Vote Then Read: Volume III
Page 201
Not when we’re together.
And then he sweeps in for an exuberant kiss that is so nakedly passionate and marvelously delicious that whatever pain I’m in fades away in the presence of his whole self.
In the sunlight.
In July.
As Jordan shakes James’ hand and bows again, I overhear him say, “I’m happy to do your next son’s wedding as a thank you to you for your courage, but you’ll have to keep her away from my Muffin.”
I’m about to give Jordan a piece of my mind when a great shhh-shhh-shhh begins in the distance in the sky. We all stare up, following the source of the sound.
The black helicopter has no markings of any kind as it descends onto the lawn, the whoop-whoop-whoop of the blades making the air feel like it’s sliced into pieces, as if sound itself were being chopped. The helicopter pilot’s face is obscured as he comes into focus. This is not an Anterdec helicopter, and yet in all the images I’ve seen of the President of the United States of America’s helicopter, there’s always been a circular seal. A sign.
A marker.
Declan excuses himself from a talk with his dad and my mom and marches with determination toward us, Marie wending her way through the crowd to intervene.
“What is going on?” she shouts. You have to raise your voice, because the chopper is so close, engines still on.
Declan cups his hand and bends to her, saying something in her ear.
Her eyes go wide with exhilaration and her hands clap over her mouth.
“No!”
“Yes!” he calls back.
“You—he—he is here?” Marie screams, giddy. “This will save the wedding! No one will remember naked Amanda now!”
“I will,” Andrew shouts.
My mom blushes.
“But they’ll remember that the President of the United States came to my—er, your—wedding! Everyone! Everyone!” Marie shouts, trying to get the crowd’s attention. “The President of the United States is in that helicopter! He’s a guest at the wedding!”
“We need to go talk to him first!” Declan shouts to Marie, his voice loud enough for me to hear over the blades. He pulls Shannon out from the cluster of people hovering around the pool.
They do not stop. Shannon’s dress is swept up in the rush of air, her train heavy and twisting, her tartan plaid accents ruined by the blast of airflow. Shannon and Declan share a look of anticipation, an Are you sure? interlude that they both confirm with twin nods of determination.
Marie shoos them, her wrists flicking like shotguns. “Go! Go! Of course you need to greet him. My goodness!” She turns to me with a look of exaltation. “Please tell me Jessica Coffin is seeing this!” she begs. “And Monica Raleigh!”
“Monica who?’
“Steve’s mother!”
“Oh.”
“Bet she’ll never have the President of the United States at Steve’s wedding! She brags about knowing a state senator. Hah!”
Shannon and Declan have put me in the worst position possible right now. As they both make their way to the helicopter, I know what they’re about to do.
Andrew has his arm around me, helping to keep the blanket about my shoulders, and he leans in and says, “They’re headed to Vegas for a quickie wedding. This is delicious to watch. Marie is about to get five lifetimes of karma.”
All I can do is lean against his shoulder and rest.
And cringe.
Declan boards first, the wind picking up his kilt and oh, sweet Creator, he most certainly is commando. I thought Shannon was exaggerating when she talked about the size of Declan’s, ah...ego, but she was telling the truth.
The whole truth.
The whole long, thick truth.
I reach over for Andrew’s thigh and slide my hand up, meeting the soft flesh of, um, confirmation that he, too, went authentic. Truthiness never felt so...
“Is that an offer?” he shouts, his hand slipping to my ribs as I scramble to grab the sliding blanket. Immediately, he rights it, wrapping me protectively in the only item that keeps me from reliving my public nakedness. I give his thigh a squeeze and he kisses my temple, his cheek resting against me, his body relaxing into mine.
“Mr. President!” Marie screams, waving her tartan fan.
Behind us, I see Jason ambling on the grass toward Marie, walking with the steady, strong steps of a warrior, Chuckles in his arms.
Shannon climbs into the helicopter and what happens next is so fast it will take me a solid month to reconstruct it properly.
The helicopter begins to lift, Shannon’s train hanging down just a few feet from the open door to the passenger area. Declan bends down to grab it and Marie takes off at a little jog, her high heels making that difficult.
The helicopter lifts five feet. Then ten feet, and stops, hovering for seconds.
“Where are you going, Mr. President?” she screams, her jog turning into a canter I haven’t seen since I learned horsemanship at Girl Scout camp in fourth grade.
I bury my face in Andrew’s chest.
“This is painful to watch!” I shout.
“She deserves it,” Andrew shouts back.
I turn back. It’s like rubbernecking. I know I shouldn’t look, but curiosity gets the better of me. Besides, I’m going to hear about this for the rest of my life. Might as well actually witness it so I can know the truth before it gets wildly distorted.
The helicopter lurches up, about two more feet, as Marie reaches the spot where it just was, her shoes in the deep grooves in the green grass where the landing gear just rested.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” she screams. “WHERE IS THE PRESIDENT?”
Declan gives Marie a handsome, victorious grin and waves like he’s the Prince of Wales. Shannon’s head peeks out behind him and she shouts, “I love you!”
“What?” Marie shouts. “Where is the president? I have a seat for him down here, right next to me!”
And then Shannon answers with one word.
One simple, earth-shattering word.
“ELOPE!” she screams as the helicopter lifts, up, up, up, with Marie staring into the sky, her face a mask of dawning horror.
My heart ripples with Marie’s pain.
Until I look back and see Jessica Coffin, her head bent down with text neck, typing away furiously on her phone, grinning like the Joker.
“WHERE ARE YOU GOING!” Marie shouts, jumping up in the sky as if she could grab the bottom edge of the helicopter. “GET BACK HERE!”
As the chopper gains height and starts to move forward, away to the west, Jason reaches Marie. He watches the helicopter, his hand shielding his eyes, then looks at Marie, who is shaking her fist in the air.
The blades no longer producing overwhelming noise, it’s possible to hear her.
“ELOPE? THEY CAN’T ELOPE! GET THEM BACK HERE, JASON! THEY ARE RUINING MY WEDDING!”
Jason is very clearly trying to reconcile what he just saw with the reality of his wife’s Momzilla tantrum.
“This is better than cheesy reality television,” Andrew whispers.
“Did you know,” my mother says, her voice carrying on the wind as if she were addressing someone near her. I turn around to see her talking to Carol, Terry and James. “Did you know that people who elope are more than twelve times as likely to divorce versus those who marry with a wedding of two hundred or more guests?”
“I eloped,” Carol snaps.
“Elena and I had more than two hundred guests at our wedding and were happily married for more than twenty years,” James says with a wistful sigh.
“I eloped,” my mom admits, giving me a nervous look. “And we know how that turned out.”
I watch the receding helicopter in the sky. Somehow, I don’t think this elopement meets any statistical category, though. Shannon and Declan are their own standard deviation. Or two.
“ANDREW!” Marie’s voice splits the air like a cannonball. I’ve never seen her this angry. Not even that time in high school when
we got sent home from high school for rearranging the letters on the school sign. Instead of “Congratulations Warriors Hockey” it said, “Congratulations Hairy Coworkers.”
Andrew’s eyes fly open like he’s a human experimentation victim with lid retractors attached. “What? Why me?”
“YOU NEED TO GET ANTERDEC’S HELICOPTER NOW. NOW. NOW NOW NOW.”
“I’m sorry, Marie. The helicopter is being used right now in Central America to help deliver medical supplies for a corporate humanitarian mission.”
“THAT IS NO EXCUSE. WE HAVE MORE IMPORTANT PROBLEMS HERE. CALL IT BACK.”
Marie has one volume right now.
“Honey,” Jason says, trying to soothe her. “We can’t do anything about this. Shannon and Declan decided they want to get away and—”
“DON’T YOU DARE TELL ME THAT! I AM NOT MISSING WATCHING MY DAUGHTER GET MARRIED. I DID NOT SPEND THE LAST YEAR OF MY LIFE RESEARCHING TARTAN THONGS FOR THIS!”
Jason gives Marie’s ass an appraising look. “Tartan thongs?”
Andrew slides his hand on my butt. “Tartan thongs?” he whispers.
“We were forced to match.”
“Why not go commando like we kilt wearers?”
“We tried! Marie wouldn’t let us. Said if we didn’t have balls, we couldn’t go commando.”
“You have balls,” Andrew says. “Bigger than most men’s.”
Can’t say I disagree.
“But not mine,” he adds.
“JASON! CALL THE POLICE AND REPORT A KIDNAPPING!”
“Shannon hasn’t been kidnapped, Marie,” he says with a weary sigh.
“MY WEDDING HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED!”
“Oh, God.” Jason burrows his fingers into his sporran and pulls out a half-used roll of antacids. He carefully peels off the entire remainder of the wrapping and pops all of the pieces into his mouth at once.
See? Aerosolized Xanax would come in handy now, wouldn’t it?
“WHERE ARE THEY GOING?” Marie is screaming, enraged beyond the point of all reason, and I really do wish she’d hired that elephant and trainer after all, because an animal tranquilizer gun would come in handy right about now.
James, my mom, and Jason all put up their hands in a gesture of ignorance.
Carol and Terry are drinking Champagne near the fountain. The caterers look like they’ve pretty much picked up on the fact that there won’t be an actual marriage ceremony given the sudden escape of the bride and groom, so they’re putting out food.
Hamish is standing next to Amy, his hot soccer-player legs half-bare, kilt ending at the knees and Agnes is on the ground, bent down in—huh? Is she doing yoga? Why would a ninety-something woman be doing yoga at a wedding, in a suit?
Her red hat slides under Hamish’s legs and she shoves her arm in the air, brushing against his kilt. Hamish looks down, one eyebrow flying high in consternation.
“He’s authentic, Corrine!” Agnes gives her old friend a thumbs’ up. Corrine hobbles over and smiles down at Agnes.
“I owe you ten bucks,” Agnes adds with a disagreeable sigh.
“Here. We’ll call it even,” Corrine says, fishing in her purse for a powder compact, her knees popping as she bends downs. “Take this, open the mirror, and angle it just so—”
“Americans are so weird,” Hamish grumbles. But he doesn’t move.
Andrew reaches around me, careful to preserve my modesty, as he leans in for a kiss, the touch and taste of him a reunion that fills my heart with—
“STOP THAT! YOU SHOULD BE ON THE PHONE ARRANGING THE CORPORATE JET FOR US!” Marie shouts at Andrew. Her hair flies around her face in a swirl of hairsprayed plates, like someone has molded her hairdo in a factory and clicked it together like Pergo flooring. Click. Click. Click.
And someone just unfastened it all.
“To go where?”
Marie zeroes in on me and Andrew, eyes like snake slits. “YOU TWO KNOW!”
My heart pounds hard and suddenly, like someone is practicing handball in my chest.
Remember how I said Andrew has tells? Well, I do too, apparently. My eyes flicker over to Carol, who is loudly explaining to Jeffrey that just because I got to “swim” doesn’t mean he and Tyler can, too.
Marie follows my gaze and while she might not be the crispiest taco shell in the package, she gets my subconscious glance’s meaning instantly.
“Ohhhhhhh, noooooooo. Not Las Vegas! Not like Carol and Todd. Please tell me they didn’t just run off to Vegas,” she whimpers, her voice going soft, the volume change disconcerting.
“They didn’t just run off to Vegas,” Andrew says in a robot voice, then takes my face in his hands and kisses me again, the touch of his mouth and the texture of his breath so delightful.
“ORDER THE CORPORATE JET TO TAKE US THERE.”
And she’s back.
“Where?” Andrew asks, his mouth still on mine. “And Marie? We’re kind of busy.”
Hysterical laughter ripples out of her like clowns pouring out of a car at a circus. “BUSY? BUSY? YOU ARE BUSY GROPING AMANDA AND I AM BUSY PICKING UP THE SHATTERED PIECES OF THIS—“
“We’re trying to make up!” Andrew grinds out, clearly upset at her interruption.
“MAKE UP IN VEGAS!” she screams back, reaching out to pluck a very wet, very angry Chuckles from Jason as she storms off, her tartan sash snagging on chair legs.
Andrew looks at me, eyebrows raised.
“Vegas? Why would I want to go to Vegas?”
“Make up sex in Vegas?” I ask.
He grabs his phone. “You have a way with words.”
THE END...until Vegas...
And speaking of Vegas, wonder what’s happening in that helicopter as Declan and Shannon escape their own wedding?
Who needs a SWAT team to escape from their own wedding? Me.
My Momzilla turned us into hostages at our own ceremony, so Declan and I are getting married the good old-fashioned way, just like everybody else.
By calling in his private security team, stealing away before the ceremony by helicopter, connecting to his corporate jet and heading for Las Vegas.
The Boston wedding of the year is about to become a trashy Elvis drive-thru ceremony.
Until the best man spills the beans and Mom, Dad, my sisters, his brothers, my maid of honor, my friend Josh, and even my cat, Chuckles, all come along for the ride.
I can’t win, can I?
Oh. Yeah. I already did.
Love conquers all.
Even my crazy family.
Shopping for a Billionaire’s Wife is the next book in the New York Times and USA Today bestselling Shopping for a Billionaire series. After Declan convinces Shannon to escape from their own wedding minutes before the ceremony begins, the madcap adventures are just getting started. When the mother of the bride pries their location out of the tortured best man, the whole crazy crew follows the bride and groom to Las Vegas in this romantic comedy from Julia Kent.
HAVING A BOOK HANGOVER? Go here to get a BONUS SCENE from Shopping for a CEO. Read it RIGHT NOW for free!
Acknowledgments
To my beta reader friends, I give you my deepest thanks.
To my awesome husband, I give you my heart and the rest of my life.
To my dear friend Gretchen Galway, I give you credit for Josh’s best line in the childbirth class. ;)
And most of all, to my readers, I thank you from the core of my soul. You have no idea how important you are to me.
Other Books by Julia Kent
Shopping for a Billionaire: The Collection (Parts 1-5 in one bundle, 500 pages!)
•Shopping for a Billionaire 1
•Shopping for a Billionaire 2
•Shopping for a Billionaire 3
•Shopping for a Billionaire 4
•Christmas Shopping for a Billionaire
Shopping for a Billionaire’s Fiancée
Shopping for a CEO
Shopping for a Billionaire’s Wife
Shopp
ing for a CEO’s Fiancée
Shopping for an Heir
Shopping for a Billionaire’s Honeymoon
Shopping for a CEO’s Wife
Shopping for a Billionaire’s Baby
Shopping for a CEO’s Honeymoon
Shopping for a Baby’s First Christmas
Shopping for a CEO’s Baby
Little Miss Perfect
Fluffy
Perky
Feisty
Hasty
Her Billionaires
It’s Complicated
Completely Complicated
It’s Always Complicated
Random Acts of Crazy
Random Acts of Trust
Random Acts of Fantasy
Random Acts of Hope
Randomly Acts of Yes
Random Acts of Love
Random Acts of LA
Random Acts of Christmas
Random Acts of Vegas
Random Acts of New Year
Random Acts of Baby
Maliciously Obedient
Suspiciously Obedient
Deliciously Obedient
Our Options Have Changed (with Elisa Reed)
Thank You For Holding (with Elisa Reed)
Copyright
Shattered With You is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously; they are not real, and any resemblance to events, establishments or persons (living or dead or undead) is entirely coincidental.
Shattered With You Copyright © 2019 by Julie Kenner
Excerpt from Release Me © Copyright 2012 by Julie Kenner (used with permission from Penguin Random House/Bantam Books)
Cover design by Michele Catalano, Catalano Creative
Cover image by Annie Ray/Passion Pages
ISBN: 978-1-940673-86-8
Published by Martini & Olive Books