The Bachelor Takes a Bride

“Hoping to get home before my pizza’s cold.” And with that, she turned away.

“Wings up,” Rafe said, setting the take-out container on the ledge.

“Wait,” Marco called out to her.

She paused at the door.

“You forgot your wings.”

“I didn’t order any wings.”

“There was a message on your phone—from Tristyn. A dozen medium.”

She scrolled through the text conversation on her phone, frowned. He offered her the foam container.

“I didn’t pay for those.”

“Consider them an apology for reading your message.”

“You wouldn’t have to apologize if you hadn’t read my message,” she pointed out.

“And you’d be going home without the wings,” he countered.

She took the container from him, making sure that there was no contact between them in the transfer. “Thank you.”

“Marco,” he told her. “Marco Palermo.”

“Thank you, Marco.”

He smiled. “You’re welcome...”

“Jordyn,” she finally said, confirming the identification his sister-in-law had made as she moved toward the door.

He reached the handle before she did, pushed it open for her. “Enjoy your pizza and wings, Jordyn.”

“We always do,” she assured him.

He stood at the door and watched as she made her way back to her vehicle.

“Jordyn came back for her phone,” he told Gemma, when he turned and saw her standing at the counter with a take-out bag in hand.

“I caught the end of your conversation,” she admitted. “Actually, most of your conversation.”

His heart was so filled with happiness it was overflowing, and he couldn’t hold back the smile that curved his lips. “She’s the one—I’ve finally found her.”

His sister-in-law sighed. “Caro, why do you do this to yourself?”

“Maybe because I see how happy you and Tony are, and I want to know the same thing.”

“You will fall in love with the right woman at the right time, but if you keep throwing yourself headfirst over cliffs looking for it to happen, you’re only going to get hurt again.”

“There was a spark,” he insisted.

“It wasn’t a spark—it was a flame,” Gemma said. “You just crashed and burned, and you don’t even know it.”

He was disappointed by her response. He knew that she cared about him—she’d been part of his family for so many years he’d thought of her as a second sister even before she became his sister-in-law—so he didn’t understand why she was determined to burst his happiness bubble.

Or maybe he did. And maybe there was some foundation to her concern that he’d been trying too hard to find the right woman. Certainly, his recent relationship experience would substantiate her point.

But the alternative—to passively sit back and wait for his soul mate to land in his lap—was inconceivable to him. Sometimes destiny needed a helping hand, and he was more than willing to give it.

But first he had tiramisu to deliver.

Chapter Two (#ulink_627f5a09-6748-514f-89c0-5a7adaa12eda)

The rain had lessened to a drizzle by the time Jordyn got home to the Northbrook town house that she shared with her sister. Tristyn met her at the door, offering a towel in exchange for the food boxes so that Jordyn could dry off.

“Maybe the weather was an omen,” Jordyn said, kicking off her shoes. “As soon as I saw the forecast, I should have canceled the date and stayed home.”

“Or at least taken a jacket or umbrella,” her sister teased.

“Neither would have made this evening any less of a disaster.”

“Was it really that bad?” Tristyn asked, setting the food on the table.

Jordyn draped the towel over the back of her chair and picked up the glass of wine her sister had poured for her. “I don’t think there are words to adequately describe it.”

“What did he do?”

“Well, he opened the conversation by asking if I’d ever thought about changing my name.”

Tristyn frowned as she lifted a slice of pizza from the box. “Why would you want to change your name?”

“Because it’s misleading. Apparently when Carrie offered to set him up with me, Cody initially refused because he thought I was a guy.” And, he promised her in a mock deep voice accompanied by a leering grin, he was strictly and exclusively heterosexual. She shuddered at the memory.

“I get that sometimes, too, but never on a date.”

“Well, the criticism of my name wasn’t the worst of it—after that, even before I’d had a chance to peruse the wine list, Cody asked me what kind of birth control I used.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish I was.” She peeled a slice of pepperoni off of her pizza slice, popped it into her mouth.

“How did you respond to that?”

“I think my jaw hit the table, because he actually apologized for the bluntness of the question—not the question itself, just the delivery of it.”

Tristyn shook her head.