Private Party

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Private Party

APHRODISIA BOOKS

Chapter One

His chest got tight as she approached, his stomach twisting in knots as every step led her closer to the altar. She was really going to go through with this. He'd had eighteen months to mentally prepare himself, and still the realization hit him like a fist in the gut. He clenched his hands into fists, took a deep, calming breath, and willed himself not to turn tail and run from the church as fast as he possibly could. He'd made a promise, and unlike some men in his family, when he gave his word he kept it.

"Who gives this woman in marriage to this man?"

Chris watched, a sour ache building in his stomach, as her father, Grant, lifted her veil to reveal a nervous-looking smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Her mother and I do," Grant replied, and Chris swallowed back the curse screaming in his brain as Julie's groom, Chris's older half brother, Brian, stepped forward to take her trembling hand.

"Where in the world is he? It's time to cut the cake."

"I'm sure he'll be here any minute," Julie Driscoll Dennison attempted to soothe the frazzled wedding planner. "Why don't you have one of the ushers check the bathroom, and I'll see if he's out in the lobby."

Honestly, you'd think Brian would know better than to disappear in the middle of the reception.

"Everything okay?" Wendy, Julie's maid of honor, sidled up alongside her and asked.

"I can't find Brian. He probably needed a moment to himself."

Wendy quirked a brow. "Right ..."

Okay, so Brian wasn't exactly the introspective type, but still, it was his wedding day. God knew Julie was all but overwhelmed by it all. "I don't suppose you've seen him."

Wendy shook her head. "Where's his brother? I thought it was the best man's job to keep tabs on the groom."

"He left right after he did his toast," Julie said. She smiled a little when she thought of Chris's toast. So practiced, so polite. So unlike him. Chris wasn't the kind of guy who worried about what people thought of him, especially not the stuffy, overly self-important crowd attending her wedding. His easygoing, casual style made him stick out in this crowd, even as he tried to fit in.

Unlike Brian, who could have been a GQ cover model, Chris's dark brown hair was always a little shaggy, his big, muscular body always looking a little too big for his clothes. But he had looked absolutely delectable in his tux, the white shirt a seductive contrast to his skin, burnished from the strong Caribbean sun. Chris had always been gorgeous in a rough around the edges kind of way, and he'd only improved in the five years since she'd seen him last.

She closed her eyes, trying not to imagine the acres of tanned muscularity he had hidden under that tux. She'd thought she'd gotten over her silly teenage crush on Chris a long time ago, and her wedding day to his half brother was no time for her to resurrect it.

She mentally slapped herself. Today was her wedding day, for goodness' sake. All of her months of hard work and planning had finally come to fruition, and now was not the time to revisit her long-dead infatuation with her fabulous groom's black sheep of a younger brother.

She exited the ballroom and made her way down a hall, stopping to chat politely with guests along the way. As she neared a utility closet, a thump sounded from behind the door. Then a giggle. Then a moan.

A decidedly masculine moan.

Her stomach somewhere around her knees, Julie had an awful premonition of what she would find behind that door.

"You son of a bitch." Her voice sounded very far away, like it came from the end of a long, echoing tunnel.

She squeezed her eyes so tight her eyelids cramped. This could not be happening. It simply couldn't.

But there was no mistaking Brian, frozen mid-thrust as he nailed another woman against the wall, who was gaping over his shoulder at her in a way that would have been comical under other circumstances.

She spared the other woman a quick glance. Ah, of course, the lovely Vanessa, Brian's newest assistant. She had suspected Vanessa's employment had more to do with her mile-high legs and oversized chest than her secretarial skills, and she kicked herself for stupidly giving Brian the benefit of the doubt. But the last time she'd caught him cheating he'd sworn to God, on his grandmother's grave, and the title of his prized Ferrari, that it would never, ever happen again. He'd promised that the next time he would have sex would be with Julie, on their wedding night. And with their wedding plans forcefully in motion, it had been easier to believe him than to admit she was about to make the biggest mistake of her life.

"Julie, it's nothing. It doesn't mean anything." Brian fumbled with his tuxedo pants, grabbing at his cummerbund as the trousers slid back down around his ankles. Vanessa had pulled her skirt down and made a dive to retrieve her underpants. The action sent Brian stumbling backward over a mop and bucket, and he landed on his ass in the middle of Vanessa's chest.

Julie had never been sucker punched, but she imagined this was what it might feel like. A sharp hit to the middle of her chest, a sensation of all the air leaving her lungs, leaving her gasping like a dying trout. Pain radiated through her, accompanied by the icy burn of humiliation. Still, she grasped for control, trying not to let Brian see that she was blowing apart from the inside out, into a thousand tiny fragments. Her mind worked frantically, searching for the appropriate thing to do or say in a situation like this. But there was no sweeping this under the rug with social niceties.

Taking a mop handle and shoving it somewhere extremely painful was probably not the best response, however appealing it was at the moment. "We're supposed to cut the cake now," she said stupidly.

In a daze, she made her way back to the ballroom. How could she have been so stupid? Allowing herself to be hauled to the altar like some sacrificial cow. Sweet Julie, perfect Julie, always doing the right thing for her parents, for her family, for the business. So determined to never make a fuss that she had refused to acknowledge the truth about her husband-to-be.

Barely conscious of her actions, she pushed open the door to the ballroom of the Winston hotel, the crown jewel in the D&D luxury hotel empire. Her father, Grant Driscoll, and Brian's father, David Dennison, had acquired the property just two years ago. Within a year, it was giving the Fairmont a run for its money as the luxury hotel in San Francisco.

But she didn't even see the beautifully redecorated ballroom with its elaborate chandeliers and silk wall coverings that conveyed an atmosphere of old-fashioned elegance and luxury. She didn't care about the tens of thousands of dollars' worth of white roses that adorned each of the seventy tables that had been set to accommodate the wedding guests. She didn't even care when she stumbled into a waiter and a glass of merlot splashed down the skirt of her custom-made Vera Wang wedding gown.

She moved through the crowd, seeing nothing but blurry flesh-colored shapes of guests as they tried to catch her hands, to kiss her cheeks and offer congratulations. Ignoring everyone, she made her way to the dais at the front of the room currently occupied by the band.

As she reached the first step, she felt a firm grip on her arm. She didn't even acknowledge Wendy as she shook off her grip.

Signaling the band to stop, she grasped the microphone and lowered it until it was at mouth level. It was then that she realized she was shaking. Not just a little tremble of the hand, but a full-body quake. She stared out into a crowd that represented a who's who of San Francisco society. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the mayor hitting on one of her cousins. Her father's business partners, city council members, and wealthy financiers and their spouses stared at her expectantly.

Julie licked her lips and grasped the microphone. Her knuckles were white as she clenched the microphone in a death grip. Glancing to her right, her stomach clenched as two waiters wheeled out the five-tier chocolate raspberry with vanilla fondant icing wedding cake, and positioned it next to her.

"Can I have everyone's attention please?"

The request was totally unnecessary-everyone was staring at her in slack-jawed astonishment.

"I appreciate that you have come here to celebrate what was supposed to be the most special day of my life." A vague, outer-body sensation overtook her, enabling her to see herself as though from across the room. What would the little psycho bride say next? "Unfortunately, my special day has been ruined by the fact that my husband," she gestured to the back of the ballroom, where Brian fought his way through the throng, "decided that his wedding reception was a perfect place to screw his new assistant."

A chorus of gasps and murmurs rippled through the crowd, snapping everything into sudden, vivid focus. Mouths gaped, eyes bulged as people craned their necks to catch a glimpse of the errant groom.

"So, while I encourage you to continue to enjoy the festivities, I'm going to call it a night." She gathered up her full skirts and had barely made it to the edge of the stage when Brian finally reached her.

"Julie, I'm sorry, please, you have to listen." Brian had combed his hair and straightened his tuxedo, and was once again the epitome of perfectly polished masculinity. Grasping her arms so tightly she knew she'd have marks, he said in a pleading voice, "I'm a sex addict. It's an illness. I can't help myself, Jules-"

She wrenched out of his grip, and a surge of rage violently snapped her out of her state of shock. It was exactly the sort of excuse Brian would come up with-one absolving him of all personal responsibility, eliciting sympathy rather than blame. Suddenly, so furious she feared her head might burst into flame, she yelled, "An addict? For an addict you sure haven't had a problem keeping your hands off me!"

Brian walked towards her determinedly, and she backed away and tried to skirt around him. "Can you blame me for trying to avoid a permanent case of frostbite?" he muttered so only she could hear. But for the crowd he said, "How can you turn away from me when I need your support?"

Every eye was riveted to the drama playing out on stage.

"Get out of my way, Brian." She had to get out of that room, away from everyone and everything that had forced her into this public humiliation.

He moved again to grab her, and she instinctively reached behind her, her fingers coming into contact with the smooth surface of the cake. Turning slightly, she grabbed the surprisingly heavy top tier. Using every ounce of strength in her body, she ground it into Brian's shocked face.

"You might want to zip up your fly," she sneered.

She straightened her shoulders, and raised her chin haughtily, as she, Julianna Driscoll, the perfectly poised princess of the D&D hotel empire, removed her wine-stained, cake-smeared, wholly enraged self from the ballroom.

Chapter Two

Julie ripped the veil from her head, and cursed again as nearly half her hair detached from her scalp in the process. Hairpins sprang from her head like confetti as her perfectly smooth French twist was decimated, leaving her chin length blond bob sticking out in heavily sprayed clumps. She kicked off her custom-made Manolo Blahniks as she stomped to the bathroom to find a brush.

The reflection that greeted her was startling, to say the least. Her face was flushed with a combination of anger and the champagne she'd consumed. Her hair stood out, Medusa-like, in an approximation of the worst bed head she'd ever seen. A semi-insane laugh bubbled up from her throat.

Her gorgeous strapless dress, perfectly tailored to fit her petite frame, bore a giant wine stain on the bodice and a big black smudge on the skirt from where it had caught in the elevator doors in her frantic flight to her room.

How could this possibly be happening?

She wasn't normally the type to indulge in self-pity. How could she when she had more than any woman had a right to ask for? Involved, if not particularly affectionate, parents and a handsome, successful fiancé-make that husband. A job she loved as the senior special events manager at the Winston, and a generous parental supplement to her income that allowed her an adorable two-bedroom flat in Pacific Heights.

But was it really asking too much that she be her husband's only sexual partner on their wedding night?

Suddenly her chest grew tight, her breath short. The bodice of the dress prevented any air from entering her lungs, and she frantically clawed at the buttons that ran down the length of her back.

She grunted and strained, but her trembling fingers couldn't negotiate the silk covered buttons. Her hyperventilating accelerated, and Julie knew she was moments from passing out. With her luck, she'd knock her head on the toilet and sustain massive brain damage.

"Stupid dress," she panted as she tried in vain to reach the buttons. Why did they have to make wedding dresses so hard to get in and out of? What kind of sadistic tradition was this to put a woman in a garment she couldn't put on or take off by herself in an emergency?

If she could find her nail scissors, she could cut her way out. She dumped the contents of her toiletry bag on the floor and was frantically clawing through the pile when a knock sounded on the door of her suite.

"Go away," she yelled as she sorted through the contents of her bag with shaking hands. Where were the damn scissors? Wendy had used them this morning to cut a stray thread from the hem of her skirt-maybe they were in the sitting room . . .

"Let me in." It was Wendy, her voice firm through the heavy wooden door.

Julie clenched her hands in the fabric of her skirt. "Go away. I don't want to talk to anyone right now."

"Jules, if you don't let me in, your mother will get the manager to give her a key."

Julie slumped to the bathroom floor, defeated. She had no doubt her mother would do precisely that, and Julie didn't have it in her to deal with Barbara Driscoll's hysterics right now. She had to let Wendy in, if for no other reason than to block the door.

"I'm coming." She came slowly to her feet, stepping on the hem of her skirt in the process. She heard a loud tearing sound and looked down to see a four-inch rip in the seam where the skirt of the dress met the bodice. Really, for twenty thousand dollars, you'd think a dress would be more durable.

She opened the door. Her best friend had a look of wary concern in her big brown eyes. Without a word, she stepped over the threshold and pulled Julie into her arms.

"Are you okay?"

Julie gently but firmly pulled out of her friend's embrace. While she appreciated the gesture, she feared she would fly apart at the slightest touch.

"You look like hell."

"Yes, I know."

She could well imagine the picture she made, especially in contrast to Wendy. Wendy looked glamorous and sexy, her tall figure and dark hair set off perfectly by the floor length lilac bridesmaid dress.

A fresh wave of anxiety swamped her as she remembered that over five hundred friends and relatives were no doubt still downstairs, wondering what the hell was going on. Her breathing accelerated, and she clawed at her dress again, desperate to rid herself of the cumbersome garment.

"Get this thing off of me!"

"Hold on, hold on." Wendy grasped her shoulders to still her frantic movements. Spinning her around, Wendy made quick work of the buttons, as well as the hooks of the French lace bustier underneath.

Julie sucked in several deep breaths, reveling in the ability to breathe freely as her dress fell in a frothy white puddle at her feet. She opened her eyes and angrily kicked it aside. Pulling the equally restrictive bustier from her torso, she went to the closet to retrieve her purple chenille bathrobe. Nearly ten years old, tattered and faded from too many washings, it was as comforting as a baby's security blanket.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Private Party by JAMI ALDEN Copyright © 2007 by Jami Alden. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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