Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 69266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
I met his gaze. “Yeah, I do.”
Campbell nodded. “Good. That’s the right answer.”
He held his hand out to me. I clapped mine into his, and he helped me to my feet, pulling me into a hug.
“I have to fix this.”
“Yeah, you do because if you leave my sister broken, then I’ll actually have to throw that punch.”
I laughed. “That seems fair.”
“All right, what’s the plan?”
And that was when it all materialized before me. I knew exactly what to do. Exactly how to win her heart one more time.
30
Nora
“What the hell is this?” Hollin asked.
I passed him the paperwork. He stared down at it and back up at me. Piper was seated next to him. She craned her neck to look at the paper, and her eyebrows shot up.
“Nora!” Piper said in surprise.
“My two-week notice.”
“You’re quitting?” Hollin asked in dismay. “What? What for?”
I handed him a second piece of paper. “This is why.”
Hollin snatched it out of my hand and stared down at it. His eyes got huge. “Holy shit, Nora!”
“Oh my God, this was what Eve was so excited about the other night!” Piper cried. “She wouldn’t tell us until you said so.”
“Yeah. Eve was there when I got the call. It’s a contract to work for the Kensingtons as a wedding planner for English and Court’s wedding.”
“A celebrity wedding,” Hollin said softly. “That’s what you wanted.”
I’d accepted the offer from English and signed the contract the next day. This one wedding was two-thirds of my entire salary for the year, working twenty-six weddings or more a year. And instead, I could just work with this one. But I’d need to be in New York, and I couldn’t do that and keep my job here full-time.
I nodded. “Seemed unlikely to happen when I hadn’t been in the industry for longer, but I got lucky when we were in New York. I would be an idiot to turn this down.”
“Be happy for her!” Piper said, smacking Hollin on the arm.
He laughed and rose to his feet. He pulled me into a hug. “I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks. So, we’ll need to bring on another planner. I can shift a lot to Tessi, but I was doing the work of three people—”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Hollin said. He held his hand up. “No.”
“No, what?”
He took my two-week notice in his hands and tore it in half. My eyes widened, and I gaped at my older brother.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Hollin!” Piper said.
“You don’t have to quit. The office is still yours. You can do as much or as little as you want here. Hell, make your celebrity dreams come true and use the office as headquarters. We have plenty of space.”
“What? Seriously?”
“Of course. You’re my sister. You can give all the weddings up if you want. We’ll hire someone else. We’ll bring Tessi up to speed. Whatever you want, but I won’t accept this.” He held the torn paper back to me.
I looked at him in shock, and Piper just shook her head.
“You could have warned her,” Piper said with a sigh. She came to her feet and drew me into a hug. “I’m so happy for you, whether you stay in Lubbock and have your base of operations here or move to New York or whatever you do. Proud of you.”
“Me too,” Hollin said.
Tears came to my eyes, and finally, they were happy tears. No more crying over boys. No more crying for broken hearts. I didn’t know what was in store for me, but at least I was moving in the direction of my dream job. It was worth it, even with only one big wedding booked, to see what I could do out there. To see how far I could take it. Because I had big dreams, too, and there was a whole wide world out there to make them come true.
“Okay, should I walk you through it one more time?” I asked.
Tessi looked up at me with a blank expression on her face.
“What?” I asked with a laugh. “It’s not as bad as it seems.”
“I went from ten weddings this summer to eighteen, Nora. It’s terrifying.”
“You’re not going to do them all on your own. We’re bringing someone else on full-time to handle the bulk of the work. She’ll take the twelve other weddings that I had on my docket and assist you with the eight larger weddings.”
“Right. Right,” Tessi said with wide eyes.
“I’m still going to be here,” I reminded her. “I have six weddings on my plate.”
Just not the twenty-six weddings I’d had on my plate from now until October. Which was absurd anyway now that I looked at it. But it had been my job, and I was the best at it.
“I know,” she said on a long exhale. “And I’m happy for you. You deserve it. Just nervous. I was only brought on full-time last month.”