Page 96 of The Fiance Dilemma

“It didn’t seem important. Not when you weren’t talking to me.”

My cheeks flushed.

He nudged me with his nose before pulling back to look at me. “Don’t get shy on me when you just used your dress to wipe my fingers off. Not right after I had them deep inside your—”

Matthew’s eyes were no longer on my face. They were somewhere behind me.

“Matthew?”

His brow set. All that lightness gone.

“Hey,” I insisted, trying to turn, but finding my body trapped between his chest and the table. “You’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”

Matthew’s body moved back, making the chair scrape on the floor. He set me on the ground gently, still not looking at me. Then he came to his feet. Blocked me with his body.

“Where’s Bobbi?” he barked. Then louder,“Shark!”

I peeked over his shoulder, scanned the section of street acrossthe window. Something stood out. A guy. Leaning on a car. A backpack at his feet. “Why do you need Bobbi?”

Matthew finally turned, eyes meeting mine, and it was as if his body gravitated toward mine. His arm snaked around my shoulders, and he held me to his chest. “Can you wrap your arms around me?”

I immediately did. “What’s happening?”

“There’s a fucking pap outside,” he said. “And if Bobbi doesn’t deal with him, I swear to God, I’m going to walk out that door and—”

Noise sounded behind us, then Bobbi dashed past. “Stay put!” She barked back, leaving us behind. “You’re not getting your hands on anyone else today, understand? I’m dealing with that!”

Anyone else?

Oh boy.

I didn’t know what was worse. The possibility of that pap having caught me dry humping Matthew’s lap, or the fact that Bobbi knew what we’d been doing up front.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

It was rehearsal weekend—R.W.as Bobbi had been consistently referring to it in emails, texts, calls, and conversation—and the Vasquez Farm was brimming with people.

Last time I’d seen so many workers buzzing around had been last year at our first frost event. The magic—and doom—of the whole thing was that the celebration would culminate with a big party on the day after the frost. Only it never came. Days turned into weeks and much like this year, the temperatures never seemed to drop enough for that day to arrive. The festival stretched for over a month, and by the time we rolled into the fifth week without a nice and crisp layer of ice, it all had gone off the rails. Before I could do anything about it, Green Oak had turned into a betting house, and people argued and wagered scary amounts of money over this whole first frost business.

I told myself never again. You live and you learn, and you don’t let a war erupt in your town.

Only maybe I didn’t learn.

Because here we were. New polls were running on Page Nine on whether I would wear white, or whether it’d be the groom who ran this time, and I was inflicting yet another spectacle on Green Oak.

If Bobbi heard me call this a spectacle, she’d probably burst a blood vessel. She was oddly happy with how everything was turning out, despite my picking most things at random.

Maybe Matthew had been right all along. Beautiful things shouldn’t be boxed.

I smiled at the thought, at the idea of him, my gaze drifting away from the clipboard I had propped against my hip. I’d been signing off on things all morning, barely allowed to move from my spot at what Bobbi had called asafe area.Becausewe couldn’t have the bride breaking a leg or an arm or her neck on R.W.,apparently.Not a week before W-Day,like she also said. So I’d been demoted to logistics, which meant that I signed a slip while stuff was loaded off a truck.

I was bored, frankly. Restless too.

I wanted to talk to Matthew. Be with him. Study his face. The brown of his eyes. Look for any signs of panic because… we were a week out. From W-Day. And neither of us was making the other talk about what that could mean.

I looked behind me, making sure Bobbi wasn’t around. Then I gave the delivery guy in front of me a nod. “I’ll be right back,” I told him with a smile. He cocked a brow. Understandable. Bobbi had been terrorizing everyone, including him. “I promise. Ten minutes tops. Please?”

The guy gave his head a quick shake. “Yeah, okay. But if she—”

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