Eve Devon - The Wedding Planner

‘It will still be our choice,’ Jake said, handily ignoring Gloria’s contribution to their wedding planning. ‘Mine and Emma’s, what we spend on our wedding.’

‘But wouldn’t it be great if you had more choice than you thought? Look,’ he paused, drew in a breath and managed to hold back on the frustration. ‘Just be around tonight – both of you – so that I can run my idea past you. Okay?’

‘Fine.’

Seth didn’t know what Jake saw in his eyes to finally have him backing down, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know if it happened to be desperation, so he turned around and headed back to his room to get dressed, pausing only when Jake said casually, ‘Hey? Return the favour for me and make sure you’re around tomorrow evening?’

‘Tomorrow?’ Seth automatically turned around.

‘For dinner. It’s what I came up to ask you. We’re celebrating.’

‘We are?’

Jake’s grin was ironic. ‘Well, Gloria has now set the date!’

Seth

‘… So looking at the income versus the amount of time the crew would be on-site,’ Seth murmured, sitting on top of the gate and pointing with his imaginary pointer to his imaginary screen.

At the ensuing silence Seth turned back to look out over the paddocks of the last tenanted farm on Knightley Hall land. With not a cloud in the sky and the grass holding onto the last of its green after the spate of hot summer days, it was easier to picture the positive look on Jake’s face when Seth explained why allowing a film company to film at Knightley Hall could only be a good thing.

But then the double-guessing kicked in. ‘Maybe instead of a pie chart, it should be a Gant chart? What do you think, Old Girl?’ he asked, and promptly received a moo back from Gertrude, his favourite Friesian in Felix’s herd. ‘I had you up until “Old Girl”, didn’t I?’ Seth asked with a grin. After moving back to Knightley Hall and bumping into Gertrude it hadn’t taken long to remember the cow had a penchant for wandering around. She was the nosiest resident in Whispers Wood and preferred listening to the problems of humans over the more generalist mooing from her herd.

Looking at him now, she mooed again, clearly calling disdain on his moniker of ‘Old Girl’.

‘Okay,’ Seth said decisively. ‘I’m going to pull the charts from the presentation. Let’s face it Jake isn’t impressed by a chart unless it contains a weather report or the pH levels of the surrounding soil.’

With a glance at his watch and wishing he felt as confident as he sounded, he hopped off the five-bar gate, gave Gertrude a quick pat and a ‘Good chat,’ and vaulted back over the gate to head on over to the clock house.

Ten minutes later he stepped onto the village green. Pulling his messenger bag across his body, he opened the main flap, peered inside and then lifted his head in disappointment. All the chat about pie charts with Gertrude had made him hungry but he’d forgotten to grab some food.

Then, as if his appetite had conjured the perfect amuse-bouche , he spotted her.

Gloria Pavey.

Sitting under his favourite tree.

Well, the tree he’d fallen out of more times than he cared to remember at any rate, mostly after rescuing various kittens, balls, and on one memorable occasion, Crispin Harlow’s wig. Don’t worry, no animals, wigs, or balls (either sort) were harmed during these falls.

He watched as Gloria brought a big, juicy red apple up to her lips and immediately illuminated in his head like one of those de rigueur lit message boxes everyone thought were super-cute but were really just annoying because there was never enough space to write a phrase proper, flashed the words: Behold! Here Lies Pure Tempt—

His stomach rumbled in agreement and he got all confused about the amount of French words he was suddenly using.

He had a feeling Gloria could make grown men speak in tongues, but French?

As he crossed the green towards her, he reminded himself the key to sustaining his friendship with her was to enjoy how their flirtatious personalities butted enticingly up against each other, while taking care not to cross a line she’d be able to tease him about forever.

He glanced at the apple again. Yep, it wasn’t like he’d been christened Adam. He wasn’t doing temptation at the moment. He was only doing friendship.

‘Well don’t you look adorbs sitting under my tree, reading,’ he called out and had to bite his lip to stop the grin from appearing as she fumbled the book she was reading and looked up at him.

Actually glared would be a much more fitting description.

Had he mentioned her eyes?

They were the colour of sea-green glass and could cool you down quicker than a cold shower or heat you up faster than a laser beam. Stunning and mesmerising in equal measure, they could observe a scene in a second, judge in a nano, and hand down a sentence with one perfectly-timed blink.

They could also twinkle.

Sparkle.

Beckon.

‘Adorbs?’ she spluttered. ‘ Adorbs? ’ With a look of utter disgust, she added, ‘get away from me Purloiner of Tween Words.’

Now his mouth did split into a happy grin. There was just something so soul-lifting-satisfying about riling her.

She was never going to believe she really did look adorable with the sun catching the auburn streaks in her hair, serenity vying for concentration on her face as she read her book.

Gloria didn’t often look at peace. Maybe when she stared at her daughter sometimes. But other than that, what she usually looked was ready to do battle. Lip-Sync Battle, Battle Rap, Battleship. Basically any kind of let’s-do-this battle.

It used to be she’d battle her own shadow along with everyone else and their shadows. These days she chose more wisely and battled mostly for those who couldn’t. Making her, in his humble opinion, charmingly righteous.

‘Language is for anyone and everyone to use,’ he replied. ‘If it wasn’t, you’d be in breach of copyright for every combination of swear word a sailor or trooper ever came up with.’

She scowled up at him. ‘Does Beth use word contractions like,’ she stopped, shuddered and declared, ‘no, I won’t say it again.’

For a moment he had no clue who she was referring to, and then with an embarrassed sweep of his hand to the back of his neck, remembered Beth was the name of the girl he’d been talking to in the bar all evening, a few nights before.

‘Ah. Sweet Beth,’ he murmured. Truthfully, sweet Beth was so saccharine she set his teeth on edge. She certainly didn’t challenge him or appeal to his sense of humour or engage his brain like … he looked at Gloria …

Steady.

… other women he knew.

Now was not the time to allow the stress of getting Jake to recognise he’d be an asset to the Hall to mess with his head. He might have been impulsive over the years but never self-destructive.

Maybe it was only natural to feel drawn to someone the complete opposite of his now ex-wife, Joanne.

Or not.

There was nothing like signing your name on a legal document to inform the opinion that you didn’t need to team up with anyone for life to still be all right.

‘She’s not for you, you know,’ Gloria said, before raising the apple to her mouth and taking another bite out of it.

‘Not for me?’ His gaze zoomed in without his permission to study the way she chewed sexily on the flesh of the apple.

Nope.

He gave himself a mental slap upside the head.

Thoughtfully .

He watched her chew thoughtfully before she swallowed and added, ‘Think about it … If you became “exclusive”, your “ship name” would be either “Seth” or “Beth”. How could Whispers Wood possibly invest in that?’