From This Day Forward

by Lauren Layne

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  If Leah McHale had learned anything in her decade as a wedding photographer, it was that Sunday mornings were meant for sleeping in. This was especially true when last night’s wedding had involved the bridal party taking tequila shots and insisting they’d pay her extra for photographing the drunken train wreck. Until three a.m.

  In other words, Sunday brunch was rarely an option for Leah.

  Today, however, Leah made an exception.

  Because when a friend who also happened to be owner of the most elite wedding planning company in Manhattan asked you to meet her at a trendy West Village hot spot at eleven thirty on a Sunday morning, you didn’t say no.

  Alexis Morgan was already seated at the restaurant when Leah arrived, which came as zero surprise, since the wedding planner thought being late should count among the deadly sins, nestled right alongside sloth.

  Leah smiled in thanks as the hostess pointed out Alexis’s table on the patio, and wound her way through the crowded mess of sidewalk tables until she reached her friend.

  Alexis was writing something in her ever-present day planner, but the second she saw Leah, she gave one of her small, trademark I have a secret smiles, shutting the planner before standing for a hug.

  “Leah, you look lovely.”

  “Um, stop,” Leah said, giving the smaller woman a squeeze. “I’m not one of your brides to be pampered and fluffed. You can tell me the truth. I look tired and I’ve gained seven pounds since we last hung out.”

  “Nonsense.” Alexis fluttered her napkin to her lap as they both sat down. “I never know which one I’m more jealous of: that gorgeous red hair or those curves.”

  “Yeah, well.” Leah patted her padded hip. “The curves are real, the hair not so much.”

  “Really,” Alexis said in surprise, leaning forward and studying Leah’s hairline curiously. “That’s not your real color?”

  Leah shrugged and took a sip of her water. “It used to be. I was one of those girls that the other kids called carrottop on the playground. But somewhere in my twenties the bright orange decided it wanted to be more of a muddy copper, so let’s just say I, um, enhance it.”

  “No judgment here.” Alexis lifted a pink manicured finger to her own shiny dark hair. “These roots aren’t my own, either. Prematurely gray even though I’m thirty-three. Tell anyone, I cut you.”

  Leah let out a surprised laugh. Alexis Morgan had always reminded Leah of a badass Audrey Hepburn. She had the same slight figure and wide brown eyes as the iconic Hollywood starlet, but whereas there’d been a sweetness to Audrey, Alexis was . . . fierce.

  Kind, definitely. Loyal, for sure. But if Audrey Hepburn was the type to soothe you during the teary phase of a bad breakup, Alexis was the “quiet revenge” friend. The one you called when you needed a kick in the pants to get your life back on track.

  “Mimosa’s your day drink of choice, right?” Alexis asked, motioning a server over with a subtle lifting of her hand.

  The waiter was by their table in seconds. “Mimosa for my friend, and I’ll take a Bloody Mary, heavy on the horseradish,” Alexis said.

  “For some reason it always catches me off guard that you’re a vodka-in-the-morning type of girl,” Leah said after the waiter had walked away.

  Alexis lifted a slim shoulder. “Let’s just say I get more than enough champagne during the workday. It’s nice to take a break.”

  Leah patted her friend’s hand. “It’s a rough life, dear. All that Veuve Clicquot you’re forced to sip with your clients.”

  Alexis tilted her head, her long brown ponytail draping over a slim shoulder. “Surely you get the occasional glass of bubbly yourself?”

  Leah shrugged. “It’s often offered, but I don’t like the view on the other end of the lens getting blurry.”

  Alexis nodded. “Rumor has it you’ve been busy lately.”

  Leah cracked her neck and wished she’d had just one more cup of coffee before this brunch. “Aren’t we all? I keep thinking that one of these years, the June bride thing will go out of style, but nope. I’m already booked three Junes out. What is that?”

  “Tradition, combined with you being one of the best photographers in the city,” Alexis said as the server placed their drinks in front of them.

  “Uh-oh, you’re busting out the trademark Morgan flattery,” Leah teased. “Whatever you called me here for must be big.”

  Alexis used her straw to stir her drink before lifting wide brown eyes to Leah’s. “The Kowloski/Shrapner wedding you were working next weekend was called off.”

  Leah’s eyes narrowed. “True. Turns out the bride and the best man had a thing. But how do you know that? I thought Wedding Belles passed on that one?”

  The Wedding Belles was Alexis Morgan’s wedding planning company. Although company was perhaps an inadequate term. It was more like an empire, and one that Leah was darn grateful to be connected with. She had enough faith in her skills to know she could support herself either way, but it definitely didn’t hurt to be one of Alexis Morgan’s go-to photographers. Not only did it mean more weddings, it meant big weddings.

  And big money.

  “We did turn it down,” Alexis confirmed, taking a sip of her drink. “I didn’t have a good feeling. And it’s a good thing, too, because we ended up booking the Preston wedding for that same weekend.”

  Leah shook her head. “Only you could look so perfectly chill about the fact that you’ve been planning the president’s daughter’s wedding.”

  “Former president.”

  “Details, schmetails,” Leah said with a wave of her hand. It was true, the bride wouldn’t technically be the First Daughter on her wedding day, but President Preston had ended his second term just within the past year, so in the eyes of the press, Kylie Preston was still very much America’s sweetheart.

  “What’s Kylie like, anyway?” Leah asked. “She always seems so sweet and shy on camera.”

  “She’s sweet and shy in real life, too, although the shyness fades when she’s around Brent.”

  Leah shook her head. “Wouldn’t you just figure that the president’s daughter and the son of the richest man in New York would become college sweethearts?”

  An uncharacteristically dreamy look stole over Alexis’s eyes. “It works that way sometimes.”

  Leah’s snort slipped out before she could help it. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in true love. She totally did. One didn’t make it to age thirty-one as a wedding photographer without trusting that at least some of the couples would make it to happily ever after.

  It was just that it never seemed to work that way for her. Despite the fact that Leah continued to put herself out there, trying every sort of wretched dating app on the planet and gamely agreeing to every blind date her friends could rummage up, she had yet to feel the thing. That elusive combination of wanting to see someone naked and wanting to wake up beside him the next morning. For Leah, it was usually one or the other—either she met exactly the type of guy she could laugh with and didn’t feel even a flash of attraction for, or there was a guy who completely revved her lady bits, but with whom she had nothing in common.

  Except . . .

  That wasn’t entirely true. The emotional and physi
cal attraction had overlapped once. But the disastrous consequences of that short-lived fling had been painful enough that she was, well, skeptical.

  “Do you have any plans for your unexpectedly free weekend?” Alexis asked as she perused the menu.

  Leah’s eyes narrowed on her friend. Alexis Morgan might be the queen of poker face, but Leah had known Alexis for close to a decade now. She knew when she was being handled, and right now, Alexis was definitely working up to something.

  Instead of answering the question, Leah took a sip of her mimosa and waited. When Alexis’s brown eyes flicked up to hers, Leah merely lifted her brows. Waited some more.

  With a sigh, Alexis set the menu aside and folded both arms on the table, leaning toward Leah. “I need a favor.”

  “Anything,” Leah said automatically, meaning it completely.

  Her relationship with Alexis may have started as a business arrangement—they’d both arrived in the city ten years earlier with big plans of pursuing their dream careers. But somewhere along the way, Alexis and Leah had transitioned from sometimes business associates to friends. Alexis had been there for Leah when she’d needed her, and Leah fully intended to repay the favor any way she could.

  “I need you to work the Preston wedding.”

  Leah blinked. “The Preston wedding. As in, the wedding of the former First Daughter we were just talking about? The one this weekend?”

  Alexis nodded.

  Leah sat back, stunned. “Holy crap, Lex. That’s not really me doing you a favor, hon. More like the other way around. This would be the opportunity of a lifetime for me. For any photographer.”

  “I know, but I still hate asking last minute like this. If it were up to me, I’d have recommended you from the very beginning, but Kylie’s college roommate and her husband are a two-person photographer team, and Kylie wanted to give the opportunity to her friend.”

  “So what happened? They had a falling-out?”

  Alexis shook her head. “They live in San Francisco and she’s a few months pregnant. There was some complication; she’s been put on bed rest. Nothing serious, just a precaution, but ergo . . . she’s certainly not going to be flying to New York anytime soon, and certainly can’t be photographing a wedding.”

  “Ugh. That sucks,” Leah said sympathetically.

  Alexis smiled. “This is why I knew you were right for the job. You get it. You get people.”

  Leah rolled her eyes. “You hardly have to sweet talk me into taking a job that’s likely to be the highest-profile wedding of my career.”

  Alexis glanced down at her Bloody Mary, stirring a pickled green bean. “Well there is one tiny thing I haven’t mentioned.”

  “Bring it.”

  Alexis looked up. “It’s a huge wedding. One photographer’s not going to cut it.”

  Leah waved her hand. “Oh please. My ego’s not so big I can’t handle a little teamwork. Who else you bringing in?”

  Alexis bit her lip, and Leah tensed at the rare unease she saw on her usually confident friend’s face.

  Alexis leaned forward and touched her arm. “Leah, you have to know how impossible it is to book one good photographer on short notice in June, much less two, and I’m counting myself lucky because two of the best happened to be available, but . . .”

  “But what?” Leah asked, her heart pounding faster as she somehow knew what her friend was trying to say. Knew whose name Alexis was terrified to say.

  Alexis’s gaze cut away from hers and fell somewhere over Leah’s shoulder, even as Leah felt the shiver of awareness that someone else had stepped into her personal space.

  Alexis glared at the newcomer. “You’re early, Rhodes.”

  Leah’s heart stopped, just for a moment. Slowly, she turned around and glanced up into the dark brown eyes of Jason Rhodes.

  He pulled a toothpick from his mouth and gave her a slow, sexy once-over. “Hiya, Red. Long time.”

  Leah could only shake her head. It had been a long time, but not nearly long enough.

  Not only was he the one man on the planet she could absolutely, positively not work with.

  He was the one man who Leah had let in close enough to break her heart.

  Jason Rhodes had never been particularly into politics. Sure, he voted. Kept up on current affairs. But most of the time he thought whatever the hell went on in DC was 80 percent bullshit.

  Still, even he knew that working the wedding of Kylie Preston was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The type of resume booster that could get your work featured in People magazine and ensure that you were in business for life.

  But that wasn’t why Jason had said yes when Alexis Morgan had called and offered him the job.

  Not the main reason, anyway.

  No, the main reason he’d agreed was because of a tall, curvaceous, red-haired siren who came with the package—and who was currently sitting in the reception area of the bed-and-breakfast Jason had just checked into.

  Jason had been about to head up to his room, but the second his eyes locked on Leah nursing a glass of white wine—her drink of choice when she was stressed, he recalled; the red was reserved for when she wanted to let loose—he found himself juggling the key in his palm before heading in her direction.

  It was stupid. Suicide, really. Especially considering their brunch meeting less than a week earlier had ended with her very deliberately dumping a glass of ice water in his crotch.

  And yet, even though Jason would bet serious money that he was on a kamikaze mission by even approaching, staying away from Leah McHale when she was this close seemed like a non-option.

  He was the helpless moth to her curvy, prickly, hot-as-sin flame.

  It was too bad the feeling was not mutual.

  She’d made that perfectly clear the day she’d walked out on him a year ago without so much as a glance over her shoulder. Without giving him a chance to explain. Stubborn, wretched woman. And yet here he was, walking toward her and actually looking forward to it even though he knew the reception he was due to receive would be far from warm.

  Moth, meet flame.

  Unlike the large, corporate hotels that dominated Manhattan, the ritzy oceanfront inn where the bride’s family had put them up held no sleek bar or endless array of seating options. Just a small bar cart set up in the corner, where guests were free to help themselves, and a handful of tables meant for quiet conversation or solitude.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Leah, with her white wine and her iPad, was hoping for the solitude option. It gave him great pleasure to disrupt her.

  She glanced up just as he dropped his bag to the floor beside her feet and settled on the chair across from her. “Hiya, Red.”

  Her gray-green eyes remained perfectly stoic as she took a sip of wine and slowly set the glass back on the table. “Rhodes.”

  Jason reached across the table to where her hotel key sat near her elbow, grabbing it before she could stop him. No plastic key cards for this classy joint. The keys themselves were old-fashioned and metal, but Jason didn’t give a shit about the key itself. He flipped over the silver plate that indicated her room number.

  Perfect.

  With a slow grin he held up his own key—room eight to her room seven. “Neighbors! Think they have thin walls?”

  “Gosh, I hope so,” she gushed sarcastically, taking another sip of wine, slightly larger than the last, he noticed. “It’ll be so much fun for me to hear whatever adolescent girl you manage to pick up giggle when she sees the tiny little thing you’ve got masquerading as a penis.”

  Jason narrowed his eyes as he pulled the ever-present cinnamon Tic Tac case from his front jeans pocket. He flipped the lid open with a thumb, watching Leah as he tilted three of the little candies into his mouth.

  The tip of her tongue flicked out almost subconsciously, touching the center o
f her bottom lip briefly, before she jerked her gaze away. He wondered if she was remembering his taste as vividly as he remembered hers.

  “Still on those, huh?” she asked, jerking her chin toward the Tic Tacs.

  Jason lifted a shoulder in confirmation. The red breath mints had started out as a replacement for cigarettes back when he’d quit smoking eight years earlier. He rarely got the urge for a smoke anymore, but the craving for cinnamon was constant, especially when he was agitated.

  And being around Leah McHale ensured that he was always agitated.

  Leah blew out a tiny, irritated sigh. “Look, I thought we agreed that we’d do this job with as little contact as possible.”

  “Huh,” he said, leaning forward. “See, that’s not how I remember it. I actually remember showing up at the restaurant for a business meeting just in time to watch you have a temper tantrum over a misunderstanding that happened a year ago.”

  “Misunderstanding?” Her voice went low and angry as she leaned forward. “A beautiful woman opens your boyfriend’s front door at seven a.m. on a Sunday morning wearing nothing but a shirt that I bought you. Tell me how I misunderstood that.”

  Jason leaned forward, happy to meet her confrontational posture. “Easy there, Red. You missed your chance to let me explain that when you ran away and then dodged my phone calls for a month.”

  It still burned.

  And Jason had never been the type to lick his wounds.

  Not when an endless string of foster families had kicked him to the curb. Not when his biological mother had reappeared out of nowhere, only to disappear when she realized that playing mom to a surly thirteen-year-old boy wasn’t as “fun” as she’d expected, throwing him back into the loop of temporary families all over again. Not even when his Army Ranger career had ended in the blink of an eye, when an Afghan car bomb killed several of his friends and destroyed Jason’s knee in the process.

  But Leah’s desertion . . .

  That had stung.

  Not only because he’d thought they’d had something, but because she’d made it very clear that Jason Rhodes wasn’t worth even an ounce of complication. He was used to it by now. Mostly. But damn if this woman didn’t ignite a temper he didn’t even know he’d had since the day he’d laid eyes on the stunning redhead in a photography shop on Eighteenth and Sixth.