Page 3 of With Any Luck

I pulled myself out of the memory and averted my eyes to my shoes. “What are you doing here?”

Those green eyes turned playful. “I’m here to kiss you.”

It was so ridiculous, a startled laugh slipped out of my mouth before I could reel myself in. “You’re joking, right? In front of everyone?”

He leaned in toward me. He even smelled like my memories—woodsy cologne, cedar, and pine nuts. “Let me kiss you, and we’ll see if I find myone true lovetomorrow. Only way to prove it. And just in time for Valentine’s Day.”

“If I remember,youwere the one who didn’t want to kissme,” I snapped back.

“What if I lied?”

There were ...somany things I could’ve said in that moment, if I’d been just a smidge wittier, but all I could think of, as I stared at this disastrously handsome man, was ...

“I don’t have a mint on me.”

He gave a snort, one that sounded like a bit of laughter, and began to open his mouth when Carmilla called from the porch of the bed-and-breakfast, “Theo!I hope you’re behaving!”

The broad-shouldered man actually had the gall to look bashful. “Of course, Millie,” he said back. “Whatever else would I be?”

“Yourself,” she deadpanned. And at that moment, I immediately knew what Rhett saw in her. She smiled at me with a wink and said, “Don’t let him give you a hard time. You two need to worktogether, after all!”

Together?Wait, did that mean this guy was—

Suddenly, Carmilla looked behind her, distracted. “Oh, Daddy, stop grilling my fiancé!” she cried and fled into the bed-and-breakfast, leaving me outside and alone with my sudden and irrevocable mortal enemy.

He rolled my suitcase up to me and stuck out a hand. “I feel like we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. Let’s try it again? Theo Luck.” He introduced himself. “Carmilla’s maid of honor.”

I looked down at his hand, then back up to his smug, handsome face, and grabbed the handle of my suitcase. Without another word, I turned and rolled it up the sidewalk to the porch steps, where I dragged it to the top and thoroughly tried to ignore him.

Besides, I had a bachelor party to rally together, and a wedding to get through tomorrow. I didn’t have the luxury of hating Theodore Luck.

I just had to survive him.

-Today-

Iwake up with the taste of tequila and regret on my tongue.

Maybe the tequilaisthe regret. It sure tastes terrible, whatever it is. My head’s pounding, and I can’t quite remember how I made it to the couch. In fact, I can’t remember how I left Rhett’s bachelor party. There was a kitschy bar—Ye-Haute, an Old English / Wild West–infused dive where the bartender wore a cowboy hat and talked like someone out of a Shakespearean novel, and I think I took one too many shots out of Ye Olde Bartender’s ample cleavage. As the best man—well, bestmaid, but I refused to be called a maid unless it was for some kinky role-play—I was in charge of making sure the bachelor party went off without a hitch.

IthinkI did.

Meanwhile the maid of honor—mortal enemy, thorn in my side—had been in charge of the bachelorette party back at the bed-and-breakfast. Mani-pedis and champagne and a quiet night in, I assume.

In fact, I assume that right up until a knock on the hotel room door startles me off the couch. The knock comes again, this time harder. It pounds against the side of my hungover skull like an ice pick.

Then—

“Audrey!Audrey, I swear toGodI hope you’re in there.”

I groan. Because I know that voice.Him.Of course it washim. The man who, if I didn’t already have a migraine, will give me one instantly upon hearing his voice. Pulling the blanket off the back of the couch, I shuffle over to the front door, catching my reflection in the hall mirror.

I look like someone ran me over with a semitruck and then backed up and did it again just for good measure. Mascara smudges around my eyes, my lipstick having migrated off to the side of my cheek, one earring missing, last night’s dress rumpled, a mysterious stain on my left boob. At least I look how I feel. The blanket is, in fact, just a top sheet I must’ve raided from the hall closet. Did I evenmakeit to bed?

The crick in my back tells me no. I’m too young to be too old for this.

“Audrey!” The man pounds on the door again. “If you’re not in there, you better be with—”

I fling it open with aplomb.“Theodore,”I greet him, my voice a croak in my throat. “I’m here, I assure you.”

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