Always a Bridesmaid

by Lizzie Shane

  ALWAYS A BRIDESMAID

  by Lizzie Shane

  Reality Romance: The Bouquet Catchers, Book One

  Copyright © 2016 Lizzie Shane

  Smashwords Edition. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights reserved under copyright above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Always a Bridesmaid

  She’s all heart. He’s all business.

  Parvati Jai knows better than to pin any romantic hopes on Max Dewitt. She may have had a crush on her best friend's older brother since she figured out what boys were good for, but she's looking for Mister Forever—not a workaholic entrepreneur with a romantic attention span that tops out at two weeks. Yet with her business failing, her newly-engaged best friend vanishing into a love bubble, and even her teenage niece announcing she's getting married, Max becomes the one person she can rely on—and the idea of a little fling with him becomes even more tempting.

  Max knows his little sister's best friend is off-limits...until Parvati confesses she once had a crush on him and he can't help seeing her in a new—and very intriguing—light. He's never been good at letting people past his charming facade, but something about Parvati makes him want to let down his defenses.

  But even if he lets himself fall for her, how can he convince a woman who knows all about his love-'em-and-leave-'em ways that he finally wants forever?

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  About the Author

  DEDICATION

  For Leigh—thank you for being the best friend I could ever ask for and never turning Bridezilla, even in the face of thunderstorms and other minor catastrophes

  Chapter One

  The death knell of Parvati Jai’s professional hopes and dreams came on a Saturday morning in September, in the innocuous form of a phone call from her assistant manager.

  “Sorry to bug you on your day off,” Anna said by way of greeting, “but we’re out of the Jamaican Blue Mountain.”

  The Jamaican Blue Mountain. The most expensive and exclusive coffee bean they offered—and the product with the least forgiving supplier.

  With her cell phone pressed to her ear since the ancient Jetta pre-dated Bluetooth by about a decade, Parvati pulled into a nearby parking lot to avoid unintentional off-roading and a ticket she couldn’t afford for distracted driving.

  Her assistant manager’s voice sounded more and more like the Voice of Doom as she went on. “We were supposed to get a delivery last Thursday, but there’s nothing in the storeroom and when I called the supplier to confirm they sent it, they said our last check bounced. I know that’s not even possible,” Anna insisted with a touching—and delusional—faith in Parvati’s solvency, “but they’re dicking me around and refusing to expedite the shipment even though we’ve been one of their best customers for like five years.”

  A confession pressed up against the back of Parv’s throat. She really should just tell Anna everything. From the truth that for every single one of those five years Common Grounds had been teetering on the edge of bankruptcy to the revelation of the elaborate shell game she’d been playing to keep things going for the last several months—borrowing from Peter to pay Paul until there was no one left to borrow from.

  “Madison said I shouldn’t bother you since you, like, never take a day off,” Anna went on, her habitual irritation with the coffee shop’s most popular barista tightening her voice. “But we’re totally out of the Blue Mountain and some of our regulars are going to bitch.”

  “Don’t worry,” Parv said, finding her voice. “Offer ten percent off the Honduran blend instead—we have lots of that one. I’ll straighten things out with the supplier when I get back from Monterey tonight. Everything will be great.”

  She hung up after a couple more minutes reassuring Anna with that lie lingering in the air.

  Everything will be great.

  She would need to tell them soon. Anna and Madison were going to lose their jobs when the shop went under, and she wanted to make sure they had plenty of time to look for other work. She could only put off the inevitable for so long.

  Parvati knew she shouldn’t have started paying for the coffee orders out of her personal account last spring, but Common Grounds simply didn’t have the money and she’d been so sure if she could just hold on until summer that things would get better. Business always picked up during the tourist season.

  But then Starbucks had opened on the edge of town, right off the Pacific Coast Highway—the same Starbucks whose very convenient parking lot she had swerved into when Anna called—and the tourists had proved to be much more drawn to familiar and convenient than they were to small town charm off the beaten path.

  Even so, things had been a little better. The summer surge had been small, but noticeable. Just enough to give her hope.

  Until she got the notice that the rent was going up. Again.

  The cute little Main Street section of Eden was prospering, so her landlords felt justified in jacking up the rent accordingly—and the lease agreement she’d signed when she fell in love with the location didn’t protect her against the rate hikes. If the camel’s back hadn’t already been broken in three places by then, that straw would have done it.

  The personal check to her Blue Mountain supplier wouldn’t have bounced—she was always so careful. But she’d had to replace the brakes on the Jetta—lest she go careening off the PCH and into the ocean—and she’d accidentally put the repairs on her debit card rather than the credit card with the identical logo.

  The blow was one more than her checking account could handle.

  By the time she realized what she’d done, the overdraft charges were just the icing on the cake. She had to appreciate the irony in being fined for not having any money, but it had forced her to face facts. Common Grounds wasn’t just failing, it was dragging her down with it.

  But even as she scrambled to find the money somewhere to cover the shipment, she kept smiling, kept hoping it would get better, kept promising that everything was going to be great, long after she knew it was a lie.

  Parv tosse
d her cell phone onto the passenger seat and stared up at the Big Green Mermaid of Doom.

  She loved Starbucks. It had been one of her favorite late night study locales during college and her soul deep affection for their dark roast blend had been a contributing factor in her decision to open Common Grounds in the first place.

  It was a crying shame she’d never be able to look at one of them again without feeling a crushing sense of failure.

  They were doing good business for a sunny Saturday morning after the tourist season tailed off—far better than Common Grounds was doubtless doing without its signature Jamaican Blue Mountain.

  The front door opened and Parvati watched a Starbucks patron emerge with a grande cup clasped in one hand.

  A very familiar Starbucks patron.

  Parvati was out of her car before her brain caught up with her body, charging across the parking lot on a tide of righteous—and wildly irrational—indignation. “Traitor!”

  Max looked up, a smile of greeting freezing on his face as his gaze flicked guiltily to the cup in his hand. “Parv. Hey. What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same thing, traitor. Since when is my coffee not good enough for you?”

  She wasn’t in the habit of bullying her customers into buying from her, but Max wasn’t just a customer. He’d known her since she was six years old, ever since she became best friends with his sister Sidney. He’d been one of her first and most loyal customers since she opened Common Grounds and the last person she’d expect to defect to Starbucks.

  God knew he could afford her prices—the man was holding the keys to a shiny new Tesla, for crying out loud.

  He glanced at the car now, as if wondering if he could make a break for it before she tackled him and doused him with his own latte. “I was in a hurry and there was no parking at Common Grounds,” he admitted. “For the record, your coffee is infinitely better.”

  It had better be, for what she paid for those damn beans. Parv had tried to make a niche for herself in high-end Eden, California by offering the luxury coffees her customers couldn’t get anywhere else. It had made her clientele loyal—but limited. Even Parv couldn’t afford to drink her own premium blend.

  “Where are you going so dressed up?” Max asked.

  Parv went along with his unsubtle attempt to change the subject from his espresso betrayal, eager for the distraction from all things Common Grounds.

  “It’s my parents’ fortieth anniversary.” She smoothed her skirt, the cocktail dress and heels she wore a far cry from her usual comfy casual flip-flops and maxi skirts. “My sisters are throwing them a big bash at their place in Monterey. Command performance.” She’d put particular effort into her appearance today, taking the time to wrestle her thick hair into a classy chignon and slap on some makeup. Normally she would have been flattered Max noticed—especially since she’d had the Mount Everest of crushes on him ever since she’d figured out what boys were good for—but she was too nervous about facing her family and the inevitable questions they would ask. “Where are you off to in such a hurry you didn’t have time for the best coffee in southern California?”

  “Work.” He snuck a glance at the massive diver’s watch on his wrist. “New client wants us to upgrade the security at his estate.”

  “New client I’ve heard of?” she asked, shamelessly curious about Max’s glamorous life. Growing up just up the road from Malibu, she’d had her fair share of celebrity sightings over the years, but Max owned and ran a company that provided bodyguards and security systems for the stars themselves. There was no competing with that.

  She should have known he was headed to a work thing because of the flawlessly tailored suit. If left to his own devices, Max was more a T-shirt and jeans guy, but he certainly looked good in a suit. Of course, Parvati always thought he looked good.

  Max Dewitt was tall and muscular enough that he should have looked like a wrestler in a monkey suit, but instead he looked like James Bond—a sexy, super ripped James Bond with perfectly styled dark brown hair and steely grey eyes that somehow managed to be warm when he smiled at her.

  Which he did now, revealing perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth. And the dimple…really the dimple was just unfair. Sex appeal overkill.

  He shook his head, still smiling. “Even if it was someone you’d heard of I wouldn’t tell you who.”

  Parv made a face. “Your ethics are seriously interfering with my ability to live vicariously through you.”

  “You know I hate to disappoint you…”

  “But you aren’t going to tell me squat. I get it. Go on. Go be important with your fancy celebrity while my family spends the rest of the day giving me concerned looks and speculating on my sexuality because I haven’t managed to find a nice man and give him babies yet.”

  He arched a single brow. “You’re what? Twenty-eight?”

  “Twenty-nine.” Closing in on thirty.

  “Then you’re too young to get married. Twenty-nine is the new nineteen.”

  “My sister got married at nineteen. In fact, so did my parents.”

  Max tilted his head to the side. “Cultural thing?”

  Her sister Devi would probably eviscerate him for assuming it had anything to do with being Indian American, but Parv had always liked that Max didn’t dance around their differences and just asked. “You might think so, but my family is thoroughly Americanized. They just believe in marrying young.”

  Her parents had met as freshmen at Stanford and married immediately before the term began their sophomore year. Forty years ago today. And they were still nuts about each other.

  “I think I saw your parents once,” Max commented, “when you and Sidney graduated high school—but I don’t think I ever met your sisters.”

  “They’re all older. I was the surprise baby. By the time I was in high school, my sisters were all off curing cancer and revolutionizing the tech world.” And generally making the rest of humanity feel inferior.

  “I take it you aren’t close.”

  Parv shrugged. “Angie’s geographically close. She’s just up in Santa Barbara with her perfect house, perfect husband, perfect job and perfect kids.” She caught him glancing at his watch again and waved him toward his Tesla. “Sorry. Go make the world safe for celebrities. I can be insecure on my own time.”

  He started moving toward the driver’s side of his car, but he did give her one last devastating smile, dimple flashing. “Chin up, Parv. You’re pretty damn perfect yourself.”

  There was a time not so long ago when that compliment would have made her melt into a happy puddle of feminine hormones at his feet, but she’d learned not to take his compliments too seriously. He was only being nice to his little sister’s best friend. Nothing more.

  So she smiled and bantered back, keeping it light. “You’d know all about perfection.”

  He laughed and slid into his car, zipping out of the parking lot a moment later.

  Max Dewitt. Her first and most devastating crush. And he still didn’t have a clue.

  Thank God. The last thing she needed was for him to figure out she’d pined for him for ten solid years between the ages of fourteen and twenty-four. She’d only begun to be able to talk to him without her tongue swelling up in the last five years. He was comfortable with her now. If he found out she’d once doodled Mrs. Parvati Dewitt on everything she owned, he’d probably be kind and sympathetic and look at her with the same barely-veiled pity that her aunts had been sending her way for the last several years.

  Poor spinster Parvati.

  Poor broke spinster Parvati.

  Poor broke failure spinster Parvati.

  Her family was going to be asking her today, over and over and over again, how the business was going. If she was dating anyone.

  She could handle the dating question—she’d been handling that one for years—but when they asked her about Common Grounds…

  She was going to have to lie.

  Soon enough the
truth would come out. When she closed Common Grounds, everyone would know that she had failed, but this was her parents’ day. She refused to be the one less-than-perfect aspect of their legacy. If she told the truth, it would spread through the party like wildfire, carried on a wave of well-intentioned concern—which just made it that much worse. They all wanted the best for her, so it was that much more painful when she disappointed them. Her parents would worry. Her sisters would be annoyed with her for ruining the big day.

  As lies went, it was a small one.

  And maybe when she was forced to admit defeat and close Common Grounds for good, she could claim she just wanted a change. That she wasn’t in debt up to her eyeballs. Better they think she was too flighty to stick with it than that she was a failure. If they believed it.

  Parvati turned away from the Big Green Mermaid of Doom and pulled out onto the Pacific Coast Highway, headed north toward an afternoon of lies, starting with the one she told herself as she drove.

  “Everything will be great.”

  Chapter Two

  Max zipped south on the Pacific Coast Highway, relieved that he seemed to have beaten the Saturday morning sightseers that could turn this fifteen mile stretch of highway into a two hour odyssey. Southern California traffic was always an unpredictable pain in his ass, but he might make it to his meeting on time after all—even with Parvati’s little delay.

  He took a sip of his dark roast—which really wasn’t as good as the gourmet stuff at Common Grounds—and squashed the lingering flicker of guilt. He wasn’t sorry that he’d stopped for coffee—he would never apologize for his daily caffeine regimen—but he did feel bad that Parv had caught him.

  He knew she’d just been giving him shit with that traitor business, but he’d seen the tension in her face before she’d hidden it, the fear. All was not well in Parvati’s world and he had a hunch it had more to do with Common Grounds than she was ready to admit. He’d always had a natural eye for business—and businesses in trouble. He’d been amazed Parv had managed to keep her shop open for as long as she had—Starbucks opening two miles away had to be the final nail in the coffin—but she obviously wasn’t ready to face facts yet.