THE WEDDING AFFAIR
Looking for a sweet and fun happily ever after recipe?
Take one tropical paradise with a weeklong bridal party escape
Add a BFF doing Maid-of-Honor duties and a Best Man with a billboard past. Toss in a pinch of real-life drama topped with an outrageously funny family of in-laws and enjoy!
Samantha Evers ~ Maid-of-Honor extraordinaire and loyal friend in the midst of a life crisis. In Hawaii, while her job hangs in the balance, she tried to leave her problems behind to focus on her best friend’s wedding.
Ryan Sommerfield ~befuddled Best Man and cousin to the groom. Despite his man candy modeling past, these days he’s a successful graphics design businessman. The last thing he expected was to meet a girl who turned his life upside down.
What could go wrong when two strangers get thrown together in paradise? Especially when the bride and groom are happily matchmaking behind-the-scenes?
Instant attraction is one thing, but the idea of a wedding affair left both of them cold. It didn’t stop sparks from flying as the attraction gave way to real friendship.
A future together seemed out of reach since Ryan lived in Florida and Sam was in Hollywood, but sometimes all it takes is a leap of faith and a little nudge to change everything.
Copyright © 2016 by Suzanne Halliday
THE WEDDING AFFAIR
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by an means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
This book is meant for mature readers who are 18+.
It contains explicit language, and graphic sexual content.
ISBN-10: 1-945399-03-1
ISBN-13: 978-1-945399-03-9
Edited by Jenny Sims
Book Cover Design by Sara Eirew
Formatting By Champagne Formats
Table of Contents
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
OTHER BOOKS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
To everyone who hopes love-at-first-sight really happens
~Happily Ever After Guaranteed~
Maybe playing a game of Where Am I wasn’t such a grand idea. Especially when the participants were all lit like downtown Dallas—the result of several margaritas and far too many fire-breathing tequila shots.
Welcome to modern day bridesmaid hell. The originator of inappropriate everything. From what they all wore to how much everyone drank, it seemed to Samantha as though setting half a dozen out-of-control females loose on an all-expenses paid week of pampering—crammed with manic excitement and a propensity for debauchery—was a guarantee of trouble.
“Sam! Snap out of it.”
She looked at her friend, her oldest friend, and nearly fell over laughing at the sight she made.
She and Andrea, do-not-call-me-Ann, Frank had been BFFs since grade school. Anytime Sam had ever been in trouble, Andrea was somewhere in the picture. Same for applause. If she won the science fair, it was her best friend hovering right outside the frame.
The current day version of her friend was what brought this weird little group to Kauai in the first place. These days Andrea was a kick-ass designer specializing in high-end corporate interiors. It was, she said, great money and creatively satisfying. Along the way, while designing a well-hyped clubhouse at a newly launched private golf course, she had met and fallen stupidly, gob-smacked in love with Kyle Sommerfield.
And who the hell was Kyle Sommerfield? According to a slew of sports writers and magazine stories, he was a serious golfer on the pro circuit whose model good looks and easy down-home-boy charm made him a favorite with the golfing crowd.
One year and an enormous diamond engagement ring later, the two were about to marry in an outdoor Hawaiian-themed ceremony at a fancy hotel spa with a world-class golf course because, Of course, Sam snickered to herself.
“You’re up, girlfriend! And make it good. Kelly bombed big time.”
Sam laughed with everyone else who tsk’ed and turned shaming hisses and boos on the poor girl who played Where Am I about as well as a guy taking an emotions quiz.
“Seriously? The Cowtown Rodeo?”
Kelly Johnson threw up her hands and chuckled. “C’mon, you guys! Cut it out. Give a cowgirl a break.”
“It smells like bullshit?” Tara Donner quipped, her head shaking in disbelief at the clever clue.
“Well, it would,” Kelly insisted with a slight slur to her words.
“Ladies, ladies,” Lisa Kerry cut in. Sliding off her stool, she stood, wobbled, and flamboyantly tossed her hair over a shoulder as she smirked. “Ignore Denim Debbie.”
“Denim Debbie!” Andi hooted with tequila-infused glee.
“Hush, you,” Lisa sniped. “This is serious. The score stands tied.” She shot some margarita side-shade Kelly’s way. “This awesome championship trophy is at stake. It’s all on you now, Sam. This one’s for the win. Give us your best Where Am I.”
Holding up a garishly decorated, hollowed out coconut for everyone to see, she waved the sequin and crystal studded drinking vessel as if it were the Holy Grail, and a hushed reverence descended upon the inebriated group.
Andi’s cousin Julie, the creator of the grail vessel, started giggling. “Can you see the little penises I drew with puffy paint?” Pointing at a decorated circlet near the bottom of the coconut, she was sniffling and tearing up with laughter when she carefully enunciated, in a way only drunk women can, “That one? That’s my Joe. Lists slightly to the right.”
The bride found this statement hilariously funny and started screaming with laughter. “Oh, my god! Stop!”
Sam glanced around at the amused group of women. She had to hand it to her oldest friend for being the glue that held such a wildly disparate group of individuals together.
Kelly, the Midwestern girl Andi roomed with in college, became a friend and ally to all of them.
Lisa, the suburban mom with a devilish sense of inappropriate humor, was their longtime deputy from the neighborhood where they all grew up. Lisa had a knack for talking their way out of every imaginable situation.
Tara. What could she say about Tara? Smart and hungry,—a winning combination in today’s business world—she was one of those perfect specimens who sometimes made their mere mortal female friends wince. If there was a single wrinkle or imperfection on her flawlessly sculpted and maintained face, well. . .good luck finding it. She was Andrea’s partner in the design firm they’d started together when they were only twenty-five. Five years later, they were successful and positioned for a great future.
Sam was ambivalent about Tara. For a long time, she’d been put out by how close the two women were
but had no reason to be so touchy. Living on either side of the country meant the three thousand miles and multiple time zones separating their daily lives put a strain on their closeness. But that didn’t mean they weren’t, simply put, in each other’s DNA. Tara was a fact. Andrea and Sam were sisters by design. Big difference.
And then there was Julie, the sweet, uncomplicated airhead who was always befuddled. As Andrea’s only girl cousin and the same age as they were, she had been a near-constant fixture in their lives growing up. Julie was everyone’s best friend and would defend any cause or person she felt was being treated harshly.
Five pairs of eyes were trained on her although Sam wasn’t sure how focused some of those eyes were.
When she went to shimmy off her stool, heat and sweat made her bare thighs stick to the painted wood. Standing up gracefully instantly became something of a joke. Landing awkwardly and slightly off balance, Sam was glad she’d decided on flat sandals instead of the high wedges she’s almost worn. There were plenty of things that went together well. Tequila and heels of any sort were not on the list.
Running a hand across her butt, she smoothed the plain gray skirt down her thighs and chewed on her lip as she frantically searched her alcohol-impaired brain for help.
Where am I?
Hmmm.
Wait a minute! Wait a minute. I think I have one, she thought as her soft snicker wafted on the sultry tropical night air.
“There are too many cars,” she began.
“Paris!” yelped Tara.
“New York City,” Kelly jeered.
“Um,” she murmured. “Okay. How about. . . Everyone has more money than sense.”
The same answers rang out. Only, this time, they were spoken with sardonic bite.
Andrea laughed heartily. “Seriously? If it wasn’t Paris or New York the first time, why say it again?”
Tara flipped her the bird while Kelly blushed, ducked her head, and chortled. “Oops. My bad.”
“Duck lips are the norm.”
Julie snicker-snorted. “Any High School U.S.A.” She giggled, her eyes lit with humor.
Sam laughed at the bull’s-eye and joined a group high five.
“Come on, come on,” Lisa urged. She was waving her hand for Sam to finish.
Glancing at the ceiling for a second, she considered her final clue and smacked her hands together when the perfect tip-off appeared.
Pointedly looking in everyone’s direction, she amped up the expectation with a snarky sneer and caustically growled, “The breakfast menu includes a side of smog.”
“L.A.,” Lisa snapped.
At the exact same time, Tara barked, “City of Angels.”
Kelly harrumphed and grumbled, “Los Angeles.”
Judging by the cross expressions, not everyone had a warm place in their hearts for her stomping grounds, which was okay by her. There were already too goddamn many people crammed into four hundred and some odd square miles as it was.
“Team Love Pump gets the win,” Andrea hooted.
Lisa made the ceremonial gesture of handing over the gaudy coconut with a bowed head as Sam’s team gathered. She, Kelly, and Julie took turns kissing the trophy and gagging around while the others snapped endless phone pics.
Andrea, Tara, and Lisa applauded with lackluster enthusiasm and groaned with each crazy antic. It was Tara, with her usual dry wit, who brought them all to a falling down pile of laughing giggling females.
“Next time, we should pick teams and names before the drinking starts. I think Team Creampie was doomed to failure for obvious reasons.”
“Ew!” they all groaned, chuckled, and barked in unison.
“Lovepumps and Creampies. Jeez Louise, girls. What the hell is wrong with you guys?” Julie was shaking her head like a disappointed parent discovering a stack of porn magazines stuffed under a bed.
Kelly chimed in with a pithy reminder of how they got where they were. “It was that damn bartender’s fault. The minute he said we could lick George Clooney off the rim of a glass, we were doomed.”
“Wimps,” Tara cooed. “Casamigos is too smooth to kick ass. That idiot at the bar didn’t know who he was dealing with.”
Sam chuckled. “Damn straight.”
“Says the 2008 winner of Banfil’s Cuervo Classic.”
She took a bow at Lisa’s crowning praise. It was true, after all. The summer they all turned twenty-two, she, Lisa, and Andrea had done a girls’ weekend at their favorite getaway destination near their childhood town. What started out as a simple spa visit turned into a rowdy, over-the-top romp along the little city’s locally famous Saloon Row. Basically a walking tour of a dozen various bars and pubs, they’d ended at a rustic watering hole hosting a tequila tournament. How much Cuervo Sam imbibed remained a mystery, but it’d been enough for her to win hands down against a bunch of burly badasses. Much to the screaming delight of every woman present.
A phone started ringing, and they all reached for theirs. Ordinarily, they’d each know their unique ringtone, but Andrea had made them all change to “Here Comes the Bride.” She was half hilarious that way.
“It’s me,” Julie said, waving her phone for emphasis. “Shit. It’s Joe.”
Tara snickered and leaned close. “Do you think she realizes she’s talking tequila and most of that was slurred?”
Sam arched an eyebrow at her sometimes nemesis and knocked her back a bit. “She says with a distinct jumble of sounds.”
“Aw, shit. Really?”
“’Fraid so, Ms. Donner.” Sam snorted. It was all kinds of fun to watch as Tara tried to put an expression on her face. The woman was thirty-two, not sixty-two. Why she had fillers and god knows what else at her age was a mystery.
Julie cleared her throat and straightened. She accepted the call as Andrea shrieked with comic delight, “Hey, Joe! How’s it hanging?”
Kelly groaned when Julie frantically shushed them. It was too much of a challenge not to roar with laughter, but Julie only had herself to blame. She was batting a thousand in the T-M-I category by telling them her husband’s dick hung with a righty curve.
Remembering her duties as maid of honor in charge of the week’s frivolity, Sam waved over their waiter and asked for another round of drinks. As an afterthought, she also asked for a large pitcher of ice water and some glasses. It was time for some hydration if they expected to survive the evening.
While Julie attempted to converse with her hubs, the rest of their group ambled rather unsteadily to their table on the outdoor beach terrace of the resort’s hideaway bistro. They were coming to the end of their weeklong indulgence. Starting tomorrow, the groom and his attendants, along with wedding guests and family, would start arriving, and the formal gatherings would take over.
Flopping onto a chair, Sam rested her forearms on the table and just sort of hung there for a minute. She was exhausted. Fried. They’d been going nonstop boogie from the moment all of them were in place.
If they could book it, they did. Surf lessons. Helicopter tours. Snorkeling. Horseback adventures. Hiking. Kayaking. Oh and a zip line experience Sam was sure had aged her at least five years.
Between it all, they availed themselves of the incredible services offered at the resort spa. She’d never felt so pampered or beautiful.
But it was during the evenings when Sam’s need to organize got swept away in an unstoppable tsunami of bridal party fuckery.
And men thought they were the hardcore gender. Shit, she snorted silently. She wasn’t sure any guy alive could stand up to the crazed antics this bunch of women were capable of.
“I can’t wait for Kyle to get here,” Andrea mumbled as she took the seat next to Sam. “Me so horny.”
Sam put her face into her hands and groaned dramatically. “Kindly remember please that I’m the celibate spinster of the group and to show some freakin’ couth, would you?”
Her friend chortled and jostled Sam with her shoulder. “Pfft. You know perfectly well I ain’t got no cout
h.”
It was an old, easy joke between them. Sam’s grandmother loved the tongue-in-cheek saying and teased them with it endlessly during their teenage years.
“Besides,” the drunken bride-to-be continued, “you’re only celibate because that douche nozzle Richard,” she drawled with special emphasis, “lived up to his nickname and dicked you good. And not in an orgasmic way.”
Truth. Rich Dawkins was a dick in every sense of the word. Looking back, she marveled at how stupid she was to waste two years on the spineless putz. But twenty-twenty, what’s done is done. And no way was she okay with anyone assuming her dateless life was due to a bad case of the dick.
“Not true,” she hastily corrected. “Dicky McDickerson was an aberration. Did I say that right?” she asked, swiping her fingers across her lips. “I’m not sure my mouth is moving. It is, though, right?”
Andrea nodded and cleared a space in front of them when their drinks were delivered. “Spoken like a true wordsmith—whatever the hell that means.”
They both laughed. Andrea leaned her head on Sam’s shoulder. “I fucking love you,” she said wistfully.
“And I fucking love you too.”
Straightening, her friend threw an arm over her shoulders and hugged Sam tight. “Girlfriend, what you need is a manly man. Some big bad alpha with tattoos and a monster dick.”
Sam snorted with disbelief and laughter. Only Andi could say something so blunt that it sounded perfectly reasonable.
“I’m serious! Stop laughing, dammit!”
“Aw, sweetie . . .” Sam snickered as she wiped away tears of laughter. “That’s not how it works. The men I meet are pocket protector types. Not quite comic book collectors but certainly more on the intellectual side than the gym rat and muscled type.”
“I know,” Andrea growled. “Please, please, please let me introduce you to one of Kyle’s friends. Seriously, Sam. Enough is enough. You’re almost thirty. You take care of your own shit. No man is ever going to push you around, so stop proving the point, go out, and get laid.”
The Wedding Affair (The Affair Series Book 2) Page 1