Even better. She’ll be determined to take over this whole event, which will mean that much less for me to worry about.Theo was pleased.
And he filed away her name for future reference, too. If she was into events planning, she might be able to help him with occasions for the ball club. He wouldn’t bring it up right now, but maybe someday in the future they could discuss it. Maybe he could even hire her on, and she would be able to take some things off his plate. She might want to be a wedding planner now, but if she were offered arealjob, she would probably change her mind. And if she changed her mind, maybe Max would follow suit…
“Theo?”
He turned his attention to Harper. “Sorry. Did you say something?”
“I asked you whether you were doing anything for the rest of the day,” she said. “Because I thought, if you’re not too busy, that we could get started on this.”
I really ought to get back to work. I’ve missed enough for one day.That was his first thought. But, quick on the heels of thatidea came another one —that meeting was the most important thing happening today. Now that I’ve missed it, I might as well take the rest of the day.
“I can take some time,” he told her.
“That’s great,” Tara said, getting to her feet. “Since you two are getting along so well, we should really get back to the kids. You’re the best, Harper, Theo!”
Max tossed an apologetic glance over his shoulder, and the two of them vanished.
I guess they were never planning on staying for brunch. This was all a setup.
He turned back to Harper. “How about that mimosa?”
CHAPTER 3
HARPER
Harper found herself experiencing a slight thrill of excitement at being left alone with Theo Davenport.
Max’s older brother wasn’t what she’d expected. She supposed that she’d been anticipating an older version of Max himself. She had imagined the same cheerful grin, the same fun-loving demeanor. She’d thought that the two of them would automatically have nothing but good times planning the wedding together. And though she wasn’t given to romantic idealism, she’d pictured them spending the day of the wedding together as a sort of pair. She had thought they would dance together, eat and drink together, and generally toast to the success of their wedding planning.
She no longer thought that. This man wasn’t anything like Max. Max was so upbeat, so much fun to be around. His brother didn’t even seem as though he wanted to be a part of this.
To Harper, that was just a challenge. She would get him to see how much fun they could have planning this wedding. She’d get him excited about it.
The mimosas he had just ordered for them would help. It was impossible not to have fun over bottomless mimosas. When the waitress returned with the pitcher, Harper took the liberty of pouring some out for each of them, and then she raised her glass. “To Max and Tara,” she said. “Since we couldn’t toastwiththem.”
Theo cracked a smile. “I hope I didn’t make things too awkward for them.”
“Oh, no, I’m sure you didn’t. You’re not the first person who has offered Tara champagne since they announced their engagement.” She grinned. “If you ask me, they’re the ones who made things incredibly awkward. They invited us to brunch, and then they took off without even eating with us! What do you call that?”
Theo let out a laugh. “I know,” he said. “That was weird, right? It wasn’t just me?”
“No, it was very strange,” she assured him. “And it was obvious that they had planned it in advance. They’re such schemers sometimes — well, I haven’t known Max all that long, of course, but Tara has always been this way. She’ll come up with a whole scheme and do anything to make sure she gets her own way. They could have easily just given us one another’s contact information, but they had to set all this up. Still…” She grinned at him. “I’m glad they did. It’s nice to have a chance to get to know the person I’m going to be working with, instead of just communicating over the phone.”
Theo nodded. “I’m glad they put us in touch with each other directly. It’ll make all this much easier. And you look like you’ve done lots of preparation already.”
“I have,” she agreed. “But, you know, Tara told me that you would have a list of vendors yourself — do you want to compare? If there’s someone on both of our lists, that might be a good place to start.”
“I didn’t bring a list with me,” Theo admitted.
“Oh! Well, that’s all right. Next time.” She took a sip of her mimosa. “We can work from my list for today. Why don’t you look it over and see if there are any names you recognize?”
She pulled out the piece of paper at the very front. This was her list of all the vendors she’d considered working with for every service they were going to need. “I’ve done all kinds of research,” she said, handing it to him. “And I’ve worked with a lot of these vendors before, so I can vouch for their reliability. But I’m guessing some of these names will be familiar to you as well.”
He skimmed the page and then handed it back to her. “Yeah, I’m familiar with most of these,” he said.
“What is it you do for a living?” she asked. “Tara never told me that; she just said you had experience in events planning. Have we been working in the same industry all this time? I feel like we would have run into one another sooner if that was the case! And surely Tara would have mentioned it.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Neither of them told you what I do for work?”
