Once Upon a Wedding

by Stacy Connelly

  “Not yet. This one’s going take some time.”

  Frustration built inside Connor. Although he trusted Jake and knew the man was a good P.I., Connor wasn’t used to relying on someone else. “We don’t have a lot of time here.”

  “Hey, I’ve got this,” Jake said with typical confidence. “I’m just telling you, she’s not the type to spill all her secrets on a first date.”

  Connor shook his head. He shouldn’t have worried. His friend had been in St. Louis for all of two days, and he already had a date with the former maid. “Call me when you’ve got anything.”

  “Will do.”

  Snapping the cell phone shut, Connor hoped Jake worked his cases as quickly as he worked with women. But he wasn’t going to sit around waiting for Jake; he wanted to find something on Dunworthy, irrefutable proof that the guy wasn’t the loving husband-to-be he pretended.

  Scowling, he resumed pacing, lengthening his stride to cross the room in four steps instead of eight. Connor had never been one to back down from a fight, but some battles were lost before they’d even begun. Gordon and Charlene Wilson would never take the word of the kid from the wrong side of the tracks over their handpicked golden boy.

  Dammit, he needed an insider. He needed someone the Wilsons trusted to break the bad news. He needed one of their own. He needed…Kelsey.

  Connor laughed out loud at the idea, but damned if he didn’t think it might work. Kelsey hadn’t played a part in his past relationship with Emily. She was as unbiased a witness as he could hope to find. She had nothing at stake with Emily’s wedding, nothing riding on her cousin saying “I do.”

  No doubt about it, Kelsey was his best shot.

  The following evening, Emily twirled around the hotel’s atrium, her arms outspread like Sleeping Beauty. “You were right, Kelsey. This is the perfect place for the reception. Don’t you think so, Mother?”

  She looked so beautiful and happy Kelsey half-expected cartoon animals to surround her at any moment. Smiling at her cousin’s unfettered happiness, she breathed a sigh of relief. Connor McClane was wrong, dead wrong. Emily and Todd were meant to be.

  “It’s lovely,” Aunt Charlene commented without looking up from her mother-of-the-bride notebook. “I knew we could count on Kelsey to find the perfect place.”

  “Um, thank you, Aunt Charlene,” Kelsey said, surprised and pleased by the compliment. Even after eight years, Kelsey and Charlene had a tentative, tightrope relationship that had yet to get past a disastrous beginning.

  When Kelsey had first come to live with the Wilsons, she’d been overwhelmed by their obvious wealth, and her cousins’ beauty and grace had left her feeling outclassed. Especially when Charlene took one look at her and declared, “Someone must take this girl shopping.”

  Looking back now, Kelsey realized her aunt had been trying to relate to her the same way she did to her own daughters, who loved nothing more than a day spent raiding Scottsdale boutiques. But back then, as an intimidated, awkward teenager, Kelsey had suffered the pain of being seen as an embarrassment by her new family.

  She’d survived the multiple fittings and outfit changes—a living, breathing, silent mannequin—as her aunt and a shopkeeper went back and forth over which colors, styles and accessories best suited Kelsey. But when she stood with her aunt at the register, when she saw the hundreds of dollars a single item cost, a sick sense of disbelief hit her stomach.

  How many weeks’ rent would that pair of shoes have paid for when she and her mother were living in tiny one-room apartments? How many months of food? How much better might her mother’s medical have been with that kind of money?

  In a quiet, cold voice, Kelsey had told the saleswoman to put every item back, before marching out of the store.

  Later, once Kelsey had calmed down and realized how ungrateful her actions must have seemed, she tried to apologize to her aunt. Charlene had declared the matter over and forgotten, but never again did she offer to take Kelsey shopping.

  Their relationship had yet to recover from that day. By asking Kelsey to coordinate the wedding, Charlene had helped breach the gap, but Kelsey knew this opportunity didn’t come with second chances. This was her one shot.

  “I’ve always thought this was an amazing place for a reception,” Kelsey said, hearing the dreamy wistfulness in her own voice. The glass ceiling and towering plants gave the illusion of being in a tropical paradise, and from the first time she’d seen the hotel, Kelsey had known it was perfect.

  Perfect for Emily, she reminded herself.

  Although between having so many of her friends working the wedding and Emily’s willingness to let Kelsey make so many of the decisions, the entire event was feeling more like Kelsey’s dream wedding.

  Except the choice of groom…

  The insidious thought wove through her mind along with images of Connor McClane…His rebellious saunter, his too confident grin, his…everything.

  “I hope Todd likes it.” Emily lowered her arms, a small frown tugging at her eyebrows. “Do you think he will?”

  “It’s a five-star hotel, one of the finest in the state,” Charlene said imperiously.

  “I know, but Todd’s family is from Chicago. They have all those historic buildings and…Todd can be particular.”

  Kelsey’s hand tightened on her day planner at her cousin’s hesitant tone. Suspicions planted by Connor’s too-pointed comments threatened to sprout into tangled choking weeds, but Kelsey ground them down. Finger by finger, she eased her grip before she left permanent indentations on the leather book.

  Her cousin was a people pleaser. Of course she worried what Todd would think. “He agreed to let you make all the decisions about the wedding,” Kelsey reminded Emily, who had in turn, left most of the decisions up to her. “So he must trust your choices.”

  “I know, but…” Emily took a look around the atrium without the excitement she’d shown moments ago. Trying to see it through Todd’s particular eyes?

  “But what?” Kelsey prompted gently.

  “It’s—it’s nothing.” Emily shook her head with a laugh. “I just want everything to be perfect. You understand, don’t you, Kelsey?”

  Yes, she knew all about trying and failing again and again. But not this time—not with Emily’s wedding. “Of course I do. And your wedding will be perfect,” she insisted, before an already familiar masculine voice filled the atrium and sent shivers up and down her spine.

  “Hey, Em! How’s the blushing bride?”

  “Oh, my gosh! Connor!” Emily squealed her former boyfriend’s name and ran to meet him. A broad smile on his handsome face, he caught her in his arms and spun her around. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  Keeping an arm around Emily’s shoulders, Connor glanced at Kelsey. “When Kelsey said you’d be here, I had to see you.”

  Heat rushed to Kelsey’s face. Bad enough Connor had out-maneuvered her. Did he have to rub it in in front of her aunt?

  Connor McClane had been in town less than twenty-four hours, and she could already feel the familiar undertow of failure dragging her under.

  “You told him we’d be here?” The words barely escaped the frozen smile on her aunt’s face. Charlene would never make a scene in public. Even if it meant smiling at the man out to ruin her daughter’s future.

  “No! I didn’t.” Except she had told Connor Emily was making final arrangements for the reception that evening, and he would know where the reception was being held. After all, he’d been invited. “I didn’t mean to,” she almost groaned.

  Charlene straightened her razor-sharp shoulders, taking charge of a situation that had gotten out of control. Out of Kelsey’s control. Interrupting Emily and Connor’s conversation, she said, “Mr. McClane, you’ll have to excuse us. Emily has a wedding to plan.”

  “Mother!” her daughter protested. “Connor’s come all this way to see me. We have so much to talk about. Can’t this wait?”

  “This is your wedding we’re talking about, E
mily! The most important day of your life.”

  The most important day of your life. Kelsey understood the sentiment. Every bride wanted her wedding day to be perfect, and she was doing everything in her power to see that this affair was the type every girl dreamed about, but Emily was only twenty-eight years old. Shouldn’t she have something to look forward to?

  Why Kelsey chose that moment to meet Connor’s glance, she didn’t know. He flashed her a half smile as if he could not only read her thoughts but agreed one hundred percent.

  “You’re right, of course, Mother.” Emily turned to Connor with a smile. “I’m sorry, Connor. We don’t have much time before the wedding, and there’s still so much to do.”

  “Don’t worry, Em. We’ll have plenty of time to talk before then. I’m in Room 415.”

  “You’re staying here?” Kelsey blurted the words in horror. At the hotel where not only the reception was taking place, but also the rehearsal dinner.

  Connor’s grin was maddening—and disturbingly enticing. “Thought it would be convenient.”

  “Convenient. Right.” That way he could conveniently intrude on every event she had planned for the location and drive her insane!

  “Kelsey, Emily and I can take things from here. You have…other matters to attend to now.”

  Her aunt’s pointed look spoke volumes. Charlene could handle the final wedding details. Kelsey’s job was to handle Connor McClane. She desperately clutched her day planner to her chest like a leather-bound shield. There were some things in life she could not control, but everything else made it onto a list. A methodical, point-by-point inventory of what she needed to accomplish, making even the impossible seem manageable. Nothing beat the satisfaction of marking off a completed task.

  And although Kelsey certainly hadn’t counted on Connor when she prioritized her checklist for Emily’s wedding, as long as she kept him occupied for the next week and a half, Kelsey would be able to cross him off once and for all.

  Catching a touch of her aunt’s righteous indignation, she straightened her own shoulders and nodded imperceptibly. Satisfied, Charlene marched Emily out of the atrium.

  Emily cast a last, longing glance over her shoulder, and the uncertainty Kelsey saw in her cousin’s gaze strengthened her resolve. Aileen was right. Emily was suffering from cold feet. Her worries about her future as a wife and eventually a mother had her looking back to simpler times. Back when she could lose herself in Connor’s live-for-the-day attitude.

  But her cousin would only regret it if she threw away her future for a man of the moment like Connor McClane. And Kelsey could not allow Emily to make the same mistake her own mother had.

  Chapter Three

  “You know, Kelsey, I’ve never been attended to before.”

  Even with her back turned, as she watched Emily and Charlene walk away, Connor sensed the determination rolling off Kelsey in waves. Shoulders straight and head held high, she looked ready for battle. And yet when he took a closer step, his gaze locked on a curl of hair that had escaped the confining bun. The urge to tuck that curl behind her ear and taste her creamy skin nearly overwhelmed him. He sucked in what was supposed to be a steadying breath, but the air—scented with cinnamon and spice and Kelsey—only added to the desire burning through his veins.

  Struggling to hide behind the cocky facade that had served him so well in his youth, Connor murmured, “Gotta say I’m looking forward to it.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said stiffly.

  “You think I don’t know I’m those ‘other matters’ your aunt was talking about?”

  Kelsey opened her mouth, looking ready to spout another unbelievable denial, only to do them both the favor of telling the truth. “You’re right, Connor. My aunt wants me to keep you away from Emily.”

  “Charlene wants me gone and Emily happily married. There’s just one problem.”

  “That would be you,” Kelsey pointed out. “A problem easily solved if you were actually gone.”

  “If I leave, Emily’s problems will have just begun.”

  “That’s your unbiased opinion?”

  “Yeah, it is,” he agreed. “And not one your aunt and uncle are gonna listen to.”

  “Can you blame them?” Kelsey demanded.

  No, and that was the hell of it. Connor knew he was the only one to blame. He knew what the Wilsons thought of him and he knew why. He could still see the look in Gordon Wilson’s eyes when he offered Connor money to break up with Emily. Not a hint of doubt flashed in the older man’s gaze. He’d been so sure Connor—a dirt-poor loser from the wrong side of town—would take the money.

  Connor had longed to shove the money and his fist into the smug SOB’s face. But he hadn’t. He couldn’t. And the pride he’d had to swallow that day still lingered, a bitter taste on his tongue.

  He’d let Emily down, although from what he’d gathered during their recent conversations, she didn’t know anything about the payoff. She thought their breakup had been her idea…just as she thought marrying Todd Dunworthy was her idea. But Connor knew better, and this time he wasn’t going to be bought off.

  “The Wilsons aren’t going to listen to anything I have to say,” he acknowledged. “That’s where you come in.”

  Kelsey frowned. “I am a Wilson.”

  He hadn’t forgotten…exactly. “You’re different.”

  Drawing herself up to her five-foot-nothing height, shoulders so straight Connor thought they just might snap, Kelsey said, “Right. Different.” Hurt flashed in her chocolate-brown eyes as if he’d just insulted her, when nothing could be further from the truth.

  “Hey, wait a minute.” Pulling her into a nearby alcove, out of the way of nearby guests, Connor insisted, “That was not a put-down. Your aunt and uncle turned their noses up so high when they met me, if it rained, they would have drowned. I was trailer trash, and no way was I good enough for their little girl. So when I say you’re nothing like them, you can say ‘thank you,’ because it’s a compliment.”

  There were a dozen words he could have said, compliments he could have used, but the stubborn tilt of Kelsey’s chin told him she wouldn’t have listened to a single one. Someone—her family, some guy from her past—had done a number on her.

  No, words wouldn’t do it, but actions…How far would he have to go to show Kelsey how attractive he found her? A touch? A kiss? The undeniable proof of his body pressed tight to hers?

  “In case you’ve forgotten,” Kelsey pointed out, her voice husky enough to let him know she’d picked up on some of his thoughts and wasn’t as immune as she’d like him to believe, “according to my aunt and uncle you kidnapped their daughter.”

  “It was not kidnapping,” he argued, though he’d had a hell of a time convincing the police. Fortunately Emily had backed his story, insisting that she’d left willingly. Eventually the charges had been dropped; Emily had been eighteen and legally an adult, able to make her own choices. Not that her parents had seen it that way. “But that’s my point. Your aunt and uncle won’t listen to anything I have to say. Which is where you come in.”

  “Me?”

  “Right. We’ll be partners.”

  “Partners?”

  “Sure. After all, we’re on the same side.”

  “Are you crazy? We are not on the same side!” Kelsey argued.

  “I want Emily to be happy,” he interjected, shaking her thoughts as easily as his sexy grin weakened her composure. “What do you want?”

  Challenge rose in the lift of his eyebrow, but Kelsey couldn’t see a way out. The trap was set, and all she could do was jump in with both feet. “Of course I want her to be happy.”

  “That’s what I thought. Kelsey, this guy won’t make her happy. He’s not what he seems, and I want to prove it. The Wilsons won’t believe me, but with you to back me up, they’ll have to at least listen.”

  Kelsey longed to refuse. She didn’t trust him. Not for a second. Oh, sure, his story sounded good, but finding di
rt on Todd wasn’t just a matter of looking out for Emily—it played perfectly into Connor’s interests, as well.

  If Connor did find some deep, dark secret to convince Emily to call off the wedding, not only would he be the hero who saved her from a horrible marriage, he’d also be there to help pick up the pieces. But if Connor couldn’t find anything in Todd’s past, what was to keep him from making something up? Working together, he wouldn’t be able to lie. Not to mention, he’d given her a way to keep an eye on him.

  Connor held out his hand. “Deal?”

  Sighing, she reached out. “Deal.”

  Connor’s lean fingers closed around her hand. Heat shot up her arm, and a warm shiver shook her whole body. Like stepping from ice-cold air-conditioning into the warmth of a sunny day.

  “All right, partner.”

  “Not so fast.” She hadn’t lived with her businessman uncle for as long as she had without learning a thing or two about negotiation. “You might want to hear my terms first.”

  “Terms?”

  Kelsey nodded. As long as Connor thought he needed her, maybe she could get a few concessions.

  Instead of balking, Connor grinned. “Let’s hear ’em.”

  “First, we’re equal partners. I want to be in on this every step of the way. No hearing about anything you’ve found on Todd after the fact.”

  “No problem. From this point on, we’re joined at the hip. ’Course, that will make for some interesting sleeping arrangements.”

  “Second, this is strictly business,” Kelsey interrupted, as if cutting off his words might somehow short-circuit the thoughts in her head. But they were already there: sexy, seductive images of hot kisses and naked limbs slipping through satin sheets in her mind. She could only hope Connor couldn’t read them so clearly by the heat coloring her face.

  “And third?”

  “Thi-third,” she said, clearing her throat, “you stay away from Emily. If we get any dirt on Todd, I’ll break the news to her. Until then, I don’t want you filling her head with your ‘bad feelings.’”

  Expecting an argument, Kelsey was surprised when Connor nodded. “I’ll keep my distance.”