Page 12 of Always a Bridesmaid

“Yours still look shit brown. Now, if you’ll excuse me, you’re interfering with my vibe. So shoo.” She swatted at him like a pesky gnat, but he didn’t budge. “You.” She poked his pec and her finger bounced back from the stark muscle beneath the starched shirt. “Are exhausting.”

“And you aren’t as cool as you pretend to be under that cucumber facade you have going on.”

“Says the man whose watch is worth more than my car. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have bridesmaid duties to attend to that don’t include talking to a mouth breather.”

“Wait,” he croaked. “You’re the fourth bridesmaid?”

“Is that a problem?”

“No.” But his expression said differently.

“Good.” With that she spun on her heels and marched her way straight through the ballroom, around the ice sculpture and champagne tower, and disappeared. When she was certain she was out of sight she made a beeline for the bathroom.

Inside, she checked under every stall and let out a sigh when she found herself blessedly alone.

Palms sweating, heart thrashing, she looked at herself in the mirror and gasped. Her hair was coming loose, her mascara was smudged, and if she looked really closely at her shoulder, there was a light tint of strawberry blond hair dye covering it like a bad spray tan.

“Little Elle Vaughn,” she sneered into the mirror. “I’ll show you little.”

Maybe not tonight, but tomorrow she would. Tonight she was a mess. Between the jet lag, heels, and those never-ending dimples of his, she had trouble focusing on the job at hand.

But, seriously, how could any woman focus when staring into those dreamy chocolate-colored eyes? And man, she loved chocolate.

However, this was no time for distractions. She needed to be on top of her game. Which was why she called Roxy. Jane was in need of a good old-fashioned, no BS convo to get her head on straight and Roxy fit the bill. Jane never lost her cool or did something like get snippy with a guest or break character. But Henry seemed to bring out the worst in her. And he seemed to do it on purpose, which meant keeping a distance would be imperative to her mission here in London.

Roxy answered on the first ring, her raspy voice hard-edged with a Hell on Wheels vibe. “Bride Buddies, how can we make your dreams come true?”

“You’re supposed to answer like we’re a high-class bridal service company, not a biker bar.”

“If you want perky, hire a cheerleader,” Roxy said, and Jane could almost picture her friend leaned back in her chair, feet kicked up on the table, her motorcycle boots leaving marks on the desktop.

“We pull off this wedding and we won’t just hire a receptionist. We’ll hire a full staff of bridesmaids.”

Because this wasn’t just any ordinary bridesmaid-for-hire gig. Due to the last-minute nature of the job, a weeklong number of events, and Jane taking on another identity, Sarah had offered to double their fee and—if Jane pulled this off without a hitch—add an additional twenty-five percent bonus. Bride Buddies would make more money in this one job than they had all year. There was so much on the line, Jane had to be on her best game.

“I think I just had an orgasm at the words ‘Hire a receptionist.’ As for more bridesmaids, that’s your thing. I’m just here so I can hack and get paid. Now, what’s up?”

Jane rubbed her pointer finger under her eye and wiped away the fallen mascara. “I think I need an exorcism.”

“Dark magic isn’t my specialty, but let’s give it a shot. What’s going on?”

“I think I’m cursed.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

Jane turned and hopped up on the sink counter. “Seriously, everything that can go wrong has gone wrong.”

“Give me specifics.”

“It was so stuffy in the ballroom it was like a sauna, so some dye dripped onto my shoulders. I’m going to have to find a shawl to wear for the rest of the night and look like I’m some kind of granny brigade. Then I was cornered by the groomsman from hell who’s isn’t a day over eighteen, with the braces and the hormones that go with it. Then there was this guy, a real asshole.”

“Your voice changed onasshole. Let’s talk about him.” Roxy always knew how to cut straight to the point.

“There’s nothing to talk about except that he brought up a story about Elle that we didn’t know. It seems like she was a bitch back in the day. There is more to the story than just selling out Sarah to the tabloids and I need to know ASAP.”

“I’ll get on it from my end. You talk to Sarah.” She could hear fingers on a keyboard clicking away in the background.

“I will first thing tomorrow.”

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