Susan Phillips - Ain’t She Sweet?

She didn’t show any of the spiteful delight that Leeann and Merylinn had shown. As their eyes met, she exhibited only a deep, fierce dignity. Let all the world see that the lumpy outcast had turned into a very beautiful, very wealthy swan.

Ryan slipped his arm around Winnie’s shoulders. Sugar Beth got the point.

Colin stepped forward. Winnie looked small and feminine standing between the two men. Sugar Beth had forgotten how petite she was. She and Colin exchanged a social kiss.

“Winnie, you look smashing tonight. But, then, you always do.” His smile told Sugar Beth that, however fond he might be of Leeann and the other Seawillows, his friendship with Winnie ran deeper.

“I was afraid we’d be late. Ryan had an emergency at the plant.”

“Equipment trouble with one of the lines,” Ryan said. “But we’re up and running again.”

“Glad to hear it.” Colin and Ryan shook hands in the easy way of men who were comfortable with each other. They were a study in contrasts: Ryan fair and fine-featured. Colin dark, brooding, and enigmatic. She fled.

By the time she reached the laundry room, she was shaking. Nothing would make her go back out there. She was leaving and never coming back. Her purse? Where had she left it? Where-

I love you, my Sugar Beth. And you love me, too, don’t you?

Delilah… Just for a moment, she’d let herself forget. Preserving her pride wouldn’t put a stop to the bills that were coming due for her stepdaughter’s care. Once again she’d reached another of life’s turning points. Emmett would have called tonight a golden opportunity to show what she was made of.

Glass, my darling. Just like one of Daddy’s windows.

Quitcher bitchin’, love, and do what has to be done.

Easy for you to say. You’re dead.

But you’re not, and Delilah depends on you.

She stabbed a hanger into the sleeves of Leeann’s jacket. She could almost taste the sweetness of revenge on Colin’s tongue. He expected her to run-wanted her to run-and the longer she locked herself away back here, the more satisfaction she was giving him.

She turned to the door and drew a deep breath. It was time to test herself. Again.

“There is something excessively vulgar about persons under the sway of strong emotions.”

GEORGETTE HEYER, The Corinthian

Colin watched as Sugar Beth came into the living room, carrying a tray of canapés and a stack of cocktail napkins. The Seawillows lifted their heads, carrion birds spotting their prey. They’d flocked together, leaving their husbands to fend for themselves. Winnie, the former outcast who’d become their leader, shone in their midst like the diamonds she wore. She took a sip from her wineglass, neither ignoring Sugar Beth’s presence nor staring at her as the others were doing.

Ryan stood in the archway, separated from the rest, but discreetly watching Sugar Beth. Colin tried to tap into the sense of righteousness that had fueled him ever since she’d returned to Parrish, but he couldn’t find it. Watching her being forced to take Leeann’s coat had been more than enough to satisfy his need for revenge. Now he simply wanted the evening over so he could put Sugar Beth and all the mayhem she caused behind him.

The color burned high in her cheeks as she crossed the room, but instead of avoiding the Seawillows, like any sensible person, she headed straight for them. Colin could feel their bad will creeping toward her like radioactive waste. She’d hurt them all, and they hadn’t forgotten. As she forged ahead, he wished she had at least a little ammunition to defend herself: the black stilettos he’d forced her to abandon, one of her shrink-wrapped tops, the turquoise butterfly.

She held out the tray to Leeann. “Shrimp?”

Leeann touched a finger to her chin. “Give me a minute, will you? I’m trying to imagine what Diddie would think if she could see her Sugar Baby now.”

Instead of wiping the smirk from Leeann’s face with one of her cutting remarks, as the old Sugar Beth would have done, the tall blonde with the shrimp tray didn’t say a word. She just stood there and let them look her over as if she’d grown fungus.

Colin hated this. Why didn’t she cut her losses and walk away? Did she need that painting so badly? He could think of no other reason she’d be so willing to trade in her self-respect.

“Are the shrimp fresh?” Heidi asked, nose in the air.

As a host, he should have been offended, but this didn’t have anything to do with him or the shrimp. He willed Sugar Beth to launch a counterattack, but she didn’t.

“I’m sure they are.”

Heidi took a shrimp, and Leeann, full of self-righteousness, reached for Winnie’s half-full glass. “Winnie’s champagne needs refreshing. Get it for her.”

He’d been the evening’s architect, so how could he blame them for such naked displays of delight? When he’d made his plan, he’d seen this as the perfect way to settle scores. A gentleman’s revenge, if you will-straight to the point but without bloodshed. Now, however, his old bitterness seemed like a grainy piece of film that had played too long in his head.

Sugar Beth slipped the napkins into the same hand that balanced the tray, and took the flute.

His thirst for revenge turned to ashes in his mouth, and the old, destructive desire to slay dragons took over. He moved to her side. “I’ll take care of that.”

She pulled the glass away before he could touch it. “Don’t you trouble yourself, Mr. Byrne. I’m more than happy to get it.” She set off for the bar, chin high, posture erect, a queen with a shrimp tray in her hand.

“Well, la-di-da.” Leeann frowned, disappointed that she hadn’t gotten more of a reaction. “She’s still a snot.”

Heidi craned her neck to watch Sugar Beth at the bar. “Did you see her face when Leeann gave her Winnie’s glass? I don’t know about y’all, but this is the best party I’ve ever been to.”

Amy looked worried. “I shouldn’t be enjoying this so much.”

“Have a ball,” Merylinn retorted. “You can beg Jesus for forgiveness tomorrow.”

“She just wrote us out of her life,” Heidi said. “The minute she got to college, it was like we didn’t exist anymore.”

“Plus what she did to Colin,” Amy added.

“She swore it was true,” Leeann said to him. “But we never believed her.”

Colin had heard this before, and he didn’t want to hear it again. “Water under the bridge and all that. Let’s let it go.”

They stared at him, but before they could pounce, Sugar Beth returned with Winnie’s glass. Winnie took it without looking at her, just as if Sugar Beth were invisible. He should congratulate himself. This was drawing-room justice at its finest.

“I finished reading that Chinese author you recommended,” Winnie said. “You were right. I enjoyed the book enormously.”

Colin felt a stab of irritation. Winnie, more than any of them, knew what it felt like to be an outcast, and he wanted better from her. The hypocrisy brought him up short. Was he now going to blame Winnie for what he’d put in motion?

Sugar Beth disappeared toward the kitchen, and he let himself relax a bit. Maybe she’d come to her senses and leave. The old Sugar Beth certainly would have. He gamely plunged into a discussion of the Chinese author. He sounded pompous, but he didn’t let that stop him. And, blast it, he wasn’t pompous, no matter what Sugar Beth said. He simply liked encouraging people to talk about books.

“Unless there’s a naked man on the cover, I prob’ly won’t read it,” Merylinn said. “Maybe they’ll make a movie.”

All of them laughed, except Winnie. He followed her gaze and saw that Sugar Beth had come back from the kitchen, and this time she was heading straight for Ryan.

Ryan enjoyed parties with good music and great food, parties where old friends could mix with enough new people to make it interesting, but he hadn’t wanted to attend tonight. At the same time, he’d barely been able to think of anything else. Finally he’d see her again.

“Colin’s gonna rub her nose in it, just you wait and see,” Leeann had crowed the last time they’d all been together. “He wouldn’t be human if he didn’t.”

The others had chirped in with their opinions, while only Winnie remained silent.

He didn’t have to see Sugar Beth to know she was coming toward him. It had been that way in high school, too. Even before he’d turned a corner, he knew she’d be standing on the other side.

Luv U 4-Ever.

He shut out that rusty whisper. They’d hardly been Romeo and Juliet. More like Ken and Barbie as they’d so often been teased. He’d lapped at her ankles like a lovesick pup, and she’d been exactly what she was now, a woman born too beautiful and too rich to worry about a small thing like integrity.

“Hey, there,” she said, her voice huskier than he remembered. “I’ve got some mediocre bruschetta waiting for a man with an appetite, but stay away from that other stuff. It’s tofu.”

He turned slowly.

Even though she was more plainly dressed than the other women, she’d managed to outshine them just by the way she held herself. As he studied her, he saw that she’d left behind the fresh beauty of her girlhood. She was too thin, drawn around the eyes. Maybe she looked a little used. Not used up. Just no longer new. At the same time, nothing could hide her thoroughbred’s pedigree.

She held out the tray she was carrying. “Look at you,” she said softly. “Mr. Big Shot.” She didn’t speak sarcastically but fondly, more like a proud mother than a faithless former girlfriend.

He felt oddly deflated, and he bristled. “No complaints. I’m right at home in your father’s office.”

“I’ll bet you are.” If anything, her smile grew more generous, which only provoked him.

“You never know when life’s going to throw you a curveball, do you, Sugar Beth?”

“You sure don’t.”

A pang pierced him, along with a flood of emotions he couldn’t quite interpret. He didn’t like the affection in her eyes. He wanted something more dangerous, something more satisfying. A little anguish over what she’d turned her back on, maybe. A few remnants of leftover lust to soothe his ego, although, considering his teenage clumsiness, that wasn’t too likely.

“Take it out, Ryan. I changed my mind. It hurts. Take it out.”

But it had been too late. “Oh, God, I’m sorry.”

She’d laughed. “It’s okay. Let’s do it again.”

And they had. Again and again until they’d finally gotten it right. They’d done it in her Camaro. On blankets at the lake. Next to the furnace in Leeann’s parents’ basement. And still it hadn’t been enough. When they got married, they promised, they’d do it at least three times a day. Luv U 4-Ever.

“Sugar Beth, I’d like to speak with you for a moment.”

He hadn’t heard Colin approach, and he felt an unexpected surge of protectiveness as Sugar Beth’s smile faded. “Sorry, boss. No time for chitchat. I have to serve these horse-doovers before they get soggy.”

“Forget that.”

But she’d already taken off.

The pianist switched to a Faith Hill song. Colin glowered at her retreating back. Ryan took a sip of beer and shook his head. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”

Colin sighed. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

Colin’s sense of foreboding grew stronger as he watched Sugar Beth move around the room with her tray. Ted Willowby couldn’t keep his eyes off her, and the kid at the bar was making an idiot of himself whenever she stopped for refills. She offered a napkin to the head librarian at the university and fetched a drink for Charise Leary. Then she slipped on her mask of cool indifference and headed right back to serve the Seawillows.

The scotch he’d been drinking sloshed in his stomach. She’d break before she bent an inch. He wanted to drag her from the room and kiss the stubbornness right out of her.

“She still thinks she owns the world,” Ryan said.

Except Sugar Beth wasn’t the toxic teenager they remembered. He thought about saying as much to Ryan, but since he’d only begun to understand that himself, he kept silent.

He heard a soft gasp and turned his head just in time to see Merylinn tip her glass of red wine right down the front of Sugar Beth’s blouse.

Sugar Beth fled to Colin’s bedroom. She wasn’t going to let them make her cry. She’d cried enough self-pitying tears in her life to drown a goat, and all it had gotten her was a big fat nothing. Wine soaked her blouse like blood from a fresh kill. She made herself take a deep breath, but it didn’t help break the traffic jam in her throat. Might as well call a spade a spade. That traffic jam came from shame. There was a big difference between knowing people still hated your guts and seeing it in their faces.