Shopping for a CEO (Shopping for a Billionaire Series Book 7)

by Julia Kent

  “WHAT?” Marie, Shannon, Carol and I all roar with indignation on her part.

  “So I put him firmly in his place, and then you know what he did?”

  “What?” we ask in unison.

  “He tried to get me to introduce him to Jessica Coffin.”

  “Why would he try to do that?” Shannon asks.

  “He says she’s the best person for going viral.”

  “She’s a disease, all right,” Shannon mutters.

  “I mean for publicity. He can’t stand the fact that he’s a celebrity in Europe, and here in the U.S. no one knows who he is.”

  Shannon snorts as Marie fusses with a ringlet. Fighting physics, Shannon’s hairdresser somehow managed to make her straight, thin, brown hair curl into magical strands that make her look like a princess. I think there’s a sewage treatment plant somewhere in the city that is currently befuddling its engineers who have encountered a seven-hundred-pound block of excess mousse, hair gel and hairspray, though.

  Carol looks outside and sees Tyler bending down, dipping his hand in the small reflecting pool. It’s covered with tastefully-placed lily pads, and is both decorative and functional, as Marie informed us when she booked this facility. For the wedding, they’ll close it off, but the gate is open.

  “I’m worried about Tyler and that damn pool,” Carol says in a tight voice.

  “We’ll have someone close the gate,” Marie promises.

  “So,” Amy says absent-mindedly as she peers out a crack in the curtains further down the line, “are you ready for your wedding night?”

  And Shannon’s tears come back.

  “Is Declan hung over this morning? I want to see him.”

  “It’s bad luck,” Marie chides. She motions for Shannon to close her eyes and pulls out a makeup brush the size of a street sweeper.

  “I don’t care. I haven’t gone this long without seeing him other than business trips, and I’m falling apart on the inside, and what if he’s changed his mind and wants to call off the wedding and run away with Jessica Coffin and make beautiful Barbies with her forever and ever and marry a woman who knows you don’t drink white wine with beef!”

  “I had wedding day jitters the day I married Jason, honey,” Marie says with a sigh, putting down all her beauty supplies and just reaching out to hold Shannon’s hands. “Every bride gets them.”

  “I know he loves me,” Shannon says as Marie looks at her with so much love peeking out from raw, makeup-less eyes that it’s like watching a mother look at her newborn for the first time. “It’s just...” She flings herself at Marie and the two sob, each hitched breath like a tug that pulls Shannon further away into her new life.

  Just then, a little man who looks like a troll carrying a hair-covered electric drill walks into the room and claps his hands three times.

  “Flowers for the bridal party!”

  Ah. It’s Jordan. And he’s carrying Muffin, who now has fuzz all over her.

  Marie drops Shannon and practically wins the Olympic 100-meter sprint trying to hug Jordan, whose face lights up as he scans the room over her shoulder.

  Until he sees me.

  Is he actually baring his fangs at me? The man has unusually large incisors.

  “Marie,” he croons. “Let’s make this wedding even more beautiful with my creations.” He takes over, offering the bridal bouquet and the reception bouquet, our pinned corsages and explaining in tremendous detail how the groom and his men will be attired in various flowers native to Scotland, like primrose and bluebell, combined with white roses and a touch of red, all color-coordinated to match the tartan.

  While on paper (and Pinterest) it seemed an awful, gaudy mess to me, in person it works. Adding real, live people to the plan makes a huge difference.

  Like pretty much everything.

  “One hour to showtime!” Marie squeals, sending seamstresses and photographers into frantic activity as we finish dressing, primping, painting and all the accompanying rituals that come with getting wedding-perfect.

  As promised, the seamstress fixed the back of my dress so that as long as I keep the corset fairly loose, and the strings tied in a simple slip knot, the Velcro holds the back of the strapless dress in place. We’re all showing shoulders, with a McCormick tartan sash draped over one, and the dresses touch the ground in spite of our high heels.

  Between tartan underwear (don’t ask), tartan sashes, tartan ribbons in our hair and flowers, and tartan fingernails, we do, indeed, look like the Loch Ness Monster ate a bunch of highlanders and vomited. Hamish is right.

  Shannon is also exquisite, and she and Declan will be smashing together.

  Speaking of the groom, I can’t stop looking across the courtyard at the closed curtains on the men’s side.

  No Andrew.

  Is he really going to stand in the shadows, letting fear keep him from being at the front lines?

  “How’s the crowd?” Amy asks, peering over my shoulder.

  “Looks like about half of them are here already, getting seats.”

  “It’s supposed to be a mild day for July in Boston.”

  “Which means only one of the four of us will faint in these dresses,” I groan. I’m wearing about thirty pounds of clothing, from slips to petticoats to thick tartan wool, with sashes and red silk and various cotton blends all swirling around me. I am so weighted down I have to take great care walking in my high heeled shoes, waiting for the swish of my skirts, laden with so much cloth, to catch up to my center of gravity before proceeding.

  This forces me to walk like I am in a wedding processional.

  Perfect.

  “Amanda! Oh, Amanda! You’re so beautiful!” Mom’s voice makes me turn around, the drag of my delayed motion nearly tipping me over as she gives me a big hug. Her hugs comes with an extra side of groping, as Spritzy licks the underside of my boob. I elbow him out of the way, his purse swaying slightly. He’s tightly zippered into a big bag that has thick beige leather handles.

  “So do you!” Mom clearly made an effort this morning, in spite of significant pain. All that drinking triggered a fibromyalgia flare, and I can see in her face how fatigued she is. But the beige dress she’s wearing cuts nicely against the lines of her body, and she’s done her hair in a French knot. She shifts and puts Spritzy on her other arm, wincing slightly. If you didn’t know my mother, you wouldn’t realize she’s having a tough morning.

  “Are those grandma’s pearls?” I ask.

  She beams. “Yes. Remember?”

  “I haven’t seen you wear those since Aunt Jody’s wedding when I was in middle school.”

  She fiddles with the back of the earring clasp. “That’s probably the last time I wore them!”

  Jason and James come around a corner, both outfitted to the nines in their fine Scottish dress, swords dangling from their hips.

  Mom lets out a low whistle.

  Jason blushes.

  James doesn’t.

  “Pam! Nice to see you! Don’t you look stunning,” James says as he walks over to my mother and gives her a kiss on both cheeks.

  The entire scene moves like someone has pushed a slow-motion button in the hallway.

  James is kissing my mother.

  And is he touching her hip? With his palm? Is he...

  “James,” Mom says, her voice like warm butter. “So good to see you again.”

  “Have any good statistics for me to use to improve my life?” he asks with a wink. “How about some good wedding stats?”

  Mom blushes, and looks up, as if retrieving them from her mind. “Married men live longer than single men. That’s all I’ve got.”

  “Is that true for women, too?”

  Mom smiles and nods.

  “Then I’m glad to hear my son and new daughter-in-law are giving themselves more time together by spending nearly seven figures of my money on this beast of a day!”

  Jason, who is drinking a cup of coffee from the catering service, sprays it all over the trash can
he’s standing next to.

  As he turns to James with a look of empty shock on his face, a blood-curdling scream from the women’s prep room shatters the moment.

  “YOU

  INVITED

  JESSICA

  COFFIN

  TO

  MY

  WEDDING,

  MOM?”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Jason, having no choice in the matter, recovers quickly from James’ wedding cost comment and rushes to the source of the sound. I look out the window and yes, indeed, there’s Jessica Coffin, a wall of long, straight blonde hair attached to the heart of a demon.

  I abandon my mom and James and take off after Jason, if by take off you mean run like a sloth being transported by a snail.

  This dress is so heavy I am sure that when I remove it at the end of the day I’ll just float up and be carried off into the clouds.

  Marie and Shannon are face to face now, the bride screaming so loudly and inches from her mother’s face that it’s like watching wounded rage in pure form come out via fingertips and travel into Marie’s body. I swear a tri-colored arc of electricity leaps from Shannon’s eyes to her mother’s heart. The cycle is so complete, their screaming in synchronicity, that there’s a certain magic to it, a mellifluous quality that makes me stop and take in the sound.

  Meanwhile, Shannon’s ex-boyfriend, Steve, is out there, looking at Jessica’s ass and pretending to talk to her, all while grabbing canapes from wandering wait staff.

  Brave man that he is, Jason inserts himself between Shannon and Marie, who each try to bring him over to their respective dark sides. Declan comes rushing in to the doorway just as Shannon’s voice gives out and she picks up the bridal bouquet, arm pulled back like a baseball pitcher, aimed straight for her mother.

  “You wouldn’t!” Marie screams.

  “TRY ME!”

  Declan is across the room and holding Shannon’s elbow with a mobile grace that makes it seem staged.

  “You can’t see the bride before the wedding!” Marie scolds. Her hair is wild and flat on one side, and mascara flakes from the nine layers she uses to get eyelashes longer than Donald Trump’s actual hair freckle her face.

  “Watch me,” he shouts.

  “You can’t!” The pitch of her voice drops two octaves, as if the hounds of hell have been dispatched from her vocal cords. Muffin and Spritzy start barking back. It’s 101 Dalmatians all over again, and Marie is looking like Cruella herself, only instead of collecting puppies, she’s collecting tartan.

  Jason shuttles her out of the room quickly, giving Declan a look that says, I think this is the first of many such situations. Soon they’ll have a protocol. But for now, we’re all first-timers here.

  Shannon is bent in half, her corset loosened, her carefully coiffed curls spilling around her face like sentries in crooked formation as she sits in a chair now and cries like the world has ended.

  Marie tries to enter the room, but I block her with the door, using it as a half-closed shield.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Protecting my bestie.” I close the door all the way and stand there, knowing I need to act as a bouncer at my best friend’s wedding to protect her from...

  Her mother.

  It’s finally come to that.

  Forty-five minutes before the ceremony.

  “What are you doing here?” Shannon asks, her voice a mixture of half-horror and half-relief as Declan drops to one knee and looks at her, eyes filled with the kind of love most people spend three lifetimes trying to find.

  “I heard you screaming. What did Marie do now?”

  “She invited Jessica Coffin to the wedding.”

  An uncharacteristic set of emotions marches across Declan’s face. “Why doesn’t she just drop a ring in your coffee for you to swallow while she’s at it?”

  “I know! She invited the woman who almost ruined our getting together, and who is my biggest online bully, to the most important day of my life!”

  “Honey, this isn’t the most important day of your life. It’s the first day of the long series of days that will, if I have anything to say about it, be one day after the other of the most important day of your life. Right up until the day we die together, well into our nineties, after I give you the best orgasm ever.” The way he looks at her as he speaks is like watching love come to life.

  She sniffs and laughs, all giggles and twitches. “That’s one hell of a bucket list you have, Declan.”

  “I never back down from a challenge.” He pulls her up and kisses her temple. She lets out a shaky breath, then cries softly.

  “I don’t want this,” Shannon whispers.

  “Don’t want to marry me?”

  “God, yes I want to marry you! But this? The pompous pageantry of it? No! Mom’s completely taken over and no matter how hard I try to stand up against it, I can’t win.”

  He holds her while she cries, then says in a deep, determined voice, “Sometimes the only way to win is not to play.”

  “What?”

  “Bow out. Fold.”

  “Our wedding isn’t a game of poker!”

  “It sort of is, Shannon,” he insists. “Is this—” He gestures around the room and outside “—how you imagined our wedding would be?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “Do you want this?”

  “Do you?”

  “No. But I’ll go along with it because I love you.”

  “I don’t want any of this! I would have been happy getting married on one of the Harbor Islands with just family and close friends! Or eloping in Vegas!”

  “I can arrange both. You pick which one.” Declan reaches into his tuxedo jacket pocket and pulls out his phone. “We can be gone in twenty minutes.”

  “What? You’re joking.”

  “You know me. I don’t joke when it comes to making something you want happen.”

  In retrospect, I’m pretty sure Shannon would have said no to eloping if what happened next had not unfurled.

  Marie begins banging on the door, insisting to be let in and hissing about Jessica Coffin’s importance in high society and how Shannon needs to learn to put petty differences aside for the sake of a higher purpose—

  At the exact moment Jessica herself moves just enough to be seen through the windows to the courtyard, chatting with Shannon’s ex-boyfriend, Steve.

  And his mother, Monica.

  “Is that Steve?” Declan roars as he spots the ex, the sound so forceful it makes an empty coffee cup on a table shake. “Your mother invited STEVE?”

  “My God,” Shannon whimpers. “I give up. I just give up.” She turns to me as I lean hard against the door, my fingers sweaty, thumb joint aching from holding on to the doorknob to stop Marie from coming in.

  I look beyond the trio outside and see another face across the way, peering through the glass in the men’s dressing wing.

  Andrew.

  He’s here. My body blooms with a kind of anticipatory pain, the knowledge that we can’t be together juxtaposed against the happiness I can’t control when I see him. The twinning of those two emotions leaves me in a perceptive state, the edges of everything I see a little too bright.

  “What do I do, Amanda?” Shannon pleads, her face dotted with the splotchiness of sadness and fear.

  I need to fix this.

  I want to fix this.

  I should fix this.

  But I can’t fix this.

  Andrew was right. This isn’t mine to fix.

  “Hon, you’re on your own.” I exchange a look with Declan that makes it clear I chose the right words. “I love you, and I’ll lie for you. I’ll block a door for you. I’ll hold Jessica down while you rip out her hair extensions, but I can’t decide for you.”

  She looks outside at the triad of destructive distortion.

  Looks back at the door, which is rippling with the force of Marie’s blows.

  Then, eyes only for Declan, she says, “Do it. I don’
t care how you do it, but let’s escape. Now. I am not going to be ridiculed by Jessica Coffin on the one day where I am supposed to be the positive center of attention. Mom has gone too far.”

  “I’ll give you all the positive attention you need,” Declan declares, kissing her. He’s on the phone in seconds, delivering orders.

  “Are you really going to run away from your own wedding? Like in The Graduate?” I marvel.

  She looks around the room, then outside, then down at her body. “It’s not really my wedding, though, is it? Mom ran roughshod over everyone. Declan has a point. Sometimes the best way to fight is to leave.”

  “Give up?”

  “No. Just...not engage. She’s turned this spectacle into something that doesn’t actually need me or Declan to even happen. We could make cardboard cutouts of ourselves on wheels and it would take her an hour to notice the difference.”

  I can’t help but laugh sadly.

  “Do you think that would really work?” Shannon asks with such innocent hope that I laugh harder.

  “If it did, you and Amy and Carol would have tried it by now.”

  Declan gives me a tight look. “Will you lie for us?”

  “Lie?”

  “I think I have a good cover story for escaping.”

  “Escaping your own thousand-guest wedding? The story better be damned good.”

  He whispers his plan in my ear.

  I suddenly sound like a hyena in labor. “You what?”

  “Marie will buy it. Let’s just play on her biggest weakness. Give her what she’s dreamed of,” Declan explains.

  I’m floored by what he whispered. There is no way this plan is going to work. None.

  I look outside to see that Jessica has separated herself from Steve and Monica and is now taking pictures of everything, then tapping on her phone. Uploading? Probably to various social media sites with hashtags that will follow Shannon for months.

  #doghater leaves a bad taste in my mouth, too.

  “I’ll do it. I’ll lie. But you’re crazy if you think Marie’ll believe this.”

  “Don’t say a word. Go along with it. Pretend just long enough for us to escape. Just...trust me,” Declan says in a voice filled with so much authority that I can’t help it.

  I do.