By the time they’d finished dessert, Sophie had exhausted her arsenal of childhood memories, but her sister had relaxed and even Gray seemed to have temporarily released his shoulders from their military pose.
Marnie returned to the dining room carrying her grandmother’s silver coffee set.
Something she dusted off about once every…never. Not because Marnie wasn’t the silver set type. She totally was. The fancier and more antique, the better. But actually using the set meant getting it dirty. And dirty was not Marnie’s thing.
As Marnie poured the coffee and sliced an apple tart that was too perfect to be homemade, Sophie’s gaze caught on her father.
Oh no. Sophie knew her father’s “serious face” too well. Chris Dalton had apparently realized he was letting his daughter’s suitor off too easily.
“Uh-oh. Here we go,” Will whispered.
“Gray, what is it you do for a living?” Chris asked.
Gray cut a very precise bite of Marnie’s apple tart before responding, “I’m in the hospitality business. Hotel acquisitions, specifically.”
Chris leaned back in his chair and studied him. “So you’re a sales guy?” This was not a compliment.
“Sort of,” Gray replied.
Brynn set a hand on Gray’s arm. “He’s being modest. He’s the CEO and president of the company.”
“President, that’s not bad,” Chris said. “You must have a decent education behind you, then?”
“Dad,” Brynn said warningly.
“Yes, sir, I got both my bachelor’s degree and my MBA from Northwestern.”
“Mmm. Adequate. You probably got all the ‘wild’ out of your system in school? Ready to settle down and be a man?”
“Oh my God,” Sophie muttered into her coffee.
Gray set his coffee aside. “I’m not sure I was ever the ‘wild’ type, Mr. Dalton.”
“Shocker,” Will said as he helped himself to the rest of Sophie’s tart.
The table fell silent for several moments until Brynn broke the awkward quiet.
“Hey, Soph, how’s the job hunt going?”
Sophie closed her eyes briefly. Crraaaappp.
When she opened them, she wasn’t surprised to see her parents staring at her.
Brynn let out a distressed sigh as she read the situation. “They didn’t know.”
Sophie gave a sharp shake of her head.
“Sorry,” Brynn muttered. But the damage was done.
“Job hunt?” Marnie said, her voice two octaves above normal.
“Oh, Sophie,” her father said wearily. “You didn’t get let go, did you? In this economy, dive bars like Stimp’s…”
“It was Stump’s, Dad. I worked there for four years, how do you not know this? And no, I didn’t get fired. I quit.”
Somehow Marnie and Chris looked even more dismayed than when they thought she’d been fired.
“Well…okay,” Marnie said slowly. “I can’t say I’m not relieved that you won’t be working at that…dump any longer.”
Marnie turned to Gray, whom Sophie had been carefully avoiding. She could imagine what she’d read in his eyes: Wow, whorish and unemployed.
“Sorry to drag you into family business, Gray,” Marnie said with embarrassment. “It’s just that we worry about our Sophie here. Always a free spirit. She’s spent the past few years being a barfly and giving us heart palpitations worrying about her getting shot up by some alcoholic motorcycle ruffians.”
Will caught Sophie’s eye and mouthed, Motorcycle ruffians?
“It wasn’t that bad, Mom,” Sophie ground out. “Can we talk about this later?”
But Sophie’s father wasn’t ready to drop it. “Your sister said you were job hunting. Surely you didn’t quit one job before you had another lined up?”
Sophie took a gulp of her wine.
“Oh, Sophie,” her mother breathed in the tone known as Great Disappointment.
“I think it’s great,” Will said loyally. “Soph’ll find something in no time.”
“Says the man who’s been self-employed since age sixteen and only has to worry about himself,” Brynn muttered.
“Not everyone needs a laminated life plan to tell them what underwear to wear and what job to take,” Will snapped back.
“At least I wear underwear,” Brynn swiped back.
Gray looked puzzled at the vehemence of Brynn and Will’s snapping. Don’t try to make sense of it, Sophie thought. They hate each other just for breathing.
“More dessert?” Sophie asked the group brightly. All she wanted to do was head home and cry into a bubble bath. It was an especially practical idea since she probably couldn’t afford tissues or her water bill. Her tears could just fill the tub.
“Hey, Gray,” Brynn was saying in a thoughtful voice. “Didn’t you say your new secretary backed out at the last minute?”
Sophie’s eyes flew to her sister at the random change in subject. Nothing about Brynn was ever random. Sophie went on high alert, and allowed herself a brief look at Gray. He too looked wary.
Well…more wary, anyway.
“Yes,” he replied stiffly. “Laura was supposed to start tomorrow, but her fiancé received a job offer in Atlanta that they couldn’t pass up.”