Page 42 of The Secret to a Southern Wedding

She wanted to know more about him. His story about hanging out with the men in his family had piqued her curiosity. Not because she wanted to dig up more information on him. She was genuinely interested in knowing more about him. She wanted to know what made him smile, laugh, and get that warm and gooey tone in his voice. She liked that tone. It made her want to get warm and gooey in his arms.

Which was exactly why she was going to let him change the subject. “Yeah. I’m wondering how much work you actually need from me.”

“Not much really. Miriam made things seem more involved than they need to be. I’ll email all the guild members and ask who’s participating and if they’ll have a theme. Then if anyone has a similar theme, I’ll connect them to each other. They really didn’t have to rope you into this.”

Imani placed a hand over her heart, relieved. “Oh, good. For a second I thought this was going to be a lot of work on top of all the wedding stuff.”

“There’s not much left to do for the wedding. We just have to finalize the details. It isn’t that far away.”

It wasn’t that far away. She also wasn’t making much progress in getting her mom to consider postponing the wedding. The festival was a way for Imani and Cyril to get to know each other, but as much as she wanted to get to know him she also wasn’t there to get distracted from her true goal.

She shrugged. “There’s always more things to consider.” Like decide if her mom was rushing things and if she should still try and stop the wedding.

“There isn’t much work for the wedding, but I wasn’t ready to get involved in planning the festival,” Cyril said. “St. Patrick’s Day isn’t a holiday I get excited about.”

She laughed. “Really?”

He raised a brow. “You say that as if you’re into St. Patrick’s Day?”

“I mean, I’m not going to die my hair green or anything, but I do enjoy a good St. Patrick’s Day parade.”

He shook his head. “I’m glad you didn’t say that in the meeting. Otherwise, the guild would do a—”

“Do you think they’ll want to have a parade before the festival?” she asked, kind of excited about the idea.

Cyril held up a hand. “Stop it. We’ve got enough on our hands with a wedding and promoting the businesses decorating for the festival. Let’s not add parade to the list.”

Imani sighed but agreed. “I love parades, but I’ll admit I’m probably not the best person to organize one. I’m good with helping out with anything you need to coordinate the decorations.”

“So, you’re big into parades, huh?” he asked.

She grinned. “I am. Seeing the floats, and the way people dress up their vehicles and throw out candy. They’re so much fun. And when there’s a vendor there, they typically sell fair food, and I am a sucker for a good corn dog.”

“Yeah, I know,” he deadpanned.

She narrowed her eyes. “If that tone is because of the mustard incident, we both agreed to move past that.”

“I may have moved past it, but my shirt hasn’t.”

Imani moved closer and examined the beer on the table. “Well too bad. The statute of limitations has passed on me replacing your shirt.”

Playful laughter danced in his eyes as he drew nearer. “So me and my shirt are just SOL, huh?”

She shrugged and grinned. “Pretty much.”

“What if I still want some type of compensation for my loss.” He turned to face her.

Imani tilted her head to the side and raised a brow. “What kind of compensation would you want?”

“I don’t know.” He placed a hand against his chest. “I’ll have to think about what it’ll take to make me and my shirt feel better.”

She rolled her eyes but grinned. “When you think of it don’t bother to let me know because I can’t help you.”

He made a face as if she’d wounded him. “You’re a coldhearted woman.”

“I can heat up when I want to.” The teasing words were spoken softly with way more innuendo than she’d intended.

Desire flashed in his dark eyes. “And I would love to see you all nice and warm.” His voice dipped to levels that were dangerous to her libido.

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