by Andre, Bella
The thing was, Kerry had never really been friends with a man before, might never have thought it was even possible until this morning, when Adam had said he was her friend and she realized she was his, too.
She’d been full of angst and worries over everything when she’d awakened in his bed. She’d been so afraid that they had made a huge mistake. But after they talked things through—with Adam ending up being the surprisingly rational, calm one when she hadn’t been able to find one single rational, calm bone in her body—she was able to smile again as she thought about him.
How unexpected their relationship was. Adam Sullivan was the last person she would ever have thought she could become friends with. And yet, their relationship was one of the most wonderful she’d ever had.
He not only knew just how to make her laugh, but also precisely when she needed that laughter.
He was easy to talk to about the things that mattered to her, and she loved listening to him talk about what got him juiced up, too.
Seeing him smile always made her smile.
And few things in her life had been as comforting as simply holding his hand.
At first, she’d wanted to keep things straight and clear between them because she’d been afraid of getting her heart broken. But now, there was even more at stake. Because she didn’t want to do anything to lose his friendship. Not when he’d come to mean so much to her, so quickly.
Before Adam, her life hadn’t been bad by any stretch of the imagination, but in the past two weeks, it had been bright and colorful in a way that she hadn’t known it could be. Part of it was the hot sex—of course she knew that had to be a factor. But if she’d been having sex with someone she didn’t like, they wouldn’t be hanging out and talking afterward. They wouldn’t be laughing together.
And they definitely wouldn’t be looking out for each other.
As the caterer gave her an update through her headset on their preparations for the post-wedding reception, Kerry knew now wasn’t the time to be thinking about her night or her morning with Adam. She had a job to do, and do well.
The groom’s mother had been one of her mother’s clients, a widow who had found love for a second time twenty-five years ago, and Aileen Dromoland had hinted on the phone that she might drop by. If ever there was a wedding to get right, it was this one.
Kerry always wanted her mother to feel that her daughter had done right by the company she’d worked so hard to build. So since it wouldn’t do to let either the bride and groom or her mother down, she corralled her focus and got back to work on making sure all of today’s moving pieces worked in perfect concert with each other.
The crush of guests arriving to take their seats began in earnest now that the ceremony was scheduled to start in less than fifteen minutes. Kerry had already checked in with the bride, her bridesmaids, and her parents, and all of them were relaxed and happy in the final minutes before the wedding began. The groom and his crew were also equally at ease, and she gave silent thanks that everything was so well on track.
Ushering an older couple to their seats came as second nature to her, and she enjoyed her chat with them about the gorgeous Seattle weather and how lucky they were to be there today. More than three hundred people would be attending. The groom was a prominent financier, and the bride owned one of the best beauty salons in the city. It stood to reason that their guests were an uncommonly good-looking and successful bunch.
Still, she couldn’t help but think that none of them were quite as good-looking as Adam. Perhaps she was biased, she thought with a little flush of pleasure she couldn’t quite contain, given that she had firsthand knowledge of just how gorgeous he was head to toe, clothes on and off.
A message from the florist popped up on her iPad, and she realized she’d lost focus again. It was so unlike her to daydream while on the job.
Then again, it was also extremely unlike her to meet up with a gorgeous, totally unsuitable man for wild sex.
Giving her head a shake, she turned to greet another guest. But her greeting stuck in her throat when she realized she was looking at her favorite face, the one she couldn’t seem to get out of her head no matter how hard she tried.
“Adam?” Her tongue felt all tied up, probably due to the way her heart and stomach immediately started jumping around whenever he stood this close to her. “What are you doing here?”
He held up his invitation. “My friends Jodi and Paul cordially requested the honor of my presence at their wedding and reception this afternoon.”
“You’re one of their wedding guests?” She usually knew the guest list like the back of her hand, but the bride and groom had made theirs months ago and, amazingly, had stuck to it with so few changes that she hadn’t thought she needed to review it.
He grinned as he said, “You’re their wedding planner?”
She couldn’t help but smile back. And why shouldn’t she? After all, it wasn’t a crime to be friends with Adam Sullivan. It was only the sex part that she didn’t want anyone to know about.
“When I mentioned I had a wedding this afternoon, why didn’t you say anything?”
He looked a little chastened as he admitted, “I might not have exactly remembered the wedding was this weekend. But if I’d known I would get to see you here this afternoon, I definitely wouldn’t have forgotten.”
“Figures you’d almost forget about your friends’ wedding.” The only reason she held back her eye roll was because they weren’t alone. But she planned on letting it loose on him in a big way once it was just the two of them again on Thursday night. “Although I don’t know how much you’ll see m—”
The caterer said something to her through her earpiece, and she cut herself off to quickly answer another question. At the same time, the iPad she was holding was buzzing with one message after another, all of them potential fires that needed to be put out, so she quickly typed a half-dozen messages back to keep everything on track.
When she looked up again, she was surprised to realize Adam was still standing in front of her. “I forgot you were still here.”
He put his hand over his chest. “Ouch.”
For a moment she couldn’t tell if he was teasing or not, but then she realized he was working to fight back another grin. “Honestly, it’s a really nice surprise that you’re here,” she told him, and she meant it. Maybe she should have been worried that he would do his best to distract her in his far-too-charming way, but the truth was that she was too happy about seeing him again to care. “And I also want to apologize in advance for the next zillion times I can’t give you anywhere near my full attention today.”
“Don’t apologize for doing your job.” But he gave her a look she knew too well, one that promised he wasn’t even close to done having fun with her yet. “And I won’t apologize when I steal you away from it all for a dance later.”
She opened her mouth to remind him that she was there to work and not party, but before she could get a word out, he pointed to her iPad. “Looks like a dozen new messages have come in for you in the last thirty seconds, so I’ll go take my seat.”
With a soft kiss on her cheek, he was heading off into the crowd and being heartily greeted by pretty much everyone, male and female.
Kerry knew she’d already been thinking about Adam Sullivan far too much. Far too happily, too, despite the fact that they could never be more than friends with really great benefits. And yet, as she took care of a dozen last-second details before the ceremony began, she didn’t do anything to squash the extra spring in her step or the extra-fast beat of her heart.
* * *
Adam made sure to take a seat where he could see his friends standing in front of the officiant and observe Kerry at the same time. She looked so professional, and utterly in control of every detail, as she stood just to the side of the last row of guests.
After the huge number of family weddings Adam had been to during the past couple of years, he knew a thing or two about them. Enough to know that
putting on one this big was a massive undertaking. Odds were she was being given a dozen different updates from her staff and contractors through her headset, but she didn’t look the least bit stressed out.
And then, as the officiant began to lead the bride and groom into their vows, he watched her reach up to her ear and take out her earpiece.
He grinned, easily guessing that she didn’t want to miss even one word of the mushy stuff.
Adam was happy for his friends, but even though they were making major vows to each other today, they took a backseat to the chance to be with Kerry for a little while outside of one of their hotel suites. Considering she’d made it perfectly clear just hours ago that their relationship needed to stop growing outside of those hotels and work on the house she wanted him to revive, today’s wedding had gone from a waste of a perfectly good sunny weekend day to a total bonus.
And yet, over the next few minutes, the vows his friends had written for each other hit him harder than any wedding vows had in recent memory. Not only because the couple clearly dug each other and planned to do whatever it took to make their love last, but also because of the look on Kerry’s face as they pledged themselves to each other.
How many times had she heard people make similar vows to each other? Hundreds, at the very least, he figured.
And yet, as he watched her eyes tear up and her beautiful mouth wobble slightly at the corners when the couple sealed their vows with a kiss, the marriage vows clearly meant as much to her today as they must have the first time she’d heard them.
What, he suddenly wondered, would it be like for Kerry to hear those vows on her own wedding day? To say them herself to the man she was vowing to love, to cherish, to remain with forever? How much more would it mean to her to know that she had finally found the love she’d been waiting for?
Adam’s chest tightened.
It was hard to picture Kerry with another guy. Impossible, actually. Even harder than it was for him to picture himself as a groom in a tux in front of friends and family saying things about sickness and health.
Strange that he could see himself getting hitched more easily than he could see Kerry letting some other guy slip a ring on her finger.
Everyone around him jumped out of their seats to applaud the newly married couple as they walked down the aisle, and he lost sight of Kerry. By the time the crowd cleared out, she was gone. She had a show to run, and he planned to let her do her job. But though he normally avoided the dance floor at weddings—it was where the desperate single women always pounced—today it was the part he was most looking forward to.
Because it meant he’d get to hold Kerry in his arms for a few minutes.
The next couple of hours were perfectly orchestrated, and though he knew they must be flying by for his newly married friends, for Adam they dragged on and on, until the band finally started up and the happy couple took the floor for their first dance.
Adam didn’t waste one single second after it ended to take Kerry’s hand in his. “Our turn now.”
She looked momentarily surprised—and pleased—to find her hand in his. But though he sensed she wanted the dance as much as he did, she said, “Any other time, I’d love to. But I’m here to work today, not to party with the guests.”
“Looks like everything’s going great,” he said with a gesture to the very happy people all around them who were full of food and cake and champagne. “Besides, you want all of the bride and groom’s guests to be happy, don’t you?”
Figuring he’d already given her more than fair warning, with one deft move, he put her iPad on a nearby table, then sent her into a graceful spin. One that had her forgetting the rules for a moment as she laughed and came back, breathless, into his arms.
His friends looked over at them with big smiles, and when Kerry saw that they weren’t at all upset to see their wedding planner dancing with one of their guests, she finally relaxed.
He already knew she was the perfect fit in his arms, but this was a different dance than any they’d ever done before, and he wanted to savor every second of it. Her head on his shoulder, her delicious scent, the beautiful sound of her voice as she softly sang along with the classic crooner song, the softness of the skin at her wrist where he was gently rubbing his thumb along her pulse point.
For hours, time had dragged on endlessly. But now that he wanted it to slow, it raced forward faster than ever before. The song was ending too soon, leaving him only a handful of seconds with Kerry in his arms before he lost her until Thursday.
“Kerry?”
In a split second, her body went from loose and languid to taut as a bow. She stepped out of his arms before he could try to keep her close.
“Mother.” Kerry’s voice had a sharpness in it that hadn’t been there just minutes before. “I’m so glad you were able to come to the wedding.”
Adam could see where Kerry’s beauty had come from. Her mother was a stunning woman. A little too thin, perhaps, but otherwise she looked barely two decades older than her daughter.
Her mother gave her a kiss on both cheeks in the British style. “I would have been here earlier, but I’m afraid the event I was chairing ran long.”
Adam extended his hand and smiled as he said, “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Ms. Dromoland. I’m—”
“Adam Sullivan, the architect.” Kerry’s mother shook his hand. “I recognize you from the story I recently read about your work on the historic women’s club. I’m very impressed with the way you revived the building.”
“Thank you, I enjoyed working on it.”
Despite her compliment on his professional skills, Adam had a sense that Kerry’s mother wasn’t necessarily impressed with much else about him. Clearly, she knew of his reputation as a ladies’ man. Just as clearly, she wasn’t thrilled to find one of her precious daughters in his arms. If he had a daughter and found her dancing with a guy like him, he’d feel precisely the same way.
The thought didn’t sit quite right with him.
“How did you two meet?” Kerry’s mother asked them, clearly assuming they hadn’t just met at today’s wedding.
“Adam’s brother Rafe is working with us for his wedding. Adam helped design a marvelous gazebo for the event. He’s also volunteered to build it, which is very sweet of him.”
Adam had to work to fight back a grin at the way Kerry was trying so hard to come up with a list of unarguably good points in his favor. At the same time, he wondered at her use of the word us as she’d spoken about working on Rafe and Brooke’s wedding. Was Kerry’s mother still involved in the business? That wasn’t the impression he’d gotten so far, but maybe he’d missed something along the way.
“I’m also a good friend of Jodi and Paul,” he added, “which is why I’m here today.”
“What do you think of today’s wedding?”
“Pretty much every Sullivan on the West Coast has gotten married in the past couple of years, so I’ve been to plenty of weddings, but the truth is that today’s wedding is by far the best one I’ve attended.”
Kerry’s mother was silent for a long moment as she studied his face to assess how genuine his statement was. Finally, she said, “Kerry is the best wedding planner on any coast.”
Kerry looked more than a little surprised—and very pleased—by her mother’s praise. “I learned from the very best.”
Her mother smiled at her, and he liked seeing the deep warmth in the other woman’s eyes toward her daughter. Kerry deserved to be loved by absolutely everyone.
“Everything except dancing with the guests rather than making sure everything is running smoothly,” her mother added, with a small upturn of her lips.
When he felt Kerry stiffen beside him again, knowing she was still mortified to be caught goofing off for a few minutes while on the job, he took her hand and held it as he said, “I didn’t give her much choice, I’m afraid.”
“Nonsense.” Her mother was still smiling, but the slight edge was back in her tone
as she looked down at their linked hands. “One always has a choice.”
With that, she kissed Kerry’s cheeks again, said how lovely it was to meet him, and went to mingle.
“Thanks for the dance,” Kerry said, but she sounded distracted, her eyes following her mother’s movement across the lawn beneath the fairy lights.
Kerry’s hand was far too cold, and he covered it with both of his to try to warm her up. “Your mom is one seriously elegant lady. I’m glad I finally got to meet her. I see where you get your strength from. And your beauty.”
Finally, Kerry’s eyes met his again. “She’s amazing. And,” she said with an upturn of her lips that didn’t quite reach her eyes, “probably worried that I’m dropping the ball big-time by goofing off with one of the guests. I really should get back to work now to make sure everything’s beyond perfect.”
She tried to slide her hands from his, but he wasn’t ready to let go just yet. “I want to dance with you again. Not tonight,” he said before she protested that she couldn’t goof off with him twice in one night, “but soon.” He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to the back of it before handing her back her iPad. “Time to let you go back to showing everyone why you’re the best wedding planner on any coast.”
And though she smiled as she took the device from him, he didn’t like the worry that was barely a layer down. Nor did he care for the way she ran herself off her feet the rest of the night to make up for a dance that she clearly thought had been a terrible transgression.
He finally understood why she’d been utterly adamant that no one learn of their nights together. Not only because she didn’t want Rafe and Brooke to question her professionalism, but also because she was terrified of disappointing her mother.
The thing was, Ms. Dromoland clearly adored Kerry, and despite the fact that she obviously had high expectations, he wasn’t convinced that her mother was quite as full of demands and expectations as she thought.