Page 12 of A Happy Endings Wedding
She gestured wildly. “What if it doesn’t? What if it’s a complete disaster captured forever in the pages ofLuxury WeddingsandBride Special, making me look incompetent and unprofessional, and ruining Villroy as a wedding venue for all time, tanking the economy and destroying a royal kingdom?”
“No pressure.”
“Exactly!”
He remained aggravatingly calm. “All that matters in the end is that we’re married.”
She threw her hands up. “That’s not all that matters!”
He crossed his arms. “It is to me.”
“Josh! How do you not get this? How can you be so calm when everything is falling apart?”
A feminine voice called to them. “Everything okay out here?” It was Evelyn. Shit. How much had she heard? She couldn’t use stuff off-the-record, could she?
She glared at Josh for fighting with her in public like that.
He smirked, likethat was you, sweetheart.They silently communicated all the time, but the pressure of doing that with a reporter witness made it much more intense. Hailey seethed.
He stroked her hair back and cupped her cheek, his gaze tender. He never minded their fights and rarely showed much temper. He’d even told her he liked her fighting spirit most of all. How could she stay mad at him when he so clearly loved her, flaws and all?
She gave him a small smile, took his hand, and turned toward Evelyn. “We were just heading back. I needed to find the ladies’ room and I’m afraid I got lost.”
Evelyn smiled and turned back toward the audience chamber, walking at a brisk pace. She and Josh walked slowly, a good distance behind. He lifted their joined hands and kissed her knuckles.
“Oh, Josh,” she said on a long sigh.
“It’ll work out.”
She was having a very hard time believing that. “If you say so.”
“It will. I’m going to make sure of it.”
“What if we’re cursed?” she whispered.
“Then I’ll perform an exorcism.”
“I don’t think that works on curses.”
He widened his eyes. “Magic?”
“Now you’re being ridiculous. This is serious.”
“You know curses aren’t real, right? Just like luck isn’t real. Life happens and you deal.”
“I cannot believe you don’t believe in those things. How plain your world is.”
“Would you rather I be terrified of a curse and throw my hands up?”
“No,” she admitted.
“Hailey, you go right on believing in your fairy tale and I’ll make it come true.”
A surge of affection made her stop, throw her arms around his neck, and kiss him. He returned the kiss passionately, and her world righted itself again.
When they broke apart, Lucy was standing there with her camera, smiling at them. “Evelyn told me you were on your way back, but you took so long. It’s a great picture. Can I use it?”
Josh grabbed her hand and pulled her over to look at it. The kiss looked every bit as passionate from the outside as it had felt from the inside. Maybe even more so because Josh had this way of holding her, one hand cupping her head, the other arm around her waist, pulling her flush against his hard body. Why, they could be on the cover of one of her beloved romance novels!
