No footsie for now, then.
“It’s nice to meet the wedding planner I’ve heard so much about,” I said.
Damon looked up, then squinted slightly as he moved his gaze between us. I could see the calculations in his head running. Has my idiot brother already hooked up with this woman? Did I make a mistake by hiring an attractive wedding planner? Yes, Damon. Yes, to all of the above.
“How was your flight?” I asked
“It was short,” she said.
I stared in disbelief, then confirmed my suspicion that she was toying with me when the hint of a smile flickered on her face. “That’s too bad,” I said. “I’ve been told the flight from there to here is extremely long. I also was told the aisles were some of the widest you’d ever see. Girthy, you could say.”
Damon was full blown incredulous now. I could tell he was trying to decide where to even start, but Belle spoke before he could jump in.
“The stories were exaggerated. Don’t worry. It wasn’t anything special.”
“Were you an actress before you were a wedding planner?” I asked suddenly. “I feel like I’ve seen you in something before. Or maybe it’s just that I can picture how you’d sound if you were thoroughly enjoying something.”
“Okay,” Damon said, slapping his palms down on the table. “What the hell is going on?”
Without missing a beat, Belle shrugged. “I have a strange sense of humor, Mr. Rose. I’m sorry. I was just having a little fun. I find it’s easier to plan a wedding for clients when I get to know them first. And what’s a better way to do that than joking around?”
“I could think of a way,” I muttered.
They both shot me a look. I pulled out my phone and checked the time. “My darling fiancée should be here any moment, shouldn’t she?”
I watched Belle for a reaction. She was a good actress, but not perfect. Her eyes twitched, and in a brief moment of clarity, I could see what was going on. She felt like I mislead her. Tricked her into helping me cheat on my girlfriend, who was not my fiancée. And why should she think otherwise?
The problem was I couldn’t clear the air without fucking up the plan. Everybody needed to believe this engagement was real. My career might depend on it, at least if my brother was worth believing.
“Maybe I should ask your fiancée for pointers,” Belle mused. “I’m sure she has a lot of experience with that short, lying, asshole of a flight from Texas to New York.” She didn’t even look up from some crumpled sticky note she was writing on with a teal gel pen. Writing was an understatement, actually. She looked a little like she was trying to murder the note with her pen one angry scratch at a time.
This woman…
Damon frowned. “A lying, asshole of a flight? What are we talking about here?”
Mindy saved the situation by swinging the door open at that moment. She was holding her phone held out as she smiled and struck a quick pose. “Guys,” she said in an almost theatrically well annunciated, loud voice. “I think it’s about to happen!” She did a little squee of delight, kicked up one heel, and then shut off her phone.
Mindy was wearing a cropped white top that showed off her tanned stomach, high waisted beige pants that fit tight around her ass and was holding her bag in a way that said it was probably expensive and by some designer I should know and be impressed by. I turned my head toward Damon and glared. “Really?” I mouthed.
Damon gave a little shrug, and I saw there was a flicker of amusement in his eyes. The bastard was messing with me. He knew the kinds of women I could hardly tolerate, and he’d gone and found their poster child for my fiancée.
Then again, I could picture my brother being out of touch enough to think he’d saddled me with some attractive, successful woman who I might actually fall for. If that was your game, Damon, you couldn’t have missed more badly.
Mindy surprised me by leaning in, planting a kiss on my cheek, and holding out her phone to take a selfie of us. I already felt suffocated by the scent and the busyness she seemed to carry with her. It felt like the room had just become impossibly crowded, and I wished I could scoot my chair a little farther away from her.
Belle was watching the two of us with a mixture of disgust and anger. I couldn’t blame her. She probably thought she was looking at the woman I’d just cheated on with her. I nearly blurted out that this was my first time meeting Mindy—that everything she was about to hear and see was a big, elaborate act my brother and I had cooked up to save my career.
But I knew the stakes. I knew how much was riding on this working. So I clamped my teeth together and let the acid of the way Belle was watching me sink in and start to burn.
Damon had gone over what I was supposed to do about a hundred times, so I started to psych myself up for it.
“Who’s this?” Mindy asked. She was looking at Belle. Of course, Mindy knew the plan too. My brother made sure of that, but I had to give Mindy credit. Her acting was pretty spot-on, and I almost wondered if Damon had forgotten to tell her what was about to happen.
I took one last look at Belle. If she didn’t completely hate me yet, she was about to, and that thought shouldn’t have stung like it did.
“I know I said the ring might not be finished for a few more weeks, but…” I got out of my chair and sank to one knee.
5
Belle
I could kill him. Chris Rose was currently on his knee with a gaudy diamond ring the size of a malignant tumor. He was holding it up to Miss Influencer and her perfect hair.
No. Stop that, Belle. You’re not petty. You’re not the catty type who is going to tear some innocent girl down just because she has something you want.
The girl was breathtaking, though, and it made me feel beyond embarrassed about what I’d just done with Chris on the plane. What must he have thought when he looked at me if that was the woman he came home to?
Except I shouldn’t care. Because there was a mountain of a difference between someone telling you they’re going to be off the market in a few hours and this. Chris had completely lied. Either he already proposed, was about to, or something in between—I was still trying to figure it out. I wasn’t sure if it was tacky or sweet to have the wedding planner already present at the proposal, but it was certainly a first for me.
All I really knew was he’d let me sleep with him when he was in a relationship, and now I felt like the scum of the Earth.
It felt like my world was spinning. Things had gone nuclear in Texas, and I still hadn’t even stuck my head out of the dirt to get a real sense of the fallout from that. I could imagine my website was already being flooded with nasty reviews from the bride’s friends. I’d probably have dog shit waiting for me on my front porch. And Lance… I had no idea what he was thinking right now, but I knew it was all a disaster I’d be trying to clean up for years.
This job was supposed to be an escape, and now it was turning into an even bigger mess than Texas.
What the hell was wrong with me?
I realized things had been going on while I was lost in thought, and the beautiful girl with the silky brown hair and the adorable little perky nose was wearing his ring now. She was also cuddling Chris’ muscular arm, and I couldn’t help thinking about how those same arms had been all over me just a few hours ago.