“Yes. Thank you,” I tell the closest Heart, which happens to be Summer. She smiles breezily as she salutes me with her glass of water, but she seems a little out of sorts. Probably because she’s noticed the way Owen is responding to Rebel.
“Now, onto serious matters.” Adira takes hold of the curtain covering his board and pauses dramatically. “Hundreds of hours of hard work, dedication, and extreme organization have gone into making this wedding not only perfect but top secret. We are officially in the final stretch, people.”
He yanks and the curtain falls away, revealing the board that is covered in every minute detail of Rogue and my wedding.
Rogue takes my hand under the table. “I can’t wait to make you my wife, baby.”
I smile up at him. Someone should pinch me because this still feels like a dream. If someone had told me two years ago, I would not only meet my obsession, but that he would fall in love with me, and we would end up married, I would not have believed them. “I’m going to call you my husband all the time.”
He captures the side of my throat with his free hand.
The tapping of metal against glass is followed by a rousing, “Kiss. Kiss.”
Rogue leans in and presses his mouth to mine before nibbling my lip for the sweetest of seconds. When he pulls back, I’m still feeling fireworks.
“Okay, okay. Can we keep that for when I tell you that‘you may kiss the bride’?” Adira says. “We have important details to go over.”
“We were just practicing,” Rogue says. He smiles. “Weren’t we, baby?”
I can’t help but smile back. “Sorry, Adira. Carry on.”
“We still need to finish setting up the barn…” He launches into a spiel about the things we need to do before the guests start arriving in the morning.
My phone buzzes and deep, dark fear grips me. I stare at the device while I try to listen to Adira. It’s not Nicole. Just because she messaged once, doesn’t mean she can get to me. It could be Danica or Dizzy.
“Everything okay?” Rogue leans in to ask.
“Yes, I think so.” I pick up my phone. But it will be a lot better if I just check my messages. I stand. “I need the bathroom. Be right back.”
I wander inside the house where I light up my phone screen.
Private: You can’t ignore me.
Private: I know where you are.
She couldn’t possibly. We have told no one. Except the friends and family we invited to this intimate location. And the heavily screened caterers and security. There’s no way she knows where we are, and even if she became privy to that information she still couldn’t get to us here. These messages are meant to get a reaction and nothing more.
“Baby?” Rogue comes up behind me and places his hands on my shoulders. He starts to knead the knots there. “You’re so tense. All this wedding planning taking a toll, huh?”
“It’s just last time it didn’t go so well.” I relax into his strong hands and his warm chest at my back. Last time we tried this, he was handcuffed and taken away by police. Set up by Nicole for a crime he didn’t commit. I won’t let her ruin another wedding ceremony. “We better go back to Adira before he turns into queen-zilla.”
“Don’t worry. He’s well on his way.” Rogue kisses the top of my head before he takes my hand and leads me back to my seat.
He’s not wrong about all this wedding stuff getting the best of my bestie. The man wore a leather cat suit, of all things, to dinner. And now he holds a pointer stick that he taps against the board as he paces back and fro like some kind of drill sergeant. “And what’s our objective?”
No one answers.
“To make the bride’s wishes come true. That’s right, people. We’re the fairy godmother of weddings for the next three days. Not one thing can go wrong. Everything will be absolutely magical. Understood?”
Heads nod. Owen scowls at Rebel. Summer scowls at Owen. One of the Heart brothers raises his glass. “Here, here!”
Adira smiles. “Let’s get to work.”
5
Kelsey
Carmine Savant is saying something about the next leg of the tour. As the band’s manager, I should totally be paying attention to the demands of the record company’s boss, but it’s hard to take anything in after his skank daughter threw her naked ass into my boyfriend’s hands.
