Page 41 of Lost Lyrics

She curled her legs underneath her, rubbed her brow, and shook her head. “No. He says if we want to stick with our date in May, and don’t want to get married in the city, the only option is to do a private ceremony on the beach. I don’t want to get married on the sand. I want to see the ocean but not be on it. I don’t want to get dirty feet or get wet or ruin my dress.”

I pressed my lips together to contain my smile. She really wasn’t a beach person. Why she used to live in an oceanfront condo in Santa Monica still amused me. She couldn’t swim and loathed sand, dirt, and holiday crowds. But like me, she loved the view of the water.

I took a sip of my drink and licked my lips. The dry white wine was cool and refreshing after a hot day. “Has Quill tried every hotel, country club, ranch, and function center between San Diego and Santa Barbara?”

Sutton bobbed her head, smoothed her short sundress over her legs, then rested her glass on top of it. I’d preferred her skirt where it had been, resting higher up her thighs. “Within our specifications, yes.”

Damn!“And you don’t want to get married in Downtown, Hollywood, or Beverly?”

“No.” She flicked a lone tear off her cheek with the tissue.

“Sutt?” I placed my hand on her knee, just so I could touch her...and tease her skin just beneath the edge of her dress. “Is there anywhere else in the world you’d like to get married? London? Italy? Paris? New York? If you’re set on a beach view, we can look at Hawaii, the Bahamas, Tahiti, or a gazillion other locations.”

As she closed her eyes, a troubled groove formed between her eyebrows. She took a few deep breaths, her shoulders rising and falling with each one. But then she stared into her wine and shook her head. “I love those places, but no. I want to get married in LA. It’s where we met. Fell in love. It’s home. And most of our friends and family live there.”

True.I raked my brain for a solution. “What about Cole’s house? There’s no beach view, but he has a huge garden. It’s high in The Hills, overlooks the city lights, and has room for a couple hundred people.” Our yard barely had room for a cat. We had a decent-sized outdoor entertainment area and a big pool, but otherwise, the house took up the entire block. The few square feet of grass and hedged fence line could hardly be called a garden. And it definitely wasn’t large enough to hold a wedding. Cole’s place, on the other hand, was an over-the-top extravagance.

She shook her head. “He has a beautiful home, but that’s like us getting married in our own house. I don’t want that.”

“Okay . . . what about Kyle and Gem’s joint in Pacific Palisades?”

She squeezed my hand, and her lips drew into a strained smile. “It’s gorgeous, too, but not big enough for a large number of guests.”

I wouldn’t object to scaling down her first draft of theguest list to less than one hundred, but Sutton wanted to invite everyone—friends, family, and important people in our lives. So be it. “Alright, so if there are no venues or hotels available, we’ll have to find a house we can take over for a few days.”

She took a big gulp of wine and swallowed it down. Her whole body slumped as if exhausted. “Yes. At this point, I’ll consider anything. But who do we know who owns a home with a massive garden that overlooks the beach, that will accommodate a wedding for over two hundred people?”

The cogs in my brain kicked into top gear. The wheels turned and whizzed, but then they clicked into place.Shit.“I...might.” But I didn’t want to get her hopes up. “It’s a really,reallylong andverythin shot, but Andy, the owner of our old label WestTyme Records, owns a place on the hills in Malibu. It overlooks the beach. I could see if we could have it there. He’s rarely in LA these days. His latest dick-warmer is some eighteen-year-old British pop star, so he spends most of his time in London.”

Hope flickered in her dark blue eyes, but it was quick to fade. She wrinkled her cute, reddened nose. “But you didn’t end things well with WestTyme. Do you think he’d let us use his house?”

I swayed my wine through the air, tilting it this way, then that. “Andy’s okay...just. He’s ruthless and will do anything for publicity. He’ll no doubt take this as an opportunity to beg, grovel, and promise the guys and I the world to re-sign with them. But there is no way we’d ever do that.” I was positive WestTyme regretted dropping us after seeing the hits we’d had under Everhide’s label, and the tremendous success we’d had selling out our global tour thanks to the Ashlem Entertainment Group. But tough shit. They were the consequences of not giving me more time to process losing Phil. Severing ties with WestTyme had been the best thing that had ever happened to my band. We’d grown, had gotten bigger, and would never lookback. “If Andy agrees, we’ll have to drop his name during some PR, but I’m okay with that. Are you?”

A meek smile played across her lips as she shoved my thigh. “I am all for publicity. You should know that.”

Yes, I do.

Light returned to her beautiful eyes. She straightened and swiped her damp cheeks with her fingertips. “Do you know the address of the house? Can we Google it so I can check it out?”

“Sure.” I grabbed my cell phone out of my shorts pocket, typed in the address and clicked on the image tab. “This is it.” I turned the screen toward her. “As far as I know, no one else has ever gotten married there. We’d be the first.”

A huge grin lit her face. “I’d love that.” She scrolled through the pictures of the exterior. “Wow. This place is gorgeous.”

The huge, two-story Spanish-style mansion, with its manicured lawn and immaculate gardens, stood high on the cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It was elegant, like Sutton. Built to entertain, like me. It would be perfect...if we could get it.

“I’ve been there a couple times.” A dull thud drilled low and deep into the depths of my mind. Memories of the cocaine-high, pill-popping, alcohol-overloaded, groupie-filled parties Andy used to hold bombarded me. They’d been fucking wild events. But I didn’t want that kind of gig for our wedding.No. Definitely not.

“It’s really nice inside.” I scanned the image results, but there weren’t any recent photos online of the interior. “He totally gutted and rebuilt the place when he bought it. It’s modern. Has big, black fancy lights. It’s decked out with beige furniture and dark floors and has a huge arched staircase inside the entrance. We could get married at sunset on the lawn, then have the reception in an event tent.”

“I’d love that.” Sutton stopped scrolling through the photosand lifted her chin. Desperation welled in her eyes. “Can you call Andy?”

“Yep.” I glanced at my watch and did a quick calculation. “Tomorrow. It’s close to one a.m. in London. If Andy says yes, we’ll go check out the house and see if you like it.”

“Flint?” She slapped my thigh. “We both have to like it. It’s our day—not just mine.”

I caught her hand and entwined our fingers. “I’d marry you out our front door on the curbside, but that’s not your style.” I kissed her fingertips. “Is it?”

“No. I want our day to be perfect. Something everyone will remember and talk about for years to come.”

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