Page 7 of The Desperate Warrior

“You think so?” Zoe fingered her veil. “Is it too much? Should I go with the shorter one?”

“No, it’s perfect.” Jules and Zoe had similar features and build. Also, they had the same golden-blonde hair. However, Zoe was more glamorous with her long, wavy hair and stylish manner of dress. Jules, on the other hand, wore her hair straight and rounded on her shoulders. Her makeup was much lighter and more natural. When she wasn’t dressed in scrubs, she opted for comfortable jeans, t-shirts, and low-heeled shoes.

Zoe brought her hands together. “I can’t believe I’m getting married today. To Tippin, of all people.” A low chuckle soundedin her throat. “If he insists on wearing those gosh-awful unicorn socks, I’ll wring his neck.”

Laughter gurgled from Jules’s lips. “Well, you do call him your unicorn.” The description fit to a T because Tippin was quirky and walked to the beat of his own drum.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that I want him to wear those ridiculous socks,” she fumed.

“Is he gonna sing to you with his new guitar?”

She made a face. “Oh, yeah. You know him, he’s determined.”

“Well, Dad did pay good money for the guitar.”

Jules rolled her eyes. “Seven hundred and sixty-eight thousand dollars, to be exact.” She shook her head. “If my followers knew that the only reason Tippin got engaged to me was because Dad bribed him with a guitar, they would have a heyday.”

A shrewd smile tugged a corner of Jules’s mouth. “You love him.”

Happiness danced in Zoe’s sable eyes, rinsing them in gold. “I do. I love him so much that I have to pinch myself to make sure any of this is real.”

It was good to see her older sister so happy. The Sterlings and the Armstrongs were long-time family friends. Consequently, Zoe and Tippin had been together since birth and were childhood friends and sweethearts. Then, in high school, when Zoe started running with the popular crowd, she ditched Tippin—a folly that caused a bitter war to break out between them. This war wreaked havoc on the prep school they attended as the two of them went head-to-head for years, playing all sorts of mean-spirited pranks on one another. Tippin egged it on by writing scathing articles about Zoe in the school paper.

Jules had always known that Zoe still carried a torch for Tippin. However, her sister’s true feelings didn’t bubble to the surface until Zoe found herself in dire need of Tippin’s help.

Zoe had worked hard to build her business that included a new makeup line. A little over a month ago, Zoe found herself in the terrifying situation of being stalked by her ex-boyfriend, Nico Ventura, a blockbuster movie star. In a crazy turn of events, he turned out to be a psychopath who killed Zoe’s friend, Stacie, and her manager, Gage.

Tippin was the tech guru for an elite bodyguard agency that specialized in protecting billionaires. Dad arranged for Tippin and Zoe to get fake engaged so that Tippin and his team could protect her. It was no secret to anyone in the family that Dad orchestrated the situation in the hope that Zoe and Tippin would rekindle the spark they once had.

Dad’s plan worked like a charm. In fact, it took less than a week for Zoe to realize that she still had feelings for Tippin. Of course, Zoe and Tippin still fought like cats and dogs. It was how they communicated. One minute, they were tossing verbal daggers back and forth, and the next, they were kissing like there was no tomorrow.

Jules’s stomach knotted. At least Zoe and Tippin were able to get their grievances out in the open so they could resolve them. She was the idiot who’d fallen for the G.I. Joe tough guy who kept all of his feelings bottled up.

Brock had been hired as Zoe’s bodyguard while Tippin posed as her fiancé. Jules first met Brock when she went to visit Zoe in West Hollywood. From the moment she first laid eyes on Brock Ellis, Jules had been smitten. She and Brock had jumped into their relationship full force, and now Jules was head over heels. In retrospect, they probably should’ve taken things more slowly. Brock was a retired Navy SEAL and carried some baggage from his time in the military. However, that wasn’t the root of their problem.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

Jules blinked, coming out of her thoughts. She looked up to see the concern on her sister’s face. “Nothing.” She forced a chipper smile. “I’m great.”

Zoe tipped her head, her hand going to her hip. “You’re a terrible liar. Tell me what’s wrong.”

A fist squeezed Jules’s stomach. “It’s your wedding day. I don’t want to burden you with my problems.”

“You’re my sister, and I want to know what’s going on,” Zoe countered with a steely expression.

Jules let out a heavy sigh. “Something’s off between me and Brock.”

Zoe made a face. “Did y’all have a fight?”

She grunted. “If only. The problem with Brock is that he holds everything in. Be grateful that you and Tippin have a pattern for working out differences.”

A grin stretched over Zoe’s face. “Oh, yeah. We remove the gloves, fight it out, and the last one standing wins the round. That’s our pattern.” Seeing Jules’s distraught expression, sympathy softened the edges of Zoe’s eyes and mouth. “I’m sure that whatever this is … y’all will work it out.”

“Don’t count on it,” Jules huffed. She blinked furiously to hold back the tears. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t stop them from sliding from the corners of her eyes and dribbling down her cheeks. “I’m sorry.” She let out a shaky laugh and used the backs of her hands to swipe at her tears. “I didn’t want to do this on your wedding day.”

“Tell me what happened,” Zoe prompted gently.

She took in a disjointed breath. “It’s stupid.”

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