The Billionaire's Second-Chance Bride (The Romero Brothers, #1)

by Shadonna Richards

  Lucy felt heat soar through her body, her face must have been cherry red by now. “Okay, Maxine. That’s enough. I don’t know where you got those ideas from-”

  “Okay, you can run, girl, but you can’t hide.”

  “Hide?”

  “Yeah. You can’t hide from love.”

  Just as they approached the entrance of Showroom A, music wafted out from the loud speakers. And as if some coincidence, the song was none other than "Love Makes Things Happen" by Pebbles and Baby Face.

  Oh, hell no, Lucy thought to herself.

  The words “love can pull you deep into a spell....” resonated loud and clear as a wedding bell in the hall.

  Okay, why on earth do they have to play that song now?

  Then Maxine, as if on cue, unsuccessfully stifled her giggle as she held her iPad up to her nose to hide her wide grin.

  Lucy and Maxine explored the exhibit with the Fun Bird wedding invitations in the themed wedding section. Next to the Twilight themed wedding, it was the most popular there by far. They carefully selected items that would be more elegant and stunning for the various weddings they would be planning this year.

  There was a one-of-a-kind Fun Bird themed boutonnière and bouquet that caught Lucy's attention on a display in addition to slingshot pens and golden eggs and a treasure chest for notes to be penned by guests. Lucy and Maxine were even treated to a video tour of one of the weddings that contained the designer’s supply so they could see firsthand. To say they were impressed was an understatement. Going to bridal shows and conventions was a productive way to actively sample the products they would be buying in addition to networking with contractors and future business associates.

  The supplier had a display of Fun Bird sugar cookies and a tutorial as to where the special decorations should be placed in the wedding reception. They contained various decorations including themed flowers, three-tiered cakes, placemats, buttons, flags, balloons, red confetti in the shape of tiny bird feathers and the whole works. The vendor even displayed samples of the Fun Birds deviled eggs decorated with one red bird in the center of the tray on the sample dessert table along with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Lucy tasted the sweet strawberries and scooped up a delicious deviled egg.

  Lucy felt the excitement for any bride and groom who would make this a fun wedding. It really took the seriousness out of the occasion. The couple who used these products would have to have an excellent sense of humor and a mentality steeped in fun to pull this off.

  The products from this designer would be perfect for Toni’s wedding to Shelly, Lucy thought. But then as if right on cue, that awful feeling in the pit of her stomach about the risks involved to pull off such an elaborate ceremony sunk her like a rock in the lake.

  Her excitement waned for some reason, though she had less fear of Antonio than she had before. Was Maxine right? Was she really having those symptoms of a person who had caught the magical love bug? Or was that lust?

  The noise level in the auditorium was quite high but they could still hear the enthusiastic speaker hawking off all the unique elements in their themed-wedding booth. Lucy used many suppliers in the past but she was always glad to attend these shows to meet upcoming designers and view the latest hot trends in the biz. Keeping up with the best and most current trends was the name of the game in the wedding planning industry. You wanted to let people know you had everything to offer them to make their dream ceremony come true.

  “Oh, look, this is interesting,” Maxine said pulling Lucy away from the booth an hour later after they placed their orders.

  “What is this?” Lucy said looking around for the display sign for the tent they were approaching.

  “It looks like a tent booth for a DIY wedding,” Maxine replied.

  “Oh, do-it-yourself. Really?” Lucy walked inside the open white tent and her vision captured the beautiful decorations and mannequins with various wedding gowns. The tent booth had tons of gorgeous wedding decorations, a conference-length table with sample foods, and various photos on stands with the countless wedding themes. It felt so surreal to be there. For the first time since her fiancé had died, Lucy actually dreamed of becoming a bride again. She squeezed her eyes shut momentarily then reopened them. It was all too much. She came so close to happily-ever-after with Jeff but now?

  Maybe she would never become a bride again.

  Perhaps planning weddings for others was the closest she would ever become to being a bride. She’d heard the saying always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Well, Lucy thought she might be always a wedding planner and never a bride.

  “Hey, cool! You can build your own dream wedding here on their computer,” Maxine said as she scurried over to the interactive display screen. They were lucky the area wasn’t as crowded as the other parts of the booth.

  “I...I’m not really interested,” Lucy lied.

  “Yeah, right. Come on. How could you not be? We plan weddings for a living, don’t we?”

  Lucy breathed in deeply and the pain of inhaling almost squeezed the air out of her lungs. This was all too much for her. It was like looking at pictures of babies and being told you could never have one of your own. Good heavens! What on earth was she doing in this business? Torturing herself?

  No. Making others happy makes me happy.

  “Okay, fine. I’ll have a look,” Lucy finally agreed.

  Both girls sat down and were asked to log into a section of the screen where they could design their own dream wedding and have the information forwarded to them in their email inbox. Lucy rolled her eyes and shook her head. Marketing 101. What a great way to collect email addresses of potential clients.

  Lucy followed the prompts and filled in her details, then for the hell of it she had fun with it and planned her dream wedding. She paused for a moment when the groom's initials were requested. She did not know why but she decided to have a bit of daring fantasy fun and keyed in AR. Antonio Romero. Yeah, right. Like that would ever happen.

  Lucy felt silly after she’d gotten up from the display screen and looked around to see if anyone was close enough to see what she entered. She quickly decided to delete the information.

  It was useless.

  Fantasies were not going to make her real life any better—it was only an illusion, she tried to justify to herself. What was she doing here? Lucy decided that after planning the next three weddings that she had already been contracted to do, she would turn over the keys to a new CEO. She was done with planning weddings for others. It was too heartbreaking for her. It would only serve as a reminder of how much she had failed in her own love life.

  Oh, Lucy felt down on herself for even thinking such notions. When she thought about the look on Toni’s face or that of her other clients who were in love, she realized that saying something and doing something were two completely different things. It wouldn’t be easy to give up Dream Weddings, Inc.

  Just as most people who have difficulty in their jobs, they stick it out for one reason, because deep down inside it is their passion. Either that, or they need money to pay their rent and buy food. Still, she wasn’t hurting as much as she was financially two years ago and she could always try to get a job in psychology, research or teaching but it wouldn’t be as much fun.

  If Lucy was honest with herself, then she would know what the real obstacle was. Antonio Romero. She was going crazy out of her mind thinking about him every waking second. She just couldn’t flush his charm, the memory of his sweet kiss, his touch out of her mind. Oh, she tried. But she just couldn’t and because he was as emotionally detached as a slab of steel (hmm, speaking of abs of steel), she knew he was unavailable to her in the way that she would need him to be.

  The truth was, as embarrassing as it was, Antonio hadn’t even called her since Monday. Not that she expected him to. Not that he told her he would but after such an intimate lip-locking session, she thought he would at least have tried to reach her or reach out to her.

  Damn Antonio!

/>   Why hasn't he called me?

  He should have called me.

  He should have tried to send me a text message or an email to see how things were going with his grandfather. Or maybe even make an excuse to drop by the office, just as he did last week.

  What was it with him?

  Was he seeing someone? No. He said he wasn’t.

  Lucy then realized that Antonio was hot and sexy and bad in every sense of the word where raw physical attraction was concerned and although she almost went into cardiac arrest when he almost sucked her breath away with that sizzling kiss, it obviously meant nothing to him. At least that’s what Lucy believed. She anxiously bit down on her lip while thinking about Monday night.

  “Come on, Maxine,” Lucy finally uttered. “We need to get going. We have a million things to do before the end of the week.”

  “Oh, and we must get an appropriate outfit for the ball tomorrow.”

  “I don’t think I’m going again. I’ve got too much on my agenda for our upcoming weddings.”

  Maxine turned to her as if Lucy had morphed into a vampire or a zombie. “Are you feeling alright? You cannot miss the Diamond Ball, girl. We have to go!”

  “Oh, you can go. You can represent the agency. I don’t think we both need to be there. In fact, why don’t you ask one of your friends to go? Or, you and Darla can go in my place,” Lucy murmured, her heart squeezed at the thought of not going but it was for the best.

  There was only one solution to prevent Lucy from heartbreak again.

  I’ve got to get Antonio Romero out of my system.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “You seem preoccupied, grandson,” Toni commented as he hobbled with his cane into the den. He didn’t always walk with a cane but at times when his arthritis acted up, he would use his walking stick on the advice of his physiotherapist to help stabilize him while walking and help to reduce the pressure on his ankle.

  Antonio was gazing outside through the French glass doors in the room. He had his hands shoved inside the pockets of his dress pants. His tie was loosened at the neck and his blazer was opened up. He was leaning against the antique oak desk, just glaring as if his vision was fixed on an object. Only it wasn’t. It was his mind that was fixated with a subject.

  Lucy Shillerton.

  He loathed the fact that she was dominating his every thought since he’d met her. She was nothing but trouble and Antonio knew that. Yet his mind and body were not in unison where thoughts of her were concerned. A surge of heat raced through him just visualizing her in his mind. The rounded curves of her hips, her intoxicating fragrance and thoughts of what her slender legs would feel like around his waist.

  He had kissed her. That was memorable. There was something about the softness of her lips. She seemed so inexperienced, yet a breath of fresh air at the same time. Antonio had admittedly kissed a lot of women in his time to know about the individuals. Much like James Bond, he could tell a lot by the way a woman kissed, including her sincerity. He didn’t know how but he was always spot-on.

  There was something that was in sync with his body and soul when his lips touched Lucy’s. His mouth literally watered to taste her sweetness all evening before he finally kissed her. But why had he done it then? Was he just curious to see if she tasted as good as she looked? He had found her fragrance so damn intoxicating at the same time, it drove him wild.

  Antonio was simply captivated by Lucy’s chaste beauty. And not just the physical beauty. The attraction to her was one thing but what the kindness that rested within her was what struck him. It wasn’t as if he’d met women like that every single day. There was always an agenda with other women, followed by emotional baggage attached to the ones he’d met.

  So now he was hooked on Lucy’s taste and that was bad, very bad for him. He didn’t like the feeling of being hooked or dependent on anyone. Certainly not some hot-looking woman. He had too many negative experiences in his past with Velcro-women who liked to cling on for dear life to him. He didn’t want the responsibility or the emotional commitment they desired. They wanted what he could not, would not give them. All of him. Where his heart was concerned that was off-limits. Period.

  Then why was she dominating his thoughts all of a sudden? Antonio wasn’t a relationship man, so his feelings regarding Lucy brought him to the brink of cognitive dissonance. He needed to do something about that quick.

  Antonio turned around to face his ailing grandfather. “Granddad, we need to talk about...your health.” Antonio said quietly, shifting the topic in his mind to the real reason he decided to pay his grandfather a visit.

  “My health?” Toni sat down on the plush chair by the fireplace. “There’s nothing wrong with my health,” he continued cheerfully as he leaned back and reclined the chair. He pressed a button by the side and within seconds a staff member entered the study.

  “Yes, sir. Can I get you anything?” one of his butlers asked as he entered.

  “Yes, my usual, Sam. And for Antonio...?”

  “Nothing. Thank you.” Antonio wanted nothing more than to get off his chest once and for all what he came to say.

  “Very well. Now what is this about my health that you’re concerned with?” the elder continued the conversation.

  “I’ve said it before, Grandfather, and I’ll say it again. I really think you should reconsider getting married so soon.”

  The older man’s expression darkened slightly. Toni pinched his lips before answering. “Listen, Antonio. We’re not going to go through this again. I want to marry Shelly and that’s final. It is not subject to negotiation.”

  “Negotiation? Grandfather, we’re not talking about a business merger.”

  “That’s right. We’re talking about a marriage merger. You should try it sometime.”

  Antonio respected his grandfather so much but resisted the urge to be flippant. If it were any other person with whom he was speaking, he may have responded with a “try it four or five times, like you did?” but he could see the old man was simply trying to prove a point.

  “Everyone has an agenda, Grandfather. You haven’t even known Shelly that long.”

  “And just how much time do you think I have to get to know her?”

  “That’s just the point! Don’t you question the fact that she is so young and interested in spending her life with you?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Grandfather, you’re a noble man, a great person. It’s not about you. The fact that you have four alimony payments going out to your ex-wives should set off some red flags. Won’t you even consider a pre-nuptial agreement?”

  “Now you stop that, Antonio!” Toni sat up straight in his chair, his trembling index finger jabbing the air towards his grandson.

  “Granddad, listen to me. I don’t want anyone to take advantage of you. For one thing, why did she choose to have such a risky ceremony? She, of all people, should know what too much excitement could do to your heart.”

  “I went through the entire procedure with the wedding planning agency...”

  Damn, them!

  His gut clenched at the thought of how they pumped up his grandfather with all these stupid ideas about dream nuptials and outrageous ceremonies.

  “They told me that those sorts of weddings are the in-thing now and they are fun,” Toni continued, as the butler came in with a tray filled with his evening snack, fruits, biscuits and a steaming cup of coffee. “You know how much I like to have fun, Antonio.”

  “I understand, Grandfather. But do you remember what the doctor said to you after-” Antonio hesitated for a moment.

  “Yes. After the stroke. I do remember. And I also remember that I may not have all the time in the world but that doesn’t mean life has to be a bore.”

  “Grandfather, I don’t want you to rush in to things. If you really want to marry this woman, at least give it a little more time. You don’t have to wait years, just don’t jump into another marriage without thinking about it. What d
o you even know about this woman?”

  “This woman is going to be my future wife and that’s that. I don’t require your approval or anyone else’s.”

  “Fine. But you left me in charge in case you couldn't make decisions for yourself.”

  “Please don’t remind me. Besides, that’s not the case now.” The older Romero paused for a moment as if in deep thought. “I know you care about me, Antonio. And I know you haven’t exactly experienced the joys of marriage or seen it with your own parents,” Toni’s voice softened, “but trust me on this one. It’s not as bad as it seems. Just because you’ve been hurt or just because I’ve been hurt by other relationships, do you think I’m going to want to miss out on potentially finding true happiness because of some bad decision I made in the past?”

  Antonio closed his eyes and listened. His lips were clenched. He tried to suppress the emotion that had overcome him. Yes, his grandfather touched a raw nerve where marriage was concerned. His own mother was a self-professed gold digger and his former girlfriend had more than betrayed him.

  It was a bitter betrayal. The one girl he thought he was in love with when he was younger used him and then went on to sleep with his so-called best friend. Antonio chose to block memories of her from his mind but the fact that his grandfather remembered how much it almost killed him at the time when he was still in college brought the reality back that it had happened and it was real.

  Antonio didn’t get love from his own mother nor from the women in his life he had dated and add that to the fact that his own grandfather had been strung through the alimony cycle several times didn’t make it any easier.

  Antonio wasn’t like his grandfather, though. Hurt him once and no one would ever get the opportunity to pull that again on him. He was through binding himself or tying himself down to one woman. Sex not love was his motto. And that was good enough for him.

  No one would ever get the opportunity to hurt him again. Antonio would make sure of that. And if his grandfather wanted to make a fool of himself and risk his health, then that would be his prerogative.