Wedding Party Collection: Once A Bridesmaid...: Here Comes the Bridesmaid / Falling for the Bridesmaid

FROM: Jonathan Jones

SUBJECT: Re:Re: Do not sleep with Leo Quartermaine

OH, MY FREAKING GOD, SUNNY!!!!!!!!

How do I know? For starters because every second word you’re writing is ‘Leo’!

He’s not the type to enjoy the ride then buddy up at the end. You know his parents were drug addicts, right? You know he basically dragged Caleb through that hell and into a proper life?

He’s a tough hombre, not a poncy investment banker, soulful embalmer or saucy hairdresser. This is not a man for you to play with.

Let’s talk tonight—10 p.m. your time. With video. No arguments.

Jon

Sunshine got to the Rump & Chop Grill fifteen minutes early. Although it was part of a pub, it had a separate entrance on a side road—which was locked.

She decided against knocking and inveigling her way inside to wait. That would have been her usual approach. But Leo already had one bunny-boiler on his tail, as well as being in a state about last night, so it was probably best not to look too enthusiastic.

Fortunately there was a café across the road, where she could wait and watch for him. Which would give her time to think.

Because Jon’s email had thrown her.

The thing with Leo was a simple sexual arrangement. No need for concern on anyone’s part.

So he’d had drug addict parents? And, no, of course she hadn’t known that! How could she have, unless someone had told her? And why did it make a difference anyway? Unless Leo was a drug addict himself—and given his obvious disgust over his ex-girlfriend’s coke habit that seemed unlikely.

Did Jon think the fact that Leo and Caleb had navigated a hellish childhood would put her off him? It clearly hadn’t put Jon off Caleb, so why the double standard? And Caleb had come through unscathed. He was a terrific guy—very different from his brother, of course—at least from what she’d seen during their internet chats. Funny and charming and out there. Not that Leo wasn’t also terrific, but he certainly didn’t have Caleb’s lightness of spirit.

But it was to Leo’s credit, wasn’t it, if he was the one who’d dragged them both out of the gutter? She admired him more, not less, because of it. Liked him more.

Okay—that could be a problem. She didn’t actually want to admire or like him more, because admiration and liking could lead to other things. And what she wanted was to keep things just as they were.

Hot man, in her bed, up to three more times. Finish.

As she would tell Jon, very firmly, tonight.

So! For now she would stop thinking about Leo’s horrible childhood and concentrate on the wedding reception. Not that Jon deserved to have her fussing over it after that email, but...well, she loved Jon. And she was going to make the bastard’s wedding reception perfect if it killed her.

While she sat in the café, disgruntled, sipping a coffee she didn’t even want, she scanned the checklist. Having the function at South was brilliant, but it did add an extra task: finding accommodation for people who wouldn’t want to drive back to Sydney. She figured they would need two options—cheap and cheerful, and sumptuous luxury. If she could get it sorted quickly, hotel booking details could be sent out with the invitations. She was sure Leo wouldn’t want to traipse through hotels with her, so she would shoot down the coast herself and just keep him in the loop via email.

Right. The next urgent thing on the list was what Leo was wearing.

At least it was urgent from her perspective, because his shoe design hinged on it. And so did her outfit.

She was dying to wear her new 1930s-style dress in platinum charmeuse. It looked almost molten. Hugging her curves—all right, a little dieting might be required—in an elegantly simple torso wrap before tumbling in an understated swirl to the ground. It even had a divine little train. And she could wear her adorable gunmetal satin peep-toes with the retro crystal buckles.

But there was no good glamming to the hilt if Leo was going to play it down. And so far, aside from his pristine chef’s whites, she hadn’t seen an inclination for dressing up. Just jeans, T-shirts, sweaters. Good shoes, but well-worn and casual.

She heard a roar, and a second later a motorbike—it had to be his—pulled up outside the restaurant. One economical swing of his leg and he was off, reefing his helmet from his head.

Her heart jumped into her throat and her stomach whooshed.

Nope.

This was not going to work.

She couldn’t think about clothes or shoes or hotels when he was still riding that damned bike. She was going to have talk to him about it. Again. And again and again. Until he got rid of it.

She straightened her spine and set her jaw. She was not to going to spend the next seven weeks dreading his death on the road! She stashed the wedding folder into her briefcase, threw some money on the table and exited the café.

* * *

Leo saw Sunshine the moment she stepped onto the footpath, his eyes snap-locking on to her from across the road. She looked good, as usual, wearing a winter green skirt suit that fitted her as snugly as the skin on a peach, and high-heeled chocolate-brown pumps.

‘Leo, I have to talk to you,’ she said.

He waited for that smacking kiss to land on his cheek.

But his cheek remained unsullied. She was clearly agitated—too agitated to bother with the kiss.

Well, good, he thought savagely. She should be agitated after last night. He certainly was.

‘Yep, that was the plan,’ Leo said, and unlocked the door.

Sunshine was practically humming with impatience as he relocked the door and escorted her to a table in the middle of the restaurant.

‘I’ll just check the kitchen and I’ll be back,’ he said, and almost smiled at the way her face pinched. Yeah, cool your jets, Sunshine Smart-Ass, because you are not in control here.

Not that that he was necessarily in control himself, but she didn’t have to know that he hadn’t been able to think straight since last night—let alone make a decision on her offer of three more pulse-ricocheting bouts of sex.

He was a man—ergo, it was an attractive proposition. But sex just for the sake of sex? Well, not to be arrogant, but he had his pick of scores of women if that was all he wanted. All right, the sex last night had been fairly spectacular, although hardly his most selfless performance, but it was still a commodity in abundant supply.

So, did he want more than sex from Sunshine?

Even as the question darted into his head he rejected it with a big hell no.

He didn’t like perky and he didn’t like breezy. Perky and breezy—AKA Sunshine Smart—were synonyms for negligent in his book. Choosing the shallows over the depths, wallowing in the past instead of confronting life head-on, the whole sex-only mantra. That kind of devil-may-care irresponsibility described his deadbeat parents, who’d not only offered up their bodies and any scrap of dignity for a quick score, but had been so hopeless they’d dropped dead of overdoses within days of each other, orphaning two sons.

Okay, the ‘poor little orphans’ bit was overcooked, because he and Caleb had stopped relying on them years before their deaths—but the principle remained.

So, no—he did not want more than sex from Sunshine.

And he didn’t need just sex from her either.

All he needed from cheery, perky, breezy, ditzy Sunshine Smart was a hassle-free seven weeks of wedding preparations, after which he would set his compass and sail on.

Pretty clear, then.