“Look at them.” Shar sighed, dropping her chin into her palm and making googly eyes at the two huge, gorgeous guys seated at the bar. “They’re so freaking hot.”
“You’ve always liked the bad boys, Shar,” Daisy’s sister, Daffodil, said, giggling.
“Well, yeah. Who wouldn’t? They can be so . . . imaginative in bed.” Shar grinned.
“How would you know? It’s not like you’ve ever dated a real bad boy,” Zinzi pointed out skeptically. “And that Mason—from soldier, to model, to bodyguard of the rich and famous—he might be a little too much for you to handle.”
“I bet I could get one of those two in bed,” Shar said, and Daisy sank farther back into the recesses of the booth. She really disliked Zinzi and Shar, and she couldn’t understand why her sisters were friends with them. They were totally superficial and materialistic. Shar, the gorgeous blonde who was taking bets on whether she could seduce a Carlisle brother, was married, for cripes’ sake. Granted, her husband was three times older than her and rumored to have mistresses on four different continents, but he was still her husband. They could both practice a little bit of discretion, at the very least.
Zinzi, the daughter of a phenomenally wealthy philanthropist, had dated princes and politicians but routinely slept with her drivers, bodyguards, and fitness instructors. But God forbid she ever openly date one of them. Now Lia seemed to be following them down that same path. She was marrying Clayton Edmondton III, heir to the Edmonton Diamond Company and pretentious asshole of note. Daisy couldn’t stand him, and she knew Daff didn’t care for him either. But Lia firmly believed that she was in love, and nothing her sisters said—or Clayton did—would change her mind. It was painful to sit back and watch Lia make such a huge mistake with her life, but to protest too much would be to alienate her completely.
The other women were still oohing and aahing over the Carlisle brothers, and Daisy couldn’t help but slide a glance over at the two men. They were definitely good-looking guys, both tall, dark, strapping specimens of hotness. Spencer had the heavy build of a rugby player, not an ounce of fat on him, just big and brutish and entirely savage looking.
But while Spencer merely looked savage, Mason Carlisle exuded menace and danger from every single pore. He was more sparely built than his older brother and a couple of inches shorter than Spencer’s six foot three, but while Spencer was thick with muscle and seemed to possess brute strength, Mason’s power and strength had a lethal grace. He was perfect, absolutely perfect. And even if Daisy weren’t already familiar with his eight-pack, his beautifully strong shoulders, tight butt, and perfectly sculpted legs—thanks to those revealing underwear ads—she would still have known that utter perfection lay beneath that gray formfitting Henley and those faded blue jeans.
But not for all the chocolate cake in the world would Daisy ever let on that she found either one of the brothers attractive. The women would all—with the exception of her sisters and their childhood friend, Tilda—tease her mercilessly and cruelly, knowing that she didn’t stand a chance with either man. Daisy was well aware of her so-called shortcomings, and she was resigned to them, but that didn’t mean she would ever give this bunch of bitches any fodder to chew on.
So she remained hidden away in her corner, pretending to laugh at their stupid comments and have a blast while they played their silly little hen party games in a venue that they had chosen because they wanted to “live dangerously.” Please, like Ralphie’s was such a dive. It was just a regular sports bar, but it was so far removed from these women’s lives that to them it probably seemed like the ghetto.
Daisy sighed and reminisced about a time when her family had been just normal. A bit more well-off than some, but normal just the same. Their father was a vet, for God’s sake. You couldn’t get more ordinary than that.
Normalcy had fled after her parents had joined a snooty local country club when Daisy was ten and her sisters thirteen and fourteen. Daisy had watched the other women in her family go crazy after that. Everything became about the right clothes, the right makeup, the right jewelry, the right men . . . and because she would rather hang out with her father and the animals, Daisy found herself drifting apart from her mother and sisters. Her father was as baffled by the transformation as Daisy, and together father and youngest daughter weathered the storm of shopping and pretentiousness that became their new norm.
The other women were moving on from their previous topic of conversation and were once again focused on Lia’s party.
“This one next.” Nina Clark, one of their long-standing—and more likable—family friends held up a tiny gift bag. Lia peeked into the bag and squealed when she saw what was hidden beneath the tissue.
“Don’t act all coy, you’re so using those on your wedding night.” Nina laughed as she took a sip of her rum and coke. Everybody had been disappointed upon discovering that Ralphie’s wasn’t the type of establishment to serve frothy, pretty cocktails. In fact—after the women had delighted in inundating their shy young server with orders of “screaming orgasms,” “slippery nipples,” and “blowjobs”—Ralphie himself had hastened over to curtly inform them that he didn’t serve exotic cocktails and they would have to order beers or hard liquor.