“I thought you’d be working.” She needed to put something normal between them. He acted as if he had every right to touch her, and she didn’t pull her hand away because she liked the way their fingers twined together, such a simple, easy gesture, but one that felt so right.
“Riley’s back. I told her absolutely no more vacations. She has that newsroom running like a clock. I’ve never seen anything like it. Even my grandfather is impressed.”
“She’s something. That’s for sure. But you’ve known that all along, haven’t you?”
“I have.” He thumbed her knuckles idly as they walked along, another simple gesture that felt right.
Max had stuck with Riley through weddings and babies, through death and the grieving process. It said so much about the man Max was. So caring and loyal. No wonder Mom and Dad would approve of him.
Lucas hadn’t even come close.
When Ginger reappeared on the piazza, Max let his hand slide from Lily’s, leaving her missing his warm touch and wondering if he would continue with these small intimacies for as long as she was home. She intended to ask him.
On the fifth day after that night, Lily had lots and lots of invoices to pay, which meant lots and lots of money changing hands. She recruited Mara to help her double-check the figures. Then Max brought Madeleine by after school for their final fittings—his and hers, since she’d picked up his tux.
“As Raymond’s best man, you need to look dapper,” she told him while unzipping the garment bag on his tux with the double-breasted satin lapels. “And there’s no sense saving this until the last week to fit when you’re already here.”
He took the hanger from her, brushing her fingers as he did, his gaze raking over her with a look of such possessiveness that Lily’s breath caught in her throat. And he knew just how he impacted her, Lily didn’t doubt for one second. He vanished into the dressing room smiling, leaving her to assist Madeleine, whose gown fit perfectly.
She twirled in front of the mirror, but her handsome father didn’t look similarly thrilled as he tugged at his sleeves. “Don’t you have anything you can put on this to dress it up?”
“A boutonniere?”
He scowled. “I’m going to look seriously underdressed next to Raymond in his decorated uniform.”
“You won’t be the only groomsman not in uniform. There’s one other.”
“Should have gone into officer training,” he grumbled.
Lily laughed. “I had no idea you were a clotheshorse, Max. How come you didn’t share this about your daddy, Madeleine?”
But Madeleine didn’t reply. She had gone to the wardrobe and was staring at the gown hanging inside, the adult version of her own, the clear plastic garment bag revealing the luxurious tufted folds and the simple but exquisite lace of the bodice. “Is that Aunt Jamilyn’s dress?” she asked reverently.
“It is. Just like yours only bigger.”
“It would look beautiful on you, madame. Will you try it on, and we can pretend it’s the wedding?”
“Merci, petite jeune fille, but I cannot. This is your aunt’s lovely gown and the bride should always be the first to try it on for good luck.”
Madeleine accepted disappointment gracefully, her doleful expression leaving no doubt as to her opinion of having to wait until the bride arrived to see the dress.
As a consolation, Lily lifted the gown from the garment bag, shook out the satin tufts and held it in front of her. “I think this dress is beautiful and I’m a very tough sell. Isn’t it gorgeous?”
“Oui, madame.”
Max leaned in behind her, startling Lily with his sudden nearness, as he whispered for her alone, “You’d be the most beautiful bride.”
His warm breath tickled her ear and sent a thrill straight to her toes.
“If you decide you want to be a bride, of course.” Then he headed to the dressing room, leaving Lily staring after him wondering what he meant by that. “Excusez-moi pour un moment, Madeleine.” She followed Max and flipped aside the privacy curtain.
He glanced around at her in surprise, and she was treated to an amazing display of his bare chest reflected in the mirrors from all angles.
“Max, I have a question.”
Hanging the dress shirt on the wall hook, he turned to face her, giving her his undivided attention.
“If I decide to be a bride? What does that mean?” she whispered, keeping one eye on Madeleine to make sure she wasn’t within earshot. “What’s going on with you? Every time I turn around, I’m caught off guard. Should I expect you to steal kisses every time I run into you for the rest of our lives or are you trying to show me what I’m missing?”
Lily wasn’t sure what she expected, but it wasn’t for him to take her hand and press his mouth to her skin in the most romantic of all gestures, while his gaze poured over her with a hungry, somewhat amused look that made her heart throb a hard beat.
“Yes,” he said.
“Yes, I can expect you to keep stealing kisses or, yes, you’re trying to show me what I’m missing?”
“Yes to both.” His warm mouth moved against her hand again, a sensual touch that evoked a response so deep inside.
“You said you’d be content with just a night.”
A dark eyebrow lifted quizzically. “When did I say that?”
“That night.”
He shook his head slowly, the dimple winking in his cheek. “I said we had the night. I never said I’d be content with one.”
“But we’ve discussed this already,” she hissed quietly. Madeleine was at the worktable grabbing her basket. “There’s nothing about our lives that meshes. The logistics don’t work remotely. You know that.”
“Which is why you have to decide what you want.” Another kiss. This one he brushed across her knuckles. “I’m going to keep trying to tempt you. And show you what you’re missing. It’s all on you now, Lily Susan. I know what I want.”
She had to force herself to ask the question, brace herself for the answer even though she already knew what he would say. “And what’s that?”
“You.”
ON THE SIXTH day after that night, Lily found herself with a muscle twitching underneath her left eye as she put the finishing touches on her makeup and prepared to head into the office for another busy day.
Her anxiety had nothing to do with the wedding, which was coming together, thankfully, and everything to do with the man who completely consumed her thoughts.
But distraction came in the form of her vibrating cell phone and a call from Scott.
“I have news. You’ll have to decide whether or not it’s good.”
Lily held her breath.
“We’ve identified your blogger.”
She leaned against the bathroom vanity, physically overcome by a sense of relief so strong her eyes fluttered shut and she forced herself to inhale deeply, to wrap her brain around this information, prepare herself for the rest. To hope that maybe this nightmare would soon be over.
“Okay. I’m good. I’m ready. Who is it? Please tell me what’s going on.”
Lily had to force a calm detachment as Scott explained the chain of events that started with a fraudulent registration on the free blog.ging.com website and posts from IP addresses that pinged all over the globe to mask the originating location.
“The FBI pinpointed the location of the posts. They were sent from a public internet café here in Poughkeepsie,” he explained, still not telling her who the blogger was.
Which told her to brace herself.
Sinking to her knees, Lily concentrated on Scott’s explanation. The café owners were cooperating with the investigation. An FBI tech team had spent the night scouring the hard drives to see if they could find evidence on any of the public computers. According to Scott, even if someone deleted a file, there would still be a record that a knowledgeable hardware technician could get to.
They’d hit pay dirt sometime after midnight. Not only had they found files containing severa
l of the All About Angel blog posts, but they’d also discovered a document accusing Lily of being the blogger that had been sent via email attachment through the café’s server, along with financial transactions paying for the internet time that corroborated the identity of the blogger with the times the posts had been written.
“Agent Callahan wants you to swing by the field office this morning,” Scott said. “He’ll advise you about how to proceed from here. I’m not sure what he’s going to tell you. File a lawsuit, press criminal charges or both. He’ll know what you can do legally and then you talk to your attorney. Once you get a lock on all that, you’ll be able to have your publicist make a formal statement or do whatever you want to handle the press. So, you okay?”
“I’m okay. Are you going to tell me who it is? Wait. First let me say thank you for all your help. And please tell the chief, too. I’ll give him a call later but I don’t want to forget to say thanks now because I suspect I’m going to be reeling as soon as you tell me who the blogger is.”
And Lily was dead right about that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
AFTER HANGING UP the phone with Scott, Max left the Herald and drove toward Lily Susan’s office. He had no way of knowing if she’d be there since she wasn’t answering her cell, but it seemed the logical place to begin tracking her down.
He needed to keep moving right now, needed to act. How had she handled the news? He hated thinking of her in the FBI field office alone. But Lily Susan lived her life that way.
He wanted so much more than that for her.
And from her.
Turning onto her street, he immediately caught sight of her slim figure. She was sitting on the steps in front of her office, bundled up in a peacoat, arms wrapped around her knees.
He’d half expected to find a crowd of reporters around her place, but there was just Lily Susan. A huge part of him gave an inward sigh at the sight of her, looking no worse for the wear, merely contemplative.
And so beautiful. He seemed to have gone from widower to lover in one giant step. He couldn’t explain why—he only knew, as he steered the car into a spot on the street, that she had come to mean everything to him.
She watched him cross the street and unlatch the iron gate that led to her office.
“Hello, Max. What brings you by today?” A smile played around that beautiful mouth.
So far, so good. “Talked to Scott a little while ago. Wanted to find out how you were holding up.”
She inclined her head and patted the stone stoop beside her. “I’m good. Enjoying the fresh air. I hope we have a day like this for the wedding.”
“I’ll put in a request.” He wasn’t sure what to make of her mood, so he climbed the steps and sat beside her.
“Do you know that when I first bought this place, I used to love to sit here and listen to the traffic? This top step felt like my own place in the world. Of course, that was back when I had time to sit and listen to the traffic. I didn’t have all that many clients.”
“I had no clue,” he admitted. “But it turns out that I like learning things about you.”
She rested her face on her arm, slanted her gaze his way. “Did Scott tell you about Mara?”
He nodded.
“I never suspected. Not even for a second.”
Max could relate. He’d felt the same way when he’d learned she’d had a crush on him for half her life.
“Have you talked to her? Is she inside?”
“I fired her. Told her to clean out her desk and get out. She tried playing stupid at first but with FBI field agents contradicting her story…” She gave a shrug.
“I’m surprised there’s no media around. Nothing came through the Herald.”
“I know. Amazing, isn’t it? That was Chief Levering’s doing. He and Scott kept everything under wraps. You can have the exclusive, if you want it.”
“Absolutely. You give me the details and I’ll write it up. You know I’ll present the unbiased facts.”
She smiled at that. “I know. It’s all that integrity. That’s why my parents approve of you.”
He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. There weren’t any words for the love he’d found with her family. The same kind of love that he wanted to share with her.
Her eyes grew liquid as their gazes met, and that melting expression on her face convinced him he still stood a chance at persuading her to take a chance on them.
“So is Mara the one who leaked your travel arrangements to the press, then?”
“And to others who shall remain nameless.”
The ex-fling.
“Did she tell you why?” There had to be a reason for such unstable, underhanded behavior.
“Not really. Then again, I didn’t really give her much of a chance. Told her to pack up and move on. I’d have human resources send her termination papers. I suppose a severance package, too, if legal says I need to. I don’t really care. Whatever it takes to put this behind me. Looks like there will be formal charges against her. Fraud, I think.”
“And a lawsuit?”
“Not unless my attorney gives me a seriously compelling reason why I should. All I’m interested in is clearing my reputation. The FBI can deal with Mara.”
“How long has she worked for you?”
“Over eight years. I sent her to run this office about four years ago because she was such a strong employee. The weddings planned here demanded a lot of autonomy since I wasn’t running the crews.”
Four years. Since Mike.
Max understood, and, twining his fingers through hers, he held on.
“Your mother thinks that was part of the problem,” she said. “I guess Mara had made some comments about why your mother would be content to be carved out of Worldwide Weddings Unlimited. Ginger thinks Mara had so much freedom up here that she started seeing the place as hers and didn’t like being forced to live in my shadow.”
“I can see that. You’re pretty overshadowing.”
She chuckled.
“But I can’t believe you’ve already spoken to my mother and I had to hear everything from Scott.” He tried not to sound incredulous, didn’t think he managed. But, come on, they were lovers, even casual ones.
“She’s my business partner in this venture,” she said as if that explained everything.
What had he expected? This was Lily Susan. Getting her to broaden her focus from work into a more balanced life wasn’t going to happen overnight. Unfortunately he was operating on a time limit.
“I wanted to talk with your mother before I talked with you.”
“Got that part. Loud and clear.”
Lifting their clasped hands, she pressed her soft mouth to his knuckles, lingered over the kiss until his pulse started to pound thickly behind his ears, a purely physical reaction to their closeness. And how much he wanted to get her naked again.
“There was a method to my madness.” She finally lowered their hands, but still cradled them in her lap. “Once I found out what was going on with Mara, I knew exactly how I wanted to handle the situation.”
“Really?”
“I considered Mara a friend. Not a personal friend, but a business friend, someone I enjoyed working with and thought I could trust. I have a lot of relationships like that in my life, and I’ve decided I want more than that. I think I’ve sacrificed quite enough to achieve my goals, and I’m not willing to give up any more.”
For a second Max couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His pulse was rushing hard in his ears. But he agreed with her. She had sacrificed what should have been most important in her life—the people she loved.
“So, I’ve decided that I’m going to move the main office here and run it myself. With your mother.”
“Well, she’ll definitely like that, which means I’ll like that. And the rest of my family, too. My mother’s at her best when she’s busy. But what about Worldwide Weddings Unlimited?”
“It’ll still be my company, but every weddin
g won’t necessarily be a Wedding Angel original. I’ve got a lot of really talented people on my staff, so I’m going to subtly shift the focus off Wedding Angel original events and onto establishing Worldwide Weddings Unlimited as a business that puts out quality events.”
“You think you’ll be happy scaling things back?” He had to ask, had to know how much of a chance he stood. “You’ve spent a lot of time away from here.” A lot of time trying to get away.
“Can’t say for sure, but I didn’t say there wouldn’t ever be another Wedding Angel original wedding. And I’ll still have to visit my offices. We’ll see. The one thing I do know is that I want to give us a chance.”
The only reply Max had was to pull her into his arms and kiss her, again.
THE BEST PART of being five days out on the big wedding—without a local office manager and an assistant working from a bed—was that Lily was too busy to pay attention when the press went berserk over the identity of the All About Angel blogger.
Being in Poughkeepsie, of course, helped. Had she been in L.A. or Manhattan, the press would have been more visible.
By giving Max the exclusive, she further chopped off the story at the knees. The Herald had a jump on all the media outlets, and after speaking to her publicist, Lily had given a press conference to contain the damage.
Wedding preparations also kept her from getting too overwhelmed by her family, who wanted to be involved. And while she had shared the news about shifting the focus of operations back to this office, which pleased her parents to no end, she hadn’t been around to deal with the fallout.
No, there wasn’t time for a big celebration until after the wedding.
No, she didn’t have any idea where she would live.
No, she had no earthly idea how long the restructuring would take and if she’d be in the country for Christmas.
These busy days proved to be a comfortable transition time.
But the absolute best part of the wedding preparations involved Max. Now that they were down to the wire, there were lots of phone calls and fast meetings where they wound up grabbing lunches or dinners. There were drive-bys at her office or his house and always there were stolen kisses.
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