Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Am I to blame for this?
As if I don’t have enough to worry about. A bride and groom who turn up late, telling me their lack of guests is “another story.” Well, I don’t want a story. I can’t afford for this wedding not to go ahead. I need it to be a success, and I need Trousseau, my company, to be responsible for that success. After watching my business inexplicably circle the drain of failure for months, this wedding is my final chance to save the thing I’ve put my heart and soul into.
I’ve had hundreds of satisfied clients over the years, and such joy and satisfaction knowing I played my part in their love stories. It’s been hard to understand how I went from a calendar booked out years in advance to clients suddenly unwilling to take my calls. But this wedding is my chance to put it all behind me. There’s just too much at stake for them to cancel!
My livelihood, my home, the means to improve my grandmother’s health.
Then, just like that, the universe presses Play, animation and action flooding the space.
“So you two have met?” Evie’s attention flicks between Fin and me.
“No.” I shake my head vigorously. This is the stuff of nightmares. Despite my denials, Fin answers otherwise.
“Yeah.” His gray eyes sparkle almost silver with amusement. “It’s Mila, right?”
My name on his lips sounds the way my orgasm felt.
No. No. Stop that, brain! And stop looking at him as though he still has his hand in your underwear.
Making a grasp for my necklace, I scissor the blue pendant back and forth. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember.” I drop the pendant like it’s hot because that sounds as though I make out with strangers in cupboards all the time!
“Huh.” His mouth curls provocatively, and I swear his taunting tone reverberates right through to the marrow of my bones. “Not even a little?”
There is nothing little about this man. Not even his pinkie fingers qualify. And he’s clearly not buying my response as my embarrassment suffers a case of secondhand cringe. Maybe I should just say I suffer from face blindness.
“I suppose you do look a bit familiar,” I admit, my shoulders hovering just under my ears.
“Could she mean generic?” Oliver unhelpfully puts in as he gestures Evie closer to show her something on his phone.
“Which part?” Fin asks, his voice pitched low.
“Pardon?”
“Which part of me is familiar?”
Seeing your fantasy in the flesh again is so disconcerting. Hearing him use that low and gravelly closet tone of his, even more so. As for which part of him I remember most, I’m not going to say, even if months later I’m still obsessed with his mouth. His pillowy, kissable mouth and the dirty things he whispered that lit up my insides like Christmas lights.
Except, I realize his mouth doesn’t look exactly the same.
“Were you, by any chance, at the Singh-Arthur wedding?” I ask overly loud. This is a red herring. I have no desire to evoke the actual event.
“Were you?”
“My eyes are up here,” I hiss, making a V with my fingers and pointing them at my face.
“Yeah, but you have a stain,” he says as his eyes dip again.
I die a little inside, then slap my hand to my chest like I’m about to swear allegiance to my own mortification. How awkward! How embarrassing! How about a sudden sinkhole swallow me!
“Sorry,” I say loudly again. “I just didn’t recognize you because of your . . .” I tap the side of my mouth as though I can’t find the word before spitting it out as though it tastes bad. “Mustache.”
“Some would call it a mustache and others an affront to womankind,” Evie says.
What she said.
If he’d had a mustache when he stepped into the coat closet four months ago, things might’ve ended very differently. But they would’ve begun the same way, my mind whispers. With his comfort and his kind words at a time I really needed them.
“You don’t like it?” He gives an easy smile, the kind that brings out the hint of a dimple. “I’ve grown quite attached to it myself.”
“Much like a parasite clings to a host,” Oliver mutters.
“It’s awful,” Evie adds. “And stop flirting with Mila. She’s onto you.”
“I’m not flirting. I’m reestablishing a connection.”
Oh, I don’t think so.
“She’s far too sensible for you,” Evie retorts, turning my way. “I expect you’ve crossed paths with Fin more than once in your professional life. I sometimes think he’s London’s most popular groomsman.”
“Always a groomsman, never a groom,” he says in a low, purring tone.
A hot shiver pulses through me.
“He’s popular, all right,” Oliver adds with a meaningful glance.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Fin frowns. Something tells me he doesn’t do that often.
“Just that we were going to ask Mila to make sure all the coat closets were locked, given we know how fond you are of those kinds of spaces,” Evie puts in.