Prelude to a Wedding Read Online Free PDF Page A

after college."
    "You majored in business?"
    "No. History. Probably the only history major
who never considered going on to law school." The sharp note was so
at odds with his usual tone that she wondered if she imagined it.
Especially when he continued easily, "But that might be because I
didn't intend to be a history major. I just liked history. A
quarter before graduation, I looked at my courses and figured I
lacked one class each to major in psych and history, and I liked
the history offering better that spring, so there I was—a history
major."
    Bette shook her head, thinking of her own
carefully considered selections, each a plotted step along the road
to owning her own business, each a piece in the foundation on which
to build her future.
    He took her gesture another way. "Go ahead
and shake your head. You probably already know what I
discovered—there aren't any want ads in the Sunday paper for
history grads." He shrugged. "That's where insurance came in."
    "And then Mama Artemis?" she prompted.
    He grinned. "I lucked into that. I'd fallen
into being sort of a troubleshooter for the insurance company,
getting appraisals for unusual stuff nobody else wanted to bother
with. Not the real antiques, but nostalgia items and some really
oddball collections. It was an excuse to get out of the
nine-to-five rut at the office, so I took courses, read a lot,
asked questions. A friend of a friend told Mama Artemis about me,
and she asked me to help. I was too stupid to know what I'd gotten
myself into until I stood waist-deep in one of the finest
collections in the country. It was worth a fortune." He gestured to
the surroundings. "More than enough to set up a successful
restaurant on the Near North Side."
    "So you helped Mama Artemis sell off some of
the collection to finance the restaurant?"
    "You mean as a dealer? No." His hands and
face had stiffened and his words were crisp. Bette contemplated
this new aspect of Paul Monroe with something more than surprise.
But just as suddenly he was his easy, amused self once more. "You
just ran smack-dab into my hobbyhorse. I don't think appraisers
should be dealers, and vice versa. If nothing else, somebody
telling you your Great-Aunt Gertie's vase is worth $22.50 when that
same person's in the market to buy it poses one hell of a conflict
of interest. Most folks who do both are honest, but why go dangling
temptation out there like a carrot?"
    "And Mama Artemis's inheritance was worth
considerably more than $22.50?"
    He grinned at her dryness. "Considerably
more. Even with a string of zeros. I tell you, I spent the first
few months scrambling around trying to figure out exactly how over
my head I was. By the end of it, Mama had her restaurant, I had
enough contacts to get out of insurance, a couple dozen collectors
and several museums had acquired rare finds and the people of
Chicago had the opportunity to enjoy some great cooking."
    Bette looked at Paul and considered how
different his approach to business—to life itself—was from hers. He
talked of drifting, luck, happenstance and scrambling. She lived by
planning, forethought, diligence and persevering.
    What bothered her was, despite all that, she
couldn't resist smiling back at him.
    Ardith's arrival made Bette jump a little at
the realization that she and Paul had been smiling foolishly at
each other. It must have been contagious, because Ardith wore the
same kind of smile as she set platters of steaming, aromatic food
on the table, fussed with their arrangement, then exhorted Paul and
Bette to enjoy their meal.
    They did. Both the food and the
conversation.
    Bette surprised herself. She seldom dived
into food like this—and never during a business meal. She found
herself using a business trick of drawing out her companion by
asking questions. But she knew the difference between obligatory
questions and a true desire to know. She'd never laughed as much as
she did at Paul's accounts of his hair-raising childhood exploits.
And