Shopping for a CEO (Shopping for a Billionaire Series Book 7)

by Julia Kent

  I see swords and sporrans, special socks and strange shoes, and for once I’m relieved to deal with the familiar drudgery of a strapless bridesmaid dress. We women have our wedding seamstress, and she’s doing all the last-minute tucks and loosenings and fussy little tweaks that make everything perfect.

  “No, Marie, I will not dye my hair auburn for the wedding,” Declan insists as the tailor adjusts his skirt...er, kilt. Sorry. I called it a skirt in front of the Scottish tailor and he hissed at me like that time I stepped on Chuckles’ tail.

  “But you’ll wear the tuxedo kilt,” Marie replies.

  “Of course.” Declan gestures down at his body. He’s clad in a white t-shirt that fits quite well, the kilt in question, a sporran and the woolen socks. All the pieces are being carefully checked to make sure that the suits can be delivered as planned to the Farmington Country Club groom’s quarters on D-Day.

  “And the sword?”

  “Mooooooooom,” Shannon says in a low voice of warning.

  “The sword is a wee bit much,” the tailor mutters under his breath.

  “Sure,” Declan answers. “I need to have something to fall on when you finally tip me over the edge.”

  “Ye might do better with a Sgian Dubh.” He pronounces it like skee-an-doo.

  “A what?” Declan asks, twitching suddenly as the kilt pin gets a wee too close to his, um...wee wee.

  “A small knife you can hide in your hand and use quietly.” The smile he shares with Declan creeps me out. “Ye do more damage faster that way and put yourself out o’ your misery.”

  Marie splays her palm over her heart. The tips of her fingernails are a lovely lilac that matches her eye shadow. Her own hair is a rich auburn now, permed to be curly. She’s gone from platinum blonde to auburn so fast it’s disconcerting.

  Then again, who am I to talk when it comes to changing hair color?

  “I am just trying to make sure I...er, you and Shannon have the best wedding ever!” She sniffs, clearly hurt. Or pretending to be hurt. Now that she’s become a Momzilla, it’s hard to tell the difference.

  She gives the tailor a withering glance. He doesn’t notice. I have the distinct impression he couldn’t care if he did notice, anyhow.

  Declan’s eyes narrow. Shannon puts her hand on his biceps and whispers something in his ear that makes him tense, then arch an eyebrow.

  “And I’ll do the authentic kilt thing,” he says in a tight voice.

  My turn to arch some eyebrows as I look at Shannon, whose cheeks are flushed.

  “You’ll go commando?” Marie chirps, clapping her hands with glee.

  “It turns out it might have some benefits I hadn’t considered,” Declan mutters. What I thought was a tone of frustration sounds more and more like arousal.

  Get a room, you two.

  Andrew lets out a snort and looks at Shannon.

  Then right at me. All the blood in my body stops, pulsing in place, as if trying to decide what to do next. It’s as if my red blood cells have become sentient and aware, attuned to Andrew’s presence at all times.

  Every day that this wedding planning goes on and we both have to be in the same room is a kind of exquisite torture. My breath feels charged. He won’t stop looking at me.

  So what can I do?

  I look back.

  And imagine him commando.

  My heart tugs a little every time I see him. I want to go back to that night we spent in bed, after he found me at the brew pub. It’s not the sex that I miss. I miss the intimacy. Our talks. The loose and easy way I can strip myself down to my essence and be real with him. Andrew looks like he could use a loving dose of real right now, too.

  Why does all the rest of life have to get in the way?

  I know he’s hurting after blurting out his father’s secret. Declan was livid. Shannon told me later that he nearly withdrew his offer for Andrew to be his best man, but she’d talked him down. James and Declan have had a contentious relationship for years, and for Declan, it felt like one more way of being unmoored in the world, untethered from the man who should be an anchor.

  I know from that night when Andrew opened up to me that Declan’s not that far off base. The strain between his father and brother is one with roots so deep and searching.

  Roots that wrap right around Andrew’s heart, nourished by blood and denial.

  Here I am, fighting back the real and working on my mask.

  Once you taste real, though, the fakery is hard to swallow.

  “Why in the hell would ye wear pants?” the tailor asks, his face a blistering pink. He has dark hair like Declan’s, though it’s gone to salt and pepper. His beard is thick like a squirrel’s tail, and he has bright blue eyes. “Yer bollocks need airing out.”

  “My balls need lots of things,” Andrew mumbles.

  This is the first time I’ve seen him since the dinner party. We’re taking it slow. And by slow, I mean we’re taking it nowhere, if by “it” you mean this relationship thing.

  I’m nobody. Who are you?

  I’m nobody who really does regret not indulging in boozy sex with Andrew in that closet.

  He was right.

  He’s texted me a few times. Between his traveling to New York and Europe and my last-minute wedding stuff, plus a spectacularly dull series of a few extra DoggieDates and my second childbirth class with Josh, the past few weeks have been a blur.

  Not a wine-induced blur. Worse.

  An ambiguous blur.

  “Yer turn,” the tailor, Mr. MacNevin, tells Andrew.

  Hamish saunters in at that moment, beer bottle in hand, and he reaches into a bowl of snacks someone’s put out on the kitchen counter. I see him munch on day-glo cheese balls and something chocolate.

  Intrigued, I go and look.

  And my joyful little heart sings.

  “Cheetos and chocolate-covered pretzels!” I say, clapping, then shoving a handful in my mouth. “Hoo eatz deeze?”

  “You, clearly,” Hamish says, then swigs his beer. He makes a face and looks at the label. “Jay-zuz. Piss water. All these Americans drink is piss water. Ye canna get a good lager here.”

  “You’re eating Andrew’s favorite snack food,” Shannon says, ignoring Hamish. The seamstress is cupping her boobs, on her knees in front of Shannon, and Declan is watching with a leering fascination.

  Andrew is staring down at his own version of seamstress, on his knees with the kilt and sporran, and a very long kilt pin that could, with a shove of two inches, turn Andrew’s unprotected balls into a pin cushion.

  I swallow my mouthful and reach for my own bottle of watered-down piss.

  Or, as we Americans call it, light beer.

  “Oh, hi!” Marie says to Hamish, squinting. “Are you the stripper we called about? That woman who owns the company said she’d send over a nice, tall redhead, but...”

  “Remember Hamish? My cousin?” Declan says pointedly.

  Marie puts on her glasses. “Oh, yes. Hamish! You look so much like one of the male strippers I tried out for Shannon’s bachelorette party that I didn’t recognize you.”

  Let’s unpack that sentence, shall we? Because it contains so many whoppers in such a brief stretch of words.

  “Stripper you tried out?” howls Jason from across the room, where one of Mr. MacNevin’s assistants flails in an attempt not to poke himself in the eyeball with Jason’s kilt pin.

  “You’re planning my bachelorette party?” Shannon yells, turning in such a way that her dress falls in a puddle beneath her, revealing a strange combination of a red UMASS t-shirt and a tartan garter.

  “Garters,” Declan says, drooling.

  “I didn’t literally try him out,” Marie titters.

  “If it’s the same guy from O,” I counter, “then drinking that shot of white Russian out of his navel while he massaged lavender oil into your—

  “MARIE!”

  “MOM!”

  “I was working!” Marie argues back. She pointedly walks to the
kitchen table and shuffles more papers, mumbling something to herself about the tents and the weather forecast.

  “Garters,” Declan says, still drooling.

  Shannon walks over to him and presses up on his chin, rolling her eyes.

  Mr. MacNevin looks to Hamish with a conspirator’s stare. “Are they all like this?”

  “Like what?”

  “So...American.”

  “Aye.”

  The two sigh and make a weird grumpy sound in the back of their throats.

  A warm flush starts at the hollow of my throat, and not because the seamstress has moved on to me. She hands me my dress and I go into the changing room with her at my heels. We’re trying everything on, so I have to add the many layers of underclothes, the corset, and finally the dress and sash.

  “Amanda,” the seamstress, Holly, says, huffing and puffing as she tightens the corset. “You have more cleavage than Dolly Parton.”

  I look down. I don’t have to look far, because my chin brushes against the top of my boobs.

  “Can you loosen it?”

  “The corset, yes.” Holly is not much older than me, with slim, surgeon’s hands that move fast. “Are you fine with that? Most American women hate not wearing a bra, even a strapless one.”

  “No problem.”

  “But your dress buttons won’t budge. They’re as far out as can go.”

  I take a deep breath and nearly smother myself with these airbags that double as breasts.

  “I will pass out before the ceremony starts.”

  She tugs on her long, brown braid, looking at me from various angles. “We could try Velcro.”

  “Velcro?”

  Holly’s eyes dart about the room like were talking about meth. Marie won’t be happy with Velcro. “Yeah. Velcro. Just don’t say a word to the crazy wench, and—”

  “Is that your name for Marie?”

  She snorts. “MacNevin’s name for her is far, far worse.” She gets back to the matter at hand, touching this and tugging that. “I can buy you another inch or two with some well-placed buttons and a few changes. Can hide it so no one else notices. What do you say?”

  “It’s Velcro or death by asphyxiation.”

  She stares at me like that’s not an answer.

  “Um, Velcro, of course. There’s no other choice.”

  “No. There is. You’d be surprised how many mothers of the bride insist on possible asphyxiation as a perfectly acceptable plan.”

  And with that, she helps me out of the entire contraption, giving me privacy to change back into my street clothes, then wander back into the main room. Holly guides me back to our spot, where she makes some small adjustments with a sash over my shoulder.

  Marie is the queen at court.

  “Amanda, did you order extra chairs and those shade sails for the sides of the seating areas? With a thousand guests outdoors, it’s going to be—”

  Andrew interrupts Marie with a sharp word. “Outdoors?”

  Either she ignores him, or doesn’t hear him. You can never tell the difference with Marie. “—a logistical nightmare making sure everything is—”

  Without caring that he’s upended the poor tailor’s assistant by moving swiftly across the room to get in Marie’s face, Andrew bends down in a curled stature, towering over Marie, who slowly tips her head up like she’s realizing she’s in danger from a beast she hasn’t noticed before.

  “Yes?” she squeaks.

  “Did you say the wedding is outdoors?”

  “Yes?” Her voice goes up like a question.

  “I thought the actual wedding was at the same church where Mom and Dad married. Where we practiced.” His nostrils flare and his face goes blank in a manner that makes my skin start to crawl. “And then an outdoor, evening reception.”

  Marie’s eyes dart to Shannon, who is watching the exchange while chewing on her thumbnail. Declan is in a small room, off to the side, being fitted for some part of the garment that requires privacy.

  “Um, we moved it?” Marie’s entire face lifts up, like she’s asking permission. “There is some parade and festival in that part of the city, and when we looked at the calendar and—”

  “No one told me.” Andrew’s words silence the room. I’m not about to open my mouth right now and mention that if he’d paid a smidge of attention at the rehearsal, he’d have known.

  Just then, Declan walks in. An uncharacteristic expression of panic flitters across his face like a ghost.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Outdoor wedding?” Andrew snaps.

  Declan’s eyebrows drop and those green eyes turn dark as he looks at Marie. “You didn’t tell him?”

  “You didn’t tell him?” she cries back. She turns to Andrew. “But you were at the rehearsal! We were talking about the outdoor logistics, and—”

  “No one told me!” Andrew roars. He reaches down and tries to unbuckle the complex series of straps and fabric that is cinched about his waist. I see a pin fall and he flinches, a streak of blood on his arm. He then finally rips the entire thing off in a spectacular display of physical self-abuse, revealing bicycle shorts underneath. Gasping with anger, he stands there wearing a white, molded t-shirt, black shorts, and a look of outrage so clear it feels like he’s a different person.

  He looks at Terry, who is watching the display with the kind of dispassionate observation only an older sibling can have, and says coldly, “You can be best man. I’m done.”

  Thick woolen stockings and dress shoes still on, he storms out of the apartment and, instead of using the elevator, appears to take the steps.

  We look at each other in stunned silence.

  “Andrew got Mom’s temper,” Terry murmurs.

  I want to ask what that means, but Marie is falling to pieces before my eyes.

  “Oh, my God, Shannon, is he serious? Why would he refuse to be in the wedding? What on earth is going on?”

  I race out of the room, managing to make it about ten feet before I hear a gut-wrenching sound of torn fabric, then feel something yank me backwards just enough to make me gag.

  The seamstress’s cry is one of surprise, not pain. “Amanda!” she says. “I’m so sorry! I was standing on your sash!”

  I untangle my neck and run to the elevator, pushing the button over and over, as if that will make the machine move faster.

  The chatter in the living room is a mix of sobs and anger, of surprise and accusations. All the voices in different timbres and tones form a sort of solid pain in my ears, and when the elevator doors open with a soft ding!, I am relieved to hear it fade in the background, like the receding shock of an unexpected blow.

  The ride down is glacial. At the rate Andrew was running, he may damn well beat me to the street, and if he does, he’ll climb in a limo and be gone.

  Or will he?

  It’s daylight outside. He won’t venture into the fresh air. That limits where I need to search. Declan and Shannon’s building has a fitness center, one that’s in the basement, and there’s a public pool attached to it. Spin bikes, treadmills, free weights.

  I never exercise in there, but there’s a twelve-person hot tub we use frequently.

  I quickly press the button for that floor and hope.

  Finding him will be so much easier than knowing what to actually say to him. He can’t do this. He simply cannot pull out of the wedding. Andrew is Declan’s best friend in the world. You want your best friend there when you change from just a person to someone else’s person. You need someone who has seen you through all the different phases of yourself and watched you grow into who you are now stand before the world and claim that self.

  Claim it via true love.

  Of all the days for Andrew to set aside his fear, this wedding should be it. Twelve years is too long for him to hang on to this notion that he’s too fragile to be outside. There is something so irrational going on, so fueled by all the impulsive emotions we develop when trauma happens, that I feel a cool detachment
forming even as my increasing love—yes, love—for Andrew clouds my judgment.

  As the elevator doors open, I walk into the small hallway in front of the fitness center. I am in a lounge, with lean chairs covered in colorful leather, shaggy carpets in patterns like butterfly wings, and a series of coolers offering various electrolyte-infused waters.

  You cannot access the fitness center without a special residents-only key, so I find a seat facing the stairs and wait.

  And wait.

  I wait just long enough to experience the dread of determining that I should go back upstairs when I see Andrew walk out of the door to the staircase. He is coated in sweat, his hair dripping with it, shirt like something from a spring break wet t-shirt contest.

  His eyes are wild and he avoids looking at me until he can’t help himself.

  “Did you know?”

  “Does it matter?”

  As his fist bangs into the doorway, I see twelve years of something he can’t even name leaking out of him.

  “Fuck yes, it matters, Amanda!”

  “If it helps, I thought you knew. You were right there during the rehearsal. I know you were busy with business issues and on your phone a lot, but I thought you had decided you were fine with it and willing to take the risk and...” I cut off my chatter with a sudden shrug, the look on his face like an emergency brake.

  “I would be an incompetent fool at best, and a reckless jerk at worst, to spend an hour or more outside on a hot July day in a flower-filled wedding at Farmington Country Club’s enormous garden, with cakes and sweets and alcohol and pretty much every substance you can imagine drawing bees and wasps like a damn death magnet,” he says coldly.

  At least he’s admitting why he’s upset about the wedding being outdoors. This is progress.

  “You can bring EpiPens. The chance is so, so slim. And Marie has even arranged to have an ambulance and paramedic on hand for any medical emergency—”

  “Listen to yourself!” he shouts. “Shannon is a fool! She’s going to break Declan’s heart!”