“Frau Lieblingsschatz,” her mother said with another curtsey. “What happens now?”
The woman closed her leather notebook. “I am offering the couple my services. The offer is on the table for two minutes.”
“We have to decide in two minutes?” Jordan sputtered.
The wedding frau nodded.
“But know this, once you commit, you must follow all my instructions. I will be in the lobby awaiting your answer,” she replied, then turned on her stiletto heel and left the ballroom.
Holy wedding ultimatum!
Georgie turned to Jordan. “What do you think?”
He took her hand and led her over to the milk chocolate fountain. “This lady seems to know what we want, and I don’t think your mom will ever disagree with her.”
Georgie glanced at her mother, who was still suspended in wedding frau shock, clutching Hector’s arm.
“True. If it were up to Lorraine Vanderdinkle, we’d be getting married in some ballroom, probably even pinker and frillier than this.”
He nodded. “With everything on our plate, this wedding planner guru may be just what we need.”
“You’re not worried about having to follow her instructions explicitly?” she pressed.
Jordan shrugged. “It’s a wedding. How many instructions could she have for us? Pick your favorite flower. Fish or chicken. I think we can handle this, Georgie. Plus, her people already took your ring.”
Georgie glanced at her ringless hand and then back to her mother and Hector, standing quietly like good little schoolchildren.
“It would be nice not to have to battle my mother or have CityBeat trying to call the shots,” she agreed.
He held her gaze. “So, we’re a unified yes.”
Georgie nodded. “Yes.”
They left the Pepto-pink ballroom and found the wedding frau standing in the lobby, jotting in her notebook.
“Frau Lieblingsschatz, we’d like to accept your offer,” Jordan announced.
Georgie squeezed his hand. This was a good thing, right? This wedding woman, no matter how intimidating she looked or how bizarrely her mother behaved in her presence, seemed to know what she was talking about.
And she loved the Botanic Gardens in the fall. She’d dreamed of an intimate, romantic wedding there.
The woman had been spot-on.
Jordan met her gaze, and she knew whatever life threw their way, they’d be okay. She loved this man—her Emperor of Asshattery. Her reformed ten, who all along was a solid, loving eight.
Her partner.
Her best friend.
“Very good,” Mrs. Lieblingsschatz said with the slap of the notebook closing.
The wedding nymph popped up and held out a pen and a clipboard. “We need your signatures on this contract and the confidentiality agreement.”
Georgie signed her name, and Jordan followed suit.
“Where does she come from?” Jordan whispered, glancing at the wedding assistant.
“I don’t know. It’s a little disconcerting,” she answered.
It was actually very disconcerting. But, with as nutty as this day had been so far, it was par for the course.
The young woman nodded to the frau, then flitted away.
“Your wedding will be in two weeks,” the wedding planner announced.
“Two weeks?” she and Jordan exclaimed.
“Yes, and it will be the wedding you both have always wanted.”
“Um…okay, thank you,” Georgie sputtered.
This seemed too good to be true.
The wedding frau’s lips twisted into a cunning grin. “And I almost forgot. Here’s the first rule. No sex until after you’re married.”
4
Jordan
Jordan froze and looked around the lobby for that lady with the contract they’d just signed.
He needed to tear that fucker up right now.
Maybe he’d gotten it wrong.
“I don’t think I heard you correctly, Frau Lieblingsschatz. Did you say Georgie and I can’t sleep together until after we’re married?” he asked gently.
The woman narrowed her gaze. “It’s only a couple of weeks, Mr. Marks. Are you unable to abstain for even a short period of time?”
“No, we could do it, but…” he began.
“You are a fitness trainer, yes?” the wedding frau asked, cutting him off as she opened her leather-bound notebook.
“I am.”
“Do you believe people need to have strong bodies and strong minds?” she continued.
“I do.”
She raised an eyebrow. “And what about hard work? Are you afraid of it?”
Dammit! This wedding woman had ninja skills when it came to marrying mind control.
“Jordan and I are up for any task. It’s just that abstaining from sex seems a little strange in this modern day and age,” Georgie offered with her plastered-on beauty queen grin.
This was not good. She only switched into full pageant mode these days when she got a whiff of Aqua Net hairspray, usually off some old lady who meandered into her bookshop.
“Modern day and age,” the frau said under her breath with a coy smirk. She closed the notebook. “After you met, how long was it before you had your first kiss?”
“Well,” Georgie began, sharing a nervous look with him. “We met in the park, and then an hour or so later, we learned we would have to work together in the Battle of the Blogs competition.”
The wedding frau clucked her tongue. “That isn’t an answer to my question. How long, in days or months, was it before you kissed?”
“Um…two?” Georgie supplied.
Cornelia Lieblingsschatz frowned. “Days?”
Georgie cringed but miraculously was able to hold the pageant expression. “Hours.”
“You two became a couple two hours after meeting?” the frau asked, scribbling in her notebook.
Anyone else would have cracked under the questioning eye of this fearsome frau, but not his Georgie.
“No, I still pretty much hated his guts at that point,” she answered as if she were addressing a line of judges.
“But you kissed him?” the woman pressed, smirk in place.
“Yes.”
“Hmm,” the wedding frau hummed. “Let’s move on.”
He shared a relieved look with his fiancée as his hammering pulse slowed.
Yes, they’d had a unique start to their relationship. They were the eight and the ten who, together, became more than just a number. It was all over the internet.
He wrapped his arm around Georgie, ready to take on the world. “Go ahead, Frau Lieblingsschatz.”
“Sex,” the woman said, dropping the s-bomb and sending his heart rate back into overdrive.
“What about it?” he sputtered.
“How long after meeting did you sleep together?”
Dammit.
“That happened about an hour after we kissed,” Georgie answered.
The wedding frau pursed her lips. “And you stopped hating each other in that short amount of time?”
Georgie shook her head. “No, I thought he was an asshat at that point.”
“Asshat?” Mrs. Lieblingsschatz repeated with a crinkled brow.
“Well, more like the Emperor of Asshattery,” Georgie corrected.
This was not going as he’d expected. First time hate sex or not, they needed to keep up a united front. He’d hardly had a moment to think before the wedding nymph returned and whispered something into the frau’s ear.
The frau nodded. “Ah, eni blödhammel.”
“Blöd what?” he asked.
Mrs. Lieblingsschatz gestured toward the slight woman, standing next to a giant vase, and he did a double take.
Had she been there the whole time?
“My assistant did a rough translation of the English word asshat into German. Georgie thought you were a stupid mutton when she met you, yes?”
His mouth fell open, ready to set the record st
raight when his fiancée nodded.
“Yes, exactly,” Georgie answered.
The frau turned to him with an appraising eye. “And what did you think of Miss Jensen after you first met?”
“Well…” he trailed off, growing hot around the collar.
Georgie had made him crazy from the first moment he saw her. Granted, at the time, he was still completely committed to the hyper-masculine version of his Marks Perfect Ten Mindset protocol. And, in all honesty, it had made him act a lot like an—
“Asshat? Is that what you thought of Miss Jensen, too?” the frau questioned.
He felt his cheeks heat. “No, I didn’t think she was an asshat.”
“A stupid mutton?” the wedding planner pressed.
He pulled at the collar of his shirt. It had gotten damn hot in the lobby.
“Nope, not that either. I didn’t like her shoes or her hair,” he answered.
Christ! He sounded like an asshat or a blöd-whatever!
The frau emitted a disapproving humph as Georgie’s worried gaze screamed for him to do something.
They needed damage control, and they needed it damn quick.
He cleared his throat. “I think both Georgie and I can agree, at that point in our relationship, we hadn’t quite worked out our differences yet.”
“But you kissed and slept together within a matter of hours,” the woman supplied with another scribble in her notebook.
Jordan swallowed hard. When did this become a session with Dr. Ruth?
Georgie’s pageant expression was back. “Have we qualified to advance to the next level of the wedding competition?”
The frau frowned. “What?”
Jordan patted Georgie’s back. “What my lovely fiancée means is what happens next? Will you contact us? Should we exchange numbers?”
The wedding frau waved off his questions. “I have all your numbers. I already know everything.”
“I bet you don’t know our blood types,” he tossed out, half-joking, but the wedding planner didn’t laugh.
“O negative and A positive,” she supplied.
He turned to Georgie. “Are you A positive?”
“Yeah,” she answered wide-eyed. “Are you O negative?”
He nodded.
The frau watched them closely. “You did not know this about each other?”
He shook his head. “No.”
Jesus! What kind of boyfriend, now fiancé, was he? What if something had happened to Georgie and God forbid, he needed to know these things?
The frau made another mark in her notebook, then glanced over at her wedding minion. The woman nodded and joined them with two swaths of fabric in her hands. No, not fabric—eye masks. She handed one to Georgie and the other to him.
“Come, now. We’re leaving,” the wedding frau said with a wave of her hand.
“What about our engagement party?” Georgie asked, glancing over her shoulder toward the doors to the ballroom.
“I’m sure your mother and the CityBeat founders will be able to entertain your guests and not mind your absence,” Mrs. Lieblingsschatz answered as she slipped on a pair of Jackie O-esque sunglasses and headed for the exit.
“What the hell is going on?” he whispered to Georgie as they fell in step behind the Angel of Wedding Darkness.
She shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
He threaded their fingers together. “What do you think about all this?”
Georgie lowered her voice. “I think I’ve heard of this wedding frau.”
“You have?” he asked.
She nodded. “I’d heard whispers about an iron-fisted wedding planner from a few happy eights couples who wrote in to thank me for helping them find their way to the altar. But nobody actually talks about her. She was an urban legend to me until now.”
He followed Georgie into the tight space as they navigated the spinning door.
“Urban legend or not, I was hoping our next stop would be our bed,” he said, knowing exactly how Alice must have felt when she tumbled down the rabbit hole.
They exited the revolving door and found a black limousine with a man sporting a do-not-mess-with-me expression, holding the door open. Jordan glanced past the guy to see the wedding frau’s black boots inside the sleek vehicle.
Georgie touched his arm and grinned up at him with her real smile, not the deranged beauty queen one, and he released the tight breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“I think we go with it, Jordan. As crazy as this has been so far, this lady still may be better than, you know who.”
“The Hydra of Denver,” he answered in a theatrical tone.
Her not quite blue and not quite green eyes sparkled. “Something like that.”
He lovingly tipped her chin up and brushed his thumb across her plump, kissable lips.
How he loved her!
The wedding frau was spot-on when she said he’d never expected to find this kind of love with anyone, let alone the most beautiful woman he’d ever set eyes on—even in a librarian cardigan and Birkenstock sandals. He leaned in, inhaling her sweet scent, so ready to kiss the woman he was going to marry when a loud guttural sound pierced the air.
“Miss Jensen, Mr. Marks, Frau Lieblingsschatz is on a schedule,” the wedding nymph said, appearing from nowhere.
This lady was really starting to freak him out.
With a minute shake of his head, trying to get his bearings back, he helped Georgie into the car, and they took their seats across from the wedding planner.
“Please, put on the blindfolds,” she directed without looking up from her notebook.
“You’re serious about this?” he asked, holding up the silky fabric.
The frau set her notebook on the seat next to her and leaned forward. “I am taking you to a secret location. This place is only known to the very well-connected in the Denver wedding underground.”
Holy hell! There was a Denver wedding underground?
This was the nuptial version of Neo being offered the red or blue pill in The Matrix. If he put on the blindfold, the truth would be revealed.
Could he handle the truth?
Well, the truth about what he could only guess were questions like, how many bridesmaids would they need, and how not to poke someone’s eye out when throwing the bouquet. And then there was that saying, borrowed, blue, shiny, new…
Dammit! That didn’t sound right!
Maybe there was more to planning a wedding.
“We have to do this?” Georgie asked.
Somehow, the frau’s stony expression grew more stoic. “Your wedding is not only an important day for the two of you. As I understand it, several media outlets will have an interest in covering it. You two are popular like those girls on the internet, doing makeup tutorials for millions of people, yes? Like, teaching people how to get the perfect cat eye?”
He sat back and met the frau’s gaze head-on. Did she think they were a couple of bogus social influencers?
“We help people live healthy and fulfilled lives,” he corrected.
“But you write about it on a blog and then talk to a camera to share your thoughts?” she pressed.
“Yes,” he answered, sensing the frau’s trap.
“You are famous for not doing much more than discussing your beliefs.”
He shared a look with Georgie.
“We do much more than that. In our blog and with our businesses, Georgie and I help people live better lives every day, Frau Lieblingsschatz,” he answered, conviction lacing his words.
The wedding planner sat back. “Good! We understand each other. That’s what I do to help couples plan their dream wedding. So, you’re going to follow the Lieblingsschatz protocol, and that means you are to put the blindfolds on. Do not fret. We don’t have far to go.”
Georgie’s gaze bounced from him to the silky fabric in her hands before she secured the blindfold over her eyes.
“Mr. Marks,” the wedding frau prompted.
H
e put the damn thing on, then reached for his fiancée’s hand. What he wouldn’t do to rewind this day back to waking up with Georgie in his arms and his cock between her thighs. It was hands down the absolute best way to start the day.
An early riser for most of his life, he was always up before her. This allowed him the opportunity to brush an errant lock of hair from her cheek and pull her close while dropping kisses to her lips and chin and neck. He’d been anxious about the upcoming morning TV proposal he, Hector, and Bobby had planned. But in those moments when it was the two of them, curled together like sleeping cats, the sun barely a sliver in the sky, he’d forgotten his worries and had given in to his desire.
It wasn’t hard to do with a goddess asleep in his arms.
He’d whispered her name, Georgiana, as he kissed the sensitive skin below her earlobe, and she’d hum a satisfied little sound, silencing any doubts in his mind. He’d massaged her breasts, working her sleep-warm body as his fingertips glided down her torso and always, morning after glorious morning, found her wet and ready for him.
Savoring her scent and her breathy sighs, he’d slide inside her slowly as their limbs tangled, their bodies growing desperate to thrust and rock and grind together beneath the blankets. Sweet lazy kisses intensified into heated gasps. His chest tightened remembering her nails, raking down his back as she met her release, crying out his name over and over until he couldn’t hold back any longer, his hips pistoning as he teetered on the edge, ready to—
“Mr. Marks, are you coming?” came the wedding frau’s sharp German accent.
“Am I what?” he shot back, shocked out of his predawn fantasy fucking as if a bucket of ice had been poured down his trousers.
Georgie squeezed his hand. “We’re here. You must have been meditating or something.”
Or something, sweet Jesus! Was he so discombobulated that he’d rocked a complete sex rerun in his head during the car ride?
He slipped off the blindfold. “Sorry, I was…” He glanced from the stern wedding planner to his fiancée. “Meditating, like Georgie said. It’s great for centering oneself to be at your most productive,” he managed, throwing together one hell of a bullshit word salad.
Own the Eights Gets Married Page 5
