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

Her boring living room irked him, because it shouldn’t be like that. Not that her décor was any of his business. And the fact that he could be bothered to think of her apartment irking him irked him too.

Her pink bedroom irked him. All right, it didn’t—because it was kind of amazing. But it should irk him, and the fact that it didn’t irk him irked him.

Her propensity to kiss and touch and pet him irked him. And it had irked him even more when she hadn’t kissed him hello at the restaurant.

Her four-times maximum irked him. And the fact that he’d refused to accept that they were stopping at two irked him.

Two times. Two. Not three, not four—two! Her terms. Everything on her terms, right from the moment she’d ambushed him on the couch.

Well, he’d picked her as a wily little dictator from Day One. But she was not going to dictate to Leo Quartermaine. He would have her as many damned times as he wanted to have her.

He punched his pillow again. Hard.

SEVEN (#ub12fc214-ceec-54b8-9a5a-9b7c1a95f0c6)

TO: Leo Quartermaine

FROM: Sunshine Smart

SUBJECT: Wedding update

Hi Leo

I’m attaching a photo of my dress. If you can send me one of your suit and tie—I’m assuming a tie?—I’ll know if this is okay or if I have to go back to the drawing board. And I can get your shoe design finished too.

So, the shoes. You’ll need three fittings—twenty mins each time—and you can schedule these to suit yourself as I won’t be needed. I’m attaching Seb’s business card—Seb is the shoemaker—and once you’ve approved my design all you need to do is call him.

And, trust me, once you’ve had custom-made shoes you’ll never go back. Which might not be good, now I think of it, because they’re hellishly expensive (not these particular shoes, of course, because it’s a special deal for me, as well as being a present).

The other attachment is of some floral arrangements for the restaurant. I think the all-white ones, so as not to distract from the view. What do you think?

I’m going to scoot down the coast on Sunday to check out some hotel options for guests who want to stay overnight. I know you’re super-busy so I can handle this and email all the info to you.

And then we need to confirm the music—Kate is amazing—when you have a minute.

Hope all is well.

Sunshine

Oh, no, Sunshine Smart-Ass, you are not going down the coast without me.

That was the first thought to leap to Leo’s mind after he read the email.

The second was that she had a bloody nerve adding the ‘Hope all is well’, because she had to know all was not well. Not by a country mile was all ‘well’. ‘All’ wouldn’t be ‘well’ until he had her exactly where he wanted her.

A sudden image of her naked, in his arms, had him erect and almost groaning. Even though that was not what he’d meant. What he’d meant was on her knees and—

Argh. Another image.

Figuratively speaking on her knees, not physically.

But—nope, the image wouldn’t budge.

He took a steadying breath and forced himself to open Sunshine’s attachment, hoping it wouldn’t be her in the damned dress—which, of course, it was. Looking very hot. And, of course, she had her foot stuck out so he could see her amazingly sexy shoes.

And, since he knew he had to see her in the flesh in that dress, he would up the ante on his suit so that he matched the formality—and send her the damned photo so he could get his shoe design.

And he would tell her that he would most definitely meet her at South on Sunday, when they would discuss flowers and confirm music and go and see the hotels together.

Ha!

Hope all is well.

Bloody, bloody nerve.

* * *

Sunshine, who had laboured long and hard over the wording of her email to Leo to give it just the right sense of moving-on friendliness, opened Leo’s reply with some trepidation.

She wasn’t sure what to expect—but the three terse lines certainly hadn’t been laboured over.

Meet you at South at two p.m. Sunday. Will confirm everything then. Suit pic attached.

So! She guessed she’d better start working on getting rid of the horrible fluttery feeling in her stomach before Sunday. Surely she could be her normal carefree self in four days!

Cautiously she opened the attachment he’d sent.

And—oh—flutter, flutter, flutter. And he wasn’t even in the photo!

The suit, photographed on a dummy so she got the full effect, was in a beautiful mid-grey. Three pieces, including a waistcoat, which she adored. The pants were narrow and cuffed. The two-button jacket was ultra-contemporary, but also sexily conservative. A white shirt, a tie in a fine black, silver and white check, and a purple and silver pocket square shoved insouciantly into the left breast pocket.

That suit, his physique, his dourly handsome face, his hair... He would have all the female guests drooling over him.

Maybe she shouldn’t have made him grow his hair... And where did that unworthy thought come from? If three centimetres of hair snares him a new bed partner—good!

Well, every woman might be drooling, but only one woman could design his shoes. All right, that sounded incredibly lame. But so what?

She was going to do the design right now. And give it to him on Sunday. And he was going to love—not like, but love—his shoes, dammit!

* * *

The motorbike was in pole position when Sunshine pulled up outside South. He couldn’t have made it more visible if he’d had it on a dais under a spotlight.

She knew right then that he would be yanking her chain all day. Stealing her sanity!

Her stomach, which had finally started to settle into a relatively stable buzz, started rioting again. She sat in her car, taking some deep breaths and giving herself a stern talking-to: he was not a teenage hothead and he would not kill himself; she didn’t care if he did kill himself; she’d kill him if he didn’t get rid of the bike. And so on.

Not the most intelligent conversation she’d ever had with herself. And completely ineffectual, because her stomach was still going crazy.