Were they really doing this?
As Samantha stared at Elizabeth, Josh’s mother, the question kept ramming her in the frontal lobe. There had to be something wrong with the center for reasoning in her brain because when Josh had told her this was the only way to frighten her in-laws off, she hadn’t told him he was insane. Had just asked him, “how high?” in response to his command of, “Jump.”
“You kept this all very hush-hush, didn’t you?” Elizabeth said, saccharine sweet.
Josh, dressed in an expensive suit, settled deeper into the high-backed sofa in his mother’s very formal salon. Though he held a fragile teacup, sans saucer, in his hand, he surprised Samantha by placing the other on her knee.
The gesture was surprisingly proprietary, and she felt herself flush when Elizabeth’s gimlet gaze focused on the innocuous as well as relatively innocent touch. From that look, however, Josh might as well have stuck his tongue down her throat.
She refused to think about why that thought had her cheeks blooming bright red with heat.
“Out of respect for Jamie’s memory,” Josh said simply.
Elizabeth surprised Samantha by sniffing, and the sound was scornful. “If you’d respected his memory, you wouldn’t have gone anywhere near his widow.” She raked Samantha with a disapproving glare. “And you wouldn’t have gone anywhere near his best friend. God only knows what Frank and Janice are going to say about this. I hope you realize the position you’ve placed me in, Joshua.”
“Because that’s all I ever consider, mother. How my life affects yours.”
Elizabeth turned pink and cut Samantha a look. She felt the older woman’s mortification, and though she didn’t like her, Samantha wished there was a way she could smooth over troubled waters.
But where women like her mother-in-law and Josh’s mother were concerned, there was no smoothing over.
It was impossible, she knew.
They were far too full of their own self-importance to appreciate being taken down a peg or two. Especially if that happened to occur in front of somebody they disliked, disapproved of, or thought was beneath them.
And, no matter what Samantha did, she was well aware she would never be good enough for the likes of Elizabeth and Janice.
Once upon a time she’d despaired over that. But then, having realized the kind of women they were, she figured as long as she was the direct opposite of them, she was doing a good job of living her life decently.
Like he hadn’t just humiliated his parent, Josh murmured, “We’re thinking of a spring wedding.”
Considering women like Elizabeth, who spent a fortune on facial fillers, did their level best not to frown, she’d done a lot of that since Josh and Samantha had arrived. At his words, though, her brow puckered in a way that would have distressed her cosmetic surgeon.
“So soon?” she exploded, apparently aghast at the prospect.
Josh snorted. “Hardly. It’s next year, after all.”
Elizabeth’s gaze dropped down to Samantha's stomach. “Is there a reason for the speed?”
Samantha felt her cheeks flame at the question. Even though she’d vowed to leave this in Josh’s hands, as thanks for him going to all this trouble on her behalf, she blurted out, “Of course not!”
“There has to be some reason for this haste,” Elizabeth grumbled with a sniff.
“We’re talking eight months away, mother. That’s hardly hasty in my opinion.” Josh managed to sound utterly unconcerned. How he did that, Samantha would never
know.
The man’s poker face was beyond professional.
Though she supposed he took advantage of that in a business setting, in a personal one?
Fuck, was she destined to be surrounded by sociopaths?
“You know how people talk.”
“Of course I do. I saw you in action often enough as a child.”
The older woman’s eyes flared wide. This time, in anger. But before she could say a word in either defense or retaliation, Josh held up the hand he rested on Samantha’s knee. “I’m not here to fight,” he said gruffly. “I’m here to tell my mother some happy news.”