My Best Friend's Bride (9 page)

Hunter returned and set their cups on the table before taking his seat. “I’m glad you’ve thought this over,” he said. His eyes were just as enticing as she remembered, and he still had that cocky way of smiling that caused butterflies in her stomach. Not that she was about to let him know it. If she was strong enough to forestall his advances in high school, she could certainly accomplish that now…that little matter of their setting up house together aside. “There are bound to be benefits for the two of us.”

Jill ignored any hint at innuendo. “For me, professionally, yes. Maybe you should explain about Kaleidoscope Kids?”

“It’s a big account Max has been courting. They distribute kids’ clothing and toys.”

Jill nodded, thinking she’d heard of them.

“Their network is enormous, domestic and international. They want an advertising campaign designed across all platforms.”

“Something that will work cross-culturally?” she guessed. Actually, that sounded pretty exciting, and she said so.

“Yeah, I’m amped about it. I’ve got lots of ideas already. The thing is…” He looked straight at her. “The company CEO only wants to work with a married man.”

“That sounds so retro!” Jill cried with a gasp. “Is that even legal?”

“The customer’s always right.” He took a sip from his cup and shot her a smile. “Kind of like your readers.”

“That’s why Max was so happy to see us together.”

“In many ways, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Both in seeing Max at the club, and in that account coming along, right after Brad presented your offer.”

“Speaking of which…” She withdrew some folded papers from her purse and flattened them on the table. “I went back through and made a few changes.”

He studied the numbers in the top paragraph. “You’re conceding on the fifty percent?”

“Sounds to me like I’ll be coming out ahead. You’ve promised to give it all back in the end. See? I added that clause in here.” She pointed to a sentence set in italics.

“That’s awesome, Jill. I can’t thank you enough for being so…magnanimous.”

She gave him a steely look, but any ire was just for show. “You already told me you’re doing it to lock down the deal. So I don’t decide to bolt. Trust me, I won’t. I need all of that advance money for…” She stopped herself, deciding it was none of his business. The more professional she kept this arrangement between them, the better.

“For what?” He laid his hand on top of hers and her pulse thumped beneath it. Only a few days ago his mouth had claimed hers and she’d gone weak at the knees…and the world had tilt-a-whirled around her…sort of like it was doing now. Jill pulled back her hand.

“I’m building a new addition,” she fibbed.

“To your house?” he asked, incredulous. He thought of her grandfather’s predicament, wondering why she wasn’t telling the truth. “Do Fifi and Mimi need their own rooms?”

“No, thankfully, they have one. Except now…” She paused, then continued quickly. “They’ll have to move out. I mean, I guess we’ll have to make do. Don’t worry, I’ll clean it up! Use a chemical spray if I have to. No, not chemical. Organic. That’s what I meant.” She stopped talking to catch her breath. Hunter’s eyes were as big as saucers.

“Are you telling me you want me to move into the room where your pets stay?”

She grinned tightly, realizing that didn’t sound very inviting. “Just joking! Ha-ha!” Jill took a quick sip of java. “The truth is the pets
do
have their own space, but they stay in the laundry room.”

“The laundry room?”

“Of course!”

Hunter eyed her suspiciously “What makes you so certain I’m moving to your house in the first place?”

Oh yeah, she wasn’t supposed to let that part slip. “Brad told me.”

“So much for a surprise,” he said, confounding her.

“Huh?”

“Doesn’t matter.” His lips were a hard line, but she couldn’t read his expression.

Jill felt a little nervous and on edge. She couldn’t have Hunter bail on her now. According to Brad, Cassandra’s story had hit the pages of
Tempo Beat
magazine. Plus, she’d already talked to Morgan and her grandfather. Not only that, Hunter’s boss, Max, knew! “Don’t say you’re backing out on me?”

He looked at her seriously. “I
am
bringing my TV, Jill. That part’s settled.”

Jill leapt to her feet, banging into their table and sending coffee sloshing out of their cups. “Thank you!” She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him close—until she realized what she was doing. His mouth hovered inches above her own.
 

A sly smile tilted up his lips. “You were saying?” he asked sexily.

Jill collected herself in time to redirect and plant a peck on his cheek. Then she stepped back and primly straightened her skirt before sitting. “I was going to say, that’s very kind. Generous of you to make that concession. Fifi and Mimi will be relieved.”

“No doubt they’ve been suffering from bouts of anxiety.”

“Animals have feelings, you know.”

“That’s not what you told me in high school,” he quipped.

Jill’s cheeks flamed as she recalled the conversation that had occurred the night of her high-school senior prom. She didn’t have a date, so her childhood friend Brad, who was home from boarding school, had arranged for her to go with his best friend, while Brad went with her classmate and his long-term flame, Susan. Jill had been instantly attracted to handsome and outgoing Hunter, and there was apparently a mutual spark. Everything had gone reasonably well until the two couples had taken separate cars to go to the after parties. What Hunter had in mind was obviously a very private party of his own. They’d been talking amicably when Hunter had leaned in to kiss her. When Jill withdrew in surprise, he’d suggested they might be more comfortable in the backseat of his car. She’d called him an animal and then some, and had asked him to take her home. He’d replied with one word uttered in total disbelief:
Seriously?
Then, without speaking again, he’d cranked the ignition and driven Jill home. That was the last she’d seen of Hunter Delaney until Saturday at the club. “That was a long time ago,” she finally said.

“Sure was,” he answered. “A lot has changed since then.”

“Sure has,” Jill agreed.

They sat there a moment, staring each other down as if each was daring the other to blink.

At last, Hunter pulled a pen from his pocket and handed it to her. “So,” he said, his voice husky. “Are we going to do this thing?”

Jill took the pen and gathered her courage. “There’s just one more request.”

Hunter pursed his lips and waited.

“It’s about my grandpa,” she said in a sheepish tone. “He wants you to meet him.”

“I suspect I’ll have to, eventually. Just like you’ll need to meet Max’s wife, Diane.”

“No, what I mean is…” She gripped the corner of the contract between her thumb and index finger. “He wants you to ask for my hand.”

Hunter didn’t just laugh, he
howled
. So loudly that people stared. “He what?”

“Can you please not make a spectacle?” she said, attempting to hush him.

“Okay, yes. Fine, I’m sorry.” He adjusted the lapels of his jacket. “And you say I’m the old-fashioned one.”

“It’s not me!” Jill sputtered. “It’s—”

“No worries,” he told her calmly. “I’ll do it. Just tell me where and when.”

“As soon as possible would be good. Before the wedding for sure.”

His gaze lingered on hers. “When
is
the happy day? We’ll need to discuss that.”

“My date with Brad was July eighteenth.”

“Wow, that’s close!”

“It’s okay. I’ve already canceled the caterers.”

“The other arrangements too?”

She nodded. “I had to give six weeks’ notice in order to preserve a transfer option.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I can apply my deposits—for the caterer and the reception hall—to another event taking place at any time during the course of the next twelve months.”

“So you can’t get the money back?”

“It was too late for that.”

“I don’t want us spending a lot of money on a fancy reception, Jill.”

“Then we don’t have to. If my book goes well, maybe Morgan can talk the publisher into hosting a book party.”

“Then they’d pick up the tab?” he asked.

Jill nodded.

“So you’d get back your money, after all.”

“I know it all sounds really crazy,” she said.

“Both of us should probably have our heads examined.”

“But you think we can make this work, yeah?”

He spoke with assurance. “Yeah.”

Hunter took the contract and scanned it briefly before adding his signature. When it was Jill’s turn, she asked, “How about if we elope?”

It didn’t take Hunter long to mull this over. “That sounds like a good plan,” he agreed. “The right plan. We’ve already garnered some media attention. Perhaps it would be good if we were to be seen as laying low. You know, out of deference to poor Brad’s feelings.”

“That’s very sensitive of you, Hunter.” She scratched out her signature and eyed him thoughtfully. “I’m sorry about what I said in high school. I was just very…” She searched for the word. “…conservative, and you were so—”

“It’s all right,” he said, stopping her. “I’m sure I deserved it. Now, here’s my question for you.” He pulled a glossy magazine from his interior coat pocket. It had been doubled over, but he opened it for her, revealing its sensational cover. “Do you think we deserved this?”

Jill’s mouth dropped open and her face flushed fiercely as she read the enormous caption:
Red Hot Heartbreak!
What was even worse was the couple on the cover, engaged in a heated embrace. The man held the woman in his arms, but she was practically climbing up him! It was like she was the cat and he was the tree, as she attempted to scale his broad torso…winding arms and legs around his muscular frame. And heaven knew what she was doing with her mouth! It was shoved so far up into his you couldn’t even see her lips! “Goodness!”

“Yeah.” Hunter shared a saucy grin, not looking the least bit embarrassed. “That’s what I said.”

Chapter Eight

Morgan flipped the magazine around after examining its explicit cover. “Now, that’s what I call convincing,” she said, thumping the photo of the couple with a manicured fingertip. She lowered the magazine in front of her lips to mask a giggle. “You didn’t say it had gotten physical.”

Jill snorted with irritation. “Are you here to help or offer commentary?”

Morgan pressed back the red bandanna she’d knotted around her hair like a headband and surveyed their surroundings. She wore jeans and an untucked button-down shirt with flat, sensible loafers. She’d supposedly arrived to help Jill clean out her guestroom, but had spent the past ten minutes drooling over the salacious details printed in the magazine. “I’m just saying you’ve done well. It will be obvious to the public that you and Hunter are quite combustible when we publish
Married Love: Keep—
”
 

Jill stopped her abruptly. “FYI, the kiss was a fake.”

Morgan arched an eyebrow.

“One hundred percent pretend.”

“O…kay.”

Heat swept up Jill’s neck. “I mean it. Brad was there. Cassandra was watching.”

Morgan shrugged, clearly sensing Jill was not ready to give her the whole story. She glanced around and tossed the magazine onto a bedside table, the one housing a photo of Jill’s fluffy gray cat, Mimi. “I can’t believe your cat has his own bed,” she said changing the subject. “Does he share with the dog, or what?”

“Of course not.” Jill caught herself, realizing she sounded a tad indignant. “Fifi sleeps on the futon.”

Morgan turned to the large wooden structure with a southwestern-patterned cover, noting its fine patina of tiny yellow hairs. The low table beside it held a reading lamp and a framed photo of Jill’s yellow Lab, Fifi. “Hunter’s going to love it in here.”

Jill paused from loading pet toys into a laundry basket and shoved the basket in Morgan’s direction. “Maybe you can help by putting the rest of them away?” she said, eying the multitude of items scattered about the floor. Morgan was probably thinking most children didn’t have this many playthings, and perhaps she’d have a point. “I’ll go grab the vacuum.”

“Better bring the attachments!” Morgan shouted after her as she left the room.

When Jill reached the kitchen closet, she caught a glimpse through the window of Fifi and Mimi romping together in the yard. Mostly the cat was terrorizing the dog by claiming a bright yellow tennis ball as his own. He rolled lazily onto his back, then flipped over again, centering his claws on the toy as he swatted it slowly around. Fifi’s big block head bobbed up and down and back and forth, her tail pointed high and her front legs hunched low, as she tried to keep track of the ball. The dog periodically leaned forward in an open-mouthed attempted to nab the prize. But Mimi would tap the dog’s nose with a paw, sending the dog bolting backward every time. Fifi had been on the receiving end of Mimi’s claws once when she was a little pup, and had learned to steer clear of them since.
 

Maybe the pair
did
have as many toys as some kids, but at the moment Mimi and Fifi were the only children Jill had. She’d rescued Mimi from a shelter six years ago, and had received Fifi as a Christmas gift from her short-term boyfriend at the time a few years afterward. Isaac had actually broken up with Jill the day he’d brought the puppy home. He’d already had it on order from the breeder, he’d said, and put down a deposit, so he figured going through with the gift was reasonable, even if he could no longer stand dating Jill. That had smarted, particularly given the fact that it was, you know,
Christmas—
and Jill had just been required to move her grandpa into assisted living the week before.

Sure, she’d cried a little, but mostly out of disappointment and frustration. While she hadn’t been convinced she truly loved Isaac, she’d at least been determined to give it a go. He was handsome and intelligent, well-spoken and well employed. All the things she typically looked for. Yet, Isaac had been her third relationship disaster in less than a year. The only thing that helped ease the sting of his departure was that pudgy bundle of joy that leapt into her lap—that very first night—to lick up her tears with a heavy wet tongue.