An anxious wedding planner buzzes around us, situating, organizing us in the banquet room where the special event will take place, followed immediately by the reception.
“Come, come.” The yippy brunette scuttles me to the mouth of the banquet hall before plucking Lex from the bar itself. Lex is breathtaking this afternoon. Some might think those bright pink lips are caustic, but to me they call out like a siren. Her shoulders are open, spine straight as a pin, head slightly tipped back, and with that spiked leather jacket, she might as well be lethal. But I’ve always liked the fact Lex had a bit of a twist to her, just the right amount of kick to make life interesting. “It’s show time, and there can be no delays! Stand right next to this handsome man right here, link arms. Quick! Quick!” She doesn’t bother waiting for Lex to perform the miracle. Instead, she stabs Lex’s arm through mine, and we both hold our limbs, stale in the air, avoiding any real contact. Not that I’m avoiding Lex in any way. I simply know better and am afraid I might go home without a limb in place. “Once the music gives the cue, I’ll motion you both down the aisle.” She snaps her finger. “And go!”
Lex practically yanks me across the runner like a kite, causing the animated brunette to blow that gilded whistle around her neck like a ref at the Super Bowl.
“No way, no how, young lady!” She runs Lex and me back to go and proceeds to demonstrate the proper cadence in which we should strut down the aisle. “Nice—and slow,” she says with each staccato step, her voice mimicking the rhythm. “Take—your time.” She takes another dramatic step forward. “It’s not—a race.” She motions for the two of us to begin. “And go!”
Levi stands at the opposite end of the room, which at the moment seems to have stretched infinitely. The white runner splits the banquet hall, and there’s an arc at the far end that waits to receive us.
“Don’t get any ideas, Collins,” she grits through her teeth—her eyes set dead ahead.
My stomach relaxes, and I feel as if I can breathe for the first time in four days. At least she’s speaking to me.
“Don’t you get any ideas, Maxfield.” I dish it right back, hoping she’s buying it. With a woman like Lex, there is no room for groveling, no room for shriveling and begging. For as much as she likes to be in control, she likes to be controlled.
“What?” she hisses as we slowly throb our way down the aisle. “Don’t you even waste your time with that ridiculous reverse psychology. You and I both know you messed up big time.”
The two of us keep our gazes locked ahead, but I can feel the heat index rising to my left. Lex is boiling mad, and I won’t lie—I don’t mind it one bit.
“No one says big time anymore.” I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling.
“Oh hush. I don’t care what you or your trendy friends say. I’m saying it, and that’s all that matters. You made a mistake, and now we’re both paying for it.”
My heart jackknifes in my chest as if it’s just heard the magic words it’s been waiting for all night.
“Both paying for it?” I’m only slightly amused by this because I happen to believe it. “So you do want me back.”
“Never!” Her voice rises, incredulous.
We hit the makeshift altar, but instead of breaking separate ways, Lex remains glued to my side, and we both end up to the right of Levi. He looks at me a moment before ticking his head toward her, but I choose to ignore my good friend. I’m not as interested in the rules and regulations of his holy matrimony as I am in keeping Lex by my side.
“Face it, Lex”—I tip my head back as Raven and Brody come up next, and Low dances her way down the aisle with her sister—“you know we’re not finished by a long shot. Deep in your heart, you realize I wouldn’t do anything to spite you. You’re just too afraid to look at the facts for what they are.”
The human Chihuahua vibrates her way over, her red glasses oscillating over her nose. “What’s this?” she squawks, plucking Lex from me, and if I had to guess, Lex didn’t want to leave any more than I wanted her to.
“You’re to break left when he breaks right.” The jumpy wedding planner scuttles in a circle. “Under no circumstances are the two of you to remain together!”
Low glares at me, so does Raven, but I don’t dare look at Lex. I know for a fact that both Low and Raven have been apprised of the sorry state of our relationship.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Lex sings, practically giddy for the first time in her life, and I take a moment to steal a glance her way. She’s gloating, her lips pulled into a self-satisfied smile. “In fact”—she catches my gaze and holds it—“I don’t think we should ever be together again.”
Low jumps over to her flame-haired friend and nearly loses an eye on that spike strip Lex has lined herself with. “Ho, ho, ho!” she belts it out like old St. Nick. Only something tells me come Christmas morning, the odds of finding Lex in my stocking are slim to none. “Play nice, you two. The big day is less than a week away.” She turns to me, holding her papier-mâché bouquet smug to her hip. Low looks pissed, but deep inside, I’d like to think she’s rooting for us. “How about a ceasefire until after kickoff? Kickoff being the point in the evening when Levi and I make our grand exit.”
“There will be no ceasefire,” Lex spits it out like machine gunfire.
“Why would there be?” I raise my voice just a notch, and the wedding planner covers her mouth in fear. “You’ve never backed away from a good battle before, have you, Lex?”
“All right, you two.” Levi nods my way. “Behave. We’ve got about ten more minutes, and you can both go to your corners to sulk.”
“Sulk?” Lex bites the word at him, and Levi leans back as if it had the power to knock him over. “Don’t you accuse me of sulking.” She wags a finger at him in quick succession. “I’m over it. I’m over him.” Her voice curls as it rises in octave. “And I don’t need you of all people telling me to behave.”
“Ugh!” Low does a frustrated version of the bunny hop. “For the last time! He did not stick his tongue down your throat!”
Lex scoffs, not missing a beat. “He’s not called The Frencher for nothing, sweetheart!”
The wedding planner tosses her hands in the air and spins in a circle.
Raven doubles over, she’s laughing so hard, and Brody knocks me in the ribs.
“Dude, you really know how to get a party going. Remind me not to invite you to my wedding.”
“You won’t have a wedding,” I scowl up at him before reverting to Lex. “You’d have to actually single a girl out and carry out a relationship. A concept neither of us seems to grasp.”
“All right, no crying in your beer.” He slaps me over the shoulder. “You’ve had a relationship.” My stomach knots up when he uses the past tense. “It’s the art of holding on that’s eluding you.”
“Dude, be quiet while you’re ahead.” I refocus my attention on the chaos erupting on the girls’ side of the fence.
“Don’t get uptight over it.” Brody leans in. “Some chicks don’t want to be penned in.”
“And neither do some guys.” I slap him over the arm. “And that, my friend, is why you will never get married.”
Lex struts over in haste, her cheeks pinched pink, her mouth pouting while she glares my way. “Wipe that grin off your face. This is all your fault. I will not traipse down the aisle with you this Saturday or any day thereafter. Not as a bridesmaid, never as a bride.” The veins in her neck look as if they’re struggling to break free, and her face turns a peculiar shade of plum. “For the record, I have no intention of setting foot in this place ever again after the wedding. You’d better have my last check ready to go. After they say I do, I say I quit. You will grow old alone, Axel Collins. You will rot in that legal firm, on your decaying leather throne without anybody by your side—counting your shekels like a miser—just like your father.” Her eyes spear mine with something just this side of hatred, and my heart bleeds out with the laceration. The room grows strangely qui
et as the tension pollutes the air, thick and smothering. Lex turns abruptly and wastes no time in speeding out of the banquet hall.
I take a step after her, and both Low and Raven block my path.
Low growls, “Oh no, you don’t, lover boy! The last thing I need is for her to mow you down before my big day. I need my bridesmaid sans a felony assault charge and a groomsman who’s not in traction!”
I step right, and Raven blocks me. “Be warned—that girl is rumored to have the ability to perform a sex change in a parking lot, and you’re not only the wrong sex, but that lot out there happens to be her favorite place to perform the elective surgery.”
“I’ll take my chances.” I dodge past the wedding planner, and she tosses an armful of tulle and paper flowers into the air, rife with exasperation.
I thread my way past the crowd in the restaurant and burst out into the fresh Hollow Brook night, sprayed with stars and a low hung moon. It’s clear there’s hope for any romantic on a magical night like this.
A black Range Rover comes close to clipping me as Lex barrels out of the lot. She won’t listen. There’s no way she’s stopping for me.
Lex might be stubborn to a fault, but then, so am I.
I’ve got an ace up my sleeve that will land us in the same room at the same time, and she will damn well have to listen to what I have to say.
I hope.
I drop to my knees and tip my head toward the glowing night sky.
“If anyone up there is open to performing a miracle or two, send them my way. God knows I need them.”
A Night to Remember
Lex
Whoever said you need to be heartless to protect yourself forgot that other people can be heartless, too. It hurts even more when you’ve gifted your heart to that very person. From here on out, gifting a vital organ to another human being is nothing short of a cardinal sin in my book.
Axel sent a text this morning, something about a meeting at Collins and Associates. He said my presence was required if I wanted to retain rights to my company.
Retain rights? They were swiped right from under me by none other than Axel himself. I bet it’s been a ploy all along—some far-reaching scheme to get me back in his bed and then get back at me in general.
This afternoon, Shep stopped by, and as soon as I saw his Axel Collins’ lookalike face, I hightailed it into my bedroom. But Shep stayed an entire hour convincing Raven and Low to ship me off to that meeting. No sooner did Shep take off than Low and Raven began on their henpecking routine.
You’ll regret it if you don’t go! cried one. This is a game of legal hopscotch you can’t afford not to play! the other screeched. And on and on the nagging went until I pressed my feet into my stilettos, grabbed Poppy, and plowed through the bourgeoning zoo of protesters as I hopped into Frank and sped all the way to Jepson.
Collins and Associates is a tall, phallic structure that spears into the Jepson skyline as if to say there is no bigger dick than a Collins. And my God, they have that right.
I bolt inside the steel-infested facility, ice-cold and impersonal. Sounds about right. I take the elevator to the thirty-seventh floor, the way Shep instructed, and land in a spacious place with sleek wood floors and posh glass-walled offices that line the entire right half of the building.
Axel steps out of a mahogany door and straightens as if I had reached ten feet across and slapped him.
“You came.” His eyes widen with amazement.
“I came for what’s mine. I’ll give you a hint. It’s not you.” I step over to him, and he leads us to the next room, an elongated boardroom with a dark wood table long enough to land a 747 on.
“I’m hoping after you hear the facts, you’ll change your mind,” he says it so low I wonder if he meant for me to hear it after all.
A tall man, who looks suspiciously like Axel himself, tired and older, steps in and nods my way as he takes a seat at the head of the table. Teagan scrambles in with a nervous wave, and Shep is close behind her.
“It’s the guest of honor.” He offers up a partial embrace before taking a seat, and Axel holds out a seat for me to do the same.
I scoff at his sudden urge to morph into the perfect gentleman and pull out a seat on my own. No sooner do I plant myself in it than the blonde bimbo herself skips on in, reeking of cheap jungle gardenia, her lips carnation pink.
Abby gasps as soon as she gets a whiff of the vengeance I’m exuding and does her best to backtrack right where she came from.
“Not so fast.” Axel shuts the door and seals the exit with his body. “You entered into a binding agreement with my father’s firm. I think you of all people need to be here for this.”
She sucks in a quick breath. Her fingers tap over her lips as if Axel just drove the fear of God into her, and he might have. God knows he should have.
Abby sashays over and plucks down in the seat across from me, safely out of eye scratching range, but I’m betting I can hock a loogie across the table and nail a false eyelash or two. I’ll blind her momentarily before I tackle her to the floor and yank out her hair extensions.
Axel sits next to me, so close that the right side of my body erupts with the warmth of this body. His spiced cologne calls to me like an old expensive friend, and I fight the urge to lean in toward him.
He looks to both Abby and me in turn and offers an amicable nod. “Everyone present has been filled in on the fact the Epicurean Elite as a legal entity was the brainchild of Lex Maxfield. Abby, before you relinquish your rights, I’d like for you to give a statement on why you felt the need to steal someone else’s dream from under them.”
“What?” She sits up straight, as if someone just stuck a pin in her thigh. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding. I was so excited to share my new endeavor with Collins Enterprises it didn’t occur to me until an hour before the meeting that my brainchild, the company I’ve been working on for years, didn’t have a name. And as fate or misfortune would have it”—she takes a moment to glare over at me—“a name popped right into my head just like that.” She gives the snap of her fingers. “I must have forgotten all about the fact you rattled off the exact same name just days prior. But I assure you, it was nothing more than a case of nerves.” Her upper lip quivers as if she’s about to go rabid, and a dull laugh rattles from me.
Just make my day, Blondie. Go ahead and snarl that lip once more. I snarl right back and then some.
Shep holds out a hand. “Easy, ladies. We just want to get to the bottom of things.”
Mr. Collins clears his throat. “Abby, remind me again of what your version of the Epicurean Elite hopes to accomplish—mind you I have the proposal you submitted in my hands.” He tips his head with a silent fatherly warning. No lying. But too bad for her because that lying bitch doesn’t stand a chance.
I take in a quick breath at my own rule bending. Oh hell, Abby Wilcox is a lying bitch all day long, and there simply isn’t a nicer way to put it.
“My company”—she says ma instead of my, pulling out all the stops on her Southern manipulative charm—“is designed to…” She looks to the ceiling a moment. “To inspire people to try different foods,” she says it sure as a clock with no hands. Her eyes flit to mine as if pleading for assistance. “Um, it’s a feedback sort of thing. I’m pretty sure it’s all in there.” She points to the file in his hands. “The tension in this room has my nerves jingle-jangled. I’m the owner of that company—we can call it whatever you like. The important thing is that we go forth with a fruitful endeavor. And I will do whatever it takes to make a name for myself.”
A smile cinches to my lips. “As evidenced by the fact you’d steal from me. Admit it, Wiley Wilcox. You had no fresh idea of your own, so you swiped the best one around—mine.”
“That’s laughable.” She slaps her hands together as if she were confident of the fact, and something about her bravado unnerves me.
“And you, Ms. Maxfield?” Mr. Collins leans in. I dated Axel fo
r an entire year and never met his father. His mother a handful of times, same with Teagan and Shep—Emilia and I were close toward the end, but this man was an enigma, who was too busy holing up in his office to be a part of his son’s life. And now, ironically, my life is in his hands.
“The Epicurean Elite has been my baby for the last five years. When I started out as a food critic working for Food Crack Nation, I knew that a job with a ceiling was no place for me. I had bigger dreams than settling for a nine-to-five with a mediocre salary and a mediocre name. My company”—I take a moment to glare at the blonde thief—“is far more than simply a place to leave your thoughts on your latest not-so greatest meal. It’s a place where the lay can visit to see what the pros think of the food game at the local pubs and clubs. The Epicurean Elite will have a vetted team of nutritionists, food critics, and well-curated food lovers who are able to leave a review for any and every establishment they like. Instead of heading to Yelp for Help and reading the drivel of countless yahoos on why their dinner was late, the reader will discover quality food and where to get it—or where to avoid it at all costs. This isn’t a glass room. The gloves will come off if they have to. And beyond the initial food critiques, my site will encompass news and reviews published by myself and others I choose to employ, as well as recipes to my favorite dishes, a travel section, a special segmented arena for vegan and gluten-free—not to mention the pictorials. I’m talking food pornography at its finest. You may not come hungry when you land on the site, but you will be salivating with love-struck eyes by the time you leave.”