Page 30 of Love and Other Champagne Problems

His expression was tense, his grip on my fingers firm. His eyes trailed along the skin of my throat, as if on their own accord, before sharply averting to the sky. “That’s enough.”

My temper flared. I tried to fight the grip, to undo another button, but he rendered me immobile. “Is it?” I returned with a voice full of venom.

“It is.”

This was Sumner’s first true act he’d been employed for, wasn’t it? What had my parents said?We’re hiring someone who can stop you from making poor decisions.My mother would be pleased to know her hired hand was doing exactly as he was supposed to. It enraged me. Sumner choosing my mother’s side over mine, even after spending time together and getting to know each other, left me almost irrationally incensed.

He isn’t a friend, a bitter voice hissed.Instead, yet another handcuff.

I wrenched my hands out of Sumner’s as Yvette stepped back toward me. “The scenes you make are disgusting and childish, Margot,” she all but growled, her own cheeks flushed. “Grace is more mature than you. Aren’t you at all embarrassed of yourself?”

“Not in the slightest,” I returned with my shirt half undone. The summer breeze brushed against the smooth skin just above the tops of my breasts, and I made no effort to button it up. “I’d have to care what any of you think to be embarrassed, wouldn’t you say?”

Ms. Jennings looked at Yvette from the corner of her eye, enjoying this moment. Despite her uncharacteristic silence, she irked me too. I wanted to smack the smile off her face.

“You’re so draining, Margot.” Yvette reached down and grabbed Grace’s arm. “It’s like you suck the life from anyone you’re around. This is why no one likes to talk to you, dear. If you’ve ever been at all curious.”

I couldn’t tell if her intention had been to wound or if she just stated something she saw as fact. For some reason, the thought of the latter was like ice in my veins, dousing some of my raging fire. Sumner was still at my side, and after he picked up my suit jacket, I felt him brush my arm, fingertips pinching the fabric of my shirt as if to hold me back.

“I’m sure one day, eventually, it’ll occur to you that that is my intention.” I looked over Yvette’s face. “Especially if the ones talking to me were the likes of you.”

While I hadn’t been sure if her words were meantto cause a reaction, mine were, and they did. Yvette’s mouth dropped into an offended O, Grace’s following suit. Alice looked like she wanted to intervene again, but words were failing her.

Sumner, with his fingertip grip, tugged me. “Come on,” he said softly, as if to coax me into a quietness of my own. I allowed him to draw me a step away from them, and then another, until my back was to them. I was the one with the final period of the conversation.

Until Yvette called after me. “I wouldn’t be in a rush to meet Aaron Astor if I were you.” Her words were shrill, but I continued to walk. “Unless you’re looking forward to the embarrassment of having a high-class family realize you aren’t good enough.”

“It’s not as if he’s pursuing Margot because he loves her,” Grace, who’d been silent the entire time, interjected. Her voice was quieter, but I still heard it. “No one would. He just wants to inherit her parents’ company.”

I wasn’t sure who hissed at Grace in response, whether it was Alice or Ms. Jennings, but it definitely wasn’t Yvette; I could hear her chuckle. And it wasn’t me who froze mid-step, but Sumner.

I didn’t realize until I’d begun to take another step, but the pinch he held on my sleeve held me back. When I looked at his expression, I found something I’d never expected from him: a fire of his own. The normally calm, soft blue eyes of his were stormy with something dark, lit from within.

So, Mr. Unflappable has his limits, I thought as he dropped his hand from me. He turned around. “I don’t know who taught you to talk like that,” Sumner said toGrace. “But you should lose the nasty habit of saying garbage things because other people are doing it, too.”

Grace’s face flushed as bright as a tomato, and Yvette’s pleased smile at her devil spawn’s words vanished. “Excuse me, but you do not talk to my daughter that way?—”

“So, it was you?” Sumner had less patience with her mother than he had with Grace; it was audible in his tone and the way he clutched my suit jacket until his knuckles were white. “You taught her it was okay to be hateful toward people? You didn’t teach her that the uglier you speak, the uglier you are? Aren’tyouembarrassed?”

“Who do you think you are?”

“Someone who doesn’t like it when someone thinks they’re bigger because they make other people small. Someone who doesn’t like ugliness.” Sumner’s gaze gave her a once over. “But sees a lot of it.”

Yvette’s mouth popped open, and I was sure I looked a whole lot like Ms. Jennings in that moment—like someone could’ve given me a bucket of popcorn. I could’ve kissed Sumner. I’d done it before; I knew how easy it was, and in that moment, I could’ve done it again.

After she sputtered, Yvette finally got out, “I will have your job!”

“Try it. Let’s see who wins with that.”

I wasn’t sure if Sumner didn’t know who he was talking to or if his anger made him overly confident, because harassing Yvette Conan, who sat on the country club’s board of directors, would easily be grounds for my parents to replace him. Ms. Jennings looked at him with hearts in her eyes, Grace with horror, and Alicewith all the uncertainty of what she should do about the situation.

I had to agree—the way he stared her down was undoubtedly, incredibly hot.

“Let’s hope nothing happens when Margot meets the Astors,” Sumner went on. “Since she’s going to be meeting them atyourdaughter’s wedding, after all, right?”

The realization flashed in Yvette’s eyes, and I watched her process the veiled threat that it was. I didn’t bother trying to hide the mirth in my eyes.

And in hers, I saw what I’d been waiting for—a sliver of fear.

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