Stand-in Groom by Suzanne Brockmann Page A

Chelsea asked, taking a sip of her champagne after the attendant had walked away.
    He gazed at the cabin lights through the plastic glass and the bubbling wine. “Just unlucky, I guess.”
    She shifted in her seat to face him. “I sense a story here.”
    He took a sip of his champagne. “I thought you didn’t want to get to know me that well.”
    He was right. She shouldn’t be asking him questions. She shouldn’t try to find out who he was, where he’d been, what he thought, how he felt. She should keep her distance. She turned away, forcing herself to feel nothing but detached. It was only a matter of time before she received her inheritance and this whole ridiculous game ended. All she had to do was endure. She could do that. She
would
dothat. “You’re right. I don’t. Consider the question withdrawn.”
    She signaled for the flight attendant, who appeared almost instantly. “I’d like a pillow and blanket, please.”
    Johnny cursed softly. The sudden chilly drop in the cabin’s temperature was his fault. He’d gone and conjured up the Ice Princess—because of the one subject he didn’t want to discuss.
    “Thank you,” Chelsea said politely to the attendant, who had handed her a pillow and blanket. “You can take the champagne, too, please. I’m done.”
    “She was from Paris.” Johnny waited for the attendant to leave before he spoke. “Her name was Raquel, and I was with her for three years—”
    Chelsea reclined her seat. “I really don’t want to hear this.”
    “We were pretty hot and heavy right from the start, and the last two years we actually lived together. This was down in Washington, D.C.—we were both students at the International Culinary Institute. Can you imagine someone coming to America from Paris to learn how to cook? I would have sold my soul for a chance to study in Paris.”
    He’d gotten her attention. “You know how to cook?”
    “Some people think so. Anyway, Raquel’s dad had a heart attack, and she had to fly home. She was supposed to be gone for a month, but she never came back. She wrote me a letter telling me to toss her stuff. She said she didn’t need it. And oh, by the way, by the time I got the letter, she would already be married to some old family friend. Two
years
we lived together, and she types me a note.”
    “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
    “Yeah, I was too. But before that I was angry, and then I was hurt. I thought you know, first you live together and then you get married. It seemed the natural order of events—not first you live together and then you marry someone else. I had no clue she didn’t feel the same way I did. I mean, right up until she left—the night before her flight home we …” He shook his head, smiling ruefully. “No, you definitely don’t want to hear about that. Sorry.”
    They sat for a moment in silence.
    “I guess I got you on the rebound, so to speak,” Chelsea finally said.
    “It’s been five years. I think I’m past the rebound stage.”
    “But you still haven’t found somebody new.”
    “Nope. But then again, I haven’t exactly been looking. I work kind of crazy hours. Don’t get me wrong—I haven’t exactly been a monk these past five years. I’ve had girlfriends—I just haven’t let anything get too serious.”
    Chelsea was watching him. The Ice Princess had vanished. There was nothing but compassion and warmth in her eyes.
    “Do you still love her?” she asked quietly.
    “No,” he said. But he could tell from the way she was watching him that she didn’t believe him.
    “How about you?” he asked. “Do you still love what’s-his-name? Bent?”
    Her eyes widened. “Who told you about Bent?”
    “Troy.”
    “Troy
knows
?”
    “Knows what? Troy told me you had some kind of teenage crush on his friend—that you guys dated a few times and then he married some girl he got pregnant.”
    Chelsea was curled up in her seat, her cheek pressed against the reclined back, watching him, asif