Page 25 of Wedding Crasher

They stared at each other for a few long seconds. Short of yelling for him, there was nothing Marla could do.

‘Make sure you do that,’ Marla shot back through gritted teeth and turned on her heel.

Gabe stuck his head through into reception. ‘Did I hear the door?’

He looked up just in time to recognise Marla’s familiar red hair through the window as she stomped away.

‘That woman from the chapel, yeah.’ Melanie rolled incredulous eyes. ‘Some nerve, coming over here to cause trouble on our first day, eh?’

‘What did you say to her?’

‘Just that you were busy.’

Gabe shook his head and tried not to sound as irritated as he was. ‘Ask me. Always ask me, okay?’ He opened the door and broke into a jog to catch up with Marla before she disappeared into the chapel.

She stopped and slowly turned when he called her name.

‘Well, well, well. Did your receptionist give you permission to talk to me after all?’

‘Sorry, crossed wires. Did you, er … did you need something?’

He glanced down at the diary clutched against her chest, and noticed the pale gold freckles on her throat as his eyes made their way back up to her face.

She nodded. ‘We need to talk.’

Gabe’s heart tripped a beat.You’re telling me lady, you’re telling me.‘I’m a bit tied-up over there right now.’ He jerked his head back towards the funeral parlour, where he’d been in the middle of a practice session with his new pallbearers. ‘How about tonight?’

Marla shook her head so hard that the pencil fell out of her hair and rolled along the pavement towards Gabe. ‘Tonight? God, no. I can’t. I’m, erm, I’m busy.’

Gabe retrieved the pencil and handed it back to her, thinking how gorgeous she looked with her red waves released around her face. Why, Ms Jacobs, you’re beautiful! He thought it, but somehow managed to keep the cheesy line inside his head.

‘Tomorrow maybe?’

‘No, I’m busy tomorrow night too. In fact, I’m busy every night.With my boyfriend.’

Boyfriend. The word made Marla’s tongue feel too big in her mouth.

‘Your boyfriend?’

‘Yes, Gabriel, my boyfriend. You know – a man I actually enjoy spending time with, as opposed to one who is trying to ruin me?’

Okay. So perhaps that had come out a little more caustic than was strictly necessary, but Jesus, Gabe riled her something rotten. Why had he instructed his jumped-up secretary to lie to her? And God knew he had no business looking so effortlessly cool in a suit, with his barely tamed curls kissing his collar like a flirty Sunday morning lover.

‘I meant tomorrow afternoon, Marla. Your personal life is none of my business.’

His markedly clipped tone told her that she’d scored a direct hit. Good, he deserved it.

‘Fine.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Come over after lunch tomorrow.’

He nodded. ‘As long as yourboyfriendcan spare you.’

Marla narrowed her eyes at his sarcasm, and had to clamp her teeth together to stop herself from sticking her tongue out.

‘You know what? I’m not so sure he can, actually. I guess I’ll just have to think of a really special way to make it up to him afterwards, won’t I?’

Jonny was torn between pride and unease at quite how effective his online campaign was turning out to be. He’d posted strategic links all over the net on wedding forums, and people had responded to his battle cry with aplomb.

Over two thousand people had signed the petition since he’d posted it on the chapel website last week, and their web stats had shot through the roof. Not to mention the messages of support that were flooding into his in-box on a daily basis – everything from well-wishers to a couple of much darker, sinister offers to ‘eliminate the threat’ for them.

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