I was crouched on the floor with my tape measure when boots creaked behind me again.
“Do you ever take a break?” Hayes asked.
“No.” I brushed past him to finish counting the gold napkins I’d brought in. “Breaks are for people who aren’t building an empire.”
“Figures.”
I shot him a glare. “Shouldn’t you be… I don’t know… skiing or something?”
He gave a lazy shrug. “I’m not much of a skier.”
“Then maybe go sit by the fire with a hot toddy and leave me to work in peace.”
One corner of his mouth curved, as if I’d said something funny. “Are you always this bossy?”
“Yes,” I said, barely glancing at him. “That’s how I get things done.”
His gaze swept over the ballroom again, lingering on the stacks of chairs and the rows of labeled bins. “Looks like it’s working.”
“Working is the keyword. Unless you want to alphabetize place cards, I suggest you get a move on.” Being this close to him made me uncomfortable. Made me think about the last time I’d seen him, when we’d almost crossed that invisible line… the one that said my brother’s best friend was off limits. I refocused my attention on the napkins, and when I looked up again, he was gone.
By two, the lighting techs had shown up to map out power runs and rigging. I followed them around with my clipboard, pointing out where I wanted uplighting along the walls and extra pin spots for the cake table. When one of them discovered a missing dimmer pack, I was on the phone to the rental company in less than a minute, my voice calm and professional even though my heart hammered like a jackrabbit being chased by a coyote. The techs gave me wary side-eyes like I might combust on the spot, but I couldn’t afford to care.
When I hung up, Hayes was leaning against a column, his arms crossed, watching me like I was the star of a particularly fascinating reality TV show.
“You run this place like a drill sergeant,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Actually, it is.”
His matter-of-fact tone threw me. “Oh.”
“Are you always this wound tight?” he added.
“Yes,” I said again, even though my voice came out a little too fast.
He studied me for a second, then nodded like he’d just confirmed something he already suspected.
“Don’t you have something else to do?” I asked.
“Like what?” The edges of his eyes crinkled in amusement, like I was more entertaining than watching the snow fall outside.
I put my hands on my hips, unsettled with him constantly dropping in. “Like not distracting me?”
He bit down on his bottom lip and scuffed his cowboy boot along the floor as he turned around. “Holler if you need help, Sid.”
“I won’t,” I called out after him, hoping with everything inside me that those words wouldn’t come back to bite me in the ass.
By the time the last vendor left, it was after eight. The ballroom was quiet again, golden light glinting off the chandeliers and the stacks of chairs waiting to be set tomorrow. My shoulders were tight, my feet ached, and my hair had come half out of the clip hours ago, but I’d survived Day One without a single catastrophe. I set my clipboard down on a cocktail table and let my arms drop to my sides, just for a moment.
The silence rang almost as loudly as the chaos had. Tomorrow was my last chance to pull everything together before the wedding party arrived. And I still had to coordinate with the florist and the cake and the band and a million other things waiting to go wrong.
I had forty-eight hours to turn this place into a winter wonderland. There wasn’t room for mistakes. And there wasn’t room for Hayes Granger, either—no matter how he kept materializing like a shadow and making it impossible to breathe.
CHAPTER 3
HAYES
