Juliet focused all her attention on the lanky male, who was very good-looking but incited no tingling whatsoever. A tingle-free zone, that’s what she wanted and would achieve.
“Ladies, you’re up!” the photographer said. “Then we’ll do all of you together, then some other single and group shots. Groomsmen, you’ll be the closers.”
It was chaotic and wonderful, and Juliet’s cheeks ached by the end. Maybe she’d lift her romance-novel moratorium, because this was a happy-ever-after in every way. Her own situation couldn’t compare.
Reid the Pinhead had never looked at her the way Gabriel looked at Charlotte.
When the photographer banished Gabriel to stand with the men, Charlotte’s husband clutched his chest and pretended to be heartbroken as he walked sideways down the steps of the rotunda. Charlotte laughed and blew him a kiss, and the photographer’s camera shutter clicked.
Juliet sighed.
Aroha nudged her with an elbow. “Hah! Told you you’d fall victim to the luuuuurv bug.”
“It’s the wedding virus. Passes once the wedding is over.”
“You sure? Saw you cozying up to Jake there.” A waggle of her eyebrows. “Hubba-hubba.”
“I once beat him up at school.” In truth, she’d thrown a tomato at his head for reasons she couldn’t quite remember, he’d dodged it, and they’d gone about their business.
Aroha’s mouth fell open. “Seriously? You went to school with Jacob Esera?”
“Ugh, stop fangirling.” Aroha was a rugby fanatic. “But talking of hubba-hubba, Harry’s pretty hot.” Though at this point, he could’ve been a three-headed weevil and she’d have said that to get Aroha off the subject of Jake.
Her friend looked down, an uncharacteristically shy smile on her face, and Juliet took a second and far more speculative look at Harry. Big, muscled—a bit too much for her, to be honest—and square. Square jaw, square face, square shoulders, a sense to him that said he liked things solid and in their place.
Aroha, by comparison, was wild, dazzling color and a wide-open heart.
But who knew what might happen when so many love pheromones were in the air? Just so long as they didn’t infect Juliet. She planned to live a long and gloriously single life, complete with the adoption of at least five cats once she no longer had to travel for work.
“I hope you bang Harry like a drum—man looks like he needs to be unleashed,” she said to Aroha, startling her friend into laughter that was caught by the photographer.
The groomsmen, when it was their turn, decided to have their pictures in among the ancient trees that grew all through the Domain. A group of big, gorgeous men with identical smiles on their faces. Blood relations or not, it didn’t matter, they were so much birds of a feather. The effect didn’t change even after Harlow and Joseph joined them for a shot.
Jackets came off, ties were loosened and then discarded, and arms went around each other. When Emmaline and Esme ran into the shots partway through, the men grabbed the girls and put them on their shoulders. And the photographer clicked on.
Before they moved to the greenhouses for the next set of photographs, the men grumbled but put their jackets and ties back on. Several of them, groom included, then paused to sign autographs for and take pictures with the little boys who’d been in the rotunda when they first arrived.
Juliet tried not to look at Jake while all of that was going on. He was also avoiding her. Good. Because they’d had their moment of togetherness—it’d all go downhill if they tried for any more.
At one point she bent down to fix the ribbon sash at Esme’s waist when a shutter clicked, and she realized the moment had been captured.
Another time, Jake wrapped his arm around his younger brother’s neck and hauled him down to ruffle his hair while Gabriel laughed, and the photographer captured that too.
“I’m starving,” Charlotte said toward the end. “Seriously, does anyone have snacks?”
Laughing, the photographer promised he was almost done. And Gabriel leaned down to whisper something in Charlotte’s ear that had her cheeks going pink before she turned to lay the side of her face against his chest.
Juliet pressed a hand to her heart. “They keep this up and I’m going to give them a citation for ridiculous amounts of adorableness,” she said to Molly.
Charlotte’s best friend wiped away a tear, utterly no help in assisting Juliet maintain her own composure. “I’m so happy for her. She’s the kindest human being I’ve ever known.”
That, of course, had Juliet sniffling as well—and damn it, she wasn’t a crier. “Charlie tamed the T-Rex,” she rasped to Molly, “so she must have some evil superpowers we don’t know about.”
Molly laughed at Juliet’s reference to the nickname Charlotte had given Gabriel when he’d first taken over management of the company where Charlotte had then worked. He’d apparently fired people left and right, rampaging through the place. But he hadn’t fired Charlotte. No, he’d seen her for exactly what she was: a highly intelligent and capable woman who was being woefully misused.
Thus had begun the battle of the mouse and the T-Rex.
Up ahead, Gabriel said something that made Jake grin, and damn if her breath didn’t stick in her chest. Cheeks creased, hands in his pockets, and head slightly lowered so the sun glinted off the black strands of his hair, Jacob Esera was the definition of sexy.
It was a good thing he never smiled at Juliet that way. Because if he did, she might forget that they were sworn nonfriends. And that was her number one rule for dating now: friendship. Which was probably why she’d been celibate since recovering from marriage to the pinhead. Turned out that these days most men looked at her and didn’t want friendship—they wanted hot, sweaty, no-strings-attached sex.
What a hoot that was for the girl one teenaged charmer had called a “walking stick” who’d probably give him bruises with her “pointy” bones. At least the salivating male reaction had quickly disabused her of the notion that Reid had tried to plant in her head: that her weight gain made her less desirable. Tell that to the guys whose tongues hung out of their mouths the rare times she went out for a drink with her girlfriends.
Unfortunately, her incredibly unearned reputation as a sex-hungry, gold-digging debaucher of innocent males came along with her. Those drooling men would sleep with her if she were foolish enough to accept an invitation, but they wouldn’t be taking her home to meet the family. Juliet had too much respect for herself to accept that state of affairs. So it was a good thing she was an old hand at being alone.
Debauchery was overrated anyway. All those nights she’d gone out with Reid because “we have to be seen, babe,” she’d ended up dog-tired and just wanting a good nap the next day.
“Time for the final photo!” the photographer called out. “Everyone, I need you back here!”
That final image was of the entire group against a backdrop of ancient trees. And because fate was laughing at Juliet today, she ended up sandwiched between Jake and Aroha. Then the photographer, surely in league with the devil, asked Jake to move in tighter and put his arm around Juliet’s waist.
Heat.
That’s all she felt. She didn’t breathe until the photo was done. At which point she inhaled Jake’s sexiness, and the tingles went from low buzz to a full-on vibrating concerto. “Did you bathe in deodorant?” she said to Jake when he caught her trying to sniff him.