Jaine Austen 2 - Last Writes Read Free Page A

smile.
    “Thanks,” I said, blushing furiously.
    Good heavens. The man was exceedingly attractive. I could practically smell his pheromones in the air.
    Quinn was obviously the kind of guy who left a trail of lovestruck women behind him. But I wasn’t about to be one of them. No way. Dating an exceedingly attractive man is like going jogging without a sports bra. Sooner or later, you’re bound to get hurt. Besides, I try never to date anyone who lookes better in a bathing suit than I do.
    So I wasn’t about to fall for a guy like Quinn Kirkland. Which is a good thing, because the next thing I knew, Quinn spotted Stan and Audrey Miller coming in the door and dropped me like a hot onion bagel.
    “Sorry,” he said, “but I’ve got to talk to some people who are more important than you.”
    Okay, so he didn’t really say that.
    What he really said was: “Nice talking to you.” And then he proceeded to dash across the room to suck up to the Millers.
    If I had to guess, I’d say Stan and Audrey were somewhere in their forties. But I didn’t have to guess, because Kandi told me she’d looked up their ages on their W9 forms.
    If ever there was a couple who didn’t looked like they belonged together, Stan and Audrey were it. Audrey was reed thin and perfectly packaged—very Armani. Stan, on the other hand, was a pasty-faced guy with a sizable gut and a fondness for baggy sweats—very Pastrami.
    I was standing there, nursing my coffee (I’d long since wolfed down my bagel) and watching Quinn flash his blinding smile at Audrey, when an elderly man with a thick mane of silver hair approached.
    “Allow me to introduce myself,” he said, with a velvety English accent. “I’m Wells Dumont.”
    “Of course I know who you are, Mr. Dumont. You play Muffy’s neighbor, Mr. Watkins.”
    “I hear you’re the writer of this week’s delightful episode.”
    “Guilty as charged.”
    “It’s really quite amusing. It has a charmingly fey quality that reminds me of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost.”
    Wow. The man was comparing me to Shakespeare! I couldn’t wait to tell the guys at Toiletmasters about this.
    “Are you familiar with the bard’s comedies?” he asked hopefully.
    “Not intimately, no.”
    “Oh.”
    He looked so disappointed, like a Jim Carrey fan in a roomful of Hegelian philosophers.
    “But I like his other stuff,” I said, trying to cheer him up.
    “Really? What’s your favorite Shakespearean play?”
    “Uh… Macbeth ,” I said, pulling one out of thin air and praying he wouldn’t ask me anything about it. Like, say, the plot.
    His eyes lit up.
    “Really? What a coincidence. It’s my favorite, too. I’ve played the tortured thane many a time.”
    Tortured thane? What the heck was a thane? One of these days, I told myself, I really had to brush up on my Shakespeare. Just as soon as I finished my back issues of Cosmo .
    “I’ve got a wonderful idea. Why don’t I take you someplace where we can discuss our love of the bard over chilled martinis?”
    Good heavens! The guy was old enough to be my really old father. Was he actually asking me out on a date?
    “I know a charming French restaurant that serves the most wonderful pommes frites.”
    Sure sounded like a date to me.
    “Well?” He smiled hopefully.
    “Gee, I’d love to, but…”
    But what? What was I going to tell him?
    “But she’s engaged to be married.”
    I turned to see Kandi back at my side. I shot her a grateful smile.
    “Her fiance Duane is a great guy,” Kandi said, “but terribly jealous.”
    “Lucky man,” Wells said. He took my hand and kissed it. “A pleasure meeting you, my dear.”
    Then, undoubtedly brokenhearted, he headed over to the pastry tray to seek solace in a prune danish.
    “Duane?” I whispered to Kandi. “My fiance’s name is Duane?”
    “You don’t like it? Invent your own lovers.”
    By now, Audrey and Stan had wandered over to the conference table.
    “Okay, everybody,” Audrey