by Angel Payne
That sinful. That unreal.
Seriously.
Unreal.
I didn’t just live in LA. I’d grown up here, in the land where illusion was reality and vice versa. I’d waited in coffee lines, stood at airport security, and picked up my dry cleaning beside pasty, bad-tempered people who’d been touted to the whole world as sex on sticks. Camera angles and editing tricks could turn Broom Hilda into a Victoria’s Secret goddess—
Which meant maybe that unreal Arcadian prince was really a doughy little yokel, and photo filters had done the rest.
That was it. My safety valve. The sane way to approach this little “jaunt” out to Arcadia. Recasting the stud as doughy dud meant my head could stay on straight—and focus on the bigger picture here.
The much bigger picture.
Like landing the contract to coordinate the hugest wedding event of the year. The Cimarron royal wedding day.
The event, a double ceremony to bind Shiraz’s two older brothers to the American women with whom they’d fallen in love, would be more than the biggest coup for the wedding planning company into which I’d poured myself for the last eighteen months.
It would mean that company was officially half mine.
But for now, that company had only one president’s name on the door.
Ezra Lowe.
Yeah, the same Ezra throwing me the weird once-over from down the bar. Even a couple of twice-overs.
Dammit, Ezra.
What the hell was he up to? Those glances weren’t flirty but Ez had something on his mind…something making him laser his baby blues right into me.
I had to get to the bottom of this.
And probably, if my bladder had any say in the matter, before I got to the bottom of my next drink.
Uggghhh.
At least Father Gravity and Mother Tequila played nice, allowing me a graceful twirl to wrap up the celebration spin with Gervase. I landed in the perfect position to sweep a saucy bow to the crowd. “And now, the principé’s new wench must pee.”
Everybody laughed—except Mom. She rolled eyes so closely matching my own in color, their tiny gold flecks were apparent even in the bar’s dim light. “Lucina Louise. Must you be so crude?”
“Antonia Marie,”—yeah, the first name-middle name hookup was our snarky subtext for affection—“must you be your daughter’s damn shadow?”
“Only when I’m her designated driver.” She smirked and folded her arms.
My mother.
Smirked at me.
In a damn bar.
“Okay, okay. Break it up, hussies.”
Dammit. Ezra needed to be renamed the happy hour ninja. Five seconds of distraction and the man had slipped all the way over here without detection. No way not to notice him now. His strong fingers curled over Mom’s shoulders, his Charlie Hunnam scruff resting atop her poofy-styled head. Sometimes I wondered if the man’s looks had gotten matched to the wrong destiny. With that lumberjack jaw and cascading Thor hair, he should’ve been a pussy-chasing demon with a guitar or a Harley (or both), not a bisexual Jewish wedding planner with a natural talent for crazy centerpieces, perfect photo ops, and awful phallic jokes.
Not that I had a chance to hear a single phallic funny now, thanks-no-thanks to Mom. “Who you calling hussy?” she bantered, adding a girlish giggle.
“You.” Ezra smacked a kiss to her cheek. “Hussy.”
“Gahhhh.” I slashed a hand through the air. “Stop.”
“Pssshhh,” Mom snickered.
“I love it when we make her do that,” Ez chuckled.
Pinched glower. “Excuse me. You two are already making me want to puke, and I’m only down by one Gervase special.”
“Lucina Maria. Did I raise you in a barn?”
I stopped. Damn near pivoted back around, the Uber app open on my phone, to flash at her. Maybe it was time her grand mission came to an end. It had been three months since she’d married Ben, giving her more than enough time to make up for her scarcity in my teens, and it had been pedal-to-the-metal on the mommy-daughter time since then. But hanging at the bar for my Farewell-to-Fantasy-Island party, even in the name of letting me get as plowed as I wanted? It was time to land the helicopter.
I marched away, into the bathroom. Thank the Good Virgin, the human helicopter didn’t follow.
She let Ezra do the dirty work, instead.
Even more funny? I wasn’t surprised by the stunt in the least. I was, however, torqued as hell—especially as the man pushed the door shut then locked it.
“Are you kidding?”
He braced his ass against the portal. “We need to talk.”
“No.” Another adamant talk-to-the-hand. “You need to leave, and I need to pee.”
He gestured at the stalls with a King Arthur sweep. “Have at it.”
My bladder screamed too loud for an argument. Off to the races I went.
As I took care of business, his determined steps battled each other for echo factor. Once he confirmed we were alone, he did the butt brace thing on the lip of the vanity counter, or so I guessed from the vicinity of his sigh. “So…”
“So…what?” I countered while flushing. Getting scooched all the way back into my jumper wasn’t such a slam dunk. By the time I was done, my bra strap was twisted four times over and my panties were crunched to the left of my cooch, but I was beyond caring. The better part of Gervase Special Numero Dos was still waiting for me out on the bar.
“So you’re ready to rock this thing in Arcadia, right?”
Breath of weird relief. So this was what the looks were about.
Wait a second.
This was what the looks were about?
I stomped out of the stall on the heels of that thought, letting him see my full glare because of it. “Gee. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Ezra plowed a hand through his hair. The move lent him more of the King Arthur vibe—though it was more the stressed-post-wars guy, not the congenial-spot-in-Camelot one. “Do you really not get it by now? Oy gevalt, Luce. I’ve got more confidence in you than me right now.”
“Only because you let your passport lapse.”
“That has nothing to do with it, and you know it.”
Wry side-eye. “That so?”
“You think I’m making this shit up?” He scowled. “You schmooze with these royals like you belong with them, darling. We both said as much after the video conference call.”
“Guess all those princess movies as a kid did stick.”
“Whatever it was, I’m grateful.” He followed my path over to the sink. “You’re our best chance of landing this, Luce.”
“Okay, okay.” I chuckled. “Chill, sparky.”
“Yeah.” He whooshed out a breath. “Chill. Good suggestion.”
“So what’s the problem?” I examined myself while washing my hands. Noticed, with tequila-induced clarity, that my brows needed plucking, my chestnut asymmetrical bob was split end city, and the acne cream fairy seriously needed to visit my pimply princess forehead. Lovely. Twenty-four years old, and I still had to check for acne.
Stress for another time—especially because deciphering Ez consumed a lot of brain space right now. I stared at him as he stared at his fingers, now drumming incessantly on the counter, with abnormal focus.
Finally, he mumbled, “There’s no problem…”
“Which was why you locked me in here then straight-up jabbed if I was ‘ready’ to rock—” Hard jolt. Straight to the chest. Sudden, horrid understanding. “Shit. What the hell, Ez?”
His jaw visibly clenched. “What the hell what?”
“You’re…scared.” I tossed the hand towel into the bin, using the move to face off to him. “Why are you scared?”
“I’m not scared.”
“Nah. Nope. No more flying there, Superman. Out with it.” I wiggled my fingers inward. “The Kryptonite. Out with it. Now.”
He glared—well, tried—one last time, before pacing back toward th
e door, fingers now laced behind his head.
Like a prisoner ready to confess.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
With his back to me, he blurted at last, “We lost the Ramone wedding.”
“We—”
Shock choked the rest of it into silence. Like that was going to make it any less real. Or horrific. Kii Ramone’s pageant of a wedding was Expectation Inc.’s crown jewel, our finest contract to date. Kii was a triple-threat star at the top of every Hollywood A List, meaning every wedding planning team in the Southland had battled for the chance to orchestrate her special day. Ezra and I labored for weeks on Expectation’s proposal, appealing to the woman’s Polynesian roots and sense of family, doing so on a wing and a prayer. Neither of us had a stellar point of reference on the subject of family.
But we’d left Kii’s place with homemade poi and a stack of signed cd’s. A realization I vigorously sank my teeth into. “But…she gave us cd’s. And poi. And the verbal okay to start ordering flowers. When we won the Crystal Award for the LeHavre engagement party, she sent us flowers!”
“I know.”
“Then why?” It was just a rasp from me this time, as I braced both hands on the counter. “What the hell?”
Kaboom.
The stall door Ez had smacked swung hard into the bathroom wall. I was still so shocked, I barely flinched. “Who?” I finally whispered. “Who got it?”
Ezra’s weighted huff said everything—and nothing. “She decided to go with a team directly out of Honolulu. She said they really understood the ohana thing.”
“Family.” I managed the translation despite the acid in my gut.
“Bingo,” Ez muttered.
We stood together, heads bent in silent defeat, for several minutes. Family. There were few subjects about which both Ez and I were way out of our league, and that was one of them. Not a damn thing we could’ve done, nor a bullet we could’ve dodged.
Finally, I mumbled, “At least LTK didn’t land it.”
No need for translation on that one. LTK, aka Love’s True Kiss, were the New York-based dynamos who’d snatched a dozen gigs from Ezra and I over the last year, including the coup of the Santelle-Court wedding. The dressed-down but uber-elegant party had landed them the covers of every major event planning magazine, officially turning them into our cross-country rivals—though Ezra preferred the term blood-sucking enemies-on-high.
After a few more minutes, I reopened my eyes. Rubbed my temples. “Well, this is a real shit fest.”
Kaboom.
Another Ezra special. Damn, those stall doors were sturdy. I almost giggled at the thought—well, that and the odd comfort inundating me. Ez was punching things—which meant he still wanted to fight. Only once had I ever seen him at less than full warrior mode. It had been when he found his real dad through an adoption connection service, and the alcoholic shithead hadn’t wanted anything to do with him.
That was the trouble with planning fairytales for a living. Life itself rarely reciprocated. Ez had learned that one the hard way. I’d been there to help him through that darkness, but I didn’t want to revisit anytime soon.
Just to be sure we really weren’t going there, I slid out a wry smirk. Added a slow drawl. “Feel better?”
Ez pulled in a sharp breath. “No.”
“Imagine that.”
“Fine,” he snapped. “Go ahead. Crucify me.”
“What? Why?”
“Because this is going to ruin me. Ruin us. You gave a year and a half of your life to me, and I squandered it for fucking nothing.” He dropped his face into his hands. “So go ahead. Do it. Call me the hugest douche on the planet. Diarrhea in the cat box. Mold in the shower. Spittle on the—”
“Gah!” I held up both hands. The man and subtle had never shared the same byline, but my appetite had been murdered for at least the next two days. “Baby Jesus in a car seat,” I muttered, yanking out my phone as a reminder text pinged in. Time to check in for my flight tomorrow night. “As soon as I handle this, I’m dialing the Radio Emo fan line for your ass. Isn’t the ‘Wallowing Pit of Dark Dedications Hour’ starting about now?”
He glared. “Says the girl who probably still has Radio Emo on speed dial?”
I arched a brow. Correction: arched it then mentally peeled it off and hurled it at him. “Below the belt.”
“Calling it like I see it, Betty Stepford.”
Okay, now he was a douche. Using the nickname I still hated, his favorite during the six months I’d tried fitting into Ryan’s vanilla mold, was salt in a yuck-deep wound. And since Ryan was ancient history as of six months ago, douche said it perfectly.
“I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “I’m not in my right mind.”
I reached up, rubbing his back. “Neither of us are, sparky. But I still love you.”
He pulled me into a fierce hug. “I love you too, most un-Stepford one I know.”
“Damn straight—which is why I’m going to get on that plane tomorrow, fly to the Mediterranean, and save your douchebag ass.”
“You mean our ass?”
I jerked back. Severed the air with my gasp. “Our—” I stammered, succumbing to the double-take. “So the partnership’s still on the table?”
“Honey bunches, you get Shiraz Cimarron to put ink on this deal, and I’ll have half the world waiting when you get back.”
I jogged my chin up like Scarlett O’Hara, donning the curtains to get her freaking plantation back. “Then consider this contract a win.”
The confidence overflowed. Ezra grabbed me up into a fresh hug. “There’s my girl.”
I beamed a brash grin. “She was never far, baby.”
He stepped away. Leaned against the counter with a relaxed pose but an all-business gaze. “So…you’ve done all the homework on Shiraz Cimarron?”
“You mean all the gossip web pages and photo collages you sent over?”
“Girlfriend, that part wasn’t studying.”
“Oh?”
“That part was fun.”
“Yeah?” I let the smirk turn skeptical. “This isn’t about having fun with the guy, bucky. I want his name on a contract and a deposit check, period.”
His arms dropped. So did all traces of his smile. “As long as we’re turning fun into the pariah here…”
Groan. “What now?”
He exhaled, now adding his big brotherly mode to the mix. Uh-oh. “Luce…you know to go carefully with this guy, right?”
“With who?” Incredulous—but nervous—laugh. “You mean pretty prince boy?”
“Pretty prince boy.” The echo came with his careful enunciation. I never liked that shit, especially when his regard was equally somber. “That’s really the angle you’re taking, Miss Fava?”
Miss Fava.
Shit just got real.
And the bigger shit in the room knew it—which explained why he stiffened like a slap was coming. I considered it but checked myself. Ez would love easing his guilt with a little effortless penance, clarifying why he dug in on treating me like a four-year-old. That was usually the direct line to my wrath, but no way was I rewarding Ezra’s exploitation of it by assuaging his guilt.
“Tell you what, Ez. Since you seem to be the new Cimarron expert on the block, why don’t you just take over from here?”
He huffed, again all serious big brother. “Did I say that?”
And yeah, my snort was all petulant little sister. Yuck. “Didn’t have to,” I retorted. “You implied—”
“Nothing.” His gaze softened while his jaw hardened. “Just some real concern, okay? As your boss and friend, I want to be sure you have your eyes wide open about Shiraz Cimarron.”
The weirdness in his face wasn’t my eventual undoing. It was the gentle vigilance in his voice, like where a real big brother would take things, that finally melted me. “Don’t worry, Ez. I’m a big girl, remember? And under the crown, or whatever the hell he wears on top of all that great hair, he is just a man.”
He yanked away with a grimace. “Dammit, Luce. That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”
“Exactly what…what?”
A new snort. “He’s a man, not just the title. There are…nuances to him. And you know me; I’m a big fan of nuance, but in this case…” He frowned deeper. “There’s a lot of shit here I can’t put together.” He shook his head, letting out a motorcycle rumble of a sound. “Fuck. The man is so damn private.”
“All right, untwist your panties.” I smoothed both hands on the air. “Obviously, there’s a lot we do know. Work backward from there.”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried?” His eyes developed blue shards. His jaw turned to granite. Sheez, the man could look hetero and intimidating when he wanted. “But all we’ve got is a happy royal upbringing in the Palais Arcadia, a gap year turned down in favor of four years at Aalto U in Finland, followed by a direct flight home then straight to work as CEO of the Island of Arcadia.”
“Which was three years ago,” I supplied.
“Which was three years ago,” he confirmed.
“And…?”
“And what?”
I took a turn at the frown. “And what else?”
“You think there’s more?” He folded his arms. Swished his head. So much for hetero. And my patience.
“Oh, come on.” My hands hitched to my hips. “Three years of nothing but work and sleep? Uh-uh. Not flying, either. The man has to have hobbies, interests.” Images from Gervase’s gossip show blazed again through my mind. “Shit that requires him to be shirtless. With bikini babes.”
“Who are apparently just friends.”
I pssshhed. “Because you have court spies in Arcadia?”
“Not a one,” Ez returned. “Only verified reports that those ‘babes’ were companions only, knowing no more or less about him than his male buddies.”
“Verified reports how?” My eyebrows were getting a great workout today. “Is someone paying off his security detail to talk? Does he have a security detail? If not, are people following the man around? And who are they? Verified journalists or free-wheeling hacks?”
And again with the teeter-totter smirk. “Want to start talking nuances now?”
“Shit,” I muttered.
“Another good way of putting it.”