Wooing The Wedding Planner

When she fumbled with her keys, Byron smoothly took them from her hand and unlocked the private entrance. He ushered her inside. She led the way up the spiral stairs to the landing. Here she took the keys firmly in hand and thrust them into the lock. Her lips peeled back from her teeth as the pain in her hand shouted in red-hot abandon. Ouch. The deadbolt clicked. She pushed the door open, eyeing her current living quarters.

It was a small space. It had seemed a bit claustrophobic in the wake of the French Colonial that Richard’s grandmother had gifted to the two of them upon their engagement. However, the apartment above the tavern had become that place she ran to for reprieve, for consolation and escape.

She needed the trio now. She needed them like moscato.

“Is there a glass of that wine for me?” he asked as she took a step over the jamb.

She stopped. His hand pressed against the frame of the door. He’d erected a smile. “You drink moscato?” she asked.

“Is it pink?” he asked with a slight wince.

Her smile grew genuinely. Impossible, she thought, bewildered. “No.”

“Good.” He grinned. “If the guys caught me drinking the pink stuff, I’m not sure I’d ever live it down.”

She hid a laugh behind her lips. She sighed over it, over him. Then, without a word, she moved back against the open door. He gave a nod and brushed by her into her space. She took a moment, closing her eyes and letting his sweet, earthy scent of aged ambergris wash over her. It was the essence of calm, of strength.

Nodding to herself, she closed the door and made her way into the kitchen to pour two large glasses of wine.

* * *

“I NEVER THOUGHT I’d be back here again.”

Byron refilled the glasses on the coffee table. He sat back on Roxie’s purple velvet-upholstered couch. Or settee. It was way too fancy to be lumped as a couch. “Where’s here exactly?” He handed her one glass.

Roxie lifted it by the stem. With her feet bare and her legs folded next to her, she looked relaxed. Not defeated. The wine might have had something to do with that. It had brought her color back, made her eyes lazy. The lids were at half-mast as she laid her head against the headrest. She eyed the truffle in her hand. She’d already taken a bite and had been nursing the other half for some time. “Sitting here,” she explained, “eating bonbons, drinking myself into a stupor, rehashing a bad date.”

As she stuffed the rest into her mouth and reached for the tin on the coffee table, which held what remained of the exotic truffle collection they’d both foraged, Byron fought a smile. “It’s not that bad.” When she turned her head slowly to scrutinize him, he raised a shoulder. “I do it every other Friday.”

It had the desired effect—her lips turned up in a smile. She pressed her fingers over them and the truffle behind them. The slender line of her shoulders shook with a silent laugh. As she tipped the wine to her mouth, she said, “I highly doubt that.”

“Why? Guys don’t eat bonbons?”

“Guys eat bonbons,” Roxie asserted. “They just know them as megastuffed Oreos, honey buns and Cocoa Puffs.”

Byron chuckled. “I’m pretty sure the last time I ate Cocoa Puffs I was in tighty-whities.”

“But you have eaten them. Anyway, I’m willing to bet that no man who looks like—” she scanned his face closely before her eyes dipped over his torso, shying “—well, you...has ever had a date blow up in his face.”

Byron contemplated that. “I can’t say what happened with Bertie has ever happened to me, but I’ve had my share of bad dates.”

“Name one,” Roxie challenged. When he hesitated, she tilted her head. “Come on, let’s hear it. If only to make me feel less like a loser.”

“You’re anything but a loser, duchess.”

“I just keep picking losers?” she asked, brow arched. She sipped her wine. “I’m not sure that makes me feel any better.”

“All right.” Byron moved on the couch, bracing himself. “To make you feel better...”

“Please.”

“I threw up on a woman once,” he admitted.

“During a date?” Roxie asked, eyes round.

“Not just that.” He grimaced. “It was after the date.”

She gasped. “Oh, no. Not during—”

He downed the rest of his wine in answer.

“Wow, you’re right,” she said. “That is bad.”

He sat forward over his knees and set the glass on the table with a clack. “Ah, it turned out okay. She was a friend.”

“Not Adrian,” Roxie said, alarmed.

“No, not Adrian,” Byron said. “This was before I moved to Fairhope, back in Atlanta about—” he squinted, counting back “—four and a half years ago? And it was my first time...or my first attempt at intimacy since...” He forced the words out. “Since I lost her.”

“Your friend?”

He let out a breath, feeling some nerves and a disturbed feeling in the pit of his stomach. “No. My wife.”

She stared at him. Her larkspur eyes went round as bonbons. “You were married?” When he nodded, she asked, “How did I not know this?”

“I’m not sure a lot of people do,” he considered. “That was the draw of Fairhope and life on the coast.”

“To get away.” Roxie nodded her understanding. Her throat moved on a swallow. “How did it happen? Can you talk about it?”

“Sure,” he said, though he had to roll his shoulders back to cast off the ready pall. “Her name was Dani. Daniella Rosales. We met in college, freshman year. I saw her and...I was done.”

A light wavered cautiously to life in Roxie’s eyes. “Just like that?” she whispered.

“Just like that,” he agreed. “When I was younger, around fourteen, my center of gravity couldn’t keep up with my growth. I got clumsy. Really clumsy, and angry, too, because I was this big, goofy guy who couldn’t walk across a room without knocking something over. It took me years to work out the clumsy and level the resentment. Then I got to college, I saw Dani and I tripped over her into the fountain outside our residence hall.”

The light in Roxie’s eyes strengthened. “That might be the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I would’ve disagreed,” he informed her. “On campus tours, the guides were adamant that nobody touch the water in the fountain. Because it was said that if you did, you’d never find true love.”

“Did you prove them wrong?”

He grinned. “I was irate with myself—until Dani fished me out, led me back to her room and dried me off. You remember odd things through the years. I remember how her towels smelled. Not like laundry, but like that unknown thing that’d been missing. Only I didn’t know it was missing until I found it...or smelled it.” He rolled his eyes. “It’s dumb—”

“No,” Roxie said with a quick shake of her head. “It’s not dumb.”

“It’s cheesy.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a little cheesy. It’s the sort of thing I used to believe in. That I used to have. Or I think I had.” A touch of confusion crossed her face. She dismissed it with a sweep and offered him a rueful grin. “It’s nice, being reminded that it does happen. That it can be real.”