The Wedding Party And Holiday Escapes Ultimate Collection. Кейт Хьюит

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      Blake kept shooting Ivy apologetic smiles, and Deidre had started stress eating. She had finished her own meal and was stealing bites from Blake’s plate when she thought no one was watching. Blake’s brothers, Calvin and Dale, observed with blatant curiosity.

      Deidre’s bridesmaids were another story. The motor-mouth twins—or as Deidre liked to call them, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum—were too busy flapping their jaws to notice Ivy. Or anyone else for that matter.

      They weren’t actually twins, although they may as well have been. They had the same burnt-out blond hair and surgically enhanced, anorexic, size-one bodies. They even shared an identical flair for mindless, irrelevant conversation. Ivy was guessing that their collective IQ’s ranked somewhere in the low double-digits.

      “A toast to Deidre and Blake,” Dillon said, raising his glass, his eyes still locked on Ivy. She couldn’t help but notice that he’d dropped the good ole boy twang. Tonight he sounded decidedly more upper-crust Dallas. “May you have a long, happy life together.”

      Like we didn’t, his eyes seemed to say. Was he suggesting that was her fault?

      Yeah, right.

      Around the table crystal stemware clinked and everyone sipped. Ivy downed the contents of her glass in one long swallow. She’d never been much of a drinker, but the champagne felt good going down. It tickled her nose and warmed her nervous stomach.

      One corner of Dillon’s mouth tipped up and his eyes sparked with mischief. He was mocking her.

      She sat a little straighter, pulled her shoulders back, all the more determined to see this through. She refused to let him win.

      May be the trick to making it through this week was to drink alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol. Hadn’t that been Dillon’s method of coping with stress? Hadn’t he spent the better part of his time in college intoxicated?

      Although she did notice that he drank only mineral water with dinner and had barely touched his champagne. Was it possible he’d given up drinking?

      As if reading her thoughts, Dillon reached for the bottle of champagne the housekeeper had left chilling beside the table. He rose from his chair and circled to her side, moving with a subtle, yet undeniable male grace that was hypnotizing. Even the Tweedles, deep in some inane conversation about the difference between clothes sizes in the U.S. as opposed to Europe—in Europe Dee had to buy a size three, gasp!—stopped to watch him with unguarded interest.

      Ivy sat stock still, resisting the urge to turn in her chair as he stepped behind her. His aura seemed to suck the oxygen from the air around her, making her feel light-headed and woozy.

      He leaned forward, resting a hand on the back of her chair—his fingers this close to her skin but not quite touching her—and filled her empty glass. As he poured, his arm brushed her shoulder.

      His bare arm. Against her bare shoulder.

      Time ground to a screeching halt, and the entire scene passed before her eyes in slow motion. A twisted, messy knot of emotions she couldn’t even begin to untangle settled in her gut, and a weird, this-can’t-possibly-be-happening feeling crept over her.

      Why didn’t she do something to stop him? Bat his hand away or jab an elbow into his gut? Why was she just sitting there frozen? It was not as if she was enjoying this.

      Yet she couldn’t deny that there was something about him, about the feel of his skin that was eerily familiar.

      Not just familiar, but almost…natural. Which was just plain freaky, because there was nothing natural about her and Dillon being anywhere near each other.

      Silence had fallen over the table and everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at her and Dillon.

      Which Ivy realized was exactly what he wanted.

      Under the table, her foot was tapping like mad. If she didn’t calm down, she was going to wear away the sole of her sandal.

      She forced herself to relax, to pretend she didn’t care when in reality she was wound so tight she could crack walnuts on her rear end.

      What felt like an eternity later he finally backed away, making it a point to run the length of his arm across her shoulder while the hand that rested behind her chair brushed ever so softly against the back of her neck. If this was what she had to look forward to every time she emptied her glass, May be the heavy drinking wasn’t such a hot idea after all. She was much better off keeping him at the opposite end of the table, where he could only touch her with his eyes.

      “Anyone else?” he asked, offering a refill to the rest of the table.

      Dee raised her glass. “I’d love some.”

      As he poured, Ivy couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t rest his hand on her chair, nor did he brush against her with his arm. Everyone else seemed to notice, too.

      It confirmed that he had only been trying to antagonize her. Hadn’t he caused her enough grief? Couldn’t he act like an adult and leave her alone?

      Just as she’d suspected. He hadn’t changed a bit.

      “Dale told us you guys used to be married,” Dee said as Dillon returned to his side of the table and slid easily into his seat.

      The way he could look so relaxed and casual, yet emanate an aura of authority, boggled the mind.

      He retrieved his napkin from the table and draped it in his lap. “That’s right.”

      Dee’s eyes widened a fraction and she looked to Ivy for affirmation. “Really?”

      “We were,” Ivy confirmed. “For about a year. A long, long time ago.”

      “He married you?” Dum asked, looking first at Ivy, then to Dillon, shaking her head as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Wow. I really thought Dale was kidding.”

      Gee, thanks, Ivy wanted to tell Miss Tactless. Just go ahead and say what’s on your mind. Don’t worry about my feelings.

      “She left me and broke my heart,” Dillon said, flashing Ivy a wry grin.

      A look passed between the twins, like sharks who had just smelled blood in the water and were gearing up for a feast.

      “She left you?” Dee, who obviously missed the sarcasm oozing from his words, clucked sympathetically, shooting Ivy a look of disdain. She reached across the table to pat Dillon’s hand and assured him, “You deserve better.”

      Oh, please. Ivy experienced a severe mental eye roll. Even if she had wronged him somehow, which she absolutely hadn’t, it had been ten years ago.

      “It’s no wonder,” Dum said. “Blake, didn’t you say she hates men?”

      Deidre’s jaw fell and she shot Blake a look.

      “That’s not what I said,” Blake told her, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. He turned to Ivy, looking as though he wanted to disappear. “I swear, that’s not what I said. I was just telling them about your book. Man-hating never entered the conversation.”

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