She opened her mouth ready to verbally punch him in the face, but as usual, he was quicker. He brought his mouth down on hers for a fast, hard kiss. Just when she was deciding between dragging him into her room or kicking him in the balls, Aiden pulled back. “You were amazing tonight.”
He ran a finger down the tip of her nose and walked off.
“What in the fuck was that?” Frankie asked the empty room as she shut the door and added the chain in case Mr. Kilbourn decided to try his luck again.
She looked down at her dress and groaned. There was a tear in the waist and one in the skirt. Those damn berries had smeared their bloody red massacre over the right breast and hip. She looked like a murdered starlet in Monique Lhuillier.
Pru was going to kill her.
Frantically, she dialed the front desk and begged for a super emergency cleaning. The figure they named made her wince. It meant at least another month of catering gigs. But at this point, she had no choice. It was either pay the exorbitant fee and hope for the best, or walk down the aisle and get stabbed by the bride.
If there was a wedding. If Aiden didn’t come through, there would be no groom for Pru to marry, she thought bitterly as she changed into sleep shorts and a tank.
Frankie handed over the dress to the bell hop that knocked and then texted Pru.
Frankie: You up?
Pru’s response was practically instantaneous.
Pru: OMG, get over here!
Frankie padded down the hall to Pru and Chip’s room. Before she could raise her knuckles to knock, Pru opened the door and dragged her inside. Frankie blinked. Her best friend was wearing a silk pajama set… and her veil.
Clearly the rum and beer hadn’t worn off yet.
“I know. I know. I look like a crazy person,” Pru announced leading the way back into a marble on marble on marble bathroom the size of a football stadium. “But I started thinking. We’re in paradise. It’s hot. Do I really want to wear my hair down tomorrow? Have a seat,” she said, pointing toward the ledge of the soaker tub.
“And do you?” Frankie asked, feeling like the worst human being in the world. Her best friend’s fiancé had been kidnapped in front of her face and not only did she know where to find him, she had walked away without trying to rescue him. She was scum. The chewing gum on the bottom of someone’s shoe. The kind of person who faked diseases to set up phony crowd-funding campaigns. She, Franchesca Marie Baranski, was a bad, bad person.
She sat on the lip of the tub.
Pru was discussing the merits of a sexy chignon when she abruptly cut herself off. Her blue eyes going wide in the mirror. “Here I am yammering on and on about my hair and you’ve just come back from a tryst with Aiden! What kind of a friend am I?”
“The best. You’re the best kind of a friend, Pru,” Frankie lamented. “You’re a wonderful person, and you deserve all the happiness in the world.” She had to tell her. If she were in Pru’s shoes, she’d want to know.
“What’s wrong?” Pru demanded, whirling away from the mirror. “You look like you’re gonna cry.”
Frankie let herself slide backwards into the tub. “Before we talk about Aiden, we should talk about Chip.” How in the hell was she going to explain to her best friend that she didn’t call the cops, didn’t kick the door in and drag Chip home? That she was the worst friend in the world.
Pru got a soft, faraway look in her eyes. “I can’t believe I finally get to marry him, Frankie. I just… I love him so much. He’s funny and sweet and kind and smart, and he looks like a Ken doll. But when I look at him, I can see us fifty years from now. Chasing grandkids, hosting parties, summering in the Hamptons with our huge family.”
Pru clasped her hands together and sighed. “He’s everything I’ve been dreaming about since I was five. I have my dream dress, my best friend, and I get to marry the man of my dreams in paradise.” Her eyes glistened with tears.
“Don’t cry, Pru,” Frankie pleaded. At least not before she’d told her the shitty part about having an MIA fiancé.
“I can’t help it.” Pru dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “I’m so happy. And that’s what I want for you, Frankie. I want you to find someone who makes you feel like you’re flying. Someone who makes you look forward to the next fifty years.”
“I can’t focus on the next fifty minutes let alone years,” Frankie teased.
Pru crossed the bathroom. It took about ten minutes given the expanse of marble between them. She perched on the edge of the tub and toyed with her veil. “I think Aiden will be that for you,” Pru confessed.
Frankie smacked her head off the back of the tub. “Ow! What?”
“I know you two got off to a rough start—”
“The man called me a stripper!”
“After the engagement party, he asked Chip a thousand questions about you.”
“Maybe he wanted to find out where I dance and if I give BJs for an extra fifty,” Frankie shot back.
“He picked you up from the airport. I saw the way he was looking at you during dinner. Like he wanted to eat you instead of what was on his plate. And then he whisks you away? Don’t think for one second that just because I’m getting married tomorrow that I don’t want every single detail of what you two have been doing for the last five hours.”
Frankie rubbed the bump on the back of her head. “Let’s get back to this getting married thing tomorrow for a second. How upset would you be if something happened and you couldn’t?”
“Couldn’t what? Get married tomorrow?”
“Yeah. What if something… came up?”
“Franchesca Baranski, a mother-fucking hurricane could blow over this island leveling every building on it tomorrow, and I would still be marrying Chip.”
Ah, hell.
“Yeah, but—”
“Listen. You’ll understand this once you and Aiden really start getting to know each other,” Pru said, patting her arm. “Chip and I lost each other after college, and I was devastated because I knew he was the one. I never stopped believing that. Not once in all those years. And we found our way back to each other. We’ve paid our dues. That separation was heart-breaking for me, for him too. So we are going to have a magical day tomorrow because we deserve it. I deserve it,” her voice cracked.
Frankie grabbed her friend’s hand. “Of course, you deserve it. I know that Chip is all you’ve ever wanted, and you’ll have him. You’ll have your perfect guy on your perfect day. I promise.”
Pru nodded, her veil rippling. “I should text him! Text him and tell him how much I love him and can’t wait for tomorrow! Oooh! Or I could call him!”
“Uhhh—”
But Pru was already scampering back to the vanity for her phone.
Chapter Sixteen
Frankie: Pru thinks we made out for five hours tonight. Also, she’s texting and calling Chip to tell him how excited she is about tomorrow. In about thirty seconds, she’s going to start to panic.
Aiden: I’ve got it covered.
Frankie wanted to reach through her phone and strangle him. Or at the very least punch him in his smug “I’ve got it covered” face. She was debating whether or not to bite the bullet and tell Pru everything when Pru’s phone signaled a text.
“Is it Chip?” Frankie asked, aghast. Was Aiden really that good?
“No. It’s Aiden,” Pru said, beaming at her phone. “He said that Chip is sound asleep in his suite, and he didn’t want me to worry that Chip wasn’t returning my texts.”
Pru hugged her phone to her chest, her eyes glistening with unshed tears of happiness. “I’m getting married tomorrow.”
Hell yes, she was. Frankie vowed that she would do whatever it took to get Pru down the aisle to the man of her dreams.
“Enough about me. Tell me about Aiden! Is he really an orgasm master?”
* * *
Pru’s wedding day dawned bright, beautiful, and hot. With no groom in sight.
The evening ceremony called for hours spent at th
e spa with the rest of the bridesmonsters. Frankie had tossed and turned the rest of the night away in Pru’s room seeing Chip’s abduction over and over again in her head.
Aiden hadn’t bothered checking in, and with this seaweed wrap sucking the fat out of her, she couldn’t just get up and go find him. All she knew was he had better be mounting a rescue with tanks, ninjas, and mercenaries. Whatever it took to get Chip Randolph back to the resort and in a tux before six.
Cressida sauntered by in a short, silk robe and mud mask. “Here. Have zis,” she said, wielding a bottle of Cristal. “You look tense.”
Frankie looked at her arms pinned to her side with green slime. “Got a straw?”
Cressida shrugged. “Open your mouth. I will pour.”
Frankie laid back and did as she was told. Cressida poured with precision, and Frankie swallowed the bubbles like a first-string sorority pledge.
“Did you take care of what you needed to take care of last night?” Cressida asked without moving her lips, careful not to crack her mask.
“It’s being managed,” Frankie said evasively. She wasn’t about to trust any of the bridesmaids with a brown bag lunch with her name on it let alone sensitive information that would ruin Pru’s wedding day.
“Ze bride is getting anxious. She has not heard from ze groom since last night,” Cressida announced, nodding her blonde head in Pru’s direction.
She had her feet in a spa tub and was staring at her phone in her lap as if willing it to ring.
Frankie prayed that Aiden was handling it. “What’s Chip doing today?” Frankie asked Pru, already dreading the answer.
“Apparently he’s fishing with Aiden this morning.” Pru bit her lip.
“That sounds like fun,” Frankie prodded.
“Yeah, I’m just getting a little… nervous.”
“Butterflies,” Margeaux announced knowledgeably. “I was that way the first time. The second time around you won’t feel a thing.”
“Nice, Marge,” Frankie snorted.
Margeaux scoffed. “Please. Like anyone believes this marriage will last. Hey, watch the cuticles,” she screeched at the woman doing her manicure.
“Don’t listen to her,” Frankie pleaded with Pru, inch-worming her way into a seated position. The seaweed ripped down her back, and she could breathe again.
“I haven’t heard from him since the fish fry last night. What if…” Pru didn’t finish the sentence, and Frankie was the only one in the room who knew the truth was even worse than all the scenarios that Pru was running through.
“If they’re fishing offshore they probably left early, and there’s no cell reception,” Frankie said, shrugging back into her robe.
Pru chewed on her lip. “True. But if I haven’t heard from him by lunch, I’m going to send my dad to check on him.”
Wouldn’t that go over well? R.L. Stockton storming around the resort looking for the future son-in-law that he hated. One whiff of trouble with Chip and R.L. would have Pru on a private plane flying back home while his team of attorneys worked out the best way to sue the shit out of Chip and his parents.
“Trust Aiden,” Frankie insisted. “He won’t let you down.” And if he did, Frankie would be first in line to kick him in the balls.
“There’s my baby girl!” Addison Stockton stormed into the treatment room in her matching robe and slippers. “She’s going to be the most beautiful bride,” she announced to the room, fluttering her hands like hummingbird wings.
“Someone enjoyed their laser hair removal appointment,” Taffany said, cracking her gum.
At noon, the spa served up a vegan spread for the party. Chip’s mother, Myrtle, took one look at the hummus topped cucumber rolls and ordered a burger, rare, with extra fries. Can’t take the Texas appetites out of a cattle ranch baron’s daughter.
Frankie would have done the same if she could stomach the thought of food. Every time Pru picked up her phone, Frankie cringed inwardly.
She volunteered to go first for hair and submitted to the violent hair stylist who seemed intent on embedding pins into her skull.
“I don’t see why we all have to change our styles because Pruitt did,” Margeaux whined, slapping away the stylist as the man tried to sweep her thick curtain of honey blonde hair off her neck. “And wax my eyebrows while you’re at it.”
“Christ, Marge! Can you shut your mouth for one day and do something for someone else? It’s not your fucking day. You’ll probably have eight or nine wedding days by the time a husband holds a pillow over your face and puts the rest of us out of our misery. So put your damn hair up and shut your damn mouth!”
It was exactly the wrong approach to take with a sociopathic asshole.
“Do you even know who I am, you piece of shit from Brooklyn?”
Margeaux spat out the word Brooklyn as if it were sulfur flavored.
“Do you even know what a black hole of a human you are?” Frankie shot back.
Her stylist, unfazed by the exchange, spun her around to show her the results of eight thousand hairpins and six cans of hair spray. She’d tamed the dark curls into submission, wrangling them into a rock-hard bun at the nape of her neck.
“Looks amazing,” Frankie said, jumping out of the chair and throwing cash at her before she could reach for more hair pins.
“You’re just jealous because you’re nothing. You’re literally the help. Pathetic with your hand out for tips so you can pay your dry-cleaning bill.”
“You better watch how you talk around people, Marge. A lot of us are help, and without us, you’d have a dirty toilet, bikini burn, and no food at your stupid parties.”
“Someone like Aiden Kilbourn would never give you a second glance. Unless it was out of pity or to wonder how you managed to shove your Kardashian-sized ass into your dress. You’re going to look like a whale in the pictures next to the rest of us.” She laughed an unhinged, diabolical Dr. Evil kind of laugh.
The stylist working on Margeaux reached for the hot wax and slathered it over the entire brow. He gave Frankie a commiserating look and slapped the waxing strip on top of the wax.
“I might not be the only one people are staring at tonight,” Frankie predicted. She turned and marched out of the room to the music of Margeaux screaming.
“What did you do to my eyebrow you fucking idiot?”
In the hallway, she pulled her phone out of her robe pocket and fired off a text to Aiden.
Frankie: Status update. Where are you with Operation Free the Groom? The bride is getting nervous.
His response was terse.
Aiden: I have it handled.
She’d like to handle him… out of a ten-story window and into a dumpster full of broken glass.
She dialed him as she walked. If he didn’t tell her he was breaching the door to Room 314 right now she was going to get Chip herself.
“What?” he answered brusquely.
“Where are you?” she hissed. She marched down the sun dappled hallway that connected the spa to the main building.
He sighed. “Franchesca, I’m in the middle of something, and every time I have to check in with you, I have to stop working.”
“Will Chip be back here before the wedding?” she asked.
“I’m working on it,” Aiden answered tersely.
“Have you even heard from the kidnapper today?”
“Yes. We have a meeting scheduled.”
“A meeting?” Frankie stormed past the doors to the resort’s library bar and stopped in her tracks. She backed up two steps and glared through the glass doors. It was a spacious room with tall bookcases and ladders straight out of Beauty and the Beast except for the large L-shaped bar with the spectacular ocean view. The bar that played host to one Aiden “Dead Man Walking” Kilbourn.
Disgusted, Frankie ended the call and flicked off the unseeing Aiden through the glass. Under a full head of steam, she approached the front desk. “Excuse me,” she said to the concierge. “My dress is in for an emergency cl
eaning.”
“Yes, Ms. Baranski. We’re working on the damage right now.”
“I’ll need it ready in time for the ceremony. Because nothing is going to ruin this wedding. Not a missing groom, or an asshole best man, or a stained dress.” She was pointing her finger in the air like a movie heroine making a proclamation.
“Of course, Ms. Baranski.” The concierge gave Frankie the “you’re a crazy person and I have to be nice to you” smile.
“Um. Thank you,” Frankie said. “I’m going to go away now.”
The concierge smiled pleasantly again, and Frankie backed away from the desk. She jogged to the bank of elevators. Once in her room, she shucked the robe and dragged on a sundress. Antonio’s business card fell out of her clutch when she dug out her money.
Maybe she didn’t have to do this entirely on her own.
Chapter Seventeen
“Where’s your uncle’s van?” Frankie asked, eyeing the doorless dune buggy-like vehicle.
“He’s driving it,” Antonio announced sliding out from behind the wheel. “Your chariot awaits, madam.” He was wearing a prep school uniform of navy blue shorts and a white short-sleeve button down. His tie was a clip-on.
“Did you steal this? And I feel like I have to repeat my question from last night. Are you even old enough to drive?”
“You wanna stand here and ask questions, or do you want to go to Rockley?” Antonio asked.
“Oh, my God. Just drive.” Frankie climbed in next to him and fastened the safety harness.
“Yee haw!” Antonio gunned the engine, jumped the curb, and tore down the winding drive to the road.
“Do not kill us!” Frankie shouted over the rumble of the engine.
Antonio approached the highway like a villain in a car chase. Frankie covered her eyes with her hands and said her prayers. She heard horns and braced for death. But the impact and death never came. She peeked through her fingers to see they were tooling down the highway weaving in and out of traffic.
Beach Reads Box Set Page 234