Chapter 12
Can Buy Her Love
Scene 1
Candy adjusted the trailing fabric of the figure-hugging off-white lace wedding dress, dropped a bare shoulder, and pursed her lips into a seductive moue aimed at Raynald's lens, sex and sin in her expression if not in her heart.
Clicking his digital SLR camera shutter rapidly, the tuxedo-attired fashion photographer pranced around her in patent leather shoes, a tall Fred Astaire. "Beautiful," Raynald asserted. "Gorgeous." He snapped shots from several angles.
"The photos better be," Candy said without moving her mouth or muscles in her face, skills she'd acquired during years of fashion shoots in Italy, Paris and New York City. She twisted to look over her shoulder, lashes lowered. The lace of her dress shimmered with a thousand tiny crystals hand sewn to the fabric.
They were alone. She'd ordered Wanda to remove Mopette from the Bridal Suite while Raynald snapped sexy photos half an hour before the three o'clock wedding. Much as she loved Mopette, Candy didn't want her dog's sharp little claws anywhere near the dress for fear of tearing the outrageously expensive Irish lace.
"Darling, trust me. Have I ever let you down? You'll get what you need," Raynald purred.
"The bank manager had the nerve to text me yesterday about the two missed loan payments. The day before my wedding!"
"Wicked." Raynald's voice vibrated with outrage.
"I know, right?" Candy angled her cleavage at the vanity mirror, pretended to adjust the white baby's breath woven through intricately coiled hair. A gossamer veil and tiara glittering with cubic zirconia crystals -- a gift from her mother -- dangled from her ring finger, the real diamond strategically aimed to catch the light.
"Tell me again why you don't simply ask Halden for fifty grand to cover the overdue loan payments?" Raynald clicked the shutter rapidly.
Candy consciously released tension that creased her -- so far -- botox-free brow at his impertinent question. "And confirm his family's suspicion I'm marrying Halden for his fame and money?" She placed freshly manicured bare toes on the vanity footstool, arched her back, and pleated the floor-length fabric along her thigh to reveal a blue satin lace-trimmed garter.
"Aren't you?"
"Raynald! Not you too?" After years of working together, the fashion insider understood her too well. She wanted Raynald's help, not judgement. Candy silkened her tone. "I adore Halden. He's so sweet. There isn't a cynical bone in that fabulous body."
"His body is fabulous," Raynald agreed with an envious sigh. "Smile for me, darling. You're in love."
"Damn right I'm in love!"
And she did love Halden, even more than she cherished Mopette. His genuine emotions and open heart balanced her east coast cynicism and pragmatic nature. When she'd maneuvered to meet Halden at a party four months earlier, she'd fallen for him, and not because the Apollo film franchise had made him fabulously wealthy.
Fashion industry gossip labeled her as a washed up gold digger. She intended to prove them wrong by reinventing herself as a successful entrepreneur at the head of Candy Kane Cosmetics. If her company went under, she'd not only be mired in major debt, but also ridiculed as a failure.
"Halden mustn't find out that if the bank calls the loan next week, my business will go into receivership." She abandoned her pose. Fear manifested in crinkling of carefully-applied lipstick. "He believes in me. He thinks I'm perfect. He even refused Garth and his lawyer's advice to make me sign a pre-nup."
"If he only knew." Raynald swung his head at Halden's naiveté.
"Knew what?" She fussed with the fall of the fragile lace fabric, her attention on assuming a new pose on the upholstered stool at the vanity.
"How sharp you are," Raynald improvised. "How brilliant. You're a beautiful woman with a brain for business, running a thriving private company."
"That's precisely what he believes, and I want to keep it that way."
After several deep, calming yoga breaths to calm uneasiness twisting her stomach, Candy scrutinized her flawlessly made up face in the vanity mirror for any trace of tension. She assumed a seductive smile. After so many years as a model, masking emotions became second nature. In less than an hour I'll be Mrs. Halden Armstrong.
"Men are so insecure. Ask him before the wedding to bail me out? Plant the seed that his money is my motivation for being with him, that I'm yet another celebrity leech? Impossible. I have no choice, really."
"Darling, your sister Gwendolyn is dating that fabulously rich North Sea oil magnate. To him, fifty grand is petty cash."
"Gwendy is dead to me," Candy spat. "She stole Sir Timothy Snifton from me at a reception in his honor in London. Do not ever speak her name in my presence. Or the name Wendy, for that matter. The mention of it puts me in a pissy mood."
Raynald tutted-tutted. "You're looking at this the wrong way, sweetheart. You won. The minimal media attention Sir Snifton gets is in the stock market news and when he donates to disaster relief or some obscure cause. He's practically invisible. Show me that smile of triumph."
Candy obliged. The tension in her shoulders and neck eased. "You're absolutely correct."
Raynald crouched at her knees and snapped several close-ups. "Halden is rich and famous. You're the envy of half the women in America." He hesitated. "Won't you receive scads of expensive wedding gifts? Surely you can return them for ready cash."
Candy's professional smile wavered. "Halden said I'm the most wonderful gift he could possibly receive. He insisted that the wedding invitations specify that, in lieu of gifts, donations be made to his Save the Whales campaign. He hopes to set a precedent."
Raynald clucked sympathetically. "He's a generous guy. It's getting at his cash that's the difficulty, hummm?"
Candy wasn't finished. "Halden has a weird obsession with the enormous sea creatures," she hissed through lips stretched over gritted teeth. "I had to agree or appear petty. Is it so awful for a bride to receive a few gifts? The whales won't receive a penny. It all goes into the pockets of international government lobbyists." The last sentence came out on a wavering breath perilously close to a sob.
Raynald straightened and lowered his camera. "Darling, you're appallingly tense. We're finished for the moment. You must relax." He reached to pat the hand trembling under the weight of the brilliant fifty thousand dollar diamond. "Leave everything to me."