The Armstrong Assignment (A Janet Markham Bennett Cozy Thriller Book 1) by Diana Xarissa (books for 10th graders TXT) 📕

“Tony was part of the crowd for a while before we started dating. I don’t remember the first time we met,” Lucy said with a shrug.

“Tony, you must remember the first time you met Lucy,” Dixie said.

He frowned. “Lucy and I have several friends in common. I’m sure we were introduced at some party or something, but we’d known one another for some time before we began dating.”

“Did he propose in some terribly romantic way?” Dixie asked Lucy. “Surely you remember that?”

“Of course I remember that,” Lucy snapped. “It wasn’t very romantic, though. He just asked me in the middle of dinner one night. When I said yes, he gave me the ring and ordered a bottle of champagne.” She waved her left hand. The huge diamond caught the light and sparkled brilliantly.

“It’s a nice ring,” Dixie said. “My favorite of my engagement rings was from my second husband, but my last proposal was the most romantic one.”

“The man with the private island?” Janet asked, hoping she’d remembered Dixie’s complicated romantic history correctly.

Dixie nodded. “We didn’t have a typical courtship because he was already married, and I refused to have an affair with him. I actually really liked his wife. She was lovely and she deserved better.”

“You broke her heart,” Lucy said.

“I didn’t mean to hurt her. I flirted with her husband, but I flirt with everyone. I didn’t expect him to take me seriously, but when he did, I told him that I didn’t sleep with married men, or rather, I only sleep with married men who are married to me, that is. I thought that would be the end of that, but he wasn’t deterred.”

“You could have left,” Lucy suggested.

Dixie laughed. “But I was having so much fun. It’s a little slice of paradise there. You’ve been there.”

Lucy nodded. “It is a magical place where the real world can start to feel unimportant.”

“Exactly. I stopped caring about the rest of the world and just got lost in being spoiled twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It was intoxicating,” Dixie replied.

“How did he propose, then?” Janet had to ask.

“Sweets?” the waiter asked as he walked back into the room. He handed Janet a menu written in English before giving the others menus in French. Janet quickly read through the options and everyone ordered. The waiter cleared away a few of the empty plates and then left the room.

“You were going to tell Janet about your last proposal,” Lucy reminded Dixie as the door shut behind the man.

“I still hadn’t slept with him, but he’d sent his wife back to the States,” Dixie replied. “Then he threw out all of his other guests so that it was just the two of us staying there. We had dinner together, with champagne, and then he took me for a helicopter ride over the island. He had ‘Will You Marry Me’ spelled out in rocks on the beach below us and, as we flew over it, he pulled out a ring.”

“That’s very romantic,” Janet said.

“I might not have said yes otherwise,” Dixie admitted. “I wasn’t certain how I felt about him, but I managed to convince myself that I was in love. As I said earlier, I didn’t make it down the aisle, though.”

“Did your husband propose in some wildly romantic way?” Lucy asked Janet.

She hesitated and then shook her head. “He really just asked,” she replied. “That was romantic enough for me, though.”

“That’s exactly what I did,” Bobby said. “I just asked. I only did it once, and it didn’t take me long to realise that I’d made a huge mistake, but I still tried to make it work.”

“You and Mom were only married for six months,” Lucy said flatly.

“Which was five and a half months longer than I wanted to be married to her,” Bobby replied. “I discovered on our honeymoon that your mother and I weren’t at all compatible, but I did my best to make it work anyway.”

“For six months,” Lucy muttered.

“They were the longest six months of my life,” Bobby told her. “The only good thing that came out of those months was you.”

“And I was born eight months after the marriage ended, so you and mom must have had some good times towards the end of the six months,” Lucy suggested.

Bobby shrugged. “The only place we got along was in the bedroom.”

“Theodore, have you ever been married or engaged?” Janet asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence that followed Bobby’s words.

He shook his head. “I’m quite happy on my own. My career is more important to me than anything else right now.”

“Neil, do you want to tell Janet about your marriage?” Dixie asked.

Neil flushed and then shook his head. “I don’t believe my private life is any of her business.”

Dixie laughed. “Ten years ago, your private life was everyone’s business.”

“It’s ancient history,” Neil replied. “Where is dessert?”

“Neil’s engagement, marriage, and subsequent divorce filled the American gossip magazines for a few weeks around ten years ago,” Dixie told Janet. “Not because Neil was anyone important, but because of who he married.”

Neil stood up. “I’m going to go and find the waiter,” he said, clearly angry.

He took a few steps towards the door, stopping when it suddenly opened and the waiter walked back in carrying a tray full of delicious-looking puddings. As the waiter began putting plates on the table, Neil sat back down.

“Wonderful,” Janet sighed over her chocolate mousse.

“What shall we do this afternoon?” Bobby asked.

“You need to rest back at the hotel,” Theodore told him. “We’re meeting the nurse there soon.”

Bobby nodded. “I’m fine, though. We have more business to discuss, and I