I grimaced, embarrassed to say it. “Valentine’s Day,” I said, barely audible.
“February fourteenth,” she said, all business.
“Yes,” I answered.
I couldn’t look away. Her eyes were on her tablet, giving me a chance to stare without her noticing. I couldn’t believe she was just a few feet away from me. How in the hell was I supposed to plan my wedding to another woman with her?
She looked up and caught me staring. There was a flash of heat between us. I felt like I had been zapped. Memories flooded my brain. Memories that had transformed into fantasies over the years. I blinked once, breaking the trance her dark eyes had put me in.
I needed to get my shit together. I was marrying someone else and I needed to keep the meeting professional. “What next?” I asked with a warm smile.
Chapter 4
Cherie
It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t a nightmare. I was actually sitting in Evan Daniels’s office. At first, it felt like one of those dreams where you get to work and realize you’re naked. It had taken several minutes for me to pair fantasy to reality and understand that he was truly in front of me. I was actually supposed to be planning Evan’s wedding to his lovely fiancée.
My brain was putting up a hell of a fight, along with my heart. The urge to flee had been strong. It was probably a good thing my legs had been paralyzed and I hadn’t been able to go anywhere. It saved me some serious embarrassment.
I looked at him while he fumbled around with a yellow pad. It was slightly comforting to see him thrown off by the encounter as well. His hair looked darker than I remembered. In high school, it had been more blond. Now it was more of a light brown or a dishwater blond. He still had the same chiseled features I remembered, except now they were more manly. His jawline was very defined, and the hint of facial hair shadowed his chin.
He was a man. He was definitely not the teen boy I remembered from fifteen years ago. While a lot had physically changed about him, including his voice, his blue eyes were the same. They were a deep blue framed by impossibly long, dark eyelashes that had always made my heart skip a beat when they were turned on me.
Like now. He was staring at me with those blue eyes from my past. The same eyes that haunted me while I slept and reminded me of what I would never have. He was marrying someone else. It didn’t surprise me. I wondered what marriage it was for him. Second? Third maybe?
“Valentine’s Day,” I repeated, finding it a little cliché, but it was a big day for weddings.
“Yes,” he said with an uncomfortable smile.
“Have you thought about colors or a theme? I’m guessing red?”
He looked down at his notes, a frown on his perfect mouth. “I don’t know about colors, but she said Luxury Love is the theme.”
I smiled, but inside, I was gagging. “Luxury Love, okay,” I said quickly, jotting it down on my notetaking app. “How many people will you be inviting?”
“Two hundred, conservatively,” he answered.
I nodded, pretending it was every day I planned a wedding for an ex. Not just any ex. The ex. “Do you have a venue you would like to use?”
“Uh,” he said again, looking down at his notes. “I don’t know.”
I looked up and smiled. “No worries. I’ll have to see what’s available. I’ll put together a list and you and your fiancée can choose one. It will need to be quick though. Most places book up a year, some three years, in advance.”
He grimaced. “I expected as much. A list would be good.”
“What about budget?” I asked, knowing it was probably a silly question, but billionaires were billionaires because they knew how to manage money.
“There is no budget,” he answered. “Spend whatever it takes.”
I nodded, making the note before looking around the spacious office. The wall of tinted windows behind him overlooked the city with the beach in the distance. I noticed a few paintings on the walls and imagined they were high-priced art. Everything in the office looked expensive. The man was dripping in wealth, which was very hard to put together with the man I had known.
“What happened to the Air Force?” I asked him, unable to hold back my curiosity any longer.
He grinned. “I was in the Air Force for a while. I loved the idea of flying, but being a pilot in the military is tough. There are about a million guys that want to do it. I did my time, and when it came to re-up, I decided the military life wasn’t for me.”
“You seemed pretty set on it back then,” I reminded him, the old hurt of being thrown over for the Air Force was still strong.
“I enjoyed my time in the Force. I did very well. I moved up through the ranks and was even accepted into the officer’s academy. I was on the right track, but I guess I kind of fell out of love with the idea of being a fighter pilot. I love flying, but I can do that as a civilian.”
I nodded, smiling as he talked about his interests. That was the same old Evan I remembered. He had always had his head in the clouds. Always been fascinated with planes and the stars and could never be held back. “And this?” I asked, making a sweeping motion with my arm. “When did you find the time to do this?”
He grinned. “Remember Carney’s class?”
I nodded. “Yes, the finance one.”
“We got that fake money to invest in the stock market, remember?”
I nodded again. “I do.”
“I liked it. I loved the rush, even if it was just pretend. While I was in the military, I did some investing. It wasn’t like I had to pay for much of anything else. I invested it, buying stocks and getting in on some hedge funds. A few guys from my unit and I put together a pool and invested in a real estate deal on a lark. We didn’t think it would ever turn into anything, but it did. We quadrupled our initial investments. That’s when I got the bug.”
I softly laughed. “You found a new way to get your adrenaline rush.”
He chuckled. “I guess I did. Once I had my first million in the bank, I decided I had found a new love and said goodbye to the Air Force and started my own firm. And here we are.”
“That’s a great story. You’ve done well. Good job.”
He shrugged. “I’ve come a long way since my days in Everglades City.”
“Yes. Obviously.”
He put the notepad down and leaned forward across the desk. He stared directly into my eyes. “I’ve never forgotten where I came from. I’ve never forgotten you or the time we spent together. I will never forget that.”
The way he was looking at me was making me feel flushed. I had the brief thought that the AC in his building must be out as well. Then I realized the AC was just fine. It was the heat between us. It was the sexual tension that was always there whenever I was near him. The electricity in the air was palpable.
He was dangerous. He made me feel things that had long ago been put away and locked in a tight little box with his name on it and stored in the back of my mind. That box was only opened in desperate times when I needed to remember what it felt like to be touched and loved by a man.
“You’re getting married,” I blurted out. “I’m here to help you plan your wedding. To another woman.”
He swallowed, nodding. “Yes. Amber.” He said her name like he had to remind himself of what it was.
I realized I couldn’t do it. There was no way I could work with him, side by side, and not feel what I felt in that moment. I didn’t even want to try and analyze what exactly that was, but I had no business thinking it about another woman’s fiancé. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” I told him.
“What?”
“This. Me working with you. I’ll refer you to another wedding planner.”
“No,” he blurted out. “I want it to be you.”
“Evan, I don’t think that’s a good idea. We’ve got history. I have to be professional, and in this case, you would be better with another wedding planner.”
He shook his head. “I’ll pay you a hundred-thousand dollars to do it.�
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My eyes nearly popped out of my head. “No! That’s ridiculous. Are you crazy!”
He shook his head. “No. I want the best. I need the best.”
“You don’t even know what I can do,” I retorted.
His gaze took on that heated look that was exactly why I wanted to quit. “I trust you. This will be good for you as well. There is going to be a lot of press there. It’s free publicity for your business. This is a good move.”
He was right. I needed the boost. I had to get out of my current office space and into one that was more upscale if I ever wanted to make the move into high-end weddings. “You’re right,” I agreed. “Thank you for the opportunity.”
“Thank you,” he said, relief in his voice.
I looked at him and could see he was totally out of his element. “I need to get some more information from you and we can go from there. Will your fiancée be joining us?”
“She’s in France. It’s just me for now.”
I nodded. “Okay. You said the theme was Luxury Love. What does that look like in your eyes?”
“I have no idea,” he said on a sigh.
I smiled. “Is this going to be an evening wedding?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“We will need to get invitations sent out right away,” I explained. “You’ll need to pick out the invitations, but of course that will require you having a venue. Maybe we should start with save the date cards.”
The man looked like he was listening to me speak in a foreign language that he didn’t understand. “Good plan.”
“Do you know how big of a wedding party you will have?” I asked.
“The party, like with cake and champagne?”
I bit back my laugh. “No, as in bridesmaids, groomsmen. Has she picked a dress?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
I blew out a breath and looked at the notes I had made. There was nothing clear. It was a lot of generals, which was very dangerous in my experience. Because even though the bride and groom didn’t think they knew what they wanted, they did. When I presented them with ideas, they were likely going to be wrong because I couldn’t see inside their little brains.
“I have some ideas. I’ll need a day or two to put together some proposals for you two to go over. Time is of the essence. If you or she have any specifics you want, I need to know now. I’ll need to get the cake ordered and hire a caterer. The venue is of utmost importance. Music? Do you want a live band? A DJ?”
He slowly shook his head. “I don’t know.”
I closed my eyes and counted to three. “All right, no worries,” I said, pasting on a bright smile. “We can do this.”
“Cherie, how are you?” he asked.
I let out a breath. “Evan, I’m good, but in order for us to work together and make this wedding happen, we need to leave the past where it is. It isn’t going to do either of us any good bringing it up. You’ve moved on. Let it go. This is a big day for you and I want it to be perfect for you and her.”
“You’re right. Thank you. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m kind of out of my element here. It’s all moving fast and I’m adrift. I’m glad it’s you guiding me along.”
I offered a smile, but inside, my heart was breaking. “I’ll be in touch.”
I got up and left the office before I burst into tears or said something I regretted. He was getting married. The man I had always thought would be mine was marrying someone else and I was helping him to do it. Fate had a very dark sense of humor.
I was going to make it the best wedding ever. It would be written about in Brides and Cosmo and every other big publication. I was going to use his wedding as my springboard into the world of top event planners. I would be losing a little piece of my heart in the process, but at least I wouldn’t be coming out completely empty-handed. I would focus the rest of my days on building a company that rivaled Sacks.
My name would be the one all the celebrities and wealthy elite thought of when they wanted to throw the best wedding, birthday party, or shindig in general. He had moved on and so would I.
Chapter 5
Evan
I stared at the closed office door. I was still a little shell-shocked. I couldn’t believe that after all the long years of wondering where she was and what she was up to, she’d breezed in like it was no big deal. I had stopped looking for her a long time ago. The first few years, I would occasionally do a little snooping, and then eventually, I just let it go.
I never let go of the memory, but I had made myself move on. She was the woman planning my wedding. How fucked up was that? Back when I had been young and dumb, I thought it would be her and I getting married and starting a family one day.
I wasn’t sure I could see her and not think about the good old days. Seeing her had unpeeled layers of protection I had put around my heart after she’d damn near broken me that summer. Was I strong enough to talk to her, work alongside her as I planned my wedding to Amber? Was it fair to Amber? Hell, I wasn’t sure it was fair to me.
I should have let her quit. That would have been the smart thing to do. I was playing with fire. It didn’t matter that it had been fifteen years—I still wanted her. That was dangerous. It was risky for me to spend any time with her. I was already falling back into old fantasies and memories that she played a starring role in.
I didn’t understand why she had such power over me. I had never been able to truly get over her. No matter how hard I tried, she was always the one I thought about when I imagined myself living out my dreams. It was like my brain had been programmed from very early on, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t delete her from the future I wanted.
I told myself Amber would make a great wife. She wasn’t ready for kids, but I figured we could revisit the situation later. We did have a good time together and I was confident I could learn to love her like I loved Cherie back in the day. I hoped I could. I wanted to feel like that again.
I leaned back in my chair, my head resting against the leather seatback as I let myself drift backward in time. Back to a time when I thought I had life figured out.
Cherie had been my everything. My world revolved around her. She was my sun and moon and I orbited around her. I remembered waking up first thing in the morning and thinking about her. When I went to bed at night, she was on my mind. Every little thing I did was either for her or about her.
I remembered the very moment I had been at home in bed, staring up at the ceiling in my room and deciding I didn’t want to go into the Air Force. It had been my dream since I had been a little boy and visited Pensacola with my school. The Air Force would own me. I wouldn’t get to spend my time with Cherie.
We had been inseparable in those days. We did everything together. We didn’t even have to ask what we were doing on the weekends because we knew whatever it was, we were going to be together. I couldn’t stand the thought of going into the Air Force and being away from her. We had plans for her to move close to base, but I knew there was a chance I could get stationed overseas. She said she’d wait for me, but I didn’t want to wait. I couldn’t be apart from her.
I thought back to the night I had set up a special picnic for us in our very own private spot. I had told her I had changed my mind about the Air Force and would look for a job. I wanted us to get married and start our life together. Her tears—of happiness, I was sure—told me I had made the right decision.
We’d made love that night like we had never done before. It was a consummation of our love and what we were willing to sacrifice to be together. I had been confident and absolutely sure staying with her was the right decision. I had snuck into bed in the wee hours of the morning with a smile on my face that I was convinced would never fade.
And then she dropped the bombshell on me that rocked my world.
Fifteen years earlier.
“Hey,” her voice had awoken me the morning after the most beautiful night of my life.
“Good m
orning, baby,” I drawled.
“Can you meet me at our spot?”
“Sure,” I said, smiling because I was looking forward to more of what we had shared the night before.
I quickly dressed in a pair of khaki shorts, pulled on a T-shirt that smelled clean, and slid on my shoes before grabbing the keys to the old truck I had saved up and paid for all on my own. When I got to our spot, Cherie was already there. She was staring out at nothing and I could see something was on her mind.
“What is it, baby?” I asked, wrapping my arms around her.
She pushed away from me. That should have been my first clue something was horribly wrong. Her eyes looked at me, and initially, I thought I saw regret.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she whispered.
“Do what?”
“Us. Me and you. We’re over.”
I blinked several times, trying to understand the words. “What?”
She shook her head. “It’s not going to work between us.”
“What do you mean? I’m staying here. We’ll be together.”
There were tears in her eyes. “No. I’m not staying. I’m going to Miami. I’m going to school there. I don’t want to try the distance thing. I’ll be busy with school. I won’t have time for a relationship.”
“No, we’ll make it work. I’ll move to Miami. We can get a little studio apartment. I’ll get a job and you go to school. I’ll take care of you.”
“Evan, it won’t work,” she insisted, the tears streaking down her cheeks.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked. “Why are you breaking both our hearts? I want to be with you. I’ll give up everything to be with you.”
She took a step away from me, angrily wiping at the tears on her cheeks. “No. It’s over Evan. We’re through. We had fun, but now it’s time to grow up. High school relationships never last. It’s better if we just end it now. There’s no point in wasting any more time together.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “Waste time? What the fuck do you mean waste time? We’re not wasting time. We love each other!”
Heart Breaker Page 3
