by Ali Parker
“Do you have time while you’re here to relax and enjoy yourself a little?” I asked.
She turned back to me and nodded. “A bit, yes. I’d be happy to get a few hours on the beach tomorrow. I was even thinking about getting surfing lessons. I’ve never tried before.”
“Surfing?”
Verity would never have considered surfing lessons. She wouldn’t have even considered getting in the ocean for fear of getting her hair wet or ruining her makeup. I loved my fiancée but there was no denying she was a high-maintenance woman. Her definition of fun was slower paced evenings with expensive wine and influential company. I liked those kinds of evenings too, but a fun day in the sun had its own appeal as well.
“The last time I was in Hawaii, I wanted to get lessons but I ran out of time and I’ve been kicking myself ever since. So this time, I might just go for it.” She crossed one long leg over the other and raked her fingers through her long locks of dark hair.
I’d thought Kim was a beautiful woman since the first day I met her. She had sharp, cunning, dark brown eyes and a hell of a lot of wit. She spoke with confidence and control, even when in heated discussions—like with my bride-to-be back when the planning first began. Kim had a model-like figure and was the definition of a tall glass of water.
Verity had actually suggested in the beginning that we hire a less attractive wedding coordinator so that I wasn’t “distracted.” I’d assured her that was nonsense.
But now, sitting across from Kim in her summer dress, white blazer, and strappy heels, I was beginning to see why Verity might have felt an inkling of insecurity.
I cleared my throat and tore my gaze from her sun-kissed skin. “You had a date last night, didn’t you?”
Her eyes widened with surprise. “You remembered that?”
“Of course I did. How did it go?”
“It was fine,” Kim said. Then she laughed and shook her head. “Who am I kidding? It was terrible. The guy showed up over half an hour late and proceeded to spend the entire evening telling me all about how shitfaced he likes to get with his frat buddies, while not so subtly inserting comments about what he’d like to do with me later in the evening, if you know what I mean.”
“Classy.”
“That’s what I said!” She laughed harder and pinched the bridge of her nose. “He was a moron through and through. I should’ve seen the red flags a mile away.”
Amused, I cocked my head to the side. “What were some of the red flags?”
“For starters, his name was Tanner.”
“Oh. Yes. That’s very red.”
Her giggling filled the cab and it sounded like joyful music to my ears. “I know. And he wore loafers.”
“Please tell me he wasn’t wearing shorts.”
“No. Thank God. But had he been, it might have spared me the evening because I might have gotten up and left right when he walked in.”
It was my turn to laugh. “I’m sorry you had such a bad night. It surprises me you have such a bad track record with first dates.”
I wasn’t lying. Not only was Kim beautiful and smart, but she was kind too. She was warm, caring, and considerate. If I wasn’t getting married, she was the kind of woman I would ask out for drinks on a Friday evening so I could get to know her better.
“One day, I’ll find a winner,” Kim said. “But I have resigned myself to the fact that this is the universe’s way of saying I’m not supposed to be dating right now. I’m supposed to be focusing on my career, and when the time is right, I’ll meet the right guy. No point obsessing over it, right?”
“Right.”
Kim uncrossed her legs and sighed. “I do have one confession.”
“Oh?”
“I drank way too much last night to endure Tanner’s hot-headed commentary. Could you tell during lunch? I don’t want Verity to think I don’t take our time seriously, but holy hell, do I have a headache for the ages.”
“You should have said something.” I grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler beside me. Verity couldn’t go anywhere without chilled water and champagne. There was also a cupboard underneath the cooler with painkillers, antacids, stress relief essential oils, and some vitamins. I passed the water and painkillers to Kim. “Here.”
Kim leaned forward and accepted graciously. She popped two red pills in her mouth and chased them down with greedy gulps of water. Some of it spilled over her bottom lip, ran down her chin, and dropped onto her cleavage.
I did a valiant job of staring at the limo ceiling instead of her breasts as she wiped it away.
“Thank you. Come on, little magic pills. Do your job.” She closed her eyes and let out a contented sigh. Then she cracked one eye open. “So what’s this surprise you have planned for Chessie today?”
“Sorry?”
“The surprise for Chessie. You said you were late for it. What is it?”
“Oh,” I said. It caught me off guard that she would ask—or even that she would remember. Verity usually didn’t ask follow-up questions like this about Chessie, so I definitely didn’t expect Kim to. “She’s obsessed with all things marine related, so I thought I would take her to the aquarium. Don’t judge me for being a rich son of a bitch, but I rented out the entire place for just the two of us.”
Kim opened her other eye and sat up straighter. “Seriously?”
I nodded.
“That’s amazing! Chessie is one lucky little girl. I heard they have a great aquarium here. Make sure you check out the octopus exhibit. Did you know they can—”
“Do you want to come with us?”
Kim paused. “What?”
“Chessie loves you,” I said simply. “And you seem passionate about aquatic life too.”
“I don’t know if I’d say passionate per se. But I mean, who doesn’t like dolphins and shit?”
I laughed. “Exactly. Come along. We’ll get some food in you before we start to fix that hangover up, and then we’ll spend the afternoon with the aquarium all to ourselves.”
Kim bit her bottom lip. “Well, it does sound fun. You’re sure Chessie won’t mind me crashing your father-daughter day? I wouldn’t want to overstep.”
“Nonsense. Like I said, Chessie loves you. Ever since you sat down with her to talk to her about the wedding one on one, she’s idolized you.”
“Really?”
“Really. Come with us. It’ll be fun.”
Kim grinned. “I have one condition.”
“Name it.”
“The food you mentioned better be greasy as hell.”
I threw my head back and laughed. “Burgers and fries, it is.”
Chapter 8
Kimberly
“Are you going to eat those?” I pointed into Chessie’s large basket of crispy, salted, drool-worthy fries. I’d already devoured mine rather shamelessly in front of Rick. I couldn’t tell if my appetite had impressed or repulsed him, but I’d caught him staring at me several times, once when I had just crammed four fries into my cheeks like an overzealous chipmunk preparing for the worst winter of her life.
Perhaps Rick and Verity’s wedding was the winter I was bracing for.
Chessie nudged her basket of fries across the white plastic table to me. “Have as much as you want.”
I took her up on it and stole a couple of fries while grinning like an idiot at her. “Fries are my favorite food,” I told her. “Well, potatoes in general are my favorite, I suppose. Fries. Scalloped potatoes. Mashed potatoes. Baked…” I trailed off when I realized I was rambling about potatoes in front of my billion-dollar client.
Idiot.
I cleared my throat and leaned back in my seat. “I think I’ve had enough. Someone take those away from me or I’m going to burst right out of my dress.”
Chessie giggled and took the fries back, snagging a couple more for herself before copying my slumped posture in her own seat. “I’m full too.”
Rick wiped his hands with some paper napkins and collected everything on a tr
ay. Then he got up and walked over to the closest trashcan.
I respected that. He was obscenely wealthy and yet he was still capable of throwing out his own garbage and enjoying some good old shitty cafeteria food. There weren’t many men out there like him—not that I’d run into anyway. Usually, clients with a fraction of his wealth would abandon their mess for someone else to clean up, only to carry on with their day and continue making messes.
I bet Tanner wouldn’t put his own tray away, I thought sourly.
Apparently, I wasn’t over how badly my blind date had gone. I hadn’t gotten around to calling Jackson to rip a strip off him but I planned to. Thinking about it made me all warm and fuzzy inside. I would have justice one way or another.
Rick clapped his hands together and regarded both me and Chessie. “All right. Are you two ready to explore?”
Chessie popped up out of her chair like she was wound on a coil spring. She raced around the table and out into the main corridor outside the cafeteria. We followed her out and I sipped on my soda. The bubbles and the greasy food had done wonders for my hangover. My nausea was all but gone. Sure, my tummy was still not quite at the top of its game, but I didn’t care. My headache was nearly gone and I had an entire afternoon ahead of me with Rick Garrett.
And we were surrounded by massive reflective fish tanks, so it would be easy for me to check him out all damn day without him noticing.
You’re a brilliant creep, I thought to myself as we wandered along behind Chessie, who had her head craned back as she peered up at signs hanging from ceilings with arrows that pointed to different aquatic exhibits.
“Where do you want to start, kiddo?” Rick asked.
Chessie stroked her chin and I smiled. It was something I’d seen her father do countless times in all our wedding-related meetings whenever he was concentrating.
The apple didn’t fall far from the tree, it seemed.
Chessie stood up straight and pointed through the glass doors on our right. “To the jellyfish!”
Chuckling, Rick and I followed her through the doors and into a dark winding room. Every wall was a tank of some form or another, and each tank shimmered and danced with bioluminescent jellies that puffed and drifted and swooped in their water cages.
Chessie found the biggest, baddest jellyfish of them all within a minute and a half and stood outside the tank with her face pressed to the glass as she gazed up at it in awe. “It’s so pretty,” she cooed.
I crouched down beside her and gazed up at the tank. From a child’s point of view, the creature was even more wondrous. I put my hand on her back. “It’s magical, isn’t it? Like it could be from another world or a storybook.”
Chessie nodded. Her eyes never left the jellyfish as it turned upside down at the top of the tank and began a slow, drifting, zig-zagging descent back down to our eye level. “Did you know they have no bones, eyes, or brains?”
“No hearts either,” I said.
Chessie tore her brown eyes off the jellyfish and blinked at me. “Yes, I forgot about that. Do you like oceans too?”
I gazed up at the jellyfish and reveled in finally feeling more like myself for the first time all morning. The headache was officially gone. My stomach was settled, content, and full. And so was my heart. I’d had a soft spot for Chessie since the first day I met her, and every encounter we had only left me thinking she was even more special than the last time I saw her.
“When I was about your age, I wanted to be a marine biologist,” I told her.
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
Rick shifted behind us and I heard him chuckle softly. “Now you’ve done it, Kim. You’ll never hear the end of it from her.”
I glanced up at him. “That’s okay. I loved anything and everything that came from the ocean. Slimy, prickly, dangerous. It didn’t matter.”
“Why did you become a wedding planner instead?” Chessie asked.
I sighed and watched the jellyfish proceed with its lazy dance in the tank. “Well, things changed when I got older. And I wasn’t the best student in school. My grades weren’t good enough to get me into any marine programs, but,” I poked her in the ribs, “if you work hard and you never forget how much you love marine life, I bet you could be the best marine biologist the oceans have ever seen.”
Chessie giggled at my dramatics as I spread out my hands in a grand sweeping gesture. Then I waggled my eyebrows at her.
“I mean it,” I said. “Marine mammals and fish need little girls like you to care about them so they can live happy and healthy lives.”
Chessie gnawed the inside of her cheek and watched the jellyfish as I straightened up and fell back a step to stand beside Rick.
It wasn’t long before his daughter darted off to the next tank and then the next and the next until we were trailing along behind her like two wayward parents in a toy store.
“You’re always so good with her,” Rick said.
I shrugged. “She’s an easygoing kid. Smart, too. She’s going places, you know?”
“I know. I have nightmares that she’ll be smarter than me one day.”
“Like tomorrow?”
Rick’s laugh was loud and carefree and it made me giggle too. He shook his head at me. “You are quick, Kim. No, not tomorrow. But I doubt it will take her very long. She’s inquisitive and curious.”
“Lucky for her, she has a father who can support her and guide her toward her dreams.”
“You didn’t?”
I smiled at the memory of my father. He’d passed away over five years ago from heart disease. The same thing that had killed his father and his father before him. “My dad was supportive but he never really understood. He wanted me to be a nurse or a teacher. Something ‘foolhardy’ he used to say. In other words, he wanted me in a traditional female role. Which I guess I ended up in anyway.”
“You found your path,” Rick said. “And planning weddings suits you.”
“I hope that’s a compliment.”
“It is. You’re great with people, kids and high-maintenance brides alike.”
“I won’t tell Verity you called her high maintenance.”
“Who said I was talking about Verity?”
I giggled and rolled my eyes at him. “Don’t go changing your story now, Garrett. We both know what you said.”
He slid his hands in his pockets and looked up ahead as Chessie stopped at the exit door that led into the next exhibit. He nodded for her to go and she pushed into a tropical rainforest with bridges criss-crossing over shallow ponds full of colorful freshwater fish. Birds chirped and sang up in the trees when we came in behind her, and the humidity hit me like a wall.
Chessie’s footfalls echoed across the bridges as she raced ahead of us to the next door. She called to her father that she would be in the next room looking at their resident octopus. He told her to go ahead but not to go farther than that point.
I paused on a bridge and gazed down at a fish passing beneath us. Rick came up beside me and rested his forearms on the railing. At some point, he’d rolled his sleeves up and his forearms were on display.
I swallowed. Under no circumstance should a man as sexy as him be allowed to do such a thing. Him rolling his sleeves up was the equivalent of me stripping right out of my dress and prancing around before him in my lingerie—which sounded like a delightful way to spend an evening, if I was being honest.
I tore my gaze away from the flexing tendons in his arms and the raised veins as he clasped his hands together.
“I can’t believe the wedding is just a month and a half away,” he said softly.
“Not even.”
He nodded and looked down at the water. Then he glanced over at me and smiled. My knees trembled and I willed myself not to drool when he straightened up, raked his fingers through his unruly dark brown hair, and turned his back to the railing to lean up against it like a GQ model.
Damn him.
“I’m glad you came with us today,” he said.
“Me too.”
“Needless to say, Chessie still loves your company. And I have to admit I’m partial to it as well. It’s been nice not to have to stop so you could touch up your makeup or check your social media.”
I knew he was referring to Verity but I didn’t dare say a damn word about her. I would not speak ill of a client even if I thought he was making a terrible mistake by marrying her.
Then he gave me a lopsided, somewhat sad smile.
Did he feel boxed in? Like he didn’t have any other options but to marry this woman? Did he want something else? Someone else?
It’s not your place to ask him.
I rested my hip against the railing and faced him. “You’re good company too, Rick.”
He angled himself toward me, and even though it smelled like tropical plants and soil, I could still detect a whiff of his cologne. I couldn’t place the scent, but it was a deep masculine musk that made my insides squirm in the most delightful way.
Then I noticed the way he was looking at me, like he was searching for something in my eyes. I gazed back and got lost in the depths of his gaze. He took a small step closer and I didn’t pull away. Maybe it was because I didn’t realize there was something burning between us, something hot and wild but impossible to see. I could only feel it.
His fingers grazed my wrist and a little gasp escaped me.
“Rick,” I breathed.
He froze. His eyes narrowed and his brow creased and I took a step back.
He cleared his throat, slid his hands in his pockets, and nodded toward the door. “Chessie is probably waiting for us.”
Chapter 9
Rick
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose as the three men on the other line, who had all been conferenced into the call, bickered about expenses and write-offs as the year came to an end. This wasn’t the kind of bullshit I needed to tend to on Christmas Eve. My daughter was in the kitchen with Verity, who I could hear singing Christmas tunes in her melodic voice.
