Page 4 of The Wedding Planner's Manny
“I'm not worried, but we have to make sure, Rhys, we have to know what's going on.”
He probably had a point there. Before he could fully make it, though, our nephew returned, a shiny red action figure in his small hand. “Look, Uncle!” He waved it at Nick.
Nick took it from him and made a show out of studying the new toy. “Oh, that's a very cool action figure. Is that Superman?” Then he turned to me for a second to say. “You know, our comic outsold that one last month.” There was pride in his voice, but it was deserved.
“My toy!” Bastian grabbed it back from Nick.
“That's okay. I was about to leave anyway.” My twin got up from his chair and motioned for me to follow him. “I brought something to give you,” he said in a low tone of voice that let me know he hadn't moved on from our earlier conversation yet.
I didn't say anything in response—I didn't knowwhatto say—just watched him take his coat from the hanger by the door and rummage through the deep pockets. Eventually, he produced a long-ish box that looked almost like...
Oh no.
I knew what it was before Nick pressed the object into my hand.
My brother had brought me a pregnancy test.
“Just to make sure,” he said, closing my fingers around the unwanted gift. “Let me know how it turns out. I mean, it's probably nothing, right? So there's no reason not to take it.”
I hated when he used logic on me. That was my thing.
But I couldn't deny that he was right.
I had to take this test.
2
E T H A N
“Daddy, don't go!” Little Caleb stretched his short arms out to me in a way that broke my heart every time. I'd been a single dad for almost a full year now, but leaving my youngest behind with his nanny never really got easier. Not when he looked at me like that every time, blue eyes wide and pleading, like he was scared I would never come back. The way his mommy had never come back.
I still remembered the morning I woke to find she'd packed all her things and vanished, leaving us without so much as a note. Not that a note was necessary. She'd never been too shy to tell me how she felt about her life in Oceanport with me and the children.
I ruffled my nearly four-year-old's sandy blond hair and kissed his forehead. “Daddy's meeting with a new client today. But I'll be back soon, okay?”
Behind him, our nanny stepped up to take my boy's hand. The young woman, Sandra, had been working for me for the past three months now and I got the feeling Caleb was getting used to her—
which was good. None of my other nannies had lasted as long. “I should be back in two hours tops,” I told her.
“Take as long as you need. Caleb and I will be preparing dinner while you're gone. You like helping with dinner, don't you, Caleb?”
Caleb pulled his lower lip between his teeth, but nodded.
Reasonably sure that my child was going to be okay, I said my goodbyes, picked up my briefcase and headed out to work. As I'd told Caleb, I was meeting a new client. I'd received the call the day before and made an appointment to meet them at their house to discuss details. I could have asked them to come to my office, of course, but I preferred to talk to my clients in a space that was familiar to them.
Anything to add to their comfort. Planning their weddings usually stressed them out enough as it was.
When I arrived at the address I'd been given over the phone, I found myself parking in front of a bookstore.Tall Tales.I'd noticed the store before—it seemed like a nice place. Just recently the exterior had been given a fresh paint job too, which made it stand out a bit from the arts and crafts store to its left and the tailor to its right. I liked that. If the people who owned this place had the money to paint the wall, they probably had the money to pay me a good rate too. I knew it wasn’t super romantic to think about money in relation to weddings, but I had two hungry mouths to feed at home and not a lot of other ways to do it. Event planning was all I knew—and I enjoyed it too.
There was just something so satisfying about seeing a project play out exactly as planned. Weddings were trickier than most other events, but that was what made them the most rewarding, too.
And this client had mentioned wanting adouble wedding.
It was basically a jackpot.
I needed to land this job.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped out of the car and into the bookstore, accompanied by the chiming of small bells above the door. Thursday evening seemed to be a slow time for the business as I couldn't see any other customers around. Ahead of me, behind a small table with a cash register sat a young alpha, his nose stuck in a book and his dark hair sticking out at odd angles. When I entered the store, he looked up.
