Kathleen O'Reilly - The Longest Night

“I’m not going,” he shot back, now sadly realizing that all hope of the fantasy replaying was gone.

She pulled her face into one long frowning line of disapproval. It was a look that he never fully appreciated until he’d cut through a camel market in his travels abroad. Definite similarities. “You have to go. You promised me.”

“I said I would think about it. I did. No.” He looked around the room. “God, I need coffee. Where’s my coffee?”

“It’s in your kitchen. For heaven’s sake, wake up.”

Noah glared and then wandered into the kitchen, trying to remember where he kept the coffeepot.

“You have to go,” called Joan from the other room.

Noah put the coffee in the filter, rinsed out the pot, put it on the launchpad and then flipped the switch.

Nothing.

Well, what the—water.

He needed water.

He filled up the coffeepot, poured it through the top grid, then snapped the pot back in place. Happily, the gurgling started.

Eventually there was enough for a cup and he held it to his nose, inhaling the caffeine, letting it soak through his blood.

He wandered back into the living room, taking his first hit. Ah, much better. His blood started moving. He stared at Joan. Why was she here? Oh, yeah. The wedding.

“I have to know how many guests there are, the details of her dress, attendants, if you could get the name of the florist that would be wonderful, too,” she intoned.

That was when he knew she’d read one too many bridal magazines.

“Aren’t you over Spencer? You wanted the divorce. Hell, you’re getting married, and Harry is really nice, by the way. Don’t screw this one up.”

“You think this is about Spencer?”

Noah took another sip of coffee. God, he really didn’t need to have these conversations in the morning. “Yes.”

“It’s about her.”

“Her?”

“Beth,” she said, spitting out the name. “She wants the wedding of the season when I have the rightful claim. No way will she rob me. Spencer always told me, ‘City hall, darling. It’s romantic.’ What does she get? Stained-glass windows by Tiffany and a caterer imported from New York. It’s a war, Noah, and I’m going to win.”

“I’m not going. Goodbye,” he repeated, yet still not awake enough to open the door.

“Please,” she said, using her wheedling tone, a tone she had used when they were little, and he would be the one to inevitably end up in trouble. It still bothered him.

“No.”

“Most of Chicago’s city council will be there, Noah.”

Noah stopped. Okay, that was tempting. He had been trying to get onto the list of bidders for the new transportation project. For fourteen years he’d done construction work overseas, but this would be his first project in the U.S. His first project since he’d come home. “How would you know who’s been invited?”

Joan smiled and lifted an eyebrow. “It only takes one well-greased request to the wedding planner and you’d be surprised what you can find out.”

If it had been any other female, he would have been shocked. Unfortunately, Joan was his sister. His only sister. He knew her good qualities, her bad qualities and her worse qualities.

So, the city council would be there. Alderman Brown, Alderman Showalter and Alderwoman Weller among them. Spencer, aka the groom, covered the city beat for the Herald so it wasn’t a surprise.

“Why don’t you want to go?” asked Joan.

Noah shifted in his seat. “I don’t like weddings,” he said. It was a good answer, but not the right one. He didn’t want to go because he knew exactly who would be there and that worried him.

Not the Chicago city council. Not the state of Illinois’ biggest politicos. No, he was worried about one Cassandra Ward. The Windy City’s original party-girl. Vamp extraordinaire, she could seduce a man with a single look. Breasts like B-32s, but it was her mouth that took on mythical proportions.

He had turned her down once and he wasn’t man enough to do it again.

“The groom is your brother-in-law,” Joan said, ripping him away from thoughts of long, leisurely nights with Cassandra.

“When you divorced him, he officially became not-my-brother-in-law.”

Joan shrugged. “Don’t split hairs. He’s family. You need him.”

What Noah didn’t need was the raging erection he got every time he thought about Cassandra. And then there were the dreams. Wet dreams were supposed to stop with adolescence. Noah blamed it on lack of sex.

There were plenty of women available. All nice, all lookers, but they just didn’t fire his blood. Six months ago Cassandra had ruined him for any other woman. If he saw her again, he’d be ruined for another six months. No woman was worth a full year of celibacy.

Damn.

He sighed, pulled out a tattered copy of the Herald, and pretended to read.

“So?” asked Joan, not taking the hint.

He knew he’d go, but he wasn’t going to tell her yet. Let her worry. Noah wanted to make her pay. He was still ticked off about being woken up because he had really, really wanted to finish that dream.

THE SOLOIST was already singing when he slipped into the back of the chapel. Five minutes late wasn’t so bad. The church was full. Five hundred heads or so, he guessed. Of course, according to Spencer, the bride had been planning this wedding for seventeen years, so it wasn’t that much of a shocker.

The bridesmaids started down the aisle. Some new faces. Some not.

The first was cute and teary-eyed. Behind her was a tall, nervous-looking one in geeky glasses.

The last one was Cassandra.

They had put her in a demure dress, deep maroon, long sleeves, no cleavage. It wouldn’t have mattered. The color made her hair darker, made her eyes more mysterious. She had kept her hair loose, falling in big curls to her waist. God, she could make a man want.

Currently, he wanted. He should have been terrified by the thought. One look in those deep pools of brown and a man turned to stone, or at least the important parts did.

Deliberately, Noah turned away and began to studiously examine the toes of his shoes. He had never been one to run with the pack, instead choosing his own way, and damn if he was just going to be another notch on her lipstick case.

He kept his eyes downcast as she walked past, but he didn’t need to look to remember. He had every curve of that perfect body committed to memory.

Yeah, him and the rest of Chicago.

That was the big drawback to Cassandra. Her body was the sort that haunted men and she was the sort of woman who loved to act on it.

Not that he was going to judge her, but Noah had always been proprietary. What was his, stayed his, and all his life he’d stayed away from the girls who were busy on Friday nights. He knew men who had gotten burned by obsessing over Cassandra. Noah knew better.

He looked up and his hot gaze followed her as she walked down the aisle. But sometimes just knowing better wasn’t enough.

THE RECEPTION was a beautiful thing, with a string quartet and a bubbling champagne fountain. Each table was covered with white daisies. Cassandra smiled from her table located in a back corner. The ceremony had been exquisite—the perfect mix of style and heart. Beth had cried like a baby, exactly like they had all known she would. Beth could be a sentimental fool, but Cassandra always had a soft spot for her anyway.

Mickey made her way across the room and sat down in an empty chair next to Cassandra. Mickey was not nearly as sappy as Beth, although sometimes the brainiac tortoise-shell lenses misted into a soft shade of rose. “What you doing?”

Cassandra pointed to her plate of desserts. “I’m eating my way to exercise class tomorrow.”