Charm

"A pleasure to meet you, Josh. Congratulations on the wedding! I'm honored to be here."

A strawberry blonde with soft curls and a knee-length white eyelet dress walked up to them. Stella had pegged her as the bride as soon as she'd walked into the room—who else would wear white to a rehearsal dinner? At her approach, Stella moved closer to Mike. He picked up his drink and sipped it, but she knew he noticed, too, because he slid his arm around her waist. Damn, there was that tingle again.

"Mike, is this Stella? Stella, I'm Molly. It's so nice to meet you."

Molly gave her a huge smile that felt genuine, and not for the first time, Stella wondered what the whole story was between the Molly and Mike breakup. Did Josh and Molly feel guilty for what they'd done to Mike? Did they ask him to be in the wedding to assuage their guilt?

She wasn't going to get an answer to that question right now (if ever), so her job was just to stand here next to Mike and turn on the charm. Luckily, she worked in politics; "charm" was her middle name.

Stella increased the wattage of her smile by at least fifty percent.