and proud against the blue Texas sky didn’t lighten her mood. She was battling too many emotions, most of them bad, to appreciate architecture or stately columns. Not when she was torn between the tingles still jolting her body. And shame.
Once in the mudroom, she pulled off her boots and socks and slipped into a pair of sandals. A quick check of the clock told her that casual sex on the ground hadn’t put her too far behind schedule.
There was a party that night. A couple hundred of Jed Titan’s closest friends would stop by for cocktails between six and eight. A dozen or so of the mighty who attended had been graced with an invitation for dinner, but the meal wasn’t her problem. He would take them out for that.
Before then she had to make sure everything was in place. That the party would be perfect. Nothing less was allowed. Titans did things well or they didn’t do them at all.
She walked into her downstairs office, the one she used to coordinate the social events that made Glory’s Gate sparkle five or six times a month. White dry-erase board covered two of the walls. A grid had been painted in place, allowing her to write in the details for each event. She could look at four different parties at the same time.
Her desk was simple—a long, low surface with a computer and plenty of storage trays for files. She had a Rolodex with the name of every florist, caterer, musician and party planner in a two-hundred-mile radius.
In the closet were hard copies of the details of all the parties she’d given in this house. With an average of five a month over eight years, she was in need of more storage. Because those files contained more than just menus. They listed guests, drinks, decorations, musical selections, the caterer and staff along with any notable particulars—press clippings and even social connections that had been made.
The same information was on her computer and could be sorted by any variation. Two years ago the new White House social secretary had come for a two-day visit and taken continuous notes as Skye explained her process.
It wasn’t rocket science, Skye thought as she sank into her chair and turned on her computer. It wasn’t even more than mildly interesting. It was just what she did. Skye Titan—master party planner.
“That’s not fair,” she murmured aloud, knowing that her day job was important. If Jed had remarried, his wife would have taken over, but as he hadn’t, it made sense that one of his daughters would step into the breach. Neither Lexi nor Izzy were the least bit interested and there was the tiny fact that Skye had attended Swiss finishing school for nearly two years.
None of this really mattered, she thought, but at least it was a distraction. Because if she didn’t think about napkin colors and garnishes she might think about Mitch again.
She knew he’d wanted to hurt her and she even knew why. He’d won that round. So what? She would survive. Eventually the harsh words wouldn’t burn so deeply. As for the sex, she would consider that nothing more than a welcome-home present. Slightly more personal than flowers.
She teetered on the knife’s edge of emotion. On one side lay cynical humor, on the other, an emotional breakdown. She did her best to fall into sarcastically funny because tears wouldn’t solve anything.
Oh, but she’d missed him. She knew he wouldn’t believe that and if he did, he wouldn’t care. After all, she’d been the one to walk away from him to marry a man she didn’t love. She’d been the one to break both their hearts.
“Enough,” she said aloud, and pushed to her feet. A quick glance at the clock told her the catering staff should be arriving any second. She returned to the kitchen in time to see three vans pull up.
She welcomed them and chatted with Diane, the catering manager. They’d handled dozens of parties for her and knew what to do. Ten minutes later she climbed the stairs to get ready.
With each step, she felt an ache inside—a physical reminder of what she and Mitch had done.
Sex in the dirt? In the middle of the afternoon? That wasn’t her. She was careful and reserved. She was very aware of her position as the head of a charitable foundation and a single mother. She hadn’t been on a date since before she’d married Ray. Certainly not since his death. She wouldn’t ever allow herself to…
Except she had allowed. She’d done more than that. She’d taken and given and lost herself in a wave of pleasure she hadn’t experienced in nearly nine years. The fire had always burned with Mitch and it still smoldered inside.
“What on earth was I thinking?” she asked herself as she reached the landing. There wasn’t an answer, probably because she hadn’t been thinking.
She walked into her bedroom to find Izzy stretched out on the bed, again watching her TV.
“If you don’t like your bedroom, we can find you another one,” Skye told her.
Izzy sat up. “There’s nothing wrong with my room. I wanted to talk to you before the party.”
“The party you’re not coming to?”
Izzy grinned. “Not even for money. Come on, Skye. Jed’s parties are boring. He expects me to behave.”
“Not an area in which you excel.”
“Exactly.”
Izzy bounced to her feet.
Skye studied her sister. Izzy was the wild child—physically free, emotionally flighty. She feared nothing except getting tied down. Since barely finishing high school, she’d held jobs ranging from ski instructor to underwater welder, the latter being her current position on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.
“I met T.J. last night,” Izzy said.
Skye kicked off her sandals. “After you and I talked about what happened?” She groaned. Izzy was very protective and not exactly rational in her approach. “Tell me you didn’t do something that’s going to humiliate me.”
“Would I do that?”
“Not on purpose.”
“I was totally well mannered. You would have been impressed.”
“Doubtful,” Skye murmured, wondering what part of this conversation was going to make her cringe. “What happened?”
“We talked. He’s good-looking. You didn’t mention