Page 17 of An Inconvenient Plan
“Back in your purse,” Phillip said.
“You left her alone?” Hailey cried. “She could run away.” She rushed back to Rose.
Josh spoke under his breath to the playboy prince. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”
Phillip laughed. “I’m not too worried. If she actually wanted you, you’d be the one sitting with her, not me. I get the feeling you’ve known each other a while.”
Josh wanted to punch him so badly, but he knew security would close in and there’d be a scene, as Josh would have to neutralize the threat of three men. Hailey would be furious after she’d just told him no more throwdowns.
“Asshole,” he spat and stalked toward the door.
Rose barked at him as he passed by Hailey. What did he ever do to that little rat? Geez, he had to win over a beauty-queen wannabe princessanda rat-dog? Why couldn’t he just have it easy and be born a prince?
But that had never been the way life rolled for him. He had to work hard for everything he’d ever gotten. No one handed anything to him. He opened the café door and headed outside, not bothering with the coffee. Fine. He’d have to be smarter and work harder to get what he wanted, just like always. No choice in the matter now that his eyes had been opened. He’d start with the dog. If he couldn’t even win over Rose, what chance did he have with her owner? Surely he could outsmart a dog. All he had to do was carry a treat in his pocket.
The owner required more finesse. He headed across the street to Garner’s, stepped inside, and caught his sister’s questioning look. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? His sister had the inside track with Hailey. He wasn’t above using that kind of intel. A frigging gold mine.
7
Hailey welcomed her mom and Joe Campbell to Ludbury House for a Wednesday five-o’clock appointment and walked them to the ballroom. She was the maid of honor and had agreed to be their wedding planner. She was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, as it always did with her mom. At some point her mom would flake on this relationship and leave Hailey desperately trying to pick up the pieces. She’d never had a stable foundation—not with family or a home—and the Campbells were the closest she’d gotten to experiencing that. Her recent group of friends through the Happy Endings Book Club was also entangled with the Campbells through marriage and engagements. Everything in her life tied back to them, and she didn’t want anything or anyone to screw that up.Mom.
Hailey took a seat, and the happy couple sat across the table from her, holding hands, their fingers entwined. She had to admit they looked totally in love. Her mom had come straight from work, wearing a sophisticated robin’s egg blue dress with cutout lace panels at the bodice and her sides. Joe wore a black long-sleeved cotton shirt with faded jeans. They were an odd pairing of dressy and casual, but maybe when you were old (her mom had turned fifty last week) the pickings were slim and you just went with anyone your age who happened to be single.
Geez, she was becoming downright cynical now that she was staring down thirty. In three years anyway. But there it was, the big three-oh taunting her like a big ol’ deadline for what was rapidly becoming a delusional fantasy of happy-ever-after. Sadly, Phillip had left the moment he finished his coffee last Friday at the café, saying he had to get back to the city. Obviously Phillip wasn’t interested in her. He’d probably just wanted a friendly coffee, being a stranger in a strange land.
She handed the rose corsage to her mom. “For the bride. You can just hold it if you don’t want to pin it to your beautiful dress.”
Her mom beamed and removed the rose from its plastic casing. “I’ll put it in my hair.” She smoothed her long strawberry blond hair back—dyed to match Hailey’s hair—and tucked it behind her ear. Her mom’s hair was naturally blond and white. She was a former model and clung to her looks with a death grip. She regularly got Botox too.
Her mom turned to Joe. “What do you think?”
Joe smiled, his brown eyes warm and tender. “Beautiful. And the rose is nice too.”
Her mom sighed dreamily. “Oh, you. Such a sweetheart.”
Joe cupped her mom’s cheek, and her mom closed her eyes, leaning into his hand.
Hailey’s stomach rolled, the ninth circle of hell in all its ironic glory—a love junkie revolted by romance. It was probably partly due to the fact her mom treated her more like a friend than a daughter and overshared the details of her sex life. Needless to say, Hailey knew way too much about Joe and his animal instincts. Also, his use of handcuffs. As her mom had said in her giddy state, what could you expect from a former cop?
Hailey cleared her throat loudly, hoping to break what was now a goggle-eyed staring contest between the nauseatingly happy couple. Finally they returned their attention to her. “Why don’t we get started? Mom, tell me how you envision your perfect wedding.”
Her mom’s first marriage to Hailey’s father had been a courthouse wedding brought on by the fact that her mom was pregnant with Hailey. Her dad had been a rock star lead singer. He’d died while flying his prop plane in bad weather when Hailey was three. She had only a vague memory of him since she was so young when he died, and her mom said he wasn’t around much anyway. Hailey took no pleasure in his music and disassociated herself with her rock royalty lineage, declining to attend his band’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As far as she was concerned, her dad was a sperm donor and didn’t deserve the honor of being called dad.
Joe Campbell, on the other hand, was the dad she’d always wished she had. Mad had no idea how lucky she was to have him. The man had showed up at a designer women’s boutique during their girls’ day out to help Mad pick out her wedding shoes. He was probably the only man who had ever stepped foot in the ultrafeminine shop, which was how he met her mother, who worked there as a salesclerk. Fate or bad luck? Hailey fervently hoped her mom didn’t flake and dump him. The man had already been dumped by his first wife.
Hailey’s gut clenched. She so wanted to believe her mom had changed and matured into a responsible person. Different than the mom she knew as a kid, who couldn’t hang onto a job, which was why they’d been evicted from their apartment more than once, not having the money for rent. Though her mom had been at the same job at the boutique for years now. It was just that Hailey loved the close-knit Campbell family. They were the kind of family she’d always longed for, the way they all got along, hung out even as adults, and had each other’s backs. Josh Campbell was the irritating exception to their wonderful family. Where did he get off playing overprotective big brother with her? Twice! An unsettling thought occurred. Did he actually see her like a little sister? Because she’d thought there’d been some chemistry there. Unless it was completely one-sided, which would explain why he’d turned her down flat. How embarrassing.Deny, deny, deny. I am a fortress of Josh resistance.
“Hailey?” her mom asked.
She jolted, alarmed that she’d lost focus. She never lost focus with a client. “Yes?”
Her mom and Joe exchanged a concerned look.
Hailey pasted on her pageant smile. It had seen her through many a difficult situation. Besides, she didn’t want frown lines. “Sorry, I’m a little tired. Could you repeat that last part?”
“Sure,” her mom said. “We want to get married at St. Joseph’s here in Clover Park and have the reception at Garner’s. Something small and intimate.”
Joe chimed in. “We want to throw business Josh’s way. He put in an offer on Garner’s and it was accepted today.”
