Eve Devon - The Wedding Planner

He grinned and she was reminded he was the cause of her not being able to sleep last night on account of endlessly asking herself what the hell had been the deal with the apple and the oral play yesterday? Honestly, it had been one step away from tying the apple stalk into a knot with his tongue and her heart did a juvenile skipping-a-beat thing every time she thought about it.

He’d completely messed with her circadian rhythm, getting all x-rated eating habits with her like that. Was it any wonder she’d kicked a cow when she was down?

‘I live here, remember?’ he offered.

‘Right.’ Why hadn’t she thought about that and why, she now thought suspiciously, hadn’t he mentioned he’d be here when she’d told him she’d been summoned to dinner? The very last thing she needed was for him to see her being given the, ‘It’s not me, it’s definitely you,’ speech.

She made a shooing motion with her hand. ‘Well, skedaddle. Go find Beth or someone. This is not an episode of “You’re Fired”. I’m not going to give you an interview afterwards.’

‘Don’t worry. If it comes to it, I’ll put in a good word for you,’ he said amiably.

She gave him a little side-eye. Him being here like he wanted to provide her with some friendly support – like he knew she was maybe struggling with what was about to go down – had her heart pitter-pattering at a level she was worried might actually require medical assistance. ‘No thank you.’ She did a passable example of a sweet smile and carried on up to the main door. ‘I’m quite capable of fighting my own battles and if I needed help the very last person I would pick would be you.’

‘What’s wrong with me?’

‘Apart from the fact that you can’t be serious for longer than five minutes?’

‘I can do serious. I can do very serious, when I put my mind to it,’ he added, his voice deepening so that it did very serious things to her heart rhythm again.

Putting the sexual twist on his gravelly voice down to some weird side-effect of her man-ban made it so much easier to ignore. Not.

And of course she knew he could do serious. It was the fact that others couldn’t that made her so mad sometimes.

‘Loving the subliminal messaging by the way,’ he told her.

She stopped a couple of steps from the heavy double arched doors. Was that a reference to the apple stuff yesterday? Did he think her body was somehow transmitting ‘Eat me’ signals?

Holy hell.

Her heart was now thudding in a way that gave every impression it had been borrowed from a hard-living, hard-drinking, sex, drugs and rock and roll body tasked with completing a Joe Wicks style workout on the village green.

Every instinct had her wanting to bring her hand up to her chest to try and ease the crazy pounding inside but there was no way she’d give Seth the chance to know he’d affected her so she breathed in sharply, held it while she started counting and then tried to ease it back out surreptitiously.

What came out sounded more like a hiss.

She felt like she was going to full-on die.

Outstanding.

First she was going to die and then she was going to be fired from bridesmaid duties.

Persephone was going to be so mad at her.

Seth gave her a weird look and then with a nod to her chest, clarified, ‘What I mean is, I’m glad to see you’re rocking the humility look this evening.’

Gloria stared down at her chest, fully expecting to see a cartoon heart moving her shirt in and out. Instead she looked down and saw what he’d actually been referring to.

Crap.

Even reading upside down the Relax! Don’t Do It 80s slogan white silk t-shirt, which she’d teamed with navy cigarette trousers and tan leather brogues, the phrase screamed the very opposite of humility.

She wanted to pout and tell him that she didn’t get out much, so what did she know about what to wear up to the Big House.

His grin getting wider he added, ‘You had me a little worried yesterday but I’m pleased you’re not approaching this lying down.’

‘Shows what you know. Inside I’m completely supine and approaching this evening like a friend who’s done something stupid and is prepared to accept the consequences.’

‘Wardrobe didn’t get the memo, then?’

Gloria sighed. She had deliberately asked Persephone if she’d looked all right before she’d dropped her off at Bob’s for the night and her daughter had done her usual full Queer Eye assessment and declared her fit to go. Admittedly Gloria hadn’t asked ‘Does this outfit scream, “Don’t fire me” when she’d presented herself at her daughter’s bedroom door because Perse was too excited her mum was going out for the evening like a ‘regular person’.

Turning around she made to walk away.

‘Hey, where are you going?’ Seth asked.

‘I’m going home to change,’ she muttered.

‘No way. Go with your first instinct, brazen it out with the t-shirt, man-up and fight for not being fired as a bridesmaid.’

‘I’m not begging for a seat at the table, Seth.’ But she chewed on her bottom lip, not wanting to acknowledge her first instinct and what it might mean, because aside from the humiliation of being fired, it at least meant she’d no longer have to be bridesmaid, right?

He coughed out a word that sounded suspiciously like ‘Coward’ and that was all it took for her to reach forward and press the doorbell.

As the chimes echoed behind the oak carved doors, Seth whispered in her ear, ‘What are you doing?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘I’m using the traditionally accepted method of letting the house-owner know of my arrival.’

‘Or,’ he said, pushing open the door, ‘you could simply come on in.’

‘Wait.’ She reached out to forestall him. ‘I’m not ready.’ Inhaling deep, she shook back her hair, shrugged her shoulders up and down a couple of times and then, swift as you like, punched him lightly on the arm. ‘That was for calling me a coward. Okay,’ she grinned when his mouth dropped open. ‘Now, I’m ready.’

They stepped across the threshold together and out of the side of his mouth he whispered, ‘Anyone ever mention you can be brutal?’

Her grin widened, and she batted her eyelashes. ‘You say that like it’s a bad thing.’

‘You’re here,’ Emma came out of a room and crossed the hallway, looking nervous. ‘Jake?’ she called out. ‘Gloria and Seth are here.’

Gloria wanted to remind Emma that Seth lived here and so there was absolutely no need to imply they’d arrived together, but Emma was turning and indicating they follow her so she kept her mouth shut and looked around curiously.

It was the first time she’d been invited into Knightley Hall.

When she’d been younger she’d often fantasised about living in a place like this, or, if you want to get technical, she’d fantasized specifically about living in this place. The Tudor mansion, with its regimented yew hedges presiding protectively over it every winter and then transforming into cosy romance in summer when the heavily-scented bowers of wisteria covering the black beams burst into bloom.

Whatever the season, it had one huge temptation to her growing up.

Space.

Not the final frontier.

More the square footage.

There’d not been even half a square foot to be on her own in the two-up two-down rundown farmer’s cottage she’d lived in growing up. Small on the inside, small on the outside, it had nevertheless felt like a giant advert for her family’s struggles and she’d been convinced a beautiful sprawling house like the one she was now standing in couldn’t hold any ugliness inside its walls. It commanded status both in the village and the surrounding area and hadn’t that been what she’d craved back then, along with the kind of longevity and stability it also represented.