It Must Be Your Love: The Sullivans

by Bella Andre

Darn it, why was she thinking of him again?

  “So what’s up?” Nicola asked, bringing Mia back to the question she’d been wanting to ask.

  “How do you and Marcus make things work so well? Not just that,” she added before Nicola could respond, “but you make it look so easy. And I know it can’t possibly be, with your busy touring and recording schedule and the demands of this vineyard.”

  “No,” Nicola agreed with a small smile, “it definitely isn’t easy. And I don’t know how much you know about our relationship, but we were a mess at first. A total mess, actually. I was so adamant that he couldn’t handle the circus of my life that I literally kicked him out of it, even when it was the very last thing I really wanted because I was already head over heels in love with him. But you know Marcus.” Nicola’s face softened even further with a look of pure love. “When he made up his mind that he could most definitely deal with the circus, he was suddenly showing up at all of my shows all over the country. How was I supposed to resist focus and determination like that? Especially when it proved how much he was willing to change his own life for me. I’m not going to lie and say that figuring out how to make our two schedules work together is always a perfectly smooth ride, but I’ll take a few bumps in the road over being without him, anytime.” With that, she popped a grape into her mouth, then asked Mia a question of her own. “Does this question have anything to do with this bad news man of yours, who I’m going to assume is super hot, too?”

  “Not just bad news. Old news,” Mia said with a careless wave of her free hand. But obviously feeling her tense at the blatant lie, Jackie made a face in her sleep and shifted in Mia’s arms. “Sorry, baby girl,” she whispered before turning her gaze back up to Nicola. “I did meet a cute guy on the flight out here, though.”

  Nicola raised an eyebrow, clearly not about to fall for the diversion Mia was trying to throw at her. “If it takes me all weekend, I’ll get you to spill the details on your secret hot guy. Although, speaking of hot guys, I just got some great news about a guest who told me he can come to the wedding tomorrow, after all. I’ll give you a hint—he’s one of the most amazing rockers on the planet.”

  Even as Mia tried to be rational and think about the odds against his name coming out of Nicola’s mouth, she couldn’t stop a heavy feeling from coming over her. Her mouth felt dry, and it took every ounce of self-control to keep from fidgeting so that she didn’t wake up the baby in her arms.

  “Ford Vincent!” Nicola was so excited that she didn’t notice the way all the blood drained out of Mia’s face. “I’m such a huge fan that I always get a little giddy every time I listen to him sing, and he’s also really nice.”

  Ford made other big stars like Nicola giddy. But Mia was anything but giddy right now.

  More like sick to her stomach.

  Of course Ford and Nicola would know each other. They were in the same business, for God’s sake. Now that she thought about it, hadn’t the two of them played some shows together before Nicola had met Marcus?

  “Ford is coming here?” Mia’s voice sounded hollow to her own ears. “To the winery? For your wedding?”

  One dumb question after another kept falling from her lips, but she couldn’t stop any of them. Not when she felt like she was barely keeping it together. If not for the baby on her lap, she might have jumped up off the couch to go running like little Emma through the vineyard.

  Nicola was giving Mia a strange look when Sophie’s ears finally picked up on Ford’s name. “Wait a minute,” she said, echoing Mia’s questions for everyone to hear, “are you telling us that Ford Vincent is coming here for the wedding? How did I not know that?”

  “He couldn’t come at first because of a scheduling conflict,” Nicola explained. “He called my cell yesterday afternoon out of the blue and asked if the invitation was still open.”

  “Yesterday afternoon. Of course that’s when he would have called,” Mia said, almost to herself. There was no way that call could have been a coincidence. He hadn’t come after her in Miami five years ago, but now he wouldn’t take get the hell out of my life for an answer. Clearly, everything always had to be on his terms, and if he wasn’t the one to say goodbye, then those words didn’t count.

  Again, Nicola frowned in Mia’s direction, but Sophie’s twin, Lori, had walked over to the group by then. Nicknamed Naughty to Sophie’s Nice, Lori was wearing a cowboy hat and the cutest red cowboy boots with her short, strapless red dress. The women in the group were beautiful, but of them all, Lori was the most immediately striking. Whether she was dancing on stage or getting dirty with the pigs on the farm she shared with her husband, Grayson, people simply couldn’t take their eyes off her.

  “You’re not going to believe who’s coming to the wedding,” Sophie told her twin. “Ford Vincent!”

  Mia was shocked when Lori gasped. Actually gasped. “Don’t mess with me, Soph.” She turned to Nicola with big eyes. “Is this for real? Is he really going to be here?”

  Nicola was nodding and about to say something more about it when Mia simply couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m just not getting what the big deal is about him. So he has some pretty good songs, but all of you have totally great men already.”

  “You’re joking, right?” Lori said. “I love my husband to pieces, but I’m not dead.”

  “It’s true,” Megan murmured. “Ford is pretty darn gorgeous.”

  Mia watched with shock as one after the other, each woman, including the level-headed Valentina, agreed that Ford was a special exclusion to their usual rule of not noticing other men. Of course, her tension passed through to the baby in her arms, because right then Jackie abruptly woke up, looked into eyes that weren’t her mother’s, and her face scrunched up into a pre-wail.

  “Uh-oh,” Sophie said, quickly standing and lifting her little girl onto her hip, “looks like someone’s hungry. Which means her brother is probably about to give the boys trouble, too. I’ll be back soon.”

  With no bundle of joy on her lap, Mia felt stripped naked in front of her family, with all of her stupid emotions out in the open. Which was the very last place she wanted them.

  Lori turned to Brooke as she walked up to the group. “You’re a Ford Vincent fan, aren’t you?”

  Brooke immediately made an angry face. “No. I hate him.”

  Everyone’s eyes got huge, and Mia realized she needed to do some major damage control—and fast. “What Brooke means is that she hates how hot he is when she’s only supposed to be thinking about my brother now.”

  Brooke gave her a confused look before it suddenly dawned on her that she’d very nearly given something away to the group.

  “He’s coming to the wedding this weekend,” Mia told Brooke.

  She tried really hard to keep the bitterness out of her voice, but when Brooke grabbed her arm and said, “Could you help me with my dress inside? There’s something weird going on with the zipper,” Mia knew she hadn’t succeeded.

  No doubt everyone was wondering what was wrong with the two of them, but both Mia and Brooke continued to act like nothing was amiss until they were back inside the house and behind the locked door of Marcus’s home office.

  “How can he even think of intruding on Nicola’s wedding like this? I don’t care if he was invited, he should know better than to ruin this weekend for you.” Brooke, who was one of the sweetest, gentlest souls Mia had ever known, looked like a general preparing to go to war. “I simply cannot wait to tear that man to pieces and then sic all of your brothers and cousins on him.”

  “No, please don’t do that. If anyone finds out what happened between us, it will become a whole huge thing. And I’ll never forgive myself if I let him ruin Marcus and Nicola’s wedding.”

  But Brooke was right. Showing up at the open house was one thing, but coming to a family wedding was another entirely.

  “I’ve had enough of his little surprises. As soon as Ford gets here, he and I are going to have a rational, adult discussion about thi
ngs in private. And by the time we’re done, I’ll make damn sure he understands that everything that was once between us will be firmly, and totally, in the past.”

  Chapter Ten

  Though Ford was desperate to make up for lost time with Mia, he didn’t want to ruin Nicola’s big day, which was why he planned to slip in just before the ceremony started. Not that he thought he was all that anymore, but he’d been in enough similar situations to know that people tended to go a little crazy around musicians, even at the most inappropriate times.

  He wasn’t much for suits, but Nicola deserved his taking the time to scrub up and throw on a tie. He knew Mia would think he’d deliberately changed his schedule this weekend so that he could continue to be in her face, but while that was an awesome cosmic bonus, he truly had been hoping he could shift his packed schedule by just a few hours so that he could witness his friend make her vows.

  In Ford’s experience, real love was pretty damned rare. And when two incredibly busy and successful people like Nicola and Marcus were actually able to make it work, he thought that deserved to be celebrated in a major way.

  Billy, his bodyguard, was already waiting for him in the passenger seat of the black Tesla they’d rented for the day. When Ford slid in behind the wheel, Billy said, “I love you,” into his phone, then slid it back into his pocket.

  “Nice suit and tie, sir.”

  Ford grinned at the sarcastic compliment. “Hoping to impress a lady today and figured it was time to pull out the big guns. How’s Susan doing?”

  Billy rarely had to use any force as a bodyguard simply because he was so big and looked so scary that people didn’t dare try anything with Ford. But being asked a question about his wife softened his features until he was almost approachable. “She’s pretty ready to have the kid, now that we’re only four weeks out.”

  Ford had already picked out a great baby gift for Susan and Billy. The highest safety rated vehicle on the road would be waiting for them in the hospital parking lot right after she gave birth to their mini-me.

  A few minutes later, Ford pulled into the back entrance to Sullivan Winery. Nicola had prepped the valet for his arrival so they were waved right through. A guy in a blue suit was speaking into a headset as he walked up to their car. “Welcome, Mr. Vincent. Ms. Harding wanted me to let you know that the ceremony will begin in five minutes. Please head in via that side door.”

  Giving both valets a healthy tip, Ford put on a dark hat and kept his head down just in case any of the guests were still milling around outside as he and Billy made their way across the gravel lot. Nicola and Marcus would be saying their vows in a huge converted barn, painted red and renovated with enormous windows that looked out over the rolling acres of vines.

  It was one heck of a spot to get married, Ford thought, as he made a mental note about the winery for the future he hoped to have with Mia.

  As he opened the side door, the first notes of the Wedding March rang out from an old organ that had been installed in a loft in the barn. The front half of the barn had been set up to resemble an old country church, with built-in wooden pews and an aisle down the middle.

  Even though the pews were full, it took Ford less than five seconds to find Mia. She was in the first row with what he guessed had to be other family members. She was wearing a dark pink silk dress that looked like it had been made just for her, as elegant as it was sexy. She wore it the way she wore everything—including nothing at all—with innate confidence and a sensuality that made it impossible for Ford to look away.

  Thankfully, she was standing and looking down the aisle waiting for Nicola to appear, which meant that Ford could fairly easily squeeze in behind her. Fortunately, everyone else’s gaze was trained on the door, as well.

  Though it was nearly impossible to pull his gaze from Mia, Ford made himself take a few seconds to check out Nicola’s wedding. Where Ford had seen grooms looking green and worried at the altar, apart from the slight impatience on her groom’s face to have his woman in his arms, Marcus Sullivan looked like the happiest dude on the planet.

  Years ago, Ford wouldn’t have believed love was real. But now he was starting to realize that love was more powerful than anything else. More important than career, or money, or pride.

  There were five guys standing to one side of Marcus, and they all resembled him enough that Ford pretty quickly figured they had to be either brothers or cousins. He recognized Smith Sullivan, of course, not only from his movies, but also because the two of them had been in and out of a few of the same Hollywood parties over the years. They’d never actually sat down and talked, but Smith had always struck Ford as a good guy, and surprisingly normal considering his enormous fame and success.

  Five women stood beside each other on the other side of the officiant, and that was when he had to do a double take. The officiant was the best damn looking woman on the far side of sixty that he’d ever set eyes on. And if she wasn’t closely related to Marcus and his groomsmen, Ford would eat his shoes. He’d known Mia’s family was close, but it looked like all the other branches of the family were, too.

  Had Marcus actually chosen his own mother to marry him and Nicola?

  Jesus, Ford couldn’t imagine his mother so much as considering doing that for him. Her society circle would never get over something so unconventional. Nor could he imagine a world in which he’d want her to. When he finally got married, frankly, he wasn’t even sure they’d remember to come, not if they had another more socially important event to attend. Besides, they’d probably be terrified that he’d show up to his own wedding in leather, with his tattoos on display.

  What, he wondered, would it be like to be part of a family like the Sullivans?

  An emotion he couldn’t immediately define rose up and momentarily choked him. As a songwriter, his brain automatically searched for the right word.

  It wasn’t jealousy, exactly. More like...yearning. Not just for the woman he still loved to love him back, but for a family that actually cared about him like the Sullivans cared about each other.

  Mia was standing close enough to him that he could have so easily given in to that desperate yearning by slipping his arm around her waist and pulling her into him. As it was, her exotic scent was driving him halfway to crazy. But, damn it, he’d promised himself he wouldn’t do anything to ruin Nicola’s wedding—and the fuss Mia was bound to put up if he dared touch her like that here would surely do that. But it was a hell of a job to hold himself in check just then.

  Soon, however, he knew his control was bound to break...

  A collective gasp rang out in the barn as Nicola appeared on her father’s arm.

  “Oh, my gosh, she looks so beautiful,” Mia whispered to herself.

  And as his friend moved slowly down the rose petal-strewn aisle with her father, Ford agreed wholeheartedly. Nicola was naturally a very pretty woman, but today she was positively glowing in finely sewn white lace with a crown of small white and yellow flowers over her pink and blue streaked blond hair.

  The gray-haired man at Ford’s back shifted to see better, which shoved Ford’s hips into Mia’s gorgeous backside.

  Caught, he thought with a grin as he felt her body heat up in front of his, before going stiff.

  Lord, he’d never forgotten what it was like to have her in his arms, the inferno of passion and sweetness that nothing else he’d ever experienced had come close to touching. Not winning a half-dozen Grammys in one night or playing for a crowd of two hundred thousand people in Japan.

  Fortunately, no one but Mia seemed to have noticed Ford yet, and he instinctively pulled his hat down further as he turned toward the front of the barn. That was when he saw Marcus break away from the group up front. With long strides, he met Nicola and her father in the middle of the aisle.

  After shaking Marcus’s hand, her father pressed a kiss to his daughter’s forehead. Nicola’s eyes were clearly wet as she hugged her father, but after Marcus took her hands in his and pulled her int
o him for a passionate kiss, she couldn’t stop smiling.

  Even though the bride and groom had just broken wedding protocol, their guests went wild with applause, not to mention the loud whistles from the groomsmen. Even Mia, despite her obvious shock that Ford was behind her, couldn’t help but clap her hands and laugh as the bride and groom finally pulled apart and pretty much ran together up to the front of the barn to make things official.

  With the crowd still laughing as they sat down, Ford turned to whisper to Mia, “You’re beautiful.”

  With her eyes still on the bride and groom, she leaned toward him and whispered back, “And you’re a sneaky dirtbag.”

  Only through sheer force of will did Ford keep himself from laughing out loud. Because just sitting next to Mia Sullivan made him feel happier than anything else could.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Dear friends and family, we’re so glad you could be with us here today to celebrate the love between Marcus and Nicola.”

  As Mary Sullivan addressed the wedding guests, Mia worked to fight back the tears that were already starting to come. The problem was that just watching Nicola walk down the aisle had been enough to get her choked up, and when Marcus had been too impatient to stop himself from running down the aisle to steal his bride away from her father...well, could there be any more beautiful example of just how much he loved her?

  Mia had never been a crier, not when she’d learned as a little girl that if she wanted her brothers to include her in their adventures, she’d better suck it up when she fell off stuff and got hurt. But she’d decided long ago that at family weddings, she was allowed to break her no-crying rule. They were always highly emotional experiences for her, and by the time the bride made her appearance and the vows were spoken, Mia was inevitably lost in emotion.

  Today, it wasn’t the crying she objected to. It was letting any part of her guard down around Ford. Because being in a heightened emotional state was a terrible place to be with him sitting next to her.