Free The Supermodel's Best Friend (A Romantic Comedy) by Gretchen Galway Page A

put
down her cup and fumbled with a zipper on her sweatshirt, pulled
out her phone, and the warmth drained out of her face. She twisted
around and hunched over it, facing the window. “Yes? No, it’s no
problem… ”
    While she became engrossed in what was
obviously a call from work, Miles wished he’d escaped to his cabin.
He ate his bagel in three bites, gulped down his coffee, and
wondered if the hiking trails were any good. The Pacific was fewer
than three miles to the west, the rocky coast largely untouched up
here, wild and gorgeous. He wished he had a group of his kids up
here with him to show them the tide pools, make sandcastles, freeze
their asses off.
    Just as he was working through ideas for
fundraising and chaperones to make a field trip possible, Krista
put her phone away. “I am so sorry, that was totally rude. It’s
just—she’s really difficult. My boss. Not that she’s my
boss. I report to somebody else, but I have to do whatever she
says, no matter how irrational, you know?”
    Miles gave her a sympathetic nod.
    “I’ve got to find a way to use the lodge
Internet without Fawn kicking my butt. Being totally out of the
loop for a whole week isn’t an option. I’m a designer for a new
knitwear company. Very original, groundbreaking designs. Well, I’m
an associate, which is why I can’t really disappear for a week. The
woman I work for is notorious.” She reached forward and rested her
slim fingers over his hand. “Anyway, I wanted to ask you about
Alex.”
    “Alex? Oh, Alex Sargeant.” One of the guys
from their freshman dorm at Stanford, Huntley’s other groomsman. He
looked around the lodge again. “Has he arrived?”
    “I met him right before I met you, inside the
little shop back there. He was really nice, joked about Huntley
having his own house in Atherton for whenever he got sick of living
in the dorm. His own house, all to himself, when he was just
eighteen.”
    “Not all to himself,” Miles said, smiling
into his coffee. “He had to share it with the servants.” And then
with Miles when he’d split from his father, dropped out of school,
and didn’t have anywhere else to go.
    She laughed. “I can’t imagine what it would
be like to be rich like that.”
    “Nobody can unless they’re born that
way.”
    “That’s exactly what Alex said.” She dropped
her gaze to the table. He could feel her hesitating over what she
said next. “He mentioned he was the only groomsman to grow up
without money.”
    He knew what she was asking but didn’t bite.
If she wanted to know if he was as rich as Huntley she’d have to
ask outright, though she might leave him alone if she learned how
modest his income really was. “Did you hear about the fourth
‘groomsman’?” he asked.
    She grinned. “That’s so cute—to ask his
sister! Isn’t that great? She’s threatening to wear a tuxedo, Alex
said. Something about pissing off their mother.” Wrapping her
uneaten bagel in a napkin, Krista shifted in her seat and pushed
out her chest a little bit, smiled more broadly. Flirting. “Alex
made it sound like your parents were similar. Would they have a
problem with a lesbian in a tuxedo at your wedding?”
    Miles shook salt over his egg. “My mother
died when I was three, I haven’t spoken to my father in over
fifteen years, and I think people should be able to wear whatever
the hell they want to a wedding.” He popped the egg in his mouth.
“It’s not Broadway.”
    “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—I don’t think
Alex meant—oh, shit.”
    Seeing the stricken look on her face, he
realized he was being a jerk. He swallowed the egg and wiped his
mouth with a napkin. “No, I’m sorry. That was rude of me. I know
what Alex meant.”
    “We were just talking about how nice it is
here, that’s all, and how nice it is for some people to be able to
afford it and share it with people close to them.”
    “Of course. And he’s right, I did grow up
more like Huntley than like