Page 2 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

“I’ve already started it. The ball’s in your court.”

From the way his eyes narrowed I could tell he had to mentally backtrack, but he was sharp; it took him only a couple of seconds. “Okay, why can’t you marry me? But before you get started, let me point out that wearegetting married, and I’m giving you another week to get the date nailed down or we’re doing it my way if I have to kidnap you and haul your ass to Las Vegas.”

“Las Vegas?” I sputtered. “Las Vegas?No way. Britney put Las Vegas at the top of the tacky list when she got married there. I spit on the concept of a Vegas wedding.”

He looked as if he wanted to bang his head again. “Who the hell are you talking about? Britney who?”

“Never mind, Mr. Clueless. Just put Las Vegas permanently out of your mind as a wedding spot.”

“I don’t care if we get married standing in the middle of the highway,” he said impatiently.

“Iwant to get married in your mother’sgarden,but now that’s a moot point because I can’t marry you. Period.”

“Let’s backtrack and try this again. Why not?”

“Because my name would beBlair Bloodsworth!” I wailed. “You said it yourself!” How could he be so oblivious?

“Well…yeah,” he said, looking puzzled.

He didn’t get it. He really didn’t get it. “I can’t do it. It’s just too cutesy. You might as well call me Buffy.” Yeah, I know I didn’thaveto take his name, but when you start negotiations you always start high, right, to give yourself some wiggle room? I was opening negotiations. Not that he needed to know that.

His frustration peaked, and he roared, “Who the hell is Buffy?Why are you talking about these people?”

Now I wanted to beatmyhead against the table. Did he never read a magazine? Watch anything besides ball games and news channels on television? It was scary to realize we lived in two different cultures, and that except for football games, which I love, we’d never be able to watch television together, never be able to spend a comfortable, companionable night together in front of the romantic glow of the tube. I’d be forced to kill him, and no woman on the jury would vote to convict me, either.

In a flash I saw how our lives together would have to be: I’d have to have my own television, which meant I’d have to have my own television-watching room…which meant Wyatt’s house would have to be remodeled, or at least reconfigured. I cheered up immensely at this thought, because I’d been wondering how to break the news to him. I really like his house, or at least the basic layout of it, but the decoration is strictly man-alone, which means it’s barely habitable. I needed to put my stamp on it.

“You don’t know who Buffy is?” I whispered, my eyes big with horror. Play it for all it’s worth.

He all but whimpered. “Please.Just tell me why you’ve decided you can’t marry me.”

A rush of well-being filled me. There’s just something satisfying about hearing a grown man whimper. And if Wyatt didn’t actually make the sound, he came pretty damn close, and that was good enough for me, because, believe me, he’snotthe whimpering type.

“BecauseBlair Bloodsworthis too cutesy to be bearable!” Oh, God, I was beset by B-words. “People would hear that name and think, okay, she has to be a blond nitwit, one of those people who snaps gum and twirls her finger in her hair. No one would take me seriously!”

He rubbed his forehead as if he were getting a headache. “So all this is because Blair and Bloodsworth both start with aB?”

I cast my gaze upward. “The light dawns.”

“That’s a load of bullshit.”

“And the bulb just burned out.” Aaargh! When would the avalanche of B-words stop? This always happens to me. When something starts bugging me (aaargh again!) I can’t get away from the alliteration.

“Bloodsworth isn’t a cutesy name, no matter what the first name is,” he said, scowling at me. “It hasbloodin it, for God’s sake. As in blood and guts. That isn’t cutesy.”

“What would you know? You don’t even know who Britney and Buffy are.”

“And I don’t care, because I’m not marrying them. I’m marrying you. Soon. Though I think I may need my head examined.”

I wanted to kick him. He made it sound as if I were a trial, when I’m really very easy to get along with; just ask any of my employees. I own and operate a fitness center, Great Bods, and my employees think I’m great because I pay them well and treat them well. The only person I have trouble getting along with, except for my ex-husband’s current wife who tried to kill me, is Wyatt, and that’s only because we’re still jockeying for position—Wyatt and I, that is. The problem is we’re both alpha personalities, so we have to stake out our relationship territories.

Okay, I also didn’t get along with Nicole Goodwin, a psycho bitch copycat who got murdered in the parking lot at Great Bods, but she’s dead so she doesn’t count. Sometimes I almost forgive her for being a psycho bitch, because her murder is what brought Wyatt back into my life after an absence of two years—don’t get me started onthat—but then I’d remember what a pain in the ass she was even when she was dead, and I get over that brain fart in a hurry.

“Let me save you the psychiatrist’s bill,” I said, narrowing my gaze at him. “The wedding’s off.”

“The wedding’s on. One way or the other.”

“I can’t go through life as Blair Bloodsworth. Though…” I tapped my finger on my chin and stared out at my night-shadowed patio; the Bradford pear trees beyond the patio were lit with strings of white lights that made my tiny backyard into something special. It was a very pretty sight, and I’d miss it when I moved into Wyatt’s house, so he had to make it up to me somehow. “I could keep Mallory as my last name.”

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