DANNY
Why won't she leave me alone? Harper saw me kissing Lenka before boarding the yacht, and she still insists on speaking to me.
Fuck!
She has a way of making me feel a rage with just a smile that no one else ever has.
“Danny, I’m so glad you could make it.” Her blue eyes dart from Adele to me.
This is the kind of attitude that always used to wind me up. It’s my sister’s engagement/wedding party. Why the hell wouldn’t I make it?
She’s acting as if she invited me.
Adele takes my arm and leads me away. She knows that I’m ready to blow. “Bro, be nice.”
I’m just about to open my mouth when I see Harper attempting to kiss and hug my parents as if they’re old friends. Mom steps back like she's seen a ghost. At least someone in our family has some sense.
“I thought you said Mom was cool with Harper being here. Doesn’t look like it. Shoot, Adele, did you lie to me? And them, too?”
Adele avoids my gaze, which gives me my answer.
Mom rushes towards me. “Danny, darling, if I had known, I would have said something.”
So, Sis lied to all of us. She never told anyone that Harper was coming.
Mom grabs my hand and whispers, “We can make a run for it. The boat hasn’t left yet.”
I nod, thinking that we’ll leave Dad and Sis on the yacht. The wedding’s not even taking place on board. They're having it at Tarrytown House Estate. That’s where the rehearsal dinner is, too. Technically we don’t need to stay on the boat. We'd only miss the engagement party.
“You are not leaving this boat!” Adele says.
Mom looks down as if she’s a little kid who just got caught stealing candy.
Dad walks over. “Well, this is a bit awkward,” he says in his British accent that after forty years of living in the States hasn’t faded one bit.
“Everyone, just calm down.” I sigh. “We can do this. It’s Adele’s wedding, and we need to just get along.” I think about Lenka in my room. I brought her here for a reason. To help keep Harper at bay.
Mom looks at Dad, and I know what she’s thinking. She remembers when Harper said that Dad had made sexual advances towards her. Another lie. Harper tried to harm everyone in this family in one way or another.
I decide to leave the drama behind and go to my suite. Even though Dad offered me some of the A. H. Hirsch Reserve that he has, I had to decline.
The band starts playing as I'm leaving the deck, and then I see Candy. She’s strutting her stuff, and wow, the girl can sing. I thought she was going to be waitressing along with Lenka. I shrug when she winks at me, and Adele throws me a quizzical look.
I head down to my suite, and Harper starts to follow me. Luckily for me, one of Harper’s old friends spots her and steps in her path.
I use my key to get into my suite, and I’m shocked to find Lenka sleeping on the bed. She looks so peaceful sprawled out like an eagle. Judging by the lack of space in the suite, my only option is sleeping on the wooden floor. I should have checked the room before agreeing to take it.
I grab a glass and pour some wine, looking out at the view. I need to relax and stop being so tense. I take a sip of wine, and then I hear Lenka jump out of bed.
“Sorry! I didn’t mean to,” she says with a frightened look on her face.
“Sleep?” I ask. I didn’t want to wake her, but I must have, and now I feel a bit guilty about it. “I want you to feel at home. I don’t want you to be anything but yourself.”
She giggles. “And your fiancée.”
I incline my head. “Yes, that too. If anyone asks, just say we met at my favorite diner, Sweet Chick, and that that's where I proposed to you."
She nods. “Okay. But don't I need to know more about you?”
I think of myself as a simple man. There’s nothing incredibly interesting that needs sharing. “I live on the Upper East side. I own Turner Holdings, which is one of the biggest advertising companies in NY. I have three cars, but I tend to drive my Porsche the most, which isn’t often because Henry, my driver, takes me most places. I play squash with my friend Carl on Fridays and…”
"Are you friends with the groom?” She seems genuinely interested.
“We went to college together. We were inseparable back then. I would never tell Adele the truth, but when they first started dating, I wasn’t too keen.” Carl had a bad reputation in college. So fucking bad that when he told me he was dating my sister, the last thing I wanted to do was give him my blessing.
My friend and my sister, sometimes it feels too close for comfort, but then other times I look at them and think they’re made for each other. Carl says he put his college days behind him. He hasn't shown any shady behavior since he started dating Adele, so I'm inclined to believe him.
“Anyway, my dad’s British,” I continue. “You’ll like him; he's funny. Mom, on the other hand, she’s more like me.”
“Oh?” Lenka gives me a curious look.
“She’s a pussy cat. Anything else that you need to know?”
Her eyes dart around the suite as if searching for something else to ask, and then I realize something. “I don’t know anything about you.” I’ve been talking about myself, leaning against the window and watching her on the bed.
She mumbles something and then says out loud, “I’m twenty-three years old.”
Fuck, she’s a baby. More of a hot sexy kitten!
“I have a brother who’s a senior in high school. He’s going to be a professional football player, so I do all that I can to support him.”
“Oh.” I raise an eyebrow. "What about your parents?"
“They're both from Russia," she tells me. "My father left when Scott, my brother, learned how to walk.”
I take a deep breath. “Your mom?”
“She’s not well,” she says a bit too quickly, avoiding eye contact. It's obvious that talking about her parents makes her uncomfortable.
“And waitressing is your full-time job?”
“Not exactly.” She sighs, then finally looks at me, her expression changing like a calming wind has washed over her. "You forgot something."
"What do you mean?" I furrow my brow in confusion.
“There’s no ring!” She lifts up her hand to show me her bare fingers.
“Crap! Give me one minute, I’ll think of something. Don’t go anywhere!” I say before taking my leave.
I only know of one person who has an engagement ring, and as much as she’s going to hate doing this, she lied to get me on the boat. She owes me a favor, and I need her ring.
As soon as I spot Adele talking to some of her girlfriends, I go up to her and grab her by the arm.
“What now?” She rolls her eyes.
“I need to speak to you for a minute.”
“Now?" She hesitates before turning to her friends. "Sorry about this, ladies. I'll be right back.”
Gillian winks at me. She’s in my black book, a little secret between us. Nothing serious. When the need arises, I call her, and she comes running naked!
I drag Adele away to her suite so we can talk in private. She’s not happy, but then she knows that neither am I because Harper’s on the yacht.
“Okay, so you have me in my suite.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “If you want to give me another lecture about Harper, forget it. I've already heard it from both Mom and Dad.”
I scowl at her and sit down on the bed. “Did you talk to Harper about staying away from the rest of the family?”
Adele shakes her head. “I didn’t because this is supposed to be my wedding and I'm not supposed to be worrying about this bullshit.” She drops herself heavily onto the bed beside me.
I get distracted as I look around her white suite and think that it's completely different from mine. The dark wooden flooring and lighting give it a more expensive feel than the room I'm staying in.
I lie back and gaze up at the ceiling.
“You haven’t noticed, have you?” she says.
I bend my head back, wondering what I’ve missed. "What?"
"Carl isn't here," Adele replies softly. "He called to say that he got held up at work and will meet us at Tarrytown House tomorrow.”
I roll over onto my side. “So, he can miss his engagement party, but I can’t? What the fuck?”
“Danny!” She hits me. “I don’t think I could go through this without you.”
“Please! It’s the groom that you need, not me.” I realize then that Carl not being around makes what I need to ask a lot less awkward. “Well, if Carl isn't here yet, then he won't mind if I borrow your engagement ring for a little while."
She jumps up. “I just told you that the groom’s not here, and you want my ring. Why?”
“You invited the devil to your party. I got someone to be my fiancée, and the only way that she’s going to convince anyone is if she has a ring on her finger.”
Adele laughs. “Wow, you really went all out. Where did you get the poor soul from? Does she know about the dead animals?”
I shake my head.
“Or about the one that ended up in the hospital?”
Again, I shake my head, thinking about the time that Harper met my old secretary and tried to beat her up, accusing her of sleeping with me in the office. She saw Harriet bending down to pick her pen up off the floor, and Harper decided that she must have been giving me a blowjob. She waited for her in the parking lot. Harper’s kickboxing classes were put to use, and Harriet ended up in the hospital.
I sigh. "Harper's bad fucking news and you know it. I don’t get why you let her on the boat?”
Adele doesn’t say another word. She simply hands me the ring, tears cascading down her cheeks.
“Hey, no tears," I tell her, knowing she's worried that Carl might not show. "It’ll be okay. You’ll have the wedding of a lifetime. You wait and see.”
I’ll fucking kill Carl if he stands my sister up on her wedding day!
She smiles at me weakly, and I'm beginning to get the feeling that there's a bigger story behind her concern. I know that she’ll tell me in her own time, but for now, I’ve got to give Lenka the ring.