His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out, not surprised to see that his own office was trying to reach him. He sent the call to voice mail. He knew it wasn’t his brother, who always called from his cell. It was probably Angie, their business manager. Though they hadn’t told anyone they were in danger of losing their investor’s support, Angie was perceptive and had somehow caught on to the fact that they were in dire straits. She’d tried to pry the truth out of both men, but neither one had caved. Still, Josh was usually predictable. He didn’t take unexplained and unplanned trips, so Angie had probably flipped her lid when he didn’t show up today. All the more reason to ignore her call. He couldn’t handle talking to her right now . . . and he definitely couldn’t do it with Megan Vandemeer in the next room.
His entire company was depending on him to save them, whether they knew it or not. So why did he keep thinking about kissing his enemy’s daughter?
He was still desperate to find the information, yes, but his traitorous mind kept thinking about her body pressed against his, the way she’d kissed him back, her lips warm and soft.
Damn it.
He needed to stop thinking about kissing her and focus on getting the information he needed to save his engineering firm. The real purpose of this trip.
It had seemed like a great lead a few hours ago—the perfect answer to his dilemma. Now he was conflicted.
After Megan’s parents and grandmother had accepted him as her fiancé at the airport, they’d moved to the baggage carousel to pick up Megan’s bags.
He’d set Megan down in a chair, her head flopping to the side like a rag doll’s. She stirred and blinked up at him after a moment.
“Hey,” she mumbled, jabbing her fingertip into his chest. “I know you.”
He forced his voice to stay light and amused when he answered, “I should hope so, honey.”
She shook her head and his chest tightened with anxiety that the jig was likely up, but she closed her eyes, muttering, “I said I want the red ones.”
“Red ones what?” Gram asked.
Nicole rolled her eyes. “She’s talking nonsense, Mother. She’s drunk.” She spit the last part out as though announcing that Megan was Mussolini in disguise.
Josh was about to come to Megan’s defense when her father walked up.
“What’s her luggage look like?” Bart had asked. “How many does she have?”
He knew the answer since she’d mentioned she’d packed only one bag, but what on earth did they look like? “Uh . . .” He was never going to be able to pull this off. What had possessed him to try? He didn’t know anything about this woman other than that her fiancé had cheated on her and that she was terrified of her mother. Oh, and she thought he had a nice ass. Think.
“We didn’t drive to the airport together,” he blurted out. “I met her at the gate. I know she has one bag, but I’m not sure which one she used.”
“Don’t you worry,” Bart said, waving him to sit beside Megan. “We’ll figure it out.”
Within ten minutes, Bart had pulled a pink floral suitcase off the conveyer belt and was rolling it out the door. Nicole Vandemeer decreed that everyone else would wait for Bart to bring the car around, but after five minutes of doing just as she’d set out to do, Nicole grew impatient and decided to wait by the exit. Josh suspected that she was embarrassed to be seen next to her unconscious daughter.
Megan’s grandmother plopped into the seat next to his and studied him. “You’re not what I expected.”
He swallowed, keeping his gaze on Nicole, whose posture was finishing-school straight as she stood in front of the sliding glass doors. Nicole Vandemeer hadn’t been what he’d expected either. “Oh?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant. “How so?”
“Your smile.”
Josh blinked in surprise. “What does that mean?”
“Megan may not talk to her mother very often, but she talks to me. She tries to make like everything’s okay, but something in her voice tells me otherwise.”
Josh stared at her, unsure of what to say.
Her grandmother patted his hand. “I’m glad you smile. Megan needs more smiles.” She cast a frown toward Megan’s mother, the older woman’s daughter.
Bart had just pulled up, saving him from answering. Josh tried to wake Megan and managed to hoist her to her feet, albeit unsteadily, for long enough to get her strapped into a seat in the SUV. The whole time she kept mumbling something about gingerbread houses. The derisive looks Nicole kept casting at her made him want to avenge her in some way. But that wasn’t his purpose for being here, and it definitely wasn’t his problem.
Now, several hours later, as he stood in her bathroom doorway while she prepared for whatever social function the queen had organized, he realized he still felt that way. He wanted to help Megan—and not just because of what she could do for him.
“Go look at the itinerary,” she said, swiping mascara on her upper eyelashes. “We need to know what we’re facing down there.”
He walked over to the dresser and picked up one of two bound binders. The cover was inscribed with the words The Wedding of Megan and Jay in bold calligraphy. One booklet had Megan written in the upper right corner, and the other read Jay.
He opened the book on top—Jay’s—and flipped through the pages. The next three days were strictly regimented with a minute-to-minute schedule and detailed descriptions of all the activities. The entries were color-coded with highlighters, and there was a corresponding color key at the bottom of the first page.
Oh. My. God.
But even worse was the fact that Mrs. Vandemeer had booked most of the next three days of his life. How was he going to find the evidence he needed if he was required to be at all the places listed on those pages?
“Well?” Megan called out to him. “What is it?”
Oh, God. Friday morning he was scheduled for a men’s mani-pedi. Who did that?
“Josh!”
“Uh . . .” Terror washed through his body. What in the hell had he gotten himself into? “Uh . . .” He scanned the page. “Oh, your mom told me about this one. Seven p.m. Poolside cocktail party.”
“A cocktail party?”
“Yeah . . .”
“Shit.”
He looked over his shoulder at her, still in the binder’s horrific thrall. “Is that bad?”
She stopped applying her mascara and glanced over at him. “It’s not good. Do you have nice clothes? A dress shirt and a tie?”
He blinked. “Yeah.”
“Really?”
He shot her a sideways glare. “Why do you sound so surprised?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She stormed out of the bathroom and squatted next to her suitcase before glancing up at him. “What are you waiting for?”
He tossed the binder on the dresser, then hefted his overnight bag onto the bed and unzipped it.
Megan came over holding a pale blue dress, and then started to dig through his clothes.
“Hey!”
She tugged out a shirt. “The white shirt with the blue tie.”
“You’re dressing me?”
“You want to sign up for this gig, it’s part of it. She’ll expect us to be color-coordinated. Did the itinerary say if there was a color scheme?”