Wedding Party Collection: Once A Bridesmaid...: Here Comes the Bridesmaid / Falling for the Bridesmaid. GINA WILKINS
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pole position when Sunshine pulled up outside South. He couldn’t have made it more visible if he’d had it on a dais under a spotlight.
She knew right then that he would be yanking her chain all day. Stealing her sanity!
Her stomach, which had finally started to settle into a relatively stable buzz, started rioting again. She sat in her car, taking some deep breaths and giving herself a stern talking-to: he was not a teenage hothead and he would not kill himself; she didn’t care if he did kill himself; she’d kill him if he didn’t get rid of the bike. And so on.
Not the most intelligent conversation she’d ever had with herself. And completely ineffectual, because her stomach was still going crazy.
If only she’d had the nous to call it quits with Leo after the first time she might still be a properly functioning adult.
Well, spilt milk and all that. She would just have to find a way back to normality before it affected the wedding preparations. Because the wedding was what was important. Not her, not Leo—the wedding!
She straightened her shoulders, flung open the door, and scrambled out of the car. She would have liked to have disembarked from the car, in case Leo was watching, but she was wearing her most complicated shoes and a too-tight dress! Compensating, she practically glided to the boot and, with what she considered great panache, swung her portfolio out. She left the briefcase behind, though—it was hard to look cucumber-cool when you were carrying a briefcase and a portfolio. Not that it usually bothered her, but... Well, but!
She took another deep breath as she entered the restaurant and saw Leo.
His hair was at Number Three buzz-cut stage. His jeans were black. He was wearing a fitted black superfine wool sweater. Sex on a stick. Even the black biker boots didn’t have the power to dampen the desire that hit her like a punch.
He walked towards her—a purposeful kind of prowl that made her tongue want to loll. Not that there would be any tongue-lolling going on today.
She went to give him a reflex kiss on the cheek, but pulled back as it hit her that this was now fraught with difficulty.
His slow smile told her he’d registered her state of confusion. And then, to her shock, he leant down and kissed her. Sweet, slow, warm brush of lips against her cheek.
‘Oh,’ she said inanely.
He simply raised his eyebrows. And she knew what he was doing. He was playing the Dare You game! Dare you to question that. Well, she would not be dared.
He gestured to the dining area. ‘As you can see, the tables and chairs are in,’ he said. ‘We’re basically ready. I’m doing a trial dinner in two weeks, then we’ll have a month to tweak. It will be a full moon on the trial night, so the view should be amazing. I’m inviting mostly locals, and some food and lifestyle media, but because it’s a rehearsal for the wedding you’ll have to come—obviously.’
Dare you! Dare you not to come.
Oh, how she wanted to say she couldn’t make it. But that would be a mammoth case of cutting off her nose to spite her face, which he knew very well.
So, ‘Of course,’ she said.
He nodded at the portfolio in her hand. ‘What’s that?’
‘Your shoe design.’
‘Let’s have a look,’ Leo said.
Ordinarily, Sunshine would have gone a little theatrical, starting with a narrative and then positioning the designs on an easel. But today she merely pulled out the sheets and thrust them at Leo.
She watched, trying not to care, as he flicked through them.
She saw the shock come over his face and wished she could snatch the drawings out of his hands and rip them up.
Leo took them further into the restaurant and laid the pages on a window table, where light streamed brightly through.
He darted a looked up at her. ‘Not what I was expecting,’ he said.
‘What were you expecting?’
Small pause. Quick smile. ‘What’s the shoe equivalent of a pine bookshelf?’
Huh? ‘I guess...black leather lace-ups...?’
‘Bingo.’
‘Not that there’s anything wrong with black leather lace-ups.’
‘And yet...?’
Sunshine shrugged. ‘And...yet.’
* * *
Okay. Leo admitted it. He wanted the damned shoes.
The design was sharp, lean, streamlined. No decorative stitching. Toes that were subtly rounded but also somehow pointed. No laces—monkstraps, fastened with sleek silver side buckles.
Plain and yet edgy.
And the colour was astounding. They looked black, but there was a suggestion...a sheen...of purple.
He cleared his throat. ‘Thanks.’
‘Do you...do you think you’ll wear them?’
‘Can you really get that colour? And those buckles?’
‘I have the black-violet leather reserved. And I’ve already ordered the buckles—they’re real silver.’
Black-violet. Perfect. ‘Then, yes, I’ll wear them, Sunshine.’
She smiled, her eyes glowing with joy, and he felt his heart start that heavy thump he’d hoped wouldn’t happen. Not today—not when he wanted to be securely in the driver’s seat for a change, keeping Sunshine a little off balance.
Of course his first sight of her, hauling herself out of that ancient, minuscule bright yellow car—Holy Mother of God, could a car be more perfect for her?—had almost derailed that plan on the spot, because he was the one who’d felt suddenly off balance.
It was the dress, he told himself. It was a monumental distraction, that dress. Petal-pink, too damned tight, too damned short.
And the black heels—too bloody high, with little black pearls studded in the leather and those crisscrossed ribbons around her ankles. How could a man not think about sucking her toes when he saw those shoes?
Thank God he’d got that first surge of heat under control enough to kiss her cheek instead of shoving his tongue halfway down her throat. Because that had been touch and go!
Now, however, the heart-thump suggested derailment was imminent again.
Well, he would just have to share the derailment around.
‘So, then, let’s go check out hotels,’ he said.
‘Are you—? Are you going to come with me? In the car?’
He thought about saying no—he’d realised that seeing him on the bike was going to be her breaking point and he wanted to get to that point fast. But in that tiny car of hers they would be very close to each other. So close she’d be able to feel him even without touching. He could use that. He was sure he could use that.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The car.’
But when he squeezed himself into the passenger seat, and the scent of jonquils hit him like Thor’s hammer, he thought perhaps he had made a tactical error. He just freaking loved that smell.
‘Seat belt,’ she said, and waited like a good little Girl Scout until he’d buckled up before starting the car.
He could see a faint blush on her cheeks. She’d get a shock if he touched her there. One finger along the rosy heat.
So he did, finding it shockingly easy to do.
But touchy-feely Sunshine swivelled as though he’d slapped her.
She stared at him.
He