Just Between Us.... Tori Carrington

little hot and bothered that she hadn’t been able to get into the room.

      “Excuse me,” Mallory said, pushing past her before the woman could say anything.

      Of course, if her need to get out of there quick had anything to do with the tears pricking the back of her eyelids, well, she wasn’t admitting anything.

      WHAT A DIFFERENCE FIVE minutes made.

      As Jack stood off to the side of the reception room watching the melee unfold before him, he couldn’t bring himself to believe it was the same room he and Mallory had left a short time before. While everyone had been speaking civilly before, smiling, drinking and being merry (well, at least as merry as this mismatched group could get), now clear battle lines had been drawn and the bride’s family and friends were going toe-to-toe with the groom’s.

      “It’s off,” Layla said, looking much as Mallory had in the linen closet as she crossed her arms over her chest and stared down her groom, Sam Lovejoy. “The wedding is officially cancelled.”

      Sam leaned forward, a tight grin detracting from his handsomeness not at all. “Layla, don’t be ridiculous. We can work all this out after the ceremony tomorrow.” He waggled his brows. “You know, on our way to our honeymoon.”

      Layla looked like the dentist had just told her to open wide. “Honeymoon? Honeymoon?” She poked her finger into Sam’s wide chest. “I’ve got news for you, Dr. Lovejoy. There isn’t going to be any honeymoon.”

      It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that something monumental had happened to bring about current events. Jack was a stickler for details. It’s what made him such a good columnist.

      And, he hoped, it’s what would provide him with the ammo he needed to patch everything up here.

      He leaned closer to Reilly where she stood next to him, looking as stunned as he felt.

      “What’s going on?” Jack whispered.

      Reilly glanced at him. “Jesus, Jack, where have you been? World War III has broken out and you didn’t even witness the first shot.”

      Jack resisted the urge to pull at his collar as he looked at Mallory across the room. She didn’t appear to know what was going on, either, but she did look ready to jump into the fray on behalf of Layla at a moment’s notice.

      Jack became aware of Reilly’s sharpening interest. “Where were you, anyway?”

      He shoved his hands into his pants pockets as he watched Layla work to take off her diamond solitaire engagement ring. “Bathroom. What’s going on?”

      Someone—one of Layla’s cousins, he thought—turned to shush them. Reilly ignored her and stepped closer to whisper into his ear. “Remember how Sam used to be Mr. L.A. Chop Doc? The crème de la crème of plastic surgeons?”

      Jack nodded. “Yes. Then he took on the position of staff administrator at Trident Medical Group where Layla works.”

      “Mmm. Well, it seems he doesn’t much like firing people so he told Layla tonight that when they get back from their honeymoon he’s going to reopen his personal practice.”

      Jack grimaced. “Ouch.”

      “You can say that again. I don’t think Layla’s quite accepted yet that half the breasts in L.A. bear Sam’s hand marks…”

      Jack hiked his brows.

      Reilly waved her hands. “You know what I mean. Anyway, knowing that he’s going to be creating more of those perfect breasts, along with pert bottoms, sent her careening over the edge.”

      Jack rubbed his chin with his index finger. From what he understood, Layla’s self-esteem when it came to body image had suffered greatly in the initial stages of her relationship with Sam. Throw in that she subscribed to the notion that medicine should be available to everybody, while Sam’s personal motto was “let them have breasts,” and, well, you had a tenuous situation at best.

      But ultimately they had worked everything out.

      Or so he’d thought.

      He took in Layla and Sam bickering like a divorced couple. Had the former harmony between them existed only because Sam had given up performing plastic surgery?

      Jack felt himself begin to withdraw emotionally from the situation and wishing he could do so physically. To witness this on top of what had happened with Mallory in the linen closet was a little too much excitement for one night.

      Reilly quietly cleared her throat. “By the way, did I tell you that Ben and I had a falling out?”

      Jack stared at her as if she’d just taken her head off then screwed it back on.

      Oh, no.

      That did it.

      He was leaving.

      Now.

      Reilly was nodding. “He wants me to close down Sugar ’n’ Spice and come into business with him. You know, change Benardo’s Hideaway to Ben and Reilly’s.”

      Jack suppressed the desire to say, “So?”

      What was there some kind of relationship virus going around that he didn’t know about?

      He began doing the physical backing away he’d longed to just moments ago.

      “Where are you going?” Reilly asked as Jack met Mallory’s gaze across the room.

      “Um, the bathroom.”

      Reilly looked totally confused. “But I thought you just got back from there.”

      He absently rubbed his churning stomach. “Yeah. Something like that.” He eyed the door. “Call me when the storm clouds blow over.”

      Then he strode from the room as fast as he could without running.

      3

      “I’M SUPPOSED TO BE AT the church right now,” Layla wailed over the phone to Mallory the following morning. Now that the emotional fireworks were over, apparently the bride was having second thoughts about dumping her groom.

      Either that or she was mourning the dress.

      “I have the image all laid out in my mind,” Layla continued without any prompting from Mallory, who was hiding under the covers in her bed wishing the world and Layla would just go away. “My mother would be standing behind me fixing my veil. You’d help me put on my garter and make sure I had sexy underwear underneath, and Reilly would be calming any prewedding jitters with caffeine-free coffee and sticky buns.”

      Mallory’s brain caught on the word coffee. She threw aside the sheet and pulled herself into a semi-standing position.

      It was 10 a.m. and she was only half-awake at best. She moved her cell phone to her other ear and shuffled from her bedroom into the tiny living/dining area of her apartment, then into the closet that was her kitchen, kicking clothes, notebooks, and crumpled pieces of paper out of her way as she went. “So call Sam and patch things up,” she grumbled to Layla, who was obviously heartbroken.

      But at least her friend could talk about it. Mallory, on the other hand, had to keep her own relationship woes to herself.

      Coffee.

      She needed coffee.

      She took the stained carafe out of the coffeemaker, eyed the half inch of murky contents, then dumped it down the sink.

      “I can’t,” Layla whispered.

      “Why can’t you?” Mallory asked, filling the reservoir with water then taking the small coffee can from the pint-sized refrigerator. She popped the rubber top and peered inside at the grounds that barely covered the bottom of the can, then shook it. Enough for one cup. All she needed to see her through to getting to Reilly’s.

      “I just…can’t,” Layla whispered