“You better do it,” Grant told me. “I’m too busy, Dana’s going to turn it into a major broadcast production for her reality TV channel, and Carter is flaky.”
“Hey!” Carter complained. “I could put on a nice wedding.”
“The best man doesn’t even do anything,” Grant cajoled. “You just have to show up to a few meetings.”
“It would mean a lot if you could,” Wes told me sincerely.
Fuck.
“Sure,” I said weakly, “I’ll do it.”
3
Brea
Ishould have known Mark was going to be at the engagement party. Now that I realized he was a Holbrook, it all made sense. But wasn’t that just my luck? Normally I liked reading about billionaires, but none of the men in my books were as awful as Mark had been. They had their quirks, but they weren’t psychotic.
The romantic in me had always dreamed of having a huge wedding with a big, poufy princess dress and the perfect man by my side. Though my wedding-day fantasy was a little hazy on the groom details, I had admittedly always envisioned the groom looking a little bit like Mark Holbrook with his blue eyes and dark hair.
But, I told myself,that was just because that was what Prince Charming should look like.
Besides, what would I, a seamstress who lived with her parents, do with an actual factual male person, let alone a billionaire male person? They should be reserved for people like my sister-in-scrapbooking-arms, Liz Davenport. She came from a nice family and was in love with Wes Holbrook. They went to fancy parties, ate at expensive restaurants, and traveled to exotic locations. Meanwhile, the closest I had ever come to that lifestyle was drooling over her scrapbooks at our monthly scrapbook club meetups. Through our love of food and fancy paper, Liz and I had become friends.
Next to me, Mark radiated annoyance. I wasn’t going to allow his bad attitude to spoil the engagement for me. I had been teary-eyed as Wes proposed to Liz. I didn’t want to admit it, but some of the tears were for myself. I didn’t think I would ever be proposed to, let alone in such a nice way. For one thing, my parents could not handle themselves at a nice event.
Mark glowered as I hiccupped a sob.
“I love weddings,” I told him and then ate a piece of fried squid from the plate I was holding.
Mark studiously ignored me.
“You can’t tell me you don’t want this.”
His mouth twitched. “Never.”
He looked down at me. I felt his gaze burning into my forehead and looked up to meet his eyes as I crunched a jalapeño popper.
“What?” I whispered.
“I’m trying to decide if you’re going to throw something on me.”
“Try making an asinine comment and see what happens.”
When Liz told us all she was having a baby, I couldn’t help but start full-on sobbing. Mark’s face was unreadable.
“Cheer up,” I scolded him as I dabbed my eyes. “You’re going to have a little baby cousin! That’s so exciting!”
“I suppose.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t like babies either.”
“I’m not a kid person.”
“What kind of monster doesn’t like kids? Kids are great! You can dress them up and have tea parties. You would look amazing in a waistcoat and top hatà laAlice in Wonderland.”
“There’s more to having children than dress-up and tea parties,” Mark lectured. “It’s a huge responsibility. You have to make sure they learn to read and write, that they don’t become sociopaths, that they become successful, know how to run a company, and that they aren’t pushovers and easily manipulated.”
“Is this another dig about weddings and wedding dresses being stupid and expensive?”
