Big Mistake

by Tessa Blake

  Bri pulls at the short train of my gown, getting it lined up properly. It’s almost time to go out and meet my husband. I feel like I should be nervous, but I’m not. Stepping into a new life together feels like the exact right thing to do, and I can’t believe we didn’t figure it out sooner.

  But maybe all that happened exactly as it should. We almost missed each other, sure, but what matters is what we have now.

  Bri hands me my bouquet, and then picks up her own. She’s my only bridesmaid; Garrett and I managed to keep our wedding small and intimate. Just families and our closest friends. That’s all we need.

  That, and each other.

  My whole being warms as I think about him. I haven’t seen him since yesterday, when Levi, Garrett’s dad, and my dad—of all people—took him off to his bachelor party.

  “Don’t be all smelly and hungover,” I said as they were leaving.

  Levi snorted. “You have so little faith in us.”

  “No,” I said, “I’ve been out with you guys too often.”

  Garrett’s dad leaned across the front seat of the car. “It’s okay, Beck, they’re with me.”

  Great. Deeper pockets for the bail money. But I smiled and waved, and off they went.

  I didn’t have a bachelorette party; instead, I had a spa day with my mom, Garrett’s mom, and Bri. We spent the whole day—and a hell of a lot of money—and got massages and mani-pedis and were just generally pampered all day.

  I also ate like a damn pig, which I probably shouldn’t have. The dour seamstress at the wedding shop had warned me for months that I couldn’t gain any weight if I wanted to fit into my dress. So I’d been very careful … until yesterday.

  I figure the sauna sweated off at least half of what I ate, anyway—and the dress fits, which is what matters.

  “You look so happy,” Mom says, and I turn to see tears in her eyes.

  “Oh, Mom.” I hug her. “There’s no reason to cry. Everything is exactly how it should be.”

  “I know,” she said. “That’s what I’m crying about. It’s so wonderful.”

  “It really is,” I say. And it is. It’s the most wonderful thing I could ever have imagined—and it’s only going to get better. I lay my hand on my stomach and think about the birth control pills I threw in the trash yesterday. Garret and I are planning to start a family right away—after all, family is what matters most to us. The family we’ve always been, and the family we’ll create together.

  A couple of kids, maybe even three—we’re both only children, and want something different for our own. They’ll have a big yard to play in; Garrett’s parents gave us a down payment as our wedding present, and we bought a house in Blue Swan Cove. Garrett objected at first, because of my commute—but grad school isn’t forever, and our life together will be. Settling near our parents and our jobs and our friends was the right choice.

  The house is already full of my dad’s paintings and the things my mom passed down to me from her mother—knick-knacks and a hope chest and a beautiful old quilt rack, plus the things Garrett’s parents gave him, and the things we chose together to complete our home. The old and the new. Our family, stretching back as far as I could see, and into the future as well.

  Garrett is finishing up his second year at law school, and my first year of my master’s was just about done as well. We’ll finish our degrees at the same time and settle into the life I didn’t even know I wanted, until I didn’t want anything else.

  There’s a knock on the door, and Garrett’s mom pokes her head in. “Are you ready? Oh, Beck!” She puts both hands over her mouth and just shakes her head like she can’t believe it.

  “Don’t you cry, Jessica,” my mom says. “Your makeup.”

  “Oh, screw my makeup,” Garrett’s mom says, but she pats just under her bottom lashes delicately with her pinky finger.

  “Let’s go take our seats.” My mom turns to me. “Are you ready, sweetheart?”

  “Mom, I’m so ready.”

  They walk out, and Bri gives me a quick, hard hug. “Let’s do this,” she says, and as if on cue, the band starts playing.

  It’s time.

  I walk to the door, and Bri steps out just ahead of me. We make our way down the short hallway to a heavy velvet curtain that holds my whole life on the other side. My dad is waiting, his eyes suspiciously shiny. He leans down and kisses my cheek softly. “My girl,” he says, and nothing more.

  Bri looks at me, her eyes shining. “Ready?”

  “More than.”

  She nudges the curtain aside and steps out. I wait, my hand in the crook of my father’s arm, counting slowly to thirty. It’s the longest thirty seconds of my life.

  Then it’s my turn. We step through the curtain and my eyes go immediately to Garrett, standing next to Levi, looking handsome in a black tux. My best friend. My lover.

  My husband, in just a few short minutes. I tremble all over.

  When he sees me, his eyes light up and a grin spreads across his face.

  Dad and I make our way down the aisle, and at the end of it, Dad places my hand in Garrett’s, then takes a seat beside my mother.

  Garrett squeezes my hand. I squeeze his back, and try to put everything I’m feeling into my eyes. I think it must be working, because I see it reflected in his.

  Then we turn to the pastor, and start our future.

  Together.

  Author’s Note

  I owe so many thanks to so many people right now.

  First, the first two people who beta read this (in a most unusual fashion): Michelle Hart and Lyssa Dawn. They read bits hot off the keyboard and gave invaluable feedback and suggestions, all of which I took with gratitude. This was a tough book for me. (Aren’t they all, though?)

  Big Mistake was conceived, as so many of my projects are, as a book that would be “easy to write.” Writing is so hard for me that I’m always in search of this beautiful mythical unicorn, the easy-to-write book. I have yet to find it; imagine that. Every book is hard in its own way, and they’re never as hard as when you actually sit down to work on a book that, when you were kicking a faint scrap of an idea around in your head, you were sure would practically write itself.

  So the genesis of Big Mistake was literally just me looking at a list of romance tropes, wondering which would be simplest to write. I settled on friends-to-lovers, because easy-peasy. They’re friends, then they get drunk, then they shag, and voila! Love story. I had the lemon-drop scene in my head from literally the moment I conceived of Beck and Garrett, and I figured the rest would fill itself in pretty easily.

  But, as usual, I came up against a real-life hard wall: When was I supposed to write this thing? I was teaching classes and writing literally four other books. Maybe I needed a co-author?

  There was one person who jumped at the chance to co-write it with me, but she was also writing a bunch of other books and then had some medical issues—and meanwhile, not to be crass but I needed to get this book written and published so my family could, you know, eat.

  Enter Laney. Laney is a machine. If Laney decides she’s going to do something, she sits down with her calendar, moves shit around, makes room for the thing she wants to do, and then—get this—she does it. Gee, who’d’ve thunk it?

  One day, I hope to be like Laney.

  When she heard I was looking for someone to write the first draft of my next romance, Laney looked at her calendar, waved her magic wand, and said “I can do that next week.”

  Next week?! I’ve got literally four scenes outlined.

  Okay, move up “outline Big Mistake” on the To-Do list.

  I sketched out a quick chapter outline, thought it looked pretty solid. But then I ran the outline by Nikki Quinn (who was at the time my go-to romance reader). She took one look at my outline and said “Well that’s great and all, but what’s the reason they’ve never seen each other as sexytimes material before?”

  Uh … I don’t know? Because I said so?

  Sigh.r />
  I gave her a lot of not-great reasons, and in trying to get myself back in her good graces—Nikki’s smart, you guys, wicked smart, and she doesn’t suffer fools lightly—I realized that in my quickie outline I had moved further and further from my original idea. As the story stood now, Beck and Garrett weren’t best friends; they were people who’d known each other, but not terribly well, then got drunk and had sex.

  Well, that’s a fine story, I suppose, but it wasn’t the story I wanted to tell. The story I wanted to tell was about two people who had been real, true, best friends all of their lives and then took that next step together. Nikki made me understand that I hadn’t done what I set out to do. Was it even remotely believable that, without some other obstacle, they would never have looked at each other in that way before that night? And since the answer to that is obviously no, what stopped them?

  Thank God I am surrounded by so many smart people who save me from myself.

  Back to the drawing board. Beck’s illness came into being, along with her family’s protectiveness and Garrett’s family’s protectiveness. Garrett’s sense of responsibility, aka his savior complex, came into sharp relief for me when I realized that Beck, as a grown woman, didn’t need that shit anymore. I understood that she would have to confront the people in her life and present herself as a person who could act with agency, someone who no longer needed to be coddled like a newborn chick.

  So once I had all that in place, off the outline went to Laney. And I’ll be damned if she didn’t write the first draft in a week.

  Then I took three months to write the second draft. Oops.

  This wasn’t Laney’s fault. She wrote exactly the story I’d given her. And I did fine with the first half of the second draft, doing most of it in a crazy week-long vacation in San Francisco. But just before I came home, I got to a scene I realized should absolutely not be there. Talk about big mistakes; this was the biggest. I had ruined both characters and I didn’t even like them anymore.

  You know what happens when you pull the pivotal scene out of the middle of your novel? Yeah, I didn’t know either, but I sure figured it out — with Nikki’s help, again. She read the whole first half and gave me more excellent feedback. So I changed the middle, which meant changing the end, which meant changing the beginning.

  So much for easy.

  So … many thanks to Laney, obviously, and again I’ll thank Michelle and Lyssa, who let me know that the beginning at least was solid as hell. And I’ll thank Nikki again, though she won’t see it. She doesn’t beta read for me anymore, and I’m going to feel that loss keenly — though not as keenly as I’ll feel the loss of the hilarious political memes she would send me on Messenger while I was sleeping. Friends are more important than any beta read; take that to the bank.

  You should know that Laney will be publishing a serial this spring; those of you who loved The Billionaire’s Contract won’t want to miss it. It’s about a sexy alpha billionaire, and I know how you love those.

  As for me, I don’t have any idea what’s next. Laney and I have ideas for Bri and Levi, and we absolutely love Tasha (who wouldn’t?)—but I don’t think I’ll return to Blue Swan Cove for a little bit. I’ve got some other stuff percolating, and I’m gonna do a little nonfiction thing to cleanse my palate, then make some decisions.

  If you want to know what I decide, you can keep up with me by joining my newsletter and/or my reader group on Facebook. Whatever I end up doing next, I hope it will be something you really love.

  And I hope you loved Garrett and Beck. :)

  Tessa

  5/2/2018

  Other Books by Tessa Blake

  Why does the wrong guy feel so right?

  I had my perfect husband all picked out, but the bastard went and decided to marry someone else. So, on the night of his engagement party, I'm drowning my sorrows with my BFF Kari ... and in walks Mitchell Cole.

  Mitch is the slow-talking, sexy-walking, eye-crinkle-having star of one of Kari's soap operas, but he doesn't do a thing for me. I need a career guy with a steady job and a plan, not a scruffy actor who works construction between gigs.

  But Kari, who never takes no for an answer, "volunteers" me to hang out with him so I can get behind-the-scenes gossip for her. And that's all this is, even if his special blend of sweet and sexy is starting to break through my defenses.

  But then my ex comes back into my life in the most unexpected way, and that's when things get confusing. Do I choose the man who's everything I thought I wanted? Or the man who might be everything I need?

  Fans of Lauren Blakely and Emma Chase will love this hilarious and sexy take on losing Mr. Right ... and finding Mr. Wrong.

  Click here to get your copy,

  or go to books2read.com/mrwrong .

  Now complete in one volume!

  Includes a special Afterword from the author.

  Investigative reporter Ainsley Dumont has landed the assignment of a lifetime: prove that Rafe Garrett, NYC’s most famous billionaire, is behind the crooked development deal that’s threatening to ruin the careers of some of the country’s top political figures—including the President himself.

  Rafe Garrett is a ruthless negotiator, too handsome for his own good, and a man of … particular tastes. But as Ainsley gets closer to Rafe, she learns there is more to him than what the public sees. Muchmore.

  When sparks fly between them, she has to balance her assignment—and her ethics—against the urge to forget who she is and be what Rafe wants. But what Rafe wants is so far outside her experience, she might lose herself.

  And when her search for the truth turns dangerously personal, she’s determined to face whatever she finds… no matter what it costs.

  The Billionaire's Contract was previously published in 6 segments. Except for the Author's Note, the content in this volume is the same as in those volumes.

  Click here to get your copy,

  or go to books2read.com/tbc .

  About Tessa Blake

  Tessa Blake lives in Central Maine with her kids and pets—and the hot billionaires, soap stars, demon lovers, and best friends in her imagination.

  Join her in her Facebook reader group, Book Tarts with Tessa, or find her at:

  tessablakewrites.com

  tessablakewrites@gmail.com

  About Laney Powell

  Laney Powell is a Midwestern girl who is a hopeless romantic. She writes the stories you love to read, even if you don’t want to admit you read them!

  You can email her at laneypowellwrites@gmail.com, or find her at the Facebook and Twitter links below.