by Lucy Kevin
“Hi, you must be Donovan’s mom, Vanessa! I’m Susie, Rose’s mother. It’s so nice to finally meet you.”
Vanessa reached out a hand, just barely making contact with Rose’s mother’s. “You too. And what a brightly colored dress,” she said as she looked at the flower-printed fabric. “Are you planning on wearing something similar to the wedding?”
“Oh yes, Anne has already agreed to help me come up with a dress. Where will you get yours?”
“From a couture house,” Vanessa said.
“I’m so proud that your boy and my girl are getting together,” Rose’s mother went on. “I’ve heard so much about Donovan. You must be so proud of your son.”
“Yes, of course,” Vanessa agreed. “Donovan has achieved a great deal. He’s widely respected in his field, he’s had several papers published on improvements in surgical technique, and he does so much for charity. It is hard not to be proud.”
“I’m very proud of Rose, too,” her mother said. “In fact, everyone? Could I have your attention for a moment?”
“Mom,” Rose said, “please…”
It was too late by then, of course, as her mother’s booming voice easily cut through the crowd of women.
“I’m Rose’s mom Susie, and I want to say a few words about my daughter. She’s a beautiful, intelligent, wonderful person, and she has done so much with her life, even running her own business. She’s worked very hard, and I think she deserves every good thing that happens for her. And now she’s getting married! I’m so proud of her and I can’t wait to see her and Donovan getting married beneath the gazebo at the chalet.”
That got a brief murmur of approval. Anne actually clapped her hands together in delight. “The gazebo is going to be such a romantic place to exchange your vows.”
Phoebe agreed, “It’s going to be perfect.”
“You’re getting married under a gazebo?” Vanessa said, her lips pinching together. “Donovan didn’t tell me that.” She drew her lips together again, this time into what was clearly supposed to be a smile. “How precious.”
Meaning how tacky, Rose thought. How overdone.
She noticed that Phoebe and Anne had latched onto her mother now, talking to her and drawing her into a far corner of the party, but the damage was done. Rose could practically feel the disapproval radiating off Vanessa. And why not? She’d said herself what a great catch Donovan was. A man who could have had any woman he wanted.
Yet he’d picked a girl who wanted to get married under a “precious” gazebo.
Rose wanted to curl up and die right there and then.
If only RJ were there, she found herself thinking, he’d find a way to make her laugh over it all instead.
That errant thought was all it took for her to realize that RJ was, in fact, the answer to her prayers. If anyone could help her out with this, he could.
She turned to Vanessa. “Actually, I haven’t had the heart to tell my mother that Donovan and I have made the decision not to use the gazebo in the wedding.”
“What a relief it is to hear you say that,” Vanessa said. “I simply couldn’t imagine Donovan agreeing to something like that,” she said. “Not when it isn’t his style at all.”
“Of course it isn’t,” Rose agreed, knowing it was true and that Donovan had likely only agreed to it because he knew how much she’d always dreamed of being married beneath the chalet’s gazebo. “Would you excuse me for a minute?”
Whitney looked over at her as she made a dash for the back of the house, shooting her an obvious ‘are you okay?’ look.
Rose nodded and smiled, because what else could she do? When she got to the back door, she dug out her phone. The text to RJ didn’t take long to put together: Urgent. Meet me at the chalet tomorrow morning. Change of plans for the wedding. I need your help.
Chapter Five
What kind of guy was happy to come into work on a Sunday morning, when the rest of the city was still in bed?
RJ was, at least when it was Rose asking for his help. He could no more keep away from her when she needed him than he could stop himself from thinking about her when he wasn’t near her. About that small tilt of her head when something was bothering her, and the way she occasionally bit down on a strand of her hair without thinking about it. Tiny things. Personal things that RJ was sure hardly anyone else noticed, but that had captivated him from that first day he’d spent with Rose at the chalet.
He’d walked over this morning rather than driving the truck. His house wasn’t too far from the chalet, and he guessed that whatever Rose needed, he’d already have the tools on site. Idly, he wondered if the rest of the crew would be there this morning to help her out with whatever the emergency was. As much as he liked his co-workers and friends, part of him hoped that they wouldn’t be there. The Rose Chalet always felt so different when it was only him and Rose.
Of course, there probably weren’t going to be too many quiet moments this week. The buildup to any wedding was busy, but Rose was, obviously, so much more than just another valued client.
His chest clenched at the thought of the part he was going to play in putting the finishing touches on Rose’s wedding that week. Especially when it meant watching her give herself to a man who simply didn’t deserve her.
His route from home took him through the chalet’s gardens, down past the gazebo that stood in the middle of the rose garden, before he slipped in through one of the side doors and into the main hall. It was empty of furniture at the moment, except for a single table on which RJ could see a pile of wedding magazines.
Rose was standing in the middle of the floor, looking around as if she was trying to imagine something. She was wearing dark jeans and a soft cream sweater, her hair tied back with a ribbon. She’d taken her heels off to go barefoot, the way she sometimes did when there wasn’t anyone else around, and RJ knew without having to hear it that she would be humming a show tune to herself. For all that Rose pretended to like classical music, songs from musicals were always what she ended up humming.
Sure enough, when RJ got closer, he could hear the strains of an old Rodgers and Hammerstein number.
He loved knowing so many little things about her. Like the fact that for all she pretended not to like sugar in her coffee because it ruined the full complexity of the flavor, Rose actually preferred it heaped with the stuff. Or the way she would draw little maps of wedding setups on Post-it Notes while she was on the phone, but insist on making a properly drawn out plan before they got to work.
What irritated RJ—no, what made genuine anger flare up just thinking about it—was his near certainty that Donovan didn’t know any of those little things about her.
The plastic surgeon looked at this wonderful, individual woman and what did he see? Some cookie cutter image that probably had more to do with his own imagination than with reality.
And if her fiancé never really saw her, RJ was convinced the other man didn’t really want her. Donovan McIntyre just wanted someone who was willing to fit into the carefully labeled space he had in his existence marked “wife.” Which, as far as RJ could see, had everything to do with making him look good at champagne parties and absolutely nothing to do with Rose.
Yet bizarrely, there was a part of RJ that couldn’t help being a little pleased about it. Because it meant that all those small special things about Rose were his and not Donovan’s. They were things that he shared with Rose and no one else. To RJ, Donovan McIntyre had no right to those parts of her. In fact, he had no right to any of her.
Yet somehow, a week from now, Donovan would have all of Rose, while RJ would have nothing.
Why couldn’t Rose see how wrong her fiancé was for her? RJ thought as he stepped forward into the room.
“Good morning, Rose. What’s the emergency?”
Rose hurried over to the table with the bridal magazines. Most of them had Post-it Notes sticking out of the covers, often in two or three different colors. She opened the one closest to her.
“It sounds like you’d get very wet,” RJ said, moving to stand beside her. This close, he was intensely aware of every movement she made, her scent, the flecks of gold in her green eyes.
“Well, what about if we do put up enough mirrors so that it looks like there’s an infinite number of weddings going on while Donovan and I—”
“Rose,” RJ asked, “what’s going on? I thought your wedding was settled. You’re going to get married beneath the gazebo. It’s all planned.”
She shook her head rapidly, several strands of hair flying out from her ponytail. “I can’t get married underneath a gazebo. No one gets married underneath a gazebo these days.”
He frowned. “Of course they do. At least half our weddings use the gazebo.”
“That’s exactly why I can’t use it for my own wedding.”
She turned to look at the gazebo through the windows of the main hall, and that was when RJ saw the faintly dark smudges beneath her eyes.
“What’s going on, Rose?” RJ asked again in a gentle voice, hoping that he’d get a better answer this time. “The gazebo was one of the first things that you settled on for the wedding.”
“Well, maybe that’s what’s wrong then,” Rose countered. “Maybe it was just a stupid decision that I made far too early.”
“Tell me why you’ve changed your mind. I know you wouldn’t change your whole wedding over nothing.”
“It’s…it’s Donovan’s mother. She was at my bridal shower, and doesn’t much care for gazebos. So it has to come down, and we need to think of something else.”
“She told you this?”
He wasn’t sure which part he had a harder time believing, that Donovan’s mother would try to change the whole wedding around at the last minute, or that Rose would go along with it. Although actually, if Donovan’s mother was anything like her son, it wasn’t too hard to believe that she would try to interfere with what Rose wanted.
“She didn’t say it, exactly,” Rose said. “But it was pretty clear. She was telling me about how old fashioned it was, and—” She cut herself off with a sigh. “None of those details matter, RJ. What matters is that I’m not having my wedding under that. I mean, I’m a wedding planner. What will it look like if I do something so out of date? So quaint and precious? I need you to get rid of it.”
RJ normally didn’t like to refuse Rose anything. Before now, he’d helped her switch around details of entire weddings, he’d helped her to clear up after the weddings when almost none of the others had stuck around, he’d put together impossible wedding setups, like the Gone-With-The-Wind theme for the multiple Banning weddings, had taken over flower arranging duties when Phoebe had been trying to figure out her relationship with Patrick, and even made sure Rose had gotten home after a rare night of over-imbibing with Anne.
But this?
He wasn’t sure he could do this, not when he knew how much pain it would cause her to give up her dream wedding.
“Why do you care what Donovan’s hoity-toity mother thinks?” he asked. “This is your wedding, and it should be exactly how you want it to be, rather than how she wants it. What did your mother think about you changing your wedding plans?”
“I haven’t told her yet.” Rose lifted her chin as she faced him. “But it doesn’t matter what she thinks, because I don’t want the gazebo anymore.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She whirled then, going for the small toolbox that he always kept in the storage closet. “If you won’t do it, I’ll do it myself.”
She came out with a hammer, heading for the door. He stepped in her way.
“What are you doing?”
“Get out of my way.” When he didn’t move, she reiterated every word with increasing volume…and desperation. “Get. Out. Of. My. Way!”
RJ reached out to catch hold of her wrists. He wasn’t going to let her destroy the gazebo just like that.
He held her there, their torsos brushing close to one another, their lips with just the briefest space between them.
Closing that gap was all he’d wanted to do ever since their Valentine’s Day kiss. If only he’d asked Rose out before Donovan had, things would have been so different. He was sure of it.
He’d spent so much time trying not to get in the way, trying to do the right thing. But none of that changed how much he wanted her right now.
And it never would.
“RJ,” Rose said, her chest heaving against his as she tried to catch her breath, “I can’t do this.”
“Donovan doesn’t deserve you.” Those words were out before he could stop them. He wasn’t even sure that he wanted to stop them anymore. “Rose, from the moment I first saw you, I—”
His words fell away as she stepped back from him while shaking her head.
* * *
A torrent of feelings boiling away inside Rose threatened to rise to the surface.
Why did RJ keep questioning her decision to not use the gazebo?
Why wouldn’t he just help her make new wedding plans like she’d asked him to?
And why, oh why, had he stopped short of actually kissing her again?
Hold on, what was she thinking?
That was the problem. She couldn’t think straight anymore. There were too many emotions running riotous inside her. The same emotions that sprang up inside her every time RJ was near...and, lately, even when he wasn’t.
She was engaged to Donovan. He never walked into a room and made her feel like everything around her might be about to spiral out of control. He had everything going for him. Everything. Being with him was like being in a fairy tale. One where the handsome prince hadn’t decided to love a princess, but had somehow opted for her instead, and was now slowly showing her that she could be a princess, if she only tried hard enough to fit into his world.
With Donovan there were clear lines. Good and bad, high class and cheap, proper and improper.
With RJ, everything seemed to be jumbled together in one big exhilarating and unexpected mess.
But she couldn’t afford any messes right now, because she was about to get married to another man!
Rose carefully put down the hammer then looked back at RJ. “I’m marrying a good man in a few days, a man who trusts me as much as I trust him. I need this to be perfect...and I can’t afford to have things complicated.”
“I’m not trying to make things complicated for you, Rose,” RJ promised her.
But that’s exactly what he was doing, couldn’t he see that?
“You’ve helped me so much the past few years. You’ve been truly indispensable. But I need to know that I can rely on you to help me with my own wedding. Because if you can’t…”
Actually, she didn’t know what she’d do if he wouldn’t help her. With everyone else, they were her friends, and they did great work, but with RJ, he was always there. Whenever she needed him.
He seemed to think about her question for a while, before stepping back from her and nodding.
“Of course you can rely on me. Whatever you need, I’m here for you, Rose.”
Chapter Six
“You have to hold still,” Anne cautioned Rose on Monday morning while she continued to pin her wedding dress in place.
This was the first time her best friend had let her see the dress she’d designed, and it was absolutely beautiful. Anne had used layers of everything from white silk to pale ivory cotton, so that what looked at first glance like a plain white wedding dress became a subtle collection of different shades every time Rose moved.
Which she was apparently doing far too much of, given the way Anne kept catching her skin with the pins she was using to tack the dress in place.
It was hard not to move, though, because around them the Rose Chalet was a hive of activity and noise. Phoebe had a couple of sample f
loral arrangements ready, and was talking hurriedly on the phone. Tyce was doing the same, making amendments to a musical score while he did it, apparently finalizing the arrangements of the pieces the string quartet would be playing. Julie was away in the kitchen putting together samples from the menu.
“I know you have a great metabolism, but you mustn’t eat too much when Julie gets here,” Anne said in the muffled tones of someone with half a dozen pins sticking out of her mouth. “I don’t want to have to do all this again on the morning of the wedding.”
“It’s not Julie’s delicious food we have to watch out for,” Rose assured her. “It’s all these parties Donovan has me going to.”
Anne smiled. “It sounds like fun. All those people, all that champagne.”
Rose nodded, even if the truth was that she was overwhelmed by all of the champagne toasts and formal dinner parties. It seemed like every single one of Donovan’s friends wanted to celebrate his impending wedding. Or maybe it was just what they thought they were supposed to do.
Either way, Rose had spent plenty of time sitting in rooms where she didn’t really know anyone, trying to make conversation with friends of Donovan who were mostly interested in how each other’s business was going, or what exotic location they’d just come back from, or golf. Unfortunately, Rose didn’t have a lot of conversational options when it came to golf.
Or she’d find herself at one end of a room with the wives and girlfriends of Donovan’s friends, while her fiancé was at the other. Rose enjoyed discussing fashion, or shoes, but after the first dozen conversations about the latest TV star she knew nothing about, she’d grown more than a little bored with the whole thing.
“There,” Anne said, “it’s ready.”
Rather than head to a mirror, Rose simply stepped over to one of the large windows and looked at her reflection in them.
“It’s the most beautiful wedding dress I’ve ever seen, Anne. Thank you.” Truly, it was the dress she’d always dreamed about getting married in.
