“I hope so.”
Hunter’s brothers all had girlfriends or fiancées. If my company did well on the wedding, we could have a whole line of high-society-billionaire weddings to plan. If we screwed up, well, the Svenssons were notoriously unforgiving, and it was not an exaggeration to believe they might ruin our business if the wedding went south.
You need to step it up,I chastised myself. Though instead of being an upbeat pep talk, all it did was churn the anxiety in my stomach.
Meg turned into the drive of the Broughton estate. “I do love this venue,” she said with a happy sigh as we slowly drove down the old-growth oak-tree-lined drive.
The trees thinned, and we were met with a gorgeous vista of theBeaux-ArtsBroughton estate with its flickering gas lights and grand stone staircase up to the main entrance. We pulled into the roundabout in front of the house. The large courtyard was flanked by two wings, which Avery Broughton had turned into a bed-and-breakfast with luxury suites to be used by wedding guests. Meg and I stood for a moment, gazing upon the house.
“If I weren’t having a thousand people at the wedding,” she said wistfully, “we could have had a nice quiet ceremony here, rented some rooms…”
“We could still make that happen,” I said in a rush.
Meg laughed. “Hunter’s family would take up all the rooms, and then we would still have to pitch a tent city in the yard to hold them all.”
“We’ll have a very nice ceremony here,” I assured her. “It will be lovely.”
“Welcome!” Avery Broughton trilled as one of the staff members opened the huge front door and ushered us inside.
We were greeted by the scent of wood polish and fresh flowers.
“We get so many compliments on the flower arrangements,” Avery gushed, hugging me. “Tons of brides who tour ask for you to do the flowers. Though after the big small-town royal wedding, are you even going to have any left?” Avery laughed.
“I just had more planted,” I said. “And there’s another greenhouse in the works.”
“I can send Blade over to look at your logistics if you need,” she said as we passed by another Svensson, whose eyes were glued to his laptop screen.
He looked up at us and blinked.
“Are you really having an army of goats dressed in tutus as your bridesmaids?” he asked Meg.
She gave me a questioning look.
“No,” Sebastian called, walking into the expansive dining room. He was flipping through a four-inch binder packed full of fold-out sheets, diagrams, and tables.
“Is that a seating chart?” I screeched at him.
He regarded me coldly. “This wedding is quickly turning into a disaster. Nothing has been thought out. And no, Blade, I already told you that despite what Sadie believes, we will use human women as the additional bridesmaids, not animals, not mops and brooms covered in ribbons, and not robots.”
“Why do we need extra bridesmaids?” Meg asked in confusion.
“A number of our brothers are mad that they don’t get to be involved,” Blade explained.
“They were just mad about the food,” Sebastian interjected.
“And they want to be part of the wedding.”
“Don’t we have enough people in the wedding?” I asked.
“That’s what Hunter said. Then Greg asked him why he hated his family, and that whipped all the kids up into hysterics. They think he’s going to leave them like our dad did.”
“Oh gosh,” Meg said in concern. “I certainly am not trying to take him away from you.”
“Please.” Blade made a disgusted noise. “Hunter likes to think he’s the one keeping our family together, but half the time, he would just be out on the town, doing god knows what or in Manhattan or drunk whenever you two had a row.”
“We have to have all of your family members in the wedding,” Meg insisted. “I don’t want anyone to be left out. The wedding is supposed to be the blending of families.”
“Exactly,” Sebastian said, setting the binder down, “which is why I have already hand-selected the additional bridesmaids from eligible young women in the community. Background checks are being run on the list as we speak.”
