Page 33 of Skin Deep

Closing her eyes for a moment, she sucked in a deep breath to center herself.

“No way.” Stepping forward, out of his reach, she slid her cardigan back into place and turned, fixing him with an arched eyebrow. “This was your idea. Into the belly of the beast we go.”

“The belly of the beast?” She’d thought that he might be insulted by the description, but instead he sounded amused. “Amy, it’s just my family. The people who raised me. It’s going to be fine.”

Shaking away the sense of foreboding, she resisted the urge to tell him that she was pretty sure it wouldn’t be. Either way, she was here and she was going to see this through. Maybe she was a masochist, but she knew that she had to do it.

She wanted Fred, and he came with a family. A family business. She knew that he expected them to just accept her, but she also knew that wasn’t how it worked. She had to know, though—had to know if she would be accepted as part of Fred’s life.

If she wasn’t, then it would be better to get out now, before her heart could be broken any further.

“Amy, you dazzle me.” Reaching out, he took her hand, pulling her through the door and into the house. “You’ll dazzle them, too.”

The Vaughan family was arranged artfully around what she would call a living room, were it not for the ornately carved mahogany bar at one end. They looked like a painting, four people posed beautifully throughout a decorative room, four faces turned toward her and Fred with curiosity written into their features.

“Hello!” Fred helped her down the steps into the sunken room, waving to the room at large. Amy quickly checked her shoes to make sure she wasn’t tracking mud or wet onto the expensive-looking woven rug that covered a large portion of the gleaming hardwood floors.

She could feel eyes on her. Normally this wouldn’t faze her in the slightest—nobody presented themselves the way she did if they didn’t enjoy attention. The fact that she desperately wanted the people these eyes belonged to to like her, though, or at least tolerate her?

She cast a quick, desperate glance to the bar. She could use some liquid courage right now.

An older man she recognized from the Vaughan Enterprises website that she’d studied earlier this week was standing at the bar, a cocktail shaker in hand. Well over six feet himself, with a rangy build, he looked like an older version of the twins, though the way he carried himself suggested Frank more than Fred. Setting the cocktail shaker down on the bar, he opened his arms in a gesture of welcome as he looked her over.

She saw the exact moment he noticed the tattoos on her legs, his smile freezing in place.

Here we go. She tried not to grimace.

“I was beginning to think your, ah, friend was going to stand us up, Frederick.” Frederick Sr. looked her over top to bottom again, a wrinkle in his forehead demonstrating that he was perplexed. “What is your name again, dear?”

“Dad, this is Amy.” At the introduction, Amy extended a hand—not the one with the four rose tattoos. “Amy, this is my dad, Frederick Vaughan Sr.”

“Lovely to meet you.” Amy smiled brightly. Frederick Sr. seemed slightly taken aback by the wattage, as though he’d been expecting her to glower.

“Ah, hello.” Frederick, Sr. belatedly set down the cocktail shaker and took Amy’s hand. Though he seemed slightly taken aback by her bright smile, his icy reserve seemed to thaw just a bit under the brilliant wattage. “Welcome to our home.”

“Dad, I’d like one of whatever you’re mixing there.” Fred smiled pointedly at his father to move things along. “Amy? Would you like a drink?”

“Wine would be lovely.” Her voice caught in her throat—nerves. “If you have it. If not, anything is fine.”

“Oh, we have it.” Fred rolled his eyes. Reaching over the bar, he grabbed a stemmed wineglass that looked as light as air. “My parents are wine snobs. Red or white?”

“Really, Fred.” This came from the only other woman in the room, who stood, dusted off her skirt and crossed to the bar as well. “The correct term is collector.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Fred grinned at the woman, who was as short as her sons and husband were tall, with chin-length red hair and a face full of fine-boned features. “Hi, Mom.”

“Nice of you to make time for your parents,” the woman replied wryly. “Are you going to introduce me to your friend?”

“Mom, this is Amy.” Fred smiled down at her, rubbing the small square of her back where his hand rested. “Amy, this is my mother, Rosemary. The wine collector.”

“That’s it. None of the good stuff for you.” Rosemary rounded the bar, snatching the glass Fred had retrieved and replacing it with a shorter goblet that had a shallower cup. “I’ll send someone out to Discount Depot, shall I? Now Amy, tonight we’ve opened a Chevalier-Montrachet we purchased several years ago in France. It has hints of citrus and some spice notes, when served in the correct glass. Does that sound appealing to you?”

“It sounds lovely.” Amy smiled mildly. The wine she usually drank came from the aforementioned Discount Depot, usually for about seven dollars a bottle. She was sure she’d like whatever they gave her just fine.

Rosemary filled a glass precisely one-third of the way, then handed it to Amy as if bestowing her with a glass of liquid gold. Amy quickly lifted it to her lips and sipped. When she lowered it, everyone in the room was staring at her, aghast, except for Fred.

“It’s...very nice.” What? What had she done? From the corner of her eye, she watched Frederick Sr. pick up his own glass. Holding it beneath his nose, he sniffed at it as though he was starring in a commercial for men’s body spray. He then took a tiny sip, rolling it around his lips before nodding and, finally, swallowing.

Amy was put in mind of the time her brother-in-law Theo had taken them all to a fancy restaurant—one that wasn’t too far from this house, actually. Theo had ordered the wine, so the waiter...no, not the waiter, but the sommelier...had initiated something similar. He’d poured a swallow of the wine into a glass and handed it to Theo, who had sniffed and tasted, approved, and then promptly been called a pompous ass by Jo.

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