by Julie Leto
“The rock star?” Jessie asked. “He’s not exactly a wedding singer.”
Leo, once again, was not deterred. “But he does sing their song.”
His voice dropped low, and unexpectedly he hummed the strains of that haunting tune in Jessie’s ear. Full of sexual yearning and erotic imagery, Arsenal’s signature ballad teased Jessie’s consciousness, taunting her with memories she should have banished from her mind a very long time ago.
Actually, she’d thought she had.
Drew made room on the table for the waitress, who was delivering a fresh pitcher of beer. “God, Binks played that song over and over for weeks after she and Coop started dating. I thought I’d never get it out of my head. Posters of Arsenal are still up in her old bedroom.”
“It would be really cool if we could get him to play,” Annie agreed. “Impossible, but really cool.”
Ajay nodded. “With the right amount of money, nothing is impossible.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Leo said, clapping Ajay on the shoulder. “I’ll put you in charge of entertainment, then, okay? You and Mallory.”
“Me?” the dark-haired, dark-eyed woman said with a note of protest in her voice.
“Bianca told me that you not only book all of her interpreter work, but you also find people to work with actors when they need to master an accent or learn another language in a hurry. You have to have Hollywood contacts.”
Mallory remained silent, but gave a little nod.
“Good,” Leo said, and then turned to Annie. “You and Bianca are about the same height and size, aren’t you?”
Annie’s green eyes widened. “Don’t tell me you need me to pick out her wedding dress.”
Leo pulled another list out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Unless you want her mother to do it?”
Jessie nearly choked, but Drew actually laughed out loud. Bianca and her mother were polar opposites when it came to fashion sense.
In unison, Annie and Jessie said, “No!”
“I should pick out her wedding dress,” Jessie said. “I know her style best.”
“True,” Leo conceded. “But I have something better planned for you.”
Before Jessie could read anything into his promise, he tapped the list he’d handed to Annie. “Think you can get all this?”
“By the weekend?” Annie asked. “No way. The boutique you want me to go to is in New York City.”
Drew tilted Annie’s hand so he could see the paper. It was hard to tell in the predominantly red lighting in the pizzeria, but Jessie could have sworn Annie blushed.
“That’s the designer Bianca met last summer,” he said.
Leo grinned. “Exactly. She said she’d totally hook Bianca up.”
“I can fly Annie there,” Drew offered. “I could have a plane ready by Thursday morning. We can be back by Saturday with everything my sister will need. It’s about time she wore something other than faded cutoff jeans and ratty hoodies.”
Jessie couldn’t disagree, even if Annie did look uncomfortable with her assignment. Maybe she didn’t like the idea of pick ing out Bianca’s clothes—or maybe the idea of jetting off with Bianca’s gorgeous younger brother had her a little jumpy. Annie had hardly dated since her divorce, and Drew wasn’t doing a very good job hiding his obvious interest in her. He might be only twenty-six, but he was a successful businessman and an excellent pilot. Annie was in good hands.
But suddenly, Jessie did the math. If Annie went off with Drew and Mallory hooked up with Ajay, then that left…
“Oh, no,” Jessie said, but no one heard her objection except Leo.
He scooted closer, his breath skimming softly against her ear. “That leaves you and me to plan the honeymoon.”
She closed her eyes, trying to ignore the way his voice deepened so that the illicit possibilities in his suggestion were impossible to push from her mind. Suddenly, she imagined her body, naked and hot, pinned to the sand by Leo’s muscular form with a sultry summer sun on his back and in her eyes, while his mouth did deliciously decadent things to her lips, neck and breasts.
“We can’t do this,” she said.
There was too much history. Too much hurt.
“It’s been ten years, Jessie. Can’t we let go of the past long enough to give our friends the future we could have had if I hadn’t screwed up?”
Ajay picked up the bill. Drew was on his cell phone with the airport while Annie checked in with her young sons, who were visiting their father’s parents. Mallory stood a few feet away, toying with her iPhone, a tiny grin curving her mouth. Leo, however, simply stared at Jessie, his pupils wide and locked on her as if she were a steak and he a starving man.
Everyone seemed excited about the prospect of pulling off the surprise wedding.
Everyone except her.
“What are you afraid of, Jessie?” Leo taunted.
“I’m not afraid of you, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she snapped.
Leo was right. What had happened between them had been a long time ago. She’d had plenty of relationships since then. She’d been engaged. Twice, though she’d never actually made it to the planning stages of either wedding.
Over the past decade, she’d endured seeing Leo whenever Bianca and Coop came back to town. Their breakup had not affected their individual friendships with the soon-to-be bride and groom. Why couldn’t she endure a weekend of travel planning with him? It wasn’t as if they were jetting off to some romantic destination to check out the site for themselves.
“Then go home and pack. I’ll pick you up in an hour.”
“Pack? For what? If you think I’m staying at your place while we figure out where to send Bianca and Coop, you have another think—”
“I’ve already figured out where we’re sending them,” he said, scooting out of the booth, which was now empty.
Jessie didn’t move. She watched Leo exchange cell phone numbers with the others as they walked to the door. Only after everyone had left did he turn around and crook his finger in beckoning.
She looked away, but she couldn’t stay there all night. She was Bianca’s best friend. She loved her like a sister. She’d been praying for Bianca and Coop to settle down for years, or at least long enough to make their love affair legal. The least Jessie could do was make sure that Leo didn’t totally mess the long-awaited honeymoon up by sending them to kite-surf in Bora-Bora or scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef—both of which they’d already done.
They needed something special. Something romantic. Something that reminded them that their relationship hadn’t always been about foreign travel, adventure and games.
She joined Leo at the door.
“Okay, Mr. Wedding Planner. Where exactly do you propose we send the couple who has been everywhere?”
Leo’s grin was so full of self-satisfaction, she almost slapped him. Or kissed him. With Leo, the line between the two was always taut and ready to snap.
“We’re going back to where it all started,” Leo told her, opening the door so that the humid Florida air clashed with the air-conditioned interior of the restaurant, plunging her into just the kind of heat that normally got her into a ton of trouble. Especially around Leo.
After a split second, her brain processed what he’d said and she stopped dead, her foot stumbling on the sidewalk so that Leo had to grab her by the elbow to keep her upright. The minute their skin made contact, Jessie lost her ability to breathe. His fingers were strong, his palms warm, his forearms tan and ripped with muscles.
She swallowed thickly. “You can’t mean Key West.”
“Oh, yes, I do mean Key West,” he promised, pulling her up so that their noses nearly touched. “In every way possible.”
2
THE START FLAG had raised and the horn had sounded. Leo had calculated and planned with precision, but the operation to win Jessie back—and marry off his best friends in the process—was a risk nonetheless.
Luckily for him, Leo’s gambles
usually paid off. He hadn’t made his way in the highly competitive world of yacht design and racing by playing things safe. Throwing off the old designs and traditions had made him a popular guy in a very elite, exclusive club. He’d even managed to keep his business afloat during tough economic times by selling his custom-made watercraft to foreign competitors who hadn’t yet felt the crunch of the tight market. To attain success, he’d kept his eyes on the prize and thought outside the box.
If he wanted Jessie back, he was going to have to pull out all the stops—including those that were keeping her from admitting that she still loved him.
Okay, so he wasn’t entirely certain she was still love-struck. In all honesty, his research proved the complete opposite. For three years following the swamping of their relationship, she’d refused to be in the same room with him. Until Bianca and Coop started spending more time out of the country than in, Jessie had used every excuse in the book to make sure they never breathed the same air. But when their wayward friends only had a three-hour layover between trips to Bimini or Istanbul, she couldn’t be too choosy about which friend Coop preferred to see at the same time—and it was usually Leo.
From then on, they’d agreed—without ever speaking on the matter—to a cold but lasting truce. But every chilly “Hello, Leo” and equally icy “How are you doing?” reminded him of everything he’d lost by screwing up. He’d apologized, of course, but apparently, words weren’t enough. He’d assumed that time would undo the damage he’d wrought, but even after ten years, Jessie Martinez held a grudge like a stuck anchor.
Yet the last few times they’d seen each other, he’d sensed a momentary crack in her glacial veneer. The way her eyes dilated whenever he leaned close to her. The way she didn’t stiffen at his touch when he handed her a beer.
Even now, the subtle but noticeable tightening of her nipples beneath her snug blouse when he’d stopped her from taking a tumble on the sidewalk stoked him to act.
Of course, he might just be suffering from an incurable case of wishful thinking—but where was the fun in believing that?
“I’m fine,” she insisted, even though he knew that if he released her, she’d likely crack her head on the concrete. “You sure?”
She scrambled to get her feet back under her, then tugged out of his hold. She stumbled slightly, but managed to stay upright. He couldn’t resist smiling. She was beautiful when she was flustered. Well, she was beautiful when she was confident, when she was shy (which wasn’t often) and especially when she was pissed off. Which meant that in a little less than an hour, she was going to rival Helen of Troy, Miss America and poor, plain Angelina Jolie.
She wiped her hands on her jeans. “How are we getting to Key West? It’s a long drive.”
“Let me worry about transportation,” he said. “The most important thing is that we get the house habitable by the weekend.”
Her chin quivered. “What house?”
“The house we rented that summer,” he replied. “The house on the private—”
“Island? You can’t have rented it. The owner sold it.”
That stopped him. How could she have possibly known?
The summer between their sophomore and junior years in college, Bianca and Coop, still in the early stages of their love affair with both each other and wanderlust, had found a spectacular five-bedroom, split-level house to rent for a month on a private key about ten nautical miles off Key West. Unfortunately, Bianca’s overprotective parents had objected to their daughter shacking up with her boyfriend all alone on an island. Though over eighteen, Bianca had used her parents’ concern (and threats to stop paying her tuition) to entice her best friend, Jessie, into coming along on the once-in-a-lifetime getaway.
Coop had done the same with Leo and it was on that island and in that house that Leo had fallen hopelessly and helplessly in love with the woman who now hated his guts. Well, hate was a strong word. He was fairly certain that time had tempered her loathing to sheer dislike by now.
Time, however, had done absolutely nothing to alleviate his cravings for her. Yeah, he’d been the one to wreck their burgeoning relationship, but after a decade of concentrating on nothing but work and sailing, along with the occasional fling just to make sure his parts were still in working order, he was ready to reclaim the ultimate winner’s cup—Jessie. He wanted her back and he was going to use this wedding as an excuse to seduce her back into his life.
“Owner listed it again a couple of years ago,” he explained. “I used to sail a lot in the Keys, so a broker gave me a call.”
She swallowed visibly. “You own it now?”
He smiled. “Every palm tree and grain of sand, though no one has been on the property for years.”
“Why?”
Her expression was a mixture of disbelief and disgust, which on the surface wasn’t a very good sign.
“I’ve been busy. I don’t get down there much anymore and my caretaker quit last year.”
“No, I mean, why did you buy it, especially if you never use it?”
“Do you really want to know the answer or would you rather go home and pack? We leave in—” he consulted his watch “—two hours.”
She narrowed her eyes, searching for some clue to his motives, but finding none, she cursed and stalked toward her car. “I’m only doing this for Bianca and Coop.”
He slung his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Of course. Why else would you go with me to the remote, deserted island where we first made love?”
From the short distance between them, Leo couldn’t tell whether Jessie’s eyes watered on account of deep, residual hurt or blind fury. Still, his best bet was to take off now, before she could retaliate.
He slid into his convertible, rubbing his chin absently while he watched Jessie tear out of the parking lot, the backside of her car fishtailing in her haste. He hoped she made it home in one piece. Or better, that she made it through this trip without ripping his throat out. He was so wrapped up in thought, he started when Drew Brighton leaped over the passenger door and landed smoothly in the seat.
“You’ve lost your mind, man,” Drew said.
Leo glanced at Bianca’s little brother and grinned. “So you agree with Jessie that this whole surprise wedding thing is crazy?”
Drew brushed at a smear of grease on his jeans. “Nah, I agree with Ajay that the whole lark is brilliant. The only way to get those two to settle down long enough to get hitched is to totally blindside them with something spectacular. I’m talking about you and Jessie.”
Leo tugged his car keys out of his pocket and shoved them into the ignition. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Drew snorted. “My sister and I are close, man. And I dated Jessie once.”
“You? You’re like, what? Twelve?”
Drew cursed. “I’m twenty-six and my moving company made more money than your little sailboat ventures last year and the year before, asshole, so shut the hell up about my age.”
Leo mumbled an apology. He liked Drew. The kid was a few years his junior, but he’d always come across as a wise, old soul when he wasn’t cussing Leo out for being a jerk.
“You’re right,” Leo said, lifting his hands off the steering wheel in surrender. “I didn’t know you dated Jessie.”
“It was just once for some charity event. We had a great time, but I’m like her brother. And I overheard enough of her conversations with my sister to know that you trashed her heart.”
He nodded. “Guilty as charged.”
“Then why did you set up this whole surprise wedding to try and get her back?”
“How did you know?”
Drew’s gaze flicked to a minivan parked a few cars away, where Annie Rush was tossing an impressive cache of empty single-serving-size Cheerios boxes and fast-food bags bedecked with characters like Ronald McDonald and the Burger King into the garbage. “Because I like the way you think.”
Leo jolted as he made the connection.
&nb
sp; “You’re hot for Annie?” Leo asked. Annie had graduated from college before Coop had even started, which put her at about thirty-eight. She had two kids and relatively moist divorce papers. Leo doubted she had the time or interest in a guy so much younger, but what the hell did he know? He’d set his future on reigniting a relationship with a woman he’d betrayed in the worst way. If the kid wanted to shoot for the stars, who was he to judge?
“Actually, yeah. Does that bother you?”
“Might piss Coop off,” Leo replied. “I don’t know how he’d feel about his older sister dating his much younger brother-in-law.”
“I’m not interested in dating her,” Drew said.
Leo held up his hand. “Look, I don’t want to know. I gave you the list of stuff you need to get in New York. If there’s nothing else, I’ve got a boat to catch.”
Drew laughed. “Of course you do. I’m no expert sailor, but I’ve been around Jessie a lot more than you have in the last few years. Consider yourself under a severe weather warning, okay? Ten years might have gone by since you screwed her over, but she hasn’t forgotten.”
“Good,” Leo said, revving up the engine. “If she still hurts, then she still cares.”
Drew shook his head as he exited the car. “That’s the best you got?”
“Better than what you got, bud,” Leo said, flicking his gaze at Annie, who now looked as if she’d unpacked half of a sports equipment store out of the back of her van.
“We’ll see,” Drew replied. “Care to wager?”
Leo threw the car into reverse, but braked at Drew’s challenge. Building boats that raced in the most prestigious competitions in the world had given him a taste for gambling. Not because he needed the winnings, but because he loved to shove his superiority into the face of his competitors. It was juvenile and arrogant, but at least he was honest about it.
“I’m not betting that you’ll get into Annie’s pants. She’s my best friend’s sister.”
“Then just bet that I’ll get what I want before you get what you want.” Drew extended his hand.
