“Gretchen,” Evan said blankly. “Wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
“Nice to see you too.”
Evan seemed to remember that he was supposed to be luring Colton to the company, so he quickly flashed his smarmy smile. “Mr. Wheeler. We meet at last.”
Colton strode forward with the confidence and cockiness he normally saved for the stage. “Call me Colton,” he said, offering his hand once again.
Her brothers maintained a look of boredom as they shook his hand—because, really, they were just too high-class to be excited to meet a bona fide superstar. Like, how pedestrian. But Anna and Kayla were another story. They swooned like the village women in Beauty and the Beast the minute Colton turned that megawatt smile their way.
“I must say,” Colton drawled, “y’all look amazing. Guess Gretchen missed the family invitation.”
The pointed comment was met with nervous twittering from Anna and Kayla and an awkward foot shuffle from Blake. Evan, however, didn’t even blink. “I assume the Porsche Cayenne out front is yours?”
“Guilty,” Colton said.
“Gretchen would never spend money on something so luxurious.”
Colton rejoined her side. “That’s because she’s a better person than you and me. Got her priorities straight.”
Blake shrugged out of his overcoat. “Which she likes to remind us of every chance she gets.”
Oh, goodie. Colton was really getting a front-row seat to the family shit show tonight. The shadows that always surrounded her around her family began to crowd in, and she wanted to shrink into them. The shadows were safe. No one to nitpick her. No one to disappoint. No one to measure up to and fall short.
“As she should.” Colton bumped her playfully with his hip. “She certainly makes me think about things differently.”
“Is that right? What has she tried to make you feel guilty for?” Blake continued. “Climate change? Income inequality?”
Colton laughed insincerely. “Nah. Just the clueless superiority of the superrich.”
“Why don’t we sit,” Evan suggested, hanging up his and Anna’s coats. “Get you a drink, Colton?”
“Your father’s already taking care of it, thanks.”
They studied each other silently for a moment, like two boxers in the ring, circling and sizing each other up. Gretchen so rarely had anyone on her side in this particular prizefight other than Uncle Jack, but Colton was making it clear that he was most definitely in her corner. As the others made their way to the living room, Colton hung back and shot her a quick, private wink. Not like the flirtatious one he’d laid on her mother, but a softer one. An intimate one. One that said, We’re in this together.
Her brothers each chose a seat on the couches next to their wives, leaving the love seat and a pair of wingback chairs as Gretchen and Colton’s only options. Colton chose the love seat, and as soon as Gretchen sat down next to him, he draped his arm across the back of her cushion. She couldn’t have relaxed even if someone slipped her a Valium. Not with her brothers staring at her with familiar smirks. Not with Anna and Kayla going googly-eyed at Colton. And especially not when her parents walked back in and her mother’s eyes lit up at the cozy scene on the love seat.
She carried a small tray of hors d’oeuvres and three empty glasses. Her father followed, clutching a bottle in one hand and his own glass in the other.
Gretchen gasped when she saw what he carried. “You opened one of the old Donleys?”
“I figured that Colton should get the full effect if he’s going to join the family,” her father said. An awkward pause descended on the room before he added, “The business family, that is.”
“One of the Donleys?” Colton asked.
“It was produced with the wrong label,” Evan explained. His voice was smooth, but his smile was tight. “They’re a big collector’s item. We have one case left.”
“We’ve only opened two bottles before,” her father added.
“Then I’m honored,” Colton said.
As her mother poured, her father handed out the whiskey. Only to the men, of course. Colton alone seemed to notice. “Did you ladies want some?”
Anna and Kayla’s eyes grew soft and dreamy. Evan and Blake’s grew hard and threatened.
“No, thank you,” Gretchen said, curling her lips in to hide her smile.
“Well, all right, then.” Colton lifted his glass. “What’re we drinkin’ to?”