Page 4 of Eye Candy

This was going to be fun.

CHAPTER 3

CHASE

Inside the gallery,Teddy Bircher was loudly berating Joe for having sex with the harpist at their engagement dinner eight years ago.

The story was, unfortunately, true. An affianced Joe had quietly excused himself after the first course and when the ambient strings stopped, I’d known why.

Call it brotherly intuition.

“That was eight years ago!” my brother was telling his ex, looking tired. The packed gallery hung on their every word. “Why do you still care, Teddy? We broke up. You disappeared to Europe.”

Joe had sworn his days of raising hell with harpists and spoiled heiresses were behind him, and I believed him. For the most part. But with Teddy back in town dredging up the collective misdeeds of their youth, it was going to be hard to convince the trustees Joe wasn’t still the spoiled liability he had been when he was twenty. I had an additional, more selfish concern too—every time Joe’s name was in the media or went viral, it increasedthe risk I would lose anonymity with my blog. Association with his antics could ruin my credibility.

The onlookers were preoccupied with the scandal playing out in front of them and only a few people noticed me arrive. Every person in this room was known to me—as a Sanford, you were always stuck in the same crowd, no matter how rarely you responded to their invites. Sonya fluttered her fingers in hello, but her eyes barely left Joe and Teddy.

“Later that night,” Teddy was saying, projecting like this was Shakespeare in the Park, “you accepted ten thousand dollars to paint your balls and stamp imprints up the wall of the?—”

I strode to my brother’s side and cut her off. “Hello, Teddy. Remember me? Chase Sanford. It’s good to see you again.” Dishonesty tasted like cilantro, so I added truthfully, “You look well.”

The diminutive heiress, who I hadn’t seen since she dumped my brother a year into their engagement, blinked at me. Joe’s eyes were burning a hole in my head, and my skin felt hot under the scrutiny of a full gallery, but I stood my ground.

Teddy’s brown hair and blunt bangs were the same as always. Her pale skin shone, with life or makeup or both, and her distinctive Bircher chin jutted stubbornly.

My memories of Teddy were few and distant, so I was unprepared for the real-time, real-life sight of her. She was dressed to kill—her black dress clung to her in a way that could stop a room. It had stopped this room.

Some poor server thought to break the tension by offering a tray of hors d’oeuvres and Teddy selected some skewers, either uncaring or unbothered that everyone was staring at her, waiting to hear what she’d say next. Leisurely, she bit into the drizzled cucumber, chewed, and resumed reciting ugly memories as if she’d never stopped.

“Joe, remember the time you sold my grandmother’s heirlooms for blow?”

Joe sighed. “That was you, Teddy.”

She was undeterred. “You definitely stole Richard Corman’s yacht.”

“Rich and I worked that out.”

“I was a virgin when we met!” She all but draped the back of her hand over her forehead. “Only nineteen!”

“Virginity is a social construct,” I interrupted. I’d blogged about this. “And you and Joe are the same age.”

When my nineteen-year-old brother started talking about proposing to his girlfriend, believe me, I’d checked.

Joe rolled his eyes. “Now’s not the time for a lecture, Chase.”

He didn’t seem very grateful that I was here to rescue him. I was about to remind him what was at stake when Teddy Bircher turned to me, hands on her lush hips.

That adjective startled me and I pushed it away.

“Who asked you, Jane the Virgin?” she demanded.

“Shaming men for virginity, again, a construct, is as outdated as lauding women for it,” I replied.

Her mouth fell open.

Has Teddy Bircher always had lips like this? Hips like this?

I never would have looked at the hips or lips of my brother’s fiancée, so she must have; I’d just never noticed. Or she’d done what the kids at the games store I co-owned would callleveling up.

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