“I’d say planning a wedding is like planning a war,” Marcus chuckled. “But slightly more complicated. After this, Heather will be ready to invade New Zealand.”
“That bad?”
“The spreadsheets I’ve seen I can never unsee,” Marcus deadpanned. “But I’m sure Heather’s takeover of Wellington will be swift and bloodless. And the wedding’s going to go off without a hitch. Especially with you and Carly here to help out. Although, Carly …” he trailed off.
Nick raised an eyebrow. “Not a fan of the best friend?”
“No, she’s great, and she loves Heather to the hilt. So clearly she’s got great taste. But she’s just, sometimes she’s a bit much, you know?”
“Ah,” Nick nodded.
“She comes from some rich New York family, and she’s pretty brash.”
“Noted,” Nick said. He’d dealt with brash rich kids before. Ballet was full of them.
“Heather calls her a force of nature. Don’t get me wrong, she can be a lot of fun, too. She’s just a bit of a live wire, you know? Like this morning when we picked her up, she comes storming out with her suitcase and gives Heather a huge hug, then tells us this story about how she accidentally ran some poor guy over with her luggage trolley and got into a screaming match with him.”
Nick nearly spat out a mouthful of water. He swallowed it fast and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, staring at Marcus, heart racing.
“What?” he said, suppressing a cough. No way. This could not be happening. He could not have burnt through a year’s worth of unwelcome coincidences in one morning. Through his horror, he heard the sound of a key turning in the lock at the other end of the hallway.
“I know, way to make an entrance, right? Anyway, brace yourself.” Marcus craned his neck to glance up the hallway, and Nick heard the front door open.
Muffled chatter filtered down the hallway, and Nick stared at Marcus in shock and disbelief. He kept staring as he heard two people making their way towards the back of the house, unwilling to turn around and confirm his suspicions.
“ … come on, you can admit it, that woman had a stick the size of the Empire State Building up her butt,” came a familiar voice. Averyfamiliar voice. Deeper than you might expect from a woman her size, and a little scratchy, as though she’d spent the night before shouting to make herself heard in a crowded room. Or the morning shouting at complete strangers for no good reason. In any other woman that voice would be intriguing and a little sexy. In this woman it inspired nothing but dread. And, at this moment, it was right behind him.
Nick rose from the chair, more slowly than he’d ever stood in his life, and turned around.
Heather was laughing as she arrived in the kitchen. “We’re here and we brought banh mi! Nick!” she exclaimed, a delighted grin on her pretty face. She stuck out her hand, and he shook it. “I’m so glad to meet you at last. I’m Heather.”
Keeping his eyes on Heather to avoid looking at the woman next to her, who he could already sense was stone faced and furious, Nick managed a jerky nod and did something with his mouth that approximated a smile. Heather didn’t need to introduce herself. The Heather Hays, ex-principal dancer at New York Ballet Theater, formerly one half of “America’s ballet sweethearts,” and the biggest hire Australian National Ballet had ever made? He still kind of couldn’t believe that his best friend from ballet school, the gawky, daggy kid he’d once snuck off to a topless beach with, had managed to pull The Heather Hays. Or that she was even more beautiful in person than she was in publicity stills or on the cover ofBarremagazine.Well done, Marcus, he thought, as she gave her fiancé a quick peck on the lips before setting a large brown paper bag on the kitchen table.
“Nick, this is Carly Montgomery, the maid of honour,” Heather said, turning to face them again. She didn’t seem to have noticed that Nick hadn’t spoken since she’d walked in. He didn’t know what would come out of his mouth if he tried. “Carly, meet Nick. Formerly a soloist at Paris Opera Ballet, now a very in-demand dance photographer.”
He forced himself to look at Carly—he sure as hell knew her name now, and something told him he’d never forget it—and saw his own feelings reflected back on her face. Disbelief. Dread. Disdain. And a twinge of regret or shame or some other shadow he couldn’t quite put words to. God, he should have known. With that posture, that carriage? He should have realized she was a dancer, too.
“Nick,” she said stiffly. “Nick Jacobs.” The way she said it, he was fairly sure she wanted to give him a profane middle name.
“Yeah,” Heather said, looking at her friend in surprise. Nick saw Marcus’s eyebrows rise. “Do you two know each other?”
Are you there Beyoncé? It’s me, Carly. Why are you doing this to me? And can you just catapult me into the sun instead?
This was Marcus’s best friend from ballet school?Thiswas the best man she’d be spending the next few weeks with, and who’d be standing at the altar with her as Marcus and Heather said their vows? If she didn’t love Heather as much as she did, she’d seriously consider changing her ticket and marching straight back to the airport this afternoon. Around the world in exactly one day.
She stared at Nick Jacobs—Nick! Fucking! Jacobs! The man she’d spent her entire morning fuming about!—and felt the seconds tick by as Heather’s surprised question hung in the air.
All the elation she’d felt at dancing with Heather drained out of her as he stared back at her, his brow furrowed over those piercing deep sapphire eyes. Carly hoisted the sides of her mouth into a smile that felt distinctly like a grimace.
“No, we haven’t met,” she ground out.At least I wish we hadn’t. She saw surprise and then understanding flicker across his face, and a second later he extended his hand.
“Nice to meet you,” he said, sounding like the pleasantry was costing him as much as it had cost her.Good. He couldn’t dress her down here, couldn’t make her feel like a catastrophic failure for making a simple mistake. Couldn’t reveal to Heather and Marcus how many times she’d screwed up in the barely six hours she’d been on this continent.
But she couldn’t very well snub him here, either. If they’d never met, she didn’t have any reason to be standing here stiffly, staring at him as he waited for her to accept his handshake. Grudgingly she took his hand and gave it one quick, uncommitted pump. His skin was soft and warm, because of course it was. She hated it.
“Nice to meet you, too,” she said, in what she hoped was a convincing impression of politeness, then released his hand as quickly as she dared.
“Well, now that we’re all here, we can get down to business,” Heather said, eyeing Carly curiously. Carly swallowed and hitched her mouth up a little further, hoping Heather would chalk the strange tension in the room up to jetlag and fatigue.
