Page 119 of The Fiancée Farce
“Hush.” Tansy laughed. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I don’t know,” she repeated, cupping the back of Tansy’s neck and running her fingers through her hair. Her nails raked against Tansy’s scalp, sending a shiver skittering down her spine. “Sounded pretty damning to me.”
“I think your mind is in the gutter,” she said.
“Oh, it definitely is. And it’s great down here. What do you say?” Gemma batted her eyes. “Wanna come join me in the gutter?”
Tansy snorted. “I face-planted in your—your...”
Gemma grinned.
Tansy dropped her voice. “Boobs—”
“Come on, Tansy. You don’t have to whisper. This alley is hardly public,” she teased, throwing Tansy’s words back at her.
Tansy poked her in the side. “I face-planted because that gutter you apparently love so much tried to grab me.”
That had sounded so much better inside her head.
Gemma busted out laughing. “The gutter tried to grab you? Oh my God. And you called me ridiculous. Youtripped!”
“Because you wanted to race. Which was completely unfair, by the way. You gave me no warning, you got a head start, and your legs are so much longer than—”
Gemma leaned in, shutting Tansy up with a kiss.
“I never promised to play fair,” Gemma whispered against her lips. “Now, let’s go home so you can motorboat me some more in private.”
Tansy sputtered out a laugh, chest aching from the sudden swelling of her heart.
If this was her prize for losing, she didn’t mind.
Chapter Twenty
“Tansy,” Katherine breathed. “You look beautiful.”
“I don’t know.” Tansy stepped the rest of the way out from behind the dressing screen. She reached back, adjusting the pearl-encrusted comb nestled into an updo thatlookedsimple, but had taken an hour of curling, one near-burn from a curling iron, and fifty-some-odd bobby pins to achieve. “I think the veil is too... I don’t know.”
“Toowhat?” Samina ran the tulle—Italiantulle, no less—between her fingers. “Too dreamy? Too romantic? Too perfect?”
“Too much.” Tansy examined herself in the full-length mirror affixed to the wall in the bridal suite of the Rainier Club. “It’s... a lot.”
She felt beautiful, looked prettier than she probably ever had, but she wasn’t sure it washer.Her eye makeup was a little heavier than she would’ve liked, even if it did make the blue of her irises pop; her shapewear was cutting into her rib cage; and she already couldn’t wait to get out of these—admittedly gorgeous—heels.
Kat smacked her hand. “Quit fidgeting. You’re going to mess up your hair.”
Tansy dropped her hand, the thought of spending more timein a chair having her hair fixed an effective deterrent. “Isn’t the whole thing a little toolook at me?”
A look passed between her friends and stepmother.
“Um, hon?” Samina rested her hands on Tansy’s shoulders, meeting her gaze in the mirror. “You’re thebride. People are supposed to look at you. It’s kind of the whole point. You’re the reason we’re all here.”
“You’ll be fine, Tansy. Once you get up to the altar and you see Gemma, you won’t even know we’re there,” Kat said.
Nothingcould make her forget that two hundred of their not so nearest and dearest were currently making their way to their seats, preparing to watch her walk down the aisle.
She breathed deep, smoothing her fingers down the satin skirt of her 1930s-inspired wedding dress. This was fine.Shewas fine. In an hour, she and Gemma would be married.
Someone knocked at the suite’s door.
