Otherwise Engaged (3 page)

Chapter Four

Daphne’s heart
raced at the sight of Rain. She hadn’t seen him in so long. Of course she
remembered he was good looking, having tried to memorize his face every time
she saw him. She tried not to go through the photos of them together from
college she had because it was painful, but sometimes she couldn’t resist. It
was hard looking at those pictures and knowing how Rain had gone from being a
daily and essential part of her life to someone she saw only on rare occasions.
It also hurt to think of how she and Carolina had drifted apart over the years.
Then of course there
was knowing
when she looked at
pictures of the three of them together that Carolina would always have a hold
over Rain that no one else would. She couldn’t help but feel resentment about
that no matter how useless that resentment was. She hated resenting Carolina
for something so stupid, and that just added to the jumble of feelings she
hated trying to parse through when it came to those two. That was yet another
reason to avoid looking at the pictures.

But neither memory
nor pictures could do Rain justice. Seeing him in person was always different.
Better but also harder because she knew whatever she felt was one-sided. He’d
only ever seen her as a friend. And that was probably a good thing. Rain went
through women quicker than he went through Kleenex.

His short hair
was jet black. Dark sunglasses hid the hazel, slightly almond-shaped eyes she
loved so much. He was tall.
Lean yet muscular.
His
skin was paler than usual that day. Normally, he had a naturally olive
complexion.

He grinned,
bearing his perfect smile, and wrapped her in a huge bear hug. “Daphne. It’s so
good to see you.”

“Hm.” She held
him to her, enjoying his closeness. “Good to see you, too.”

“Sorry about
my…well, me,” he said as they pulled back from each other. “Rough night.” He
gave her a lopsided grin. She wished she had nothing to do all day but stand
there and look at him. That goofy feeling she’d had all the time in college
when her crush on him was nearly unbearable washed over her.
 

“Don’t
apologize,” she said as they sat at the table she’d been saving for them. “Did
you have fun doing whatever you did last night?”

He shrugged. “I
guess you could say that.”

“Good.”

“What did you
do last night?”

“Oh, nothing
special.” She’d sat in front of her television and caught up on paperwork she’d
brought home from the office.
Not very sexy.

The server came
over, and they ordered. After the server left, Rain drummed his fingers on the
tabletop. She’d always loved his long fingers. She thought about that saying
about men with big hands. Fleetingly, she wondered if it was true.

“Catch me up,”
Rain said. “How’s your job? You work for that non-profit still?”

Daphne nodded.
She worked for a non-profit that was a liaison between real estate development
companies and the government of D.C. They were trying to get mixed income
housing to catch on in the city. “Things are good. Right now, we’re working on a
development in Southeast. In Anacostia.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” She
went on to give him the details. They talked about that and then about Rain’s
job. The food arrived. While they ate, he told some story about Skylar, who
he’d been out with last night, making a fool out of himself in front of some
woman he’d been trying to impress with a badly failed sake bomb drinking
contest. Daphne laughed so hard, she cried. She remembered why she loved going
out with Rain so much. Rain was constant entertainment.

“I can’t
believe Carolina’s getting married,” he said. He sat back in his chair and let
out a low whistle.

Daphne nodded,
watching closely for his reaction. She knew how Rain felt about Carolina. She
remembered the drunken confession he’d made to her one night after what seemed
like his and Carolina’s millionth attempt at dating. He’d told Daphne if he was
going to marry any woman ever, it had to be Carolina. He wasn’t the
relationship type, but she was the one woman he’d make the effort for. Daphne
had died a little bit inside that night, but she thought she did a pretty good
job of hiding it. Either that, or Rain had been so wrapped up in thinking about
Carolina, he hadn’t noticed.

“How are you
taking this?” Daphne asked. “Really?”

“What do you
mean?” Rain looked toward the sidewalk as he spoke. His tone was a little
strained even though he was making an obvious effort to keep it light.

“I mean…are you
still hopelessly in love with Carolina?” Daphne asked. She was back to being
that college girl afraid of answers to questions she shouldn’t have been
asking. What was she talking about? She’d given up on Rain years ago. She was
almost certain of that.

Rain laughed
softly. “Oh, Daphne. The words hopelessly in love and the name Rain Foster
don’t go together. Never have, never will.”

“Oh.” She
wasn’t convinced. Something in the slump of his shoulders and the way he still
had his profile turned to her told her she wasn’t getting the whole truth. She
studied the angle of his jaw. He still wore the glasses, hiding a good portion
of his face from her.

“So.
You seeing anybody these days?
Come on. You still haven’t
caught me up on half of what’s going on with you.” He turned to his plate began
wolfing down the rest of his steak and eggs.

“Nah. Single,”
she dragged out the second word, thinking about just how true it was. She hoped
this conversation wouldn’t go like the one she’d had with Bettina yesterday.
Then again, she highly doubted Rain was interested in playing matchmaker for
anybody.

“Me, too.”

The difference
between them was Rain liked it that way. Daphne was pretty happy with her
single life, but it would be nice to have a relationship that worked out with a
guy she had more than lukewarm feelings for. She had this problem—she
never wanted the ones who wanted her. Well, more like she never wanted the ones
who were serious about her. Some might call her picky. She knew herself well
enough to know what she wanted and loved herself enough to believe she deserved
to get it. Call it whatever you want.

“Yeah,” she
said. “I don’t even know who I’m going to take to this wedding.” Destination
weddings were tricky. She couldn’t bring some random guy—it would be
awkward since they’d be there together for at least a few days. That was too
serious of a thing for someone she hadn’t known long. The wedding was a little
over two months away, and she didn’t even have a prospect for one lousy dinner
date.

“What about
me?”

“Huh?” She did
a double take.

He looked as if
he was adjusting to the idea as well. “Yeah, I mean, why not?” he said. “I was
just thinking.
I’m going
,
you’re
going
. We’re old friends. Why not go together?”

“Why?” she
blurted out before she could even think about it.

“What do you
mean?”

“Why would you
go to the wedding? I mean
,
I know you guys were
friends, but she’s technically an ex-girlfriend. And you had really strong
feelings for her at one point. Are you sure going to this wedding is really
something you want to do?”

He nodded.
“I’ve thought about all of that.” He paused. Pressing his forearms against the
edge of the table, he leaned forward. “I’ve also thought about what it would be
like if I wasn’t there. I think I’d always regret it.” He smiled faintly. “So.
How about it? Can I be your plus one?”

She grinned.
She absolutely could not go to another wedding dateless. It was getting kind of
old.
And a little pathetic.
Especially since she was
among the very last dregs of her single friends. Of what was left of her single
friends, most of them were at least dating someone seriously. Her cousins and
even her nieces and nephews of dating age were mostly paired off. Thank
goodness Bettina was still single. She was one of the few, though. No. No more
weddings as poor single Daphne, let’s find her someone to dance with so she
doesn’t look so alone.

“Sure,” she
said.

“Great. Have
you bought your plane ticket yet?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Give me the
flight information. I’ll try to get on the same flight.”

“Okay, I’ll
email it to you.” She pulled out her phone so that she could get to her email
and forward Rain the info before she forgot to do it.

Yeah. Like she
was going to forget. Going to Puerto Rico with gorgeous Rain was something to
definitely look forward to, no matter what the circumstances.

“Daphne,” Rain
said.

“Hm?” she was
busy pulling up the right email so that she could send it to him.

She glanced up
and saw him toying with his own phone.

“What if I’m
making a huge mistake?”

“What do you
mean?” She stopped searching through her email and looked up.

“I mean…what if
I’m still in love with her? Would I be the world’s biggest ass or its biggest
romantic if I went to New York right now and told her that I loved her? That I
wanted her to call off the wedding and be with me?”

Daphne dropped
her phone.

Chapter Five

Rain studied
Daphne’s face, watching for her reaction. She’d always been beautiful to him.
There was no question about that. Long, black hair framed her oval face. She
stared at him with large, honey brown, startled eyes. Her skin was a couple
shades lighter than cocoa. In fact, she reminded him of hot chocolate—warm
and sweet.

She grabbed her
phone from where it’d fallen on the table next to her half-empty plate of fruit
and yogurt.

“I…don’t know
how to answer that,” she said, swallowing. His eyes went to her long, slender
neck. The only reason he’d never tried to hook up with her back in college was
that his friendship with her was worth more to him than a random night
together. At least it had been. He’d kind of abandoned her since graduation,
and he felt badly about that.

“Yeah. I guess
it was kind of a crazy question.”
Kind of?
What was he
thinking? He couldn’t get his mind right today. He hadn’t been able to ever
since Carolina dropped the bomb on him yesterday actually.

“Um, well, I
know she’s really happy with Manny. I’ve never seen her so happy.” She
concentrated on her phone as she said this.

“You’ve met
him?”

“Yeah. I went
up to New York for the dress fitting. Most of the bridesmaids live up there,”
she said. “Besides, whenever I go up there with my cousin or for work, I stop
by. Not that often, but better than nothing.”

“How is he?”

“I like him.
And he seems to be all about Carolina.”

“What does he
do for a living?”
Please say he’s a bum.
Or that he has some crap job and makes way less than me.

“He’s a
mechanical engineer. Works for some huge company based in New Jersey. I can’t
remember the name of it right now.”

“What does he
look like?”
Say Quasimodo. Say he at
least is going bald.

“I dunno. He
reminds me a little of Jay Hernandez. He’s half Mexican, half Puerto Rican.”

Damn. Struck out
so far. “How long have they been together?”

“I don’t know.
Almost two years?”

Where was his
mind when Carolina talked about this guy? She must have mentioned him if they’d
been together almost two years. Apparently, Rain hadn’t been paying attention when
she had. “And they’re getting married? They haven’t known each other long
enough. It takes years to build up the kind of bond that makes a marriage
work.”

Daphne raised
an eyebrow. “Oh? You’re the expert in relationships, huh?”

Rain, who’d
never had a serious girlfriend, laughed. He and Skylar had a running bet on
which one of them would get trapped into a relationship first. “Sorry. I didn’t
mean to interrogate you.”

She grinned.
“It’s okay.”

“I’m
just…curious,” he said, leaving out all the other things he felt.

“Done. Sent.”
She held up her phone. He glanced down at his as he heard the ping meaning he
had a new email.

“I just want to
make sure he’s good for her.”

“I guess that’s
another good reason for you to come to the wedding,” Daphne said.

Did he truly
have any good reasons for going to the wedding, though? Maybe he was being a
sore loser.
You had your chance
, he
thought. They’d graduated from college five years ago. Wow. Had it really been five?
In any case, if he hadn’t made up his mind in all that time, he deserved to
lose Carolina. Right?

He opened the
email and scanned the flight information, stalling for time. Fucking Manny.
What kind of name was that anyway?
Manny the engineer.
Ooh, he thought he was so great because he had a big fancy job with some big
fancy company engineering big fancy things?

How old are you, Rain? Twelve?
he
asked himself. Good question.

He and Daphne
sat at the restaurant and talked a while longer, but he found he was easily
distracted from their conversation.
Not that Daphne wasn’t
great company.
It was just that his mind and heart weren’t there at that
table. They were with Carolina. Thinking of all the times things could have
been different. All the chances he’d wasted.

Carolina had
sat him down for more than one talk about what they were to each other. He
remembered the last one—one of the last times he’d seen her. Her
beautiful eyes wet, looking at him sadly from under thick, dark lashes. Dark
hair framed her face.

She’d said, “I
love you, but this can’t go on forever. I wish I were enough for you.”

He’d thought he
still had time after that. Especially after he’d seen her a few more times since
then and he’d had fun. He’d thought they’d both had fun. But he’d been wrong.
She’d meant it that time. That was to be their last Big Talk. Unless.

After Daphne
and Rain had talked for a while, and the conversation was starting to die, Rain
said, “Well, it’s been fun, but I have to get going.”

She smiled.
“Yeah, it has. And me, too.”

They stood, and
he gave her a hug. “We’ll have to do this again soon.
Before
the wedding.
We should get together more,” he said. “I mean it.”

“Yeah. We
should.”

He realized he
was still holding her and hastily let go. They said their goodbyes, and he
walked back to his car. Man. Daphne really looked good these days. She’d been
wearing a baggy sweater over well-fitting jeans, but he could still tell there
was a body there. She hadn’t changed a bit over the years since they’d first
met. Well, if she had, she’d only gotten more beautiful.

#

Rain drove out
to his parents’ house in Vienna. Something smelled delicious, but he didn’t get
a chance to investigate right away. His mom attacked him immediately and talking
loudly in Thai, using his nickname. She wasn’t angry or anything—she was
just a very loud woman.
Very tiny in size, very loud in
volume.
His full name was Thammarak Buankrathok Foster—he had his
mother’s maiden name for his middle name. His Thai nickname, given to him by one
of his aunties when he was a baby, was Fohn, which translated to Rain. He chose
to go by Rain, but most of the time, his mom called him Fohn.

Rain responded
in Thai. His dad, who was self-conscious about speaking Thai, hardly ever did
it and was consequently bad at it. Dad could understand it perfectly well,
though. Most conversations in their house were in a combination of Thai and
English, with Rain and his dad supplying most of the English. Mom could
understand and speak English, but she preferred Thai.

Rain’s parents
couldn’t have been more different. They also couldn’t have been more in love. Dad
was tall and blond with hazel eyes. He was fair-skinned and didn’t tan well. Actually,
he didn’t tan at all. He burned. He turned into quite the lobster if he spent
too much time in the sun without sunblock.

Mom was
Thai—only one generation removed from the boat. She was short with long,
black hair and dark eyes. She had a smooth, flawless complexion, almond-shaped
eyes, and a wide face that was perfectly symmetrical. She didn’t have much in
the way of eyebrows, but no matter. All the parts of her face complimented each
other well. Rain looked a lot like his mother, but there were clearly elements
of his dad thrown in there as well.

“Your aunties
and uncles and cousins want to know when you’re coming to visit. Great-grandma Noo
harasses me all the time,” his mother said, speaking in rapid Thai.

Rain usually
tried to make it to Thailand a few times a year. He had some business contacts
there, and he loved visiting his crazy family as well. And especially eating
Great-grandma Noo’s cooking. He laughed. “I wasn’t planning on going any time
soon. Definitely not before the holidays.” He had some very important business
to attend to over the next couple of months. How important? Or disruptive to
how many lives rather? He hadn’t made a final decision on that yet.

“Well, Auntie Bua
says Uncle Fai has a business proposition for you.” He and his family usually
referred to each other by their nicknames.

Rain groaned.
“Another one?” Uncle Fai was hilarious, and Rain always had a good time hanging
out with him in Bangkok. He tried to stay away from business talk, though, when
he was around his uncle. The man was always coming up with some kind of get
rich quick scheme that would never work in a thousand years for a million
different reasons.

Rain followed
his nose to the kitchen as his mother talked.

“Yes. He says
he has set up a meeting with some man you have been trying to get to talk to
you. Akkaphan Panjamawat? He says something about this man looking for new business
opportunities. Your uncle brought one of his inventions to the man, and it
interested him.”

Rain stood
still in the middle of the kitchen. He’d been trying to talk to Panjamawat for
months and hadn’t been able to get him to so much as return a phone call. Now
his uncle had managed to set up a business meeting with him. Panjamawat was a
busy and elusive man. How in the world had Uncle Fai wrangled such an
opportunity for himself? “You’re kidding.”

“Uncle Fai
wants you there to advise him and to potentially be a partner in this
enterprise should anything come of all this.”

Rain couldn’t
believe it. “What’s this invention?”

“I don’t know.
It has something to do with cell phones. Your uncle wants you to call him.
He’ll tell you all about it.”

“Okay.” Rain
sniffed the air. “What are you cooking? It’s making me hungry.” He rubbed his
flat stomach. He’d had brunch only a few hours ago, but that smell had his
stomach rumbling again.

“Kaeng phanaeng.”

Rain grinned.
“All right.” Kaeng phaneang was a curry made with coconut milk. His mom’s was
much spicier than anything he could get at a restaurant. He knew she would load
him up with the leftovers, and he was looking forward to it.

“Are you going
to call your uncle tonight?” That tone of voice really meant, you’re calling
your uncle tonight. Because of the time difference, he couldn’t call at the
moment. It was five P.M. in Virginia, but it would be four in the morning in
Thailand.
 

“Sure. I’ll
call him before I go to bed.” He was anxious to find out what this invention
was. Panjamawat was interested in whatever it was. Rain definitely wanted to
know how in the world his uncle had gotten that meeting. Whatever he’d come up
with this time, it must have been one hell of a thing. That was a change. His
uncle’s inventions usually blew up in his face—sometimes literally.

That night,
Rain found out what Uncle Fai had done. He’d stumbled onto something huge while
doing research on another project of his. His uncle worked at a factory in
Bangkok but was something of a mad scientist in his spare time—but with
the materials that went into producing technological gadgets rather than
chemistry-based concoctions. What he’d come up with would change the mobile
phone industry in Thailand forever. It would spread globally, too. Everyone
would want in on this. It would make phones not only cheaper to produce but
more environmentally friendly.

Rain had to get
to Thailand as soon as possible. If everything worked out, this business
venture would not only help his family, but it would give Rain’s venture
capital firm the global reach they’d been trying to get. Not only that—it
would give Rain the foothold he’d been trying to get in the telecom industry
for years.

There was so
much work to do. Most importantly, they had to protect the intellectual
property. That was a messy thing to do internationally, but that didn’t mean it
couldn’t be done. He could get the law firm Skylar retained, Gibson and Grey,
to help out with that. Apparently, they had one of the top I.P. practice groups
in the world. He was pretty sure they had an office in Bangkok, too, which
would make things easier.

He would have
to call his two business partners and tell them he’d need to telecommute for a
while. He had email, Skype, the phone, and other ways to keep in touch. They’d
be fine with it. No, they would be better than fine with it. Thailand was
becoming a major player in the telecom business, and it was better than “fine”
to be at the forefront of this sort of business boom. This was the kind of
thing all three of them had been hoping for since they’d formed the business.
Finally.
A solid contact in Thailand.
And it had
potential to be so much more than that. That potential was named Akkaphan
Panjamawat. He was finally going to have the ear of one of Thailand’s most
successful businessmen.

He was getting
carried away.
First things first.
He had a phone call
to make.

“Hello?”
Daphne’s voice came across the line sweet and low.

“Hi. Hope I
didn’t wake you.”

“You didn’t.”
She sounded confused and with good reason. After all, they’d last talked only a
few hours ago. And it wasn’t like they talked all that often. He wanted that to
change, though.

“Something
important just came up. It’s work-related. The short version is, I have to take
a business trip to Thailand, and I don’t know when I’ll be able to come back.”

“Oh.” Was it
his imagination, or did she sound disappointed?

“I’m going to
be back in time for that wedding, though.” He was determined. Nothing in the
world would keep him from being in San Juan. “I’ll meet you at the Dulles
airport on December twenty-sixth for that flight even if I have to swim across several
oceans do it.”

She giggled.
He’d forgotten how much he loved it when she did that. It was different from
her usual laugh. Warmer. “Okay.”

“Don’t go
finding another wedding date and replace me,” he said.