Meg Maguire - The Wedding Fling

Look what people are saying about this talented new author’s first Blaze ®book, CAUGHT ON CAMERA!

“I literally could not stop reading this book. I ignored

my children as they pleaded with me to serve them

food and beverages. I ignored my weenie dog who was

whining to go outside to do her business. I refused to

do the laundry, pay the bills, or answer the phone. I

inhaled this book from cover to cover.”

—Penelope’s Romance Reviews

“4½ stars. [A] spectacular Blaze ®debut.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Ms Maguire can sure write a kick-ass love scene.”

—Cheeky Reads

“I loved this story and instantly fell in love

with both characters.”

—Night Owl Reviews

Before becoming a writer, MEG MAGUIREworked as a record store snob, a lousy barista, a decent designer and an overenthusiastic penguin handler. Now she loves writing sexy, character-driven stories about strong-willed men and women who keep each other on their toes… and bring one another to their knees. Meg lives north of Boston with her husband. When she’s not trapped in her own head she can be found in the kitchen, the coffee shop or jogging around the nearest duck-filled pond.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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With thanks to Amy, Ruthie and Serena,

for reading it first. Thanks also to Laura

for getting me on the plane, and to Brenda for landing

us with minimal turbulence. Biggest thanks of all to my

husband, bringer of peanut butter.

LEIGH MADE A NEST in the rumpled sheets of her hotel room bed, arranging a napkin, spoon and peanut butter jar before her. She unscrewed the lid and set it aside, plunging the spoon deep to coat its back. As she savored the first taste, her anxiety dulled, worries temporarily forgotten.

She looked at the television, where two nattering entertainment anchors discussed the latest Hollywood wedding.

“The big question, of course, is the dress. After that taffeta fiasco at the Golden Globes, I know we’re all holding our breath.”

The anchors disappeared, replaced by a still of the sequined dress in question. Leigh frowned. She liked that dress. She jabbed her spoon back into the jar, barely tasting the next hundred calories’ worth of comfort as she licked it clean.

“Then again, that Grammy dress was a solid A,” one host said.

“Absolutely,” his perky colleague agreed. “When she gets it right, she nails it.”

Leigh watched the footage of the demure young woman on the red carpet pausing for photos, looking so calm and happy. Makeup flawless, styled hair bouncing, golden highlights glinting with each camera flash. Must be nice to be the girl on TV.

Stretching her legs in front of her, Leigh wondered what the media would make of her pajamas’ holly-and-ivy pattern in April. Then she looked to the jar in her hand and realized she probably had worse faux pas to worry about.

“Now, Leigh Bailey might be Hollywood’s last good girl, but what do we think? White dress?”

Simpering laughter. “She may be scandal-proof, but she is marrying a musician, let’s not forget that.”

Across the room, Leigh’s phone chimed, her mom’s ring tone triggering a fresh stab of panic that broke the peanut butter’s spell. She scrambled from the tangle of covers, gooey spoon landing on the white duvet. “Crap.” But this was L.A. The housekeeping staff had surely seen far worse.

She padded to the bureau and hit Talk. “Hi, Ma.”

“Leigh, where are you?”

“I’m eating peanut butter in bed, watching tabloid shows.”

“Honey.” A sigh, equal parts fond and frustrated; her mother to a tee. “The fitter’s already here in the suite. It’s nine-thirty.”

“I know what time it is.”

“And she’s the best in town, but you shouldn’t eat that garbage hours before you’re going to be seen in a fitted satin sheath by half the city. People will say you’re pregnant.”

It was Leigh’s turn to sigh. She turned to the TV in time to catch footage of herself in a bikini.

“Those shots from Maui,” the anchor was saying.

“She’s never looked better,” his partner concurred.

Leigh smiled drily. Lovely. Two weeks with the violent stomach bug that exiled her to the bathroom for most of her vacation… but she’d never looked better! She glanced longingly at the jar on her bed.

“Leigh?”

“Yeah?”

“When, honey?”

“I need to shower. Twenty minutes?”

“Twenty minutes, but twenty minutes. Not thirty, not an hour. We need the fitting done by eleven, before the makeup and hair people arrive. Then the photographers—”

“I’ll be there.”

“This isn’t some premiere, Leigh Bailey. It’s your wedding day.” Ah, the patented maternal use of the full name. The big guns were coming out.

“The day I should be in flip-flops and a sundress, in Grandma’s backyard,” Leigh said, frustration making her sound bitter. Making her sound distinctly like her mother. “I wanted a barbecue. I wanted you and Dad and Cody there, and Dan’s family. I didn’t want eight hundred people I barely even know, at some gigantic estate.” Funny how the guests had multiplied, the locale shifted and the budget exploded as Leigh’s day had morphed from a cookout to a circus, in six months flat.

The ringmaster went on. “It doesn’t work that way when you’re a star, honey.”

“I’m not a star, Ma. I’m just some girl who’s always in the magazines. I haven’t been in a movie in two years.”

“That’s not what it’s about these days. What channel are you watching?”

“Fifty-one.”

“Us, too. And who’s the main story?”

“Me.” Glancing again to the bedspread, she wondered idly if it was possible to OD on peanut butter. She imagined a team of burly EMTs crashing through the door to find her slumped with a spoon dangling from her mouth, TV droning, bed and carpet littered with empty jars.

“Following an apparent cry-for-help binge, Leigh Bailey was found unconscious the morning of her wedding from an alleged peanut butter overdose. Doctors administered grape jelly intravenously, and the actress is now listed in stable condition. The wedding has been postponed until further notice.”

Her mother burst through the daydream. “Leigh?”

“Sorry, what?”

“I said you are a star, honey. And I know you wanted to keep things simple, but think about Dan. Dan wants all this.”

“He didn’t before.” A queasy gurgle soured Leigh’s stomach. Dan did want all this, the circus. She sometimes wondered which woman her fiancé saw her as—the one on TV having her clothes and waistline critiqued, or the one in her pj’s. Dan used to be her anchor, keeping her grounded amid the chaos, but small changes over two years had added up. A new apartment, wardrobe, a new collection of opinions about which restaurants they could or couldn’t go to. Just like the mutant wedding, their relationship had changed, its modifications too incremental to spot without hindsight.