Jennifer McKenzie - Not Another Wedding

“I was not stalking him.” Beck was the stalker. She was merely a concerned friend.

“Looked like you were stalking him.” He eyed her thoughtfully. Poppy reminded her overheated brain she did not find him appealing. Not one little bit. “Or do you often follow men to the washroom?”

“Okay, no. That’s gross, and why do you care what I want to talk to him about? Or have you and he suddenly become best buds?” Jamie didn’t talk about it much, but she knew he and Beck weren’t close as adults. According to Jamie, Beck had distanced himself from the rest of the family after his parents divorced.

“I care.”

Poppy looked into his eyes, those dark eyes that hid all his secrets, and lifted her chin. “I don’t believe you.”

“Let me convince you.”

She had an idea his convincing would lead to making out somewhere and divesting her of all her undergarments. Been there, done that. “Get me some alone time with Jamie. Private. Just the two of us.”

“And what do I get out of it?” He’d shifted and his words tickled her ear again.

“The pride of knowing you did the right thing.”

He laughed again. “Nice try, Red.”

“My hair is not red as you well know.” And if he thought otherwise, he obviously needed glasses. “Fine, if you won’t help me out of the goodness of your heart or because you care about your cousin, then what do you want?”

“Brunch.”

She blinked. “You want me to feed you?” She didn’t do a lot of cooking, but she was confident she could throw together a breakfast. Especially if it got her what she wanted. “Done,” she said quickly before he added a rider to the demand, like she had to serve him wearing a French maid’s outfit. Or nothing at all.

“No, I want you to have brunch with me on Sunday. With the whole family.” He placed a hand on the wall, preventing her from going anywhere.

“Why?” What game was he playing? And why was she considering joining in?

“You want to talk to Jamie, don’t you? It’s a family brunch. He’ll be there.”

She faltered, confused. “What does brunch have to do with any of this?”

He leaned down as though imparting a secret. He smelled like soap and leather. She tried not to inhale. “My mother has this insane idea of setting me up with Emmy’s sister, Grace. You’d be running interference.”

“At the brunch.”

“Yes.” He brushed the hair off her neck.

She should push him away, should give him a lecture about personal space and appropriate behavior when reuniting with an ex, but instead she enjoyed the moment. Shameful, but true.

Maybe there was something to the claims constantly championed by Wynn and Cami that she needed to get back into the dating scene. Surely, she wouldn’t be having this reaction had she not been single for the past ten months.

“So you can act as a buffer—” she loved his voice, always had “—and I’ll make sure you get a chance to speak with Jamie.”

“Wait.” Poppy swam through the fog corrupting her thought process. “If Emmy’s sister is going to be at the brunch, won’t Emmy be around too?”

“The whole family,” Beck confirmed.

“And how exactly do you propose to get me a private conversation with Jamie?”

“I’ll find a way.” He played with the ends of her hair and Poppy had to grit her teeth to prevent the sweet shudder from overwhelming her. “Think of it as a business proposition.”

“A business proposition.” She stared at him.

“One that’s advantageous for both of us.”

“Advantageous for you, maybe. I come to this family brunch and you what? ‘Find a way’ to give Jamie and me a few minutes together? What’s going to keep you to holding up your end of the bargain?”

“You don’t trust me?”

“Why should I?” What had he ever done to earn her trust? Nothing, that’s what. A big fat nothing. “No, Beck. I think I’ll take my chances and handle this on my own.” She started to walk away.

“It won’t work,” he called after her.

Her footsteps slowed. How was she going to invite Jamie out for lunch and tell him his fiancée wasn’t invited without offending him? Quick answer? She wasn’t.

She stopped, turned to face Beck, ignoring his smirk. “You promise to get us some alone time?”

He crossed the space between them. Even though she wore heels, high ones, he towered over her. “Cross my heart.” He reached a hand toward her.

She swatted it away. “You’re supposed to cross on your own heart.” And tried to ignore the fact that hers now chugged like a freight train.

“So we have a deal?”

She swallowed and nodded. “Deal.”

“Good.”

Neither of them moved and for a minute, one long, steamy minute, Poppy felt certain he was going to kiss her and equally certain she was going to let him.

Everything slowed except her pulse. She remembered his kisses. How they used to make her head spin and her body ache for more. She wanted one now. Just one. Nothing would have to change. Her lips parted.

And Beck pushed away from her. “I’ll pick you up at eleven.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“YOU’RE BRINGING SOMEONE to brunch?” His mother’s voice rose slightly. “A date?”

Beck shrugged and turned back to his laptop. His mother had love on the brain. As usual. A woman who’d been married four times, and twice to the same man—his father—clearly thought about love on a regular basis. Too bad she didn’t put as much thought into who she decided to marry, seeing as she’d also been divorced four times.

He didn’t bother to respond to her query. It was early Sunday morning, a few hours before everyone was due to arrive for brunch, and he’d been sitting at the kitchen table innocently doing some work when his mother barged in under the guise of bringing him some flowers. Like he cared about a bouquet of flowers.

“Beck? Is this a date?”

He shrugged again. It wasn’t not a date. But he and Poppy hadn’t gotten into specifics. If he’d pushed, he was pretty sure she would have changed her mind about attending and he needed her.

Just before he’d dropped his little guest bomb, his mother had made a sly comment about seating Grace next to him at the table. Beck didn’t mind if his mother got her own hopes up only to have them dashed—she’d be bringing that on herself. But he wasn’t comfortable with her getting someone else’s feelings involved.

Grace might be a bit sheltered, but she didn’t deserve to have her head filled with nonsense about how Beck was waiting for the right woman to come along.

He wasn’t waiting for anyone.

“Well.” She clapped her hands together. Oh, yeah. She definitely had flowers, gowns and seating plans spinning through her mind. “I’m pleased to hear it.”

He’d known his mother would behave like this, which was why he’d avoided telling her about his guest. That and the fact that he hadn’t wanted to hunt her down at the big house where his parents were probably mooning over each other. So he’d barricaded himself in the guesthouse.

It wasn’t as if he was hiding. Not exactly. He had a lot of work to do. Firing off emails to his lawyer and real estate agent, keeping in touch with the management at the five other properties the Lefebvre Group owned and drawing up a budget for the proposed renovation once the hotel purchase was completed.

This was the first project he’d be running single-handedly since this was the first hotel they’d acquired in a decade. Under his father’s leadership, the company had maintained its status as purveyors of elegant boutique hotels for the luxury market, but Beck wanted more. To grow the Lefebvre brand into a global vision.

Assuming his mother let him get anything done.