Leo takes a step toward me, and I take one back, but he seems unperturbed. “It makes you sweet.”
“Me? Sweet?” I say, taking another step back. He laughs and reaches out a hand, tucking that strand of hair behind my ear. My body breaks out in goosebumps, and I thank God my dress covers my nipples appropriately so he won’t see the headlights on high beam.
“It makes you a good person.”
Another step, and I’m firmly pressed up against a well-manicured hedge. I stare into those sparkling baby blues, and it may be the cough medicine or the two glasses of champagne talking but he has really pretty eyes, framed by an incredible face. The kind of face you want to wake up to every morning . . . What the hell?
“It makes you beautiful.” Leo’s fingertips slide down my jaw to cup my chin.
“There you are. Finally. I’ve only been looking all-over,” a high-pitched British wail comes from somewhere behind Leo.
“Katherine.” I sidestep around him. That was far too close to being a thing that almost happened.
“Where have you been all evening?”
“Sorry, I had some things to attend to.”
“I can see that,” she says, sounding all kinds of creepy. “Hello. We haven’t formally met. I’m Katherine, Poppy’s soon-to-be boss.”
“Leo. Poppy’s soon-to-be—”
“Nothing,” I squeak. “Leo and I are friends—not even friends, really. More like acquaintances, or you know, enemies.” I wave their odd looks away with a lazy hand gesture. “Now, you needed me for something?”
“Yes. We need to go over the plan for the speeches.”
“Speeches, right. So we’ll just cut mine and Leo’s, and we’re done. You’re okay with that right, Leo?”
He nods, and then turns to me. “Wait, what?”
“Alright then,” Katherine says. “Jolly good.”
“Great.”
Katherine turns and stalks off across the lawn on her teetering heels. They sink into the soft sandy grass with each step, and it’s actually quite comical watching her walk away. She looks like a flamingo or some other bird with ridiculously long, skinny legs that are wildly out of proportion to the rest of her body.
I trail after her, but Leo grabs my arm and pulls me against him, his front to my back. He leans down and whispers in my ear, “We’re not done here, Pop Tart.”
“Yes, we are.”
“Not by a long shot.”
“Okay, see you. Busy wedding planning to do, and all.”
He chuckles and releases me, and I flee faster than a rabbit into its burrow when trying to escape a predator.
***
For the next two hours I’m subjected to pitying looks and uneasy smiles and comments like, “It’s so good of you to come,” “You poor dear,” or, my personal favorite from Chase’s wicked Aunt Myrtle, “I always knew it wouldn’t work out. You Porters have never been good enough for the Vanderbilts.” Aunt Myrtle may have still had a score to settle with my Uncle Wallace. I’ve never liked that woman, and everyone knows she only attends parties and weddings for the free meals and liquor.
It’s enough that I want to tear my hair out, but I won’t give Myrtle the satisfaction. Instead, I see us through the rehearsal, and at dinner I ensure that I always have a champagne flute in my hands anytime someone approaches our table. I’m sat between Leo and Jasper, which isn’t all bad. The Jasper part, anyway. Leo is just as infuriating as ever and has decided that occupying his own seat isn’t enough. Apparently, he needs half of mine too because his hot thigh is flush with mine and it’s making my body temperature skyrocket. Jas is like a kid after too much sugar. He drums on the table, creates music with his champagne glass, and is all too willing to keep filling my own.
I have a definite buzz going, and when Claire tries to talk to me alone I’m not even mad. I’m not exactly made of hugs and Care Bears, but I’m too drunk to really care what comes out of her mouth. As far as I can tell, she’s pissed that Clara’s hair is longer than hers and therefore it will take more time creating the classic updo. I nod along and listen like any good maid of honor would, but I’m way past the point of caring about Claire’s wants and needs.
When I return to the table, my glass is empty. Jasper is gone, Chase is nowhere in sight and Leo has his head bowed over his phone. He’s probably texting a late-night booty call—if any man can find a woman to sleep with on a deserted island, it would be Leo. I head straight over to the champagne bottle and polish it off, then, because I’m too impatient for a waiter to do so, I pick up an unopened nearby bottle and decide to pop the cork. Leo has other ideas. He takes that moment to stand up, and attempts to wrangle the bottle from me.
“I think you’ve had enough, Pop Tart.”
“No. I’ll decide when I’ve had enough. Men decide enough in this world.”
“Well, it’s clear we’re at the I-hate-men-and-all-things-penis portion of the evening. Which means you’ve definitely had too much, because a few short hours ago you were two seconds away from lovin’ up on old Leo.”
“I was not loving up on you. I could never love you. You’re trying to take my liquor away, and I don’t . . . I don’t even know why you’re here. Why are you always hanging around?”
“I’m the best man, remember?”
“Pffft. The best man. You’re no best man. You, mister, are the worst man. There should be a prize for that, because you would definitely win.” I wipe the sweat away from my brow. “Why is it so damn hot out here? Who gets married in this heat? Oh, assholes like Claire and Chase, that’s who. I’m so glad he cheated on me, got her pregnant, and left me, because I would never get married here.”
“Okay, rug rat.” Leo wraps one arm around my waist as he wrestles one-handed with the bottle. “Time to go.”
“No.” I pull away from him just as the cork pops free, flying through the air, and drunk as I may be, I watch as if it’s in slow motion.
It smacks Claire right in the nose. Blood shoots out of her nostrils. She covers her face and screams. “Oh my God! You broke my nose, you bitch.”
My hand flies across my mouth, but not before a nervous giggle escapes. “Holy shit. Did I just break her nose?”
“Yep, looks like.” Leo says, finally snatching the bottle free from my hands. “Now come on.”
A very angry Claire stalks toward us. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
“What? No! I would never. I don’t even care that Chase cheated and got you pregnant and that you’re marrying my ex and having his baby,” I slur and wrestle with Leo as he tries to cover my mouth. “I’m so over him, and even though you’ve turned into this raging hormonal bitch, I still support you. Your new in-laws are assholes, though. They were ragging on you earlier, but it’s okay ’cause I totally stood up for you.”
“Pop Tart, you need to stop talking.” Leo covers my mouth, and I struggle against him, and then I puke all over his hand, my dress, and the white linen tablecloth. Over and over my stomach wretches, until there’s nothing left.
“Wow, that just kept on coming, huh?” Leo says when I’m done. I groan, and open my eyes. I’m met with a sea of horrified faces, and then the puke-covered table rushes up to meet me and the world fades to black.
Chapter Twenty
The moaning after
Poppy
I blink up at the ceiling fan. My head throbs from the champagne hangover and that godawful noise in my ears. I roll over to see where the hell it’s coming from. There, in the king-sized bed beside me, wrapped up in a white sheet and completely naked—or at least, naked as far as I can tell—is Leo.
“Oh no, no, no, no, no.” I sit up and discover I too am naked. “Holy shit.”
I run through a physical checklist. My body hurts, but that’s likely thanks to the illness I’ve been fighting off this whole week. My brain hurts, courtesy of the combination of alcohol and cough syrup I consumed and not because my head was pounded into the headboard last night. My assessment travels fur
ther. No love bites that I can see on my torso or arms. Safe there. And between my legs there’s none of the soreness usually associated with the morning after. I cover myself with the sheet and flop back on the bed in relief.
I should get up. I should be all about my bride today, and I don’t have time to try to figure out what the hell Leo is doing naked in my bed, but . . . oh, the aching. Not to mention that my career is likely about to go kaboom. I’m pretty sure getting black-out drunk at your client’s wedding—where you also happen to be the maid of honor—is social and professional suicide. An image of Claire screaming at me comes unbidden into my mind and then it all sinks home—the drinking, wrestling Leo for the champagne bottle, finally getting the cork free and feeling it fly from my hands through the air and into . . . oh my God. Oh my God.
I shove at Leo’s sleeping form. “Oh my God! Did I break the bride’s nose?”
“Yep,” he groans into the pillow. “Yeah, that definitely happened.”
I cover my mouth. “Oh God.”
“You also puked all over the table, let it slip that Claire and Chase are pregnant, you told Katherine—and I quote—that she should go back to wherever the hell British people come from, in a pretty impressive accent, I might add. You simultaneously hit on me and my brother, and you blacked out on Chase’s Aunt Myrtle.”
“No!”
“Yeah.” He grabs his phone from the nightstand and waves it at me. “Jas got it all on tape. I made him delete it, but not before he sent it to me.”
“Oh no.”
Leo grins. “Oh, yes.”
“I’m ruined. This wedding is ruined.”
“Don’t go freaking out yet, Pop Tart. The good news is that most of the guests had retired before you passed out, so only a handful of people saw you making an ass of yourself. The bad news is you broke the bride’s nose and she spent the night before her wedding being airlifted to and from the hospital on the mainland.”
I take several deep breaths, but it’s official. I’m hyperventilating. Leo rubs circles on my back. It feels nice. And then I remember we’re naked.
“You haven’t explained why we’re naked, and in bed together.” My voice comes out a shrill screech. “Why are we naked?”
“Because I didn’t want my bungalow smelling like puke, and we were both covered in it.”
“You showered me?”
“And washed your hair.”
Oh my god. Not only did Nass the Ass clean up my puke, but he saw me completely naked. He bathed me, and washed my hair. He had unfettered access to every part of me, likely saw every imperfection, every roll, stretchmark, and blemish on my skin. “Did you do anything else while I was unconscious?”
He stiffens beside me. “Yeah, I totally took a series of nudes for my collection. Of course I didn’t. I may be a man whore, as you so eloquently like to put it, but I’m always a gentleman.”
Well, I had to ask. Didn’t I? I mean, this is Nass the Ass we’re talking about. He’s a serial misogynist, a philanderer, and he’s . . . he’s a danger to vaginas everywhere.
Apparently, he’s also pissed off. Leo seems to have no qualms about nudity, because he gets up and walks across the room completely naked. Head to toe, he’s nothing but smooth, hard tanned skin. Is it just me or did it suddenly become far too hot in this room?
He stalks into the bathroom and shuts the door. I cover my face with my hands and wish that I could just sink through the floorboards into the sea and be carried away by mermen.
I remove my hands from my eyes. No such luck. I’m still here, and it’s clear that the mess I made isn’t going to fix itself.
Chapter Twenty-One
Nope
Poppy
I pin the veil in place and take a step back, assessing her in the mirror. Tears sting my eyes. Claire and I have dreamed of our weddings since before we were in high school. Unfortunately, those dreams never involved Claire having a broken nose and black eyes. “You look . . . beautiful.”
“I look like one of those proboscis monkeys,” she wails, as tears spill over her cheeks.
Katherine glares at me, as do Claire’s mother, Grandma Schaefer, and the bridesmaids, Clara and Rachel. I grimace and step back while all of the women crowd around her offering comfort, more concealer, and words of assurance.
“Hey now, no tears,” Katherine says furiously, waving her hands at Claire’s face. “You’ll ruin your makeup.”
Claire ignores Katherine completely and turns to her mother. “Did you ever have second thoughts when you were marrying Papa?”
“It’s just nerves, sweetheart,” Claire’s mom, Angela, says. “They go away.”
“She’s right. I almost climbed out a window on my wedding day, and it was a six-story fall to the ground.” Rachel hands Claire a glass of champagne which she gulps down hurriedly.
“Claire,” I say tentatively, glancing between her and the other women. “Are you having second thoughts about marrying Chase?”
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Grandma Schaefer scowls at me. She stuck pins through an awful lot of live butterflies to add them to her collection when we were kids, and I’m still not sure she isn’t going to run me through with her Zimmer frame.
“No,” I say defensively. “I just think she should be sure.”
“Yes,” Claire blurts, and then slaps a hand over her mouth. “No. I don’t know. This day just isn’t what I wanted, you know? He’s so . . . opinionated, and . . . I always wanted to get married in a barn, on a vineyard.”
I give her a wistful smile. “I know, but it’s not where you get married, it’s the who that’s important. Do you love Chase?”
“Yes.”
“Enough to spend the rest of your life with him?”
She sniffles. “I think so.”
Shouldn’t she know? I mean, really know. If I tell her that, do I become the girl who wants to break them up, or am I just doing my duty as her oldest friend?
“Well, not to put you under the pump, but I think you have about five minutes to decide,” I say, taking her trembling hands in mine. “If you want to marry Chase and spend the rest of your life with him—and God knows, living with that man is not easy—then you grab your bouquet and we pretend this conversation never happened. I know things are a mess between us right now, but I feel it’s my duty to say if you’re even just a little unsure, I’ll send Katherine out there and the two of us can be off this island within the hour.”
“You’d really do that for me, after everything?”
“I really would.”
She sighs through her tears. “Is it weird that I feel threatened by what you two had?”
I smile. “I imagine it’s perfectly normal. But Chase and I are history, and he was right. We were over before the two of you began. Maybe not on paper, but emotionally.”
She glances at our joined hands and gives me a weak smile. “Truth time? I don’t think I would be here doing what you’re doing if the situation were reversed.”
“I won’t lie. I wasn’t thrilled at the location, and you did sort of steal my groom-to-be, but Chase was my partner for a handful of years, you’ve been in my family since we were five years old.”
She sobs. “But I’ve been such a bitch.”
“That’s true. You have.” I hand her a Kleenex. “But what woman doesn’t turn into a bridezilla the month before her wedding? Besides, one day I’ll be able to pay you back.”
She laughs and nods.
“Now, are we doing this thing, or what?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says, her voice clear and confident. “We’re doing it.”
“Good, because I did not relish the idea of getting fired.” I sigh in relief, and blot her makeup with a clean tissue. “You ready?”
“Absolutely.”
“Alright then.” I hand her the bouquet, and turn to Katherine with a nod.
When she opens the door to the bungalow, we all climb on board a decorated buggy which leads us down the walkw
ay to the main resort. As we arrive, the groomsmen and Mr. Schaefer exit the lobby and join us.
I sneak away so I can get a peek at the ceremony decorations. The wide braided palm leaf arches lining the aisle can be seen through the trees. Rose petals scatter the pure white sand, and the guests and groom are all exactly where they need to be as the string quartet plays. Just like with all weddings I plan, a little thrill runs through me and I give a giddy clap.
When I turn around Leo is standing behind me. His gaze rolls over me from head to toe, taking in my hot pink bridesmaid dress. He whistles low. “You scrub up good, Pop Tart.”
My reply is automatic, because I’m trying like hell not to blush. “I’d say you do too, but the stench of cheap hookers on your breath overshadows how handsome you look in a tux.”
He busts out into a grin, and I can’t help but smile back. “Damn, you sure know how to hit a man right in the heart.”
“You mean you actually have one?”
Leo chuckles. I bite my lip and frown. Am I flirting with Nass the Ass? What the hell is wrong with me?
He offers his arm and I glare at him, but I don’t have another choice. It wouldn’t look right for the best man and the maid of honor to walk down the aisle four feet apart. With a sigh, I slip my arm through his and he leads us toward the rest of the bridal party.
“That’s a nice dress. How long ’til we can get you out of it?”
“Oh, I don’t know. A century, maybe two?”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing I got to strip you naked and hose the puke off you last night, huh?” he says as the first strains of “Pachelbel’s Canon” float through the air and the bridal party begins its procession.
“I’m not ever going to live that down, am I?” I grimace, and we fall in line behind Clara and Justin.
“Not ever.”
“Well I hope you enjoyed it, because it’s the first and last time you’ll ever see me naked.”
“You just keep telling yourself that, Pop Tart, but we both know the truth.” Leo leans in and whispers, “You want me.”
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