One of the reasons he knew he wanted to marry Sam was the pure fact that he would do anything she wanted. He knew it in his heart. There wasn’t much she could ask him that he thought he would deny her. That hadn’t been the case with other women in his life, and he was certain Sam was the one because of this.
“Where should I start, Madame Holt?” Drake said in a thick British accent.
“I need my backside washed down. Please start there,” Sam teased in her own version of a British accent.
Sam was happier than Drake could remember seeing her, and he loved watching her smile and be carefree. For a while he would have sworn that Sam didn’t know how to have fun at all, but he saw her happy after his proposal and really since they had started dating, so he knew he was doing something right.
He finished washing her off, and they both enjoyed the warm shower as it beat down on their bodies. Drake was exhausted, though, and he felt himself starting to fall asleep after only a few minutes. All the excitement over the proposal and the dinner had him totally done for the day, and he needed to climb into bed and get some sleep.
Drake suspected that the next few weeks were going to be pretty tiresome, but if he played his cards right, he could make all of Sam’s dreams come true. As they both climbed out of the shower and dried off, Drake’s mind swarmed with thoughts of how to plan a wedding at such short notice. He felt the anxiety as it welled up in his body. He really had no idea what was needed to plan a wedding and didn’t know what Sam wanted either. They had to hire a wedding planner the next day, and then Drake would have to secretly tell her when the wedding really was.
He suspected that any wedding planner who was willing to accept a wedding that would happen in two months might be a little shocked if he wanted it to really happen in two weeks. But Drake knew that most people could be motivated greatly by money, and if he paid them enough, time wouldn’t be an issue at all.
Money would be no problem for Drake, and he was willing to pay anything that it took to make the wedding absolutely perfect. But he still needed some help. Drake needed someone who could help him in the planning and who knew Sam enough that they could make some of the decisions when Drake didn’t know what to do.
Drake was going to have to contact Scarlett in the morning and talk to her. Samantha and Scarlett had been best friends since the week with all the women in the house. It was an odd friendship since Drake had technically dated Scarlett, but since they hadn’t slept together, both of the women seemed to move forward without any issues.
Sam knew that Scarlett had her best interests at heart, and Sam had been looking out for Scarlett as well. Drake hoped that Scarlett would agree to help with the wedding planning and that she would want to be part of the whole thing.
Chapter 5
“So, let me get this straight,” Scarlett started to say as she sat at breakfast with Drake. “You proposed without even giving me the slightest of hints, and now you want to get married in less than a month.”
“Actually, in two weeks, but yes,” Drake said as he calmly drank his coffee.
“You are batshit crazy!”
“Is that a yes?” Drake laughed.
Scarlett was one of the best public relations people in the country, and her new Los Angeles firm had already been buzzing in the newspapers. She was busier than both Drake and Sam combined, but that was how she liked it, and Drake knew that. He wouldn’t have asked anyone else for help; Scarlett was the one who knew Sam best, and she would be the one who could talk with Sam and get details out of her when they needed them.
“Is she going to be alright with this?” Scarlett asked, getting serious for a moment.
“She said she wanted to do it fast. I think she’s going to love it. Of course, what do I know, though; I’m just a guy. That’s why I’m asking you for help. We are going to meet with a couple wedding planners this afternoon, and hopefully will find one willing to work at short notice.”
Scarlett made a stressed face at Drake as she started to rummage through her purse. Something he had said wasn’t making her happy at all, and he sat there waiting to see what she would pull out of her purse.
“Call him,” Scarlett said as she handed over a business card. “He owes me a favor; tell him I sent you.”
“Colin Firm?” Drake said with a chuckle. “He sounds like a porn star.”
“I think he used to be,” Scarlett said with a serious face. “But he can plan a party quickly, and Samantha will love him.”
Drake looked at the card and then back at Scarlett. He wasn’t sure he wanted a former porn star planning his wedding, but if Scarlett trusted him, then Drake was going to trust him as well.
“Can you call him and fill him in on our little secret? When I come to visit him with Sam, I’ll say it’s two months away, but it’s really two weekends away.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“Oh, and I need a reason to have a party that night. I don’t want anyone accidently telling Sam it’s a wedding, so I was thinking we could call it an engagement party. That way we could ask Sam more questions about what she might like without throwing her off too much.”
“Yeah, we can tell the guests it’s an engagement party. Is there anyone else you want to tell the truth to?”
Drake had to think about it for a moment. He didn’t want too many people to know what was going on, or the secret would get out. Instead, he thought almost everyone should be kept in the dark, including Robert and Sam’s family. Even though they had suggested the early wedding, Drake thought it would be great to surprise them with the wedding when they weren’t expecting it.
“Nope. Just you, me and the wedding planner,” Drake answered with a huge smile.
“Wow, this takes a lot of balls. She’s either going to love you forever or leave you,” Scarlett said with a shrug of the shoulders.
Drake obviously hoped Sam would love him forever, and that was why they were getting married. Sam had all but agreed to the early wedding when they were in bed the night before. Drake felt confident if he pulled off the wedding details, that Sam was going to love the idea.
“We do have one major problem, though,” Drake suddenly thought out loud. “The dress. We can’t just have one there for her. What if she doesn’t like it? What if it doesn’t fit?”
Scarlett thought for a moment and then decided that she would have to handle the dress part of the plan herself. There was no way she was going to leave that in the hands of Drake or the wedding planner. Scarlett knew clothes, and she knew her friend, Samantha, very well. She thought she would be able to find the perfect dress for her, but the problem was going to be getting a dress tailored to fit her.
“I’ll handle the dress situation; you and the wedding planner deal with the rest of things.”
Drake instantly felt relieved when Scarlett offered to be in charge of the dress. It had been his biggest worry, and with Scarlett in charge of it, he didn’t feel like he would have to worry about it at all.
“What else am I forgetting?” Drake asked as he flipped through some notes he had written down in his phone.
“I think we have enough for now; let’s get started, and we will keep in touch throughout the week,” Scarlett said. “I’ve got to get back to work.”
Drake knew Scarlett had been busy since she opened her L.A. office. Every time he and Sam had stopped by to see her at work, the office was packed with people. Scarlett had successfully remodeled the building, hired staff, and acquired a full load of clients in only a few short months. She was certainly an amazing woman; Drake couldn’t deny that.
“Alright, I’ll let you get back to building your empire. Thank you so much for helping me.”
“Oh, I’m doing it for Sam, not you,” Scarlett said with a wink.
The mischievous look on Scarlett’s face brought Drake back to the night he made his final decision after the women had spent the whole week at his home. Sam was angry with him and had gone right up to Scarlett and kissed her. He could s
till feel the gut-wrenching pain of jealousy when the two women looked like they were enjoying each other’s company more than Drake’s.
That whole week had been a series of events that Drake knew he would never forget. Not only had it given him the clarity to choose Samantha, it convinced Sam that she wanted to give a relationship with Drake a try. No matter what else happened, the week was worth it purely because of the outcome that he had obtained.
Out of all the women who had been at the house, Scarlett was the only one that Sam and Drake kept in close contact with. But they had talked with a couple of the other women since they left as well. Lauren and Scarlett were friends, and Scarlett had started to work with Lauren as a client. Lauren was one of her first L.A. clients.
Emily moved to Los Angeles and was working from a small apartment on the beach; she and Allison were very close friends and hung out often. Drake had even seen a tabloid story that said the two women were a couple, but he didn’t believe it at all.
Sometimes Drake forgot that he had slept with the women and just looked at them as friends. He had talked with Sam about the women and wanted to know if it made her uncomfortable to continue to be friends with them, but she insisted that it didn’t bother her. Sam was an amazing woman, and Drake was lucky to have her.
“Thank you so much for your help, Scarlett. I don’t care who you’re doing it for. I really appreciate you.”
Drake gave Scarlett a hug and sent her on her way so he could go through his notes and continue the planning process. He had pulled a list of things to do off a wedding planning site and was checking them off on his phone as he got started on each necessary item.
He really had no idea if he was going to be able to pull off a surprise wedding, but there was a part of him that knew he wouldn’t fail. Drake had spent his life mastering the art of completing impossible tasks; he certainly wasn’t going to let a wedding deadline be the one thing that he didn’t master.
After getting himself organized, he called the wedding planner that Scarlett had suggested. Luckily, she had already called him, and he was prepared to talk with Drake about the short deadline.
“I’m going to have to charge you extra for the rush deadline. It means I’ll have to stop all work on my other clients’ events,” Colin Firm said to Drake.
Drake had a seriously difficult time keeping a straight face every time he thought of the man’s name. He couldn’t help wondering if it was his real name or if he was using his porn name in the hopes of getting more clients from the novelty of it all.
“My soon-to-be wife is going to want to meet you. Can you come to the Starbucks on Twelfth Street around two this afternoon to meet her?”
“Yes, I can make that happen. I’ll have a ton of questions for her.”
“Remember, she thinks the wedding isn’t happening for two months. We will tell her the event in two weeks is our engagement party,” Drake said, starting to get a little nervous.
“No worries; I can plan an engagement party and a wedding,” Colin said.
Drake rolled his eyes as he took a deep breath and prepared to explain everything again to the wedding planner. He really didn’t have time for this.
“No, just a wedding,” Drake said curtly.
“Yes, but she is going to want to plan an engagement party and a wedding. I’ll need to work with her on both, even though they will be the same thing.”
Drake understood what Colin was getting at but wasn’t sure Colin really understood that there wasn’t going to be an actual engagement party. But Drake was exhausted and couldn’t stand the idea of trying to go through the whole thing again. He decided he would send Colin an email later in the evening after he and Sam had officially hired the wedding planner.
“Okay, I’ll see you at two this afternoon. Please be on time; it’s one of Samantha’s pet peeves, and I won’t be able to convince her to hire you if you’re late.”
“I’ll be there,” Colin said and then hung up the phone.
Drake didn’t feel super confident in Colin, but if Scarlett recommended him, he had to be good at his job. Plus, Drake didn’t think many other planners would be willing to give up their other clients for two whole weeks while they worked on his wedding; so he didn’t have many choices besides Colin.
The wedding was going to be there before he knew it, and Drake couldn’t imagine he would get much sleep between then and the big day. His mind was already swirling with information on what he needed to get done and what order everything had to take.
For a man who had never planned a wedding, Drake was getting nervous about everything he had to do. He was involved more than any man he knew and wasn’t all that sure it was a good thing. He desperately hoped he didn’t mess something up in the process of the planning. His worst nightmare was that he would forget some essential item that Sam couldn’t get married without.
He took a few deep breaths as he prepared for the next couple of weeks ahead. Drake was in for a marathon of wedding planning that was going to be utterly exhausting. But in the end, it would mean a wife for him and the happily ever after fairy tale ending to his love affair with Samantha.
Chapter 6
The meeting with Colin went off without a hitch, and for a good ten days or so, Samantha and Drake had done nothing except plan for their wedding. Sam wasn’t in nearly as much of a hurry to make decisions about things as Drake, but that was obviously because she thought the wedding was still weeks away.
Drake, on the other hand, knew that the wedding was right around the corner, and he couldn’t stop worrying about every little detail. One night, he stayed up all night long looking up different kinds of white flowers and which ones would be best for their wedding. Sam had only decided on white flowers and hadn’t decided on the type, so Drake and Colin had to make the decision themselves.
Colin had turned out to be everything that Scarlett had indicated he would be. He was on time, courteous, and knew what he was doing. Drake knew that he would do the best he possibly could, given the existing circumstances. The problem was, Drake needed to constantly provide more information and make so many choices that he had started to second guess everything that came out of his mouth.
He even started to second guess the idea of actually having the wedding as a surprise. Drake knew that Sam was confident she wanted to get married and knew that she was alright with doing it quickly, but he wasn’t sure she was going to be alright with not having a say in all the details of the wedding.
Samantha liked to be in charge, and Drake knew it. Even though she had been his assistant for many years, she still was in charge of almost every aspect of Drake’s work schedule. Any time he would add an event or forget to tell her about something, he could tell that it really bothered Sam.
So how was she going to handle Drake planning their entire wedding without her? He didn’t know, he could only hope that she appreciated all the work that had gone into it and loved him enough to still walk down the aisle with him.
Drake’s phone started to ring, and he fumbled with getting it out of his pocket while he was in his office. He didn’t want Sam to hear him talking on the phone and making arrangements but couldn’t risk missing calls, so he had his ringer turned on for the last few days.
“Are we invited?” Drake heard a chipper female voice ask.
“Who are we?” Drake teased, although he knew that it was Emily on the phone.
“It’s Emily and Allison.”
“Oh, no, you’re not invited, but Allison is,” Drake said as he tried to hold back a laugh.
The phone went silent, and Drake instantly felt bad. He was just joking with Emily; of course, she and Allison could come to the wedding. Drake was also inviting all the other women, although he only expected Scarlett and Lauren to agree to come.
“I’m kidding, Emily. Of course you can come.”
“Oh, Jesus, stop scaring me like that,” Emily said. “I’m really excited for you guys; I know Allison is too. We are so excited to come to
your engagement party.”
Suddenly Drake realized that he was talking about the wedding, and Emily was talking about coming to an engagement party. He had almost said something about the wedding and ruined the whole surprise. It would have been horrible if after getting worried someone else would spill the beans; Drake ended up doing it himself.
“Okay, I’ve got to run. I’ll see you at the party this weekend,” Drake said as he got off the phone.
Drake was thrown off by his near slip and had to regroup his thoughts. But he still had so much planning to finish off. The biggest issue was still the dress. Scarlett was being hush-hush about the whole thing, and it was making Drake really nervous. He just wanted to know that the dress had been purchased and needed to know how they would be sure it fit Samantha. He needed to talk to Scarlett.
“How’s the dress hunt?” Drake said to Scarlett as soon as she answered her phone.
“It’s going fine; don’t worry about it,” Scarlett said.
She sounded carefree and unworried, and Drake couldn’t stand it at all. He had to know the details or he was going to go mad with worry. Samantha had to have the perfect dress; Drake wasn’t going to settle for anything else than perfection for her.
“You need to tell me more; I’m going mad worrying about this.”
“Okay, well you know all those dresses that Sam gives to Allison’s pageant charity?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I had Allison bring me a couple of them, and I gave them to the tailor who is working on Sam’s dress. She was able to get all of her exact measurements, so we shouldn’t have to worry about the fit of the dress at all.”
Drake breathed a sigh of relief that at least the dress was going to fit. But he still didn’t know if Samantha was going to like the style of the dress at all. But there wasn’t really a good way of ensuring she was going to like the dress style without actually showing her the dress.
“That’s fantastic,” Drake said. “But what about the design of the dress. What are you doing for that? Is it going to be an A-line? Sam doesn’t like those kinds of dresses.”
Bedroom Rodeo: A Billionaire Romance Page 131
