HEY GUYS HERE IT CHAPTER 5 AS I PROMISED AND AS YOU NOTICED THE PREVIEW TO THE CHAPTER IS GONE BECAUSE I DELETED IT! SO YEAHH ENJOY THE CHAPTER!
OH AND THE DISCLAIMERS-
ZACH- YOU CAN'T MAKE ME DO THIS!
ME- YES I CAN, I OWN YOU!
CAMMIE- NO YOU DON'T ZACH JUST SAY IT SO WE CAN GET THIS OVER WITH
ZACH- *GETTING ATTACKED BY MACEY*
CAMMIE- *SIGHS AND GOES TO HELP HIM*
BEX- *POPS OUT OF NO WHERE*
ME- WHY ARE YOU HERE YOU AREN'T EVEN IN THIS STORY TILL LATER ON!
BEX- WELL I JUST HAD TO SAY THAT KRISTINA DOES NOT OWN THE GALLAGER ACADEMY SERIES
ME- FINALLY NOW ONTO THE STORY! SORRY FOR THIS LONG DISCLAIMER. OH AND I WANTED TO EXPLAIN WHY THE LATE WELL VERY LATE UPDATE IT WAS BECAUSE WELL I HAD/HAVE A BRUISED RIB. I GOT IT FROM PLAYING ONE OF MY SPORTS THIS SUMMER…AND WELL WHEN IT HEALED UP I WAS SO READY TO WRITE WHEN I GOT ANOTHER BRUISED RIB FROM AFTER SCHOOL SPORTS. SO IT WILL BE HARD FOR ME TO UPDATE ON TIME NOW AND SCHOOL JUST STARTED SOO YEAH… BUT I HOPE YOU ALL STICK WITH ME!
Better than champagne was the first thought that skittered through her head. His arms came around her and pulled her in so tight she was pressed against the full length of him. Oh. Yum. Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes.
He was sexy and strong, and in that second she could imagine a woman loving this man and never wanting to let him go. Then Macey/Daisy fled her mind as he kept on kissing her. He tasted good, felt good. Her arms went around his neck and she molded her body to his. With nothing between them but her slip, a demi bra and a pair of panties, she felt the roughness of his jacket, the buttons on his shirt, the warmth of his skin.
A soft moan startled Cammie back to reality. For a humiliating moment she thought she'd done the moaned, but when Zach raised his head and looked behind her, she turned and followed his gaze. It wasn't Cammie who'd moaned, but Macey.
The bride was staring at Zach with a baffled mixture of longing and sadness. "I remember when you used to kiss me like that," she said.
"That was a while ago," he said, but in a gentle way. He kept his arm around Cammie and rubber her arm, up and down, while he said it.
"I just want to be happy," Macey said, her big blue eyes looking misty. Cammie wondered if she'd ever heard anything so wretched. If the woman was wondering about her happiness on her wedding day, then it didn't bode well that she'd found it.
Since this didn't seem to be one of those weddings where it was deemed bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the ceremony, Cammie soon had a chance to judge the upcoming union for herself.
A self-important young man strolled up and Cammie was reminded again of Gatsby. This guy was a modern-day version. She couldn't have said why she thought he was from new money until she looked more closely. His tux was too obviously expensive. His shoes too shiny. When he took Macey's hand, he held it in such a way that an extraordinarily large diamond engagement rings winked at them, catching the light and flashing like a camera bulb going off.
Macey smiled at her fiancée, but then turned her attention back to Zach. Cammie could understand why. He was much the more dynamic of the two.
"Goode," the nouveau Gatsby said with a curt nod.
"Winters." He nodded back.
Animosity crackled between these two. No one bothered to introduce her.
"The minister's here," the groom said. "Your mother wants you to take your place."
"Okay." Macey's voice wobbled and she looked at Zach with such naked appeal the Cammie hoped someone would protest to the marriage. Preferably the groom.
"Be happy, Macey," Zach said and, stepping in front of the man she was about to marry, kissed his ex-wife on the lips.
The groom took Macey's hand and dragged her away, and she left with the same enthusiasm a child leaves Santa's knee.
"Well, you kiss her silly should cure Macey of her infatuations," Cammie said with as much sarcasm possible.
"Winters irritates me," he said, as though she might have no noticed.
"Why?"
"Preston Winters went to a big fancy university and learned all about higher profits through downsizing. He'd done some hatchet jobs on other companies and was seem as a young hotshot who'd take the old factory in our hometown and make the shareholders happy. A real wunderkind. Our town was already suffering a downturn. The factory is still the main employer in town, but he's cutting jobs, so fast can keep up. It's wrong, that's all."
"Did you know each other before…?"
"Before Macey? Oh, sure. We all grew up together. That's what made it so bad that he'd come back and destroy his own home."
It was an old love triangle, then. She wondered how far it went back. "I've heard of him, of course. No one could believe the way he turned around that steel company in Pennsylvania or—"
He stared at her.
Right. Not the sort of thing most actresses would need to know. She was going to have to tell him who she really was. But not quite yet. No while that kiss was still fizzing through her system and he was displaying her to these people in the way Preston Winters had displayed Macey's diamond ring. So she shrugged.
"They stock Barron's along with Scientific American in the green room?" he asked.
"The wedding's about to start," she said nodding to where a stream of guest headed into the conservatory.
Cammie hated confrontation of every kind and so her stomach was one big knot when they took their places in the conservatory. The scents of gardenia and frangipani were everywhere.
Still, the conservatory was beautiful with tiny white lights in the trees and a single harpist playing by candlelight. They sat in rows of white folding chairs, on the bride's side. After an interval of shuffling, some quiet whispering and the odd giggle, the parents filed in to the front row. Then Preston Winters seemed to appear from behind a burning bush, although she imagined there was a side door behind the blooming gardenia bush that was currently imitating candelabra. With the groom was an older man, presumably the best man. The thought flashed through her mind that he didn't have any friends his own age.
The two took their places in front of a flower-decked podium while a man in a dark suit holding an engraved binder came from the other side and took his place behind the podium. When the justice of the pace had found his place in the binder and adjusted the small reading light, there was the usual anticipatory prebride silence.
Cammie waited, barely breathing, for the groom to be left standing at the altar—a fear the groom apparently shared from the anxious way he kept glancing behind him. But, soon enough, the "Wedding March" played and in came a flower girl with a mass of blond curls and huge blue eyes, enjoying her importance so immensely that there was a snowstorm of flower petals wherever she went.
Behind her came two bridesmaids who looked as though they had better things to do, and finally Macey, who gnawed her lip all the way down the aisle.
However no one, not even the bride, tried to stop the wedding. When the justice of the peace announced, "You may kiss the bride," she felt Zach's arm droop slightly as his muscles relaxed and she realized he'd been as tense as she.
After the wedding came a sit-down dinner reception. Usually, when Cammie went to a big do, she and Josh were close to invisible. Conversation tended to stall when people found out they were both actuaries. But Zach's table felt like the table at the center of the universe.
He was hailed, backslapped, joked with, teased and flirted with so often she wondered how he managed to get any food down. He bore it in good part, managing to charm the women, talk racing jargon with the men and still find time to fiddle with Cammie's hair, place an arm around her shoulders, whisper supposed secrets in her ear.
His behavior kept her on edge and fluttery, so it was hard to eat anything. Since one of his whispered intimacies was to remind her that she was suppose to be crazy in love, too, she let herself do what she'd wanted to do all evening. She traced the shape of that scar with a fingertip. She felt the tiniest thread of scar tissue and a slight dent. His skin was warm and beneath the pads of her fingers she felt the slight scratched of stubble. When she would have removed her hand, he took her wrist and kissed it.
Her pulse jumped as though it wanted to kiss him back.
Down girl, she reminded herself. It's pretend.
As she made her way through the high-class version of banquet rubber chicken, she felt a stab of guilt. She should be at her own actuarial dinner eating the plebeian version of rubber chicken. Josh's behavior didn't abnegate her responsibility of her employer. If only her ex-fiancée had told her earlier, given her time to get used to heartbreak and humiliation, she might have handled this evening with her head instead of her damaged heart.
Maybe her behavior wasn't entirely appropriate, but so long as she got to the banquet before the speeches, she doubted she'd be missed.
While the ritual wedding toasts were made, she kept an eye on her watch.
The first dance between the bride and groom had Cammie blinking in surprise. Macey seemed to have forgotten all about Zach and for this dance, anyway, she had eyes for no one but her latest husband. And Preston looked as though he cradled the most precious being in the world. Why, that man was the one crazy in love, Cammie thought. She hoped he didn't end up heartbroken.
It wasn't a great feeling.
A glance at her watch told her it was nice. After the actuary dinner, which would be winding up about now, coffee would be poured and there would be the usual speech from the president of the association that had never been clocked in at shorter than sixty minutes.
"I should really get back to the hotel. I need to get my acceptance speech from my room."
"Fine by me. Let's get out of here."
Since they'd been snuggling all evening, she wasn't at all surprised when he took her hand. A woman could get used to this guy, she thought. And this woman better not.
They made their way unimpeded out the front door, which made her sigh with relief.
Probably it was rude to leave without saying goodbye, but in Zach's case, goodbye undoubtedly took hours.
"So you'll definitely come to my banquet with me?" she asked as they walked out into the still, warm air of a May evening.
He glanced at her, and a tiny frown pulled his brows together. "What exactly is this award?"
"Does it matter?" If she told him the truth about herself, she felt as though all the magic would drain out of the evening.
Zach glanced up at the night sky twinkling like a sea of glitter.
"See, the thing is, I'm a broadminded guy. But I've got sponsors. Fans." He glanced at her and looked a little embarrassed. "I hate to be acting like a prude here, but if you're adult movie actress of the year, or something—and believe me, when I say that I think it's a great honor—then I'm going to have to pass."
"Adult movie…?" For a second she was stumped, then she sucked in a breath. "You mean pornography?"
"Hey, listen, I'm all good, clean fun in the privacy of your living room but, like I said, I've got to be careful…"
She turned to him. "You think people would pay to see me in sex movies?"
"Absolutely."
"Thank you," she said, feeling better than she'd felt all night. "But I am not a porn star."
That crooked grin was aimed her way and with it the crinkling of that scar that for some reason made her weak at the knees. "You kiss like one."
She tamped down her delight with a feigned severity. "And how would you know how a porn star kisses?"
His evil chuckle was drowned out by the approaching sports car. The low, red car zoomed up and Zach opened the door for her, then walked around to tip the valet and slide into the driver's seat.
She found herself back in the convertible flying along the highway a million miles an hour.
When she tilted her head back to look up at the sky, it was like a kaleidoscope where the pattern kept changing too fast for her to keep up.
"So, are you going to tell me what this award's about?" Zach yelled over the combined noise of the road and the wind.
"No. Not yet. But I promise it's perfectly respectable."
"I'm trusting you here, Cammie."
"Trust," she said emphatically, "is the cornerstone of good business."
"You know, honey, you are an interesting woman. You talk like an accountant with the same mouth that kisses like a porn star."
"Well, trust me, all resemblance to a porn star ends with kissing."
He laughed and threw an arm around her shoulder. "Why don't you let me decide?" That's when she realized he had misconstrued her meaning.
She blinked at her. He appeared more than pleased by the notion of having sex with her. In two years Josh had never looked that interested.
But then, Zach had only known her a few hours, and he thought she was someone else.
Was it her imagination or did they travel back to the hotel a lot faster than they'd traveled to the wedding?
Impossible to tell, but before she could believe it, he was pulling up in front of the hotel. Oh, cool. He was using valet parking. She felt rich and important as she slid from the car, while yet another parking attendant held her door open for her.
"Good evening, Mr. Goode," the doorman said, and then nodded to her. "Miss."
When she swooshed through the door and found herself in the main-floor lobby, she blinked. There was the illuminated sign confirming that the actuary banquet was in ballrooms A and B.
"Where are you going?" Zach asked as he fell into step with her.
"The actuarial banquet. I'm going to take a peek and make sure I have time to run upstairs and grab my speech."
He studied the sign, then glanced at her. "You're kidding me.
"No," she said, feeling like Cinderella would have if she'd transformed back into the dowdy drudge before Prince Charming's eyes.
Instead of looking disappointed, or jumping into his race car and zooming off, he tipped back his head and laughed, a big, booming sound. "This, I have to see."
Most of the door to ballrooms A and B were shut, but she found one that was propped open. She crept towards it and stuck her head inside. Amazingly, the president had kept it short this year. He was winding things up. There was no time to get herself another key and run upstairs and get her speech. She'd barely made it here in time.
Oh, well. She'd practiced her speech so many times, she'd mostly memorized the thing, anyway.
The president of the actuary association of America was praising someone who exemplified all the qualities of the best actuary.
"This year's winter combines a keen mind with exceptional organization abilities. She's been top…"
"What are we going here?" Zach whispered, coming behind her and kissing her neck.
"Basking," she said. "And keep doing that."
"Ladies and gentlemen, it's my pleasure to present this year's Sharpened Pencil Award to Cameron Morgan."
"Hah." she said, tipping her head back to smile at Zach. "Talk about good timing."
"This is your award?"
"Yep. I'm Actuary of the Year. I have to give a speech. Kiss me for luck?"
AND THAT'S IT REMEMBER I AM RECOVERING FROM MY SECOND BRUISED RIB SO IT MIGHT BE A WHILE TILL I HAVE THE NEXT CHAPTER UP BUT REVIEW AND I WILL TRY THANK YOU FOR STAYING WITH ME
~KRISTINA