Page 17 of Love, Honor, and Ink

This was her best friend. Harper. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Only she wasn’t sure about that anymore.

“Go do your thing, I’ll be here.”

“Arianna?” Colleen’s voice sounded frantic in her ear, and she wanted to curse at thinking things were smooth.

“Yes?”

“The chandeliers aren’t working.”

“What?” No, no. That couldn’t happen. She was already running toward the reception room, Harper on her heels without her even having to say anything. “They were working an hour ago.”

The lighting wouldn’t be needed at first since this was an afternoon event, but as soon as the sun began to set and people started to dance, they’d be screwed if they weren’t working. Her mind immediately went to her backup plans, but with the timing, she didn’t think any of those would work.

Crap.

Crap.

Crap.

“What is it?” Harper asked as they walked very quickly into the room. It wouldn’t do to run and alert any overeager guests that there was an issue.

“The lighting isn’t working,” she answered as she looked up at the beautiful chandeliers that were now dead weight.

“Shit, let me take a look.” He was already off to the maintenance area, tugging at his tie when she turned toward Colleen.

“What went wrong?” she asked her assistant and friend.

“I have no idea, and it’s killing me, Arianna. They were working, and then I went to turn them on to do one of your double checks and now they aren’t. It looks like a wiring issue according to one of the guys, but I think it’s too short notice to bring someone in.”

Arianna closed her eyes, her mind going through countless scenarios. “Okay, get candles. Lots of candles. We have them in the back since the B&G almost wanted to use them until the last minute.” And what a headache that was. “Then, go find lights to put up in the corners. They won’t be as pretty, but we can get the florist and our lace girl to help spruce them up.”

“On it.” Colleen was off and walking quickly.

Arianna made her way to the maintenance area where Harper was and prayed her friend could help.

“Tell me what we’ve got,” she said briskly, her nerves on edge.

Harper cursed and licked his thumb, his gaze meeting hers. “Someone or something fucked with the circuit breaker, baby. It could just be that it’s old, but it was shitty timing. Whatever happened just got the wires to the lighting you’re looking at, so everything else is fine, at least. I can rework one of the chandeliers, Ari, but that’s it. The others would require someone like Luc, who’s the Montgomery Inc. electrician. And he’s at another job site across town. It would take way more time and noise than you can give up at the moment to get him here.”

Relief that something could work and the smidge of despair that something was wrong in the first place hit her hard, and she nodded, her mind working on her new battle plan. “Okay, we can work with this. We’ll have some extra lighting and candles, and we’ll have one chandelier working. Which one is it?”

“The center one, thankfully,” he answered then winced. “If you can be thankful for it that is.”

Arianna let out a breath. “The center one is good. Real good. Okay, we can do this. It won’t be exactly what I planned, but the B&G wanted flowers over the chandeliers anyway. We went with the lighting this way at the last minute because of their family.” Even though they’d gone non-traditional because of the couple’s families, there had still been some issues. Hopefully, they wouldn’t care now, and know that the B&G were more important. Either way, though, Arianna would do her best to make sure everything else went off without a hitch.

She reached for Harper and squeezed his arm. The heat radiating from him shot down her system, and she released him, blinking hard. From the way Harper’s eyes darkened, he was not unaffected. Not that she could think about that right then. “Thank you, Harper.”

He met her gaze and nodded. “Told you, Ari. Anything. Remember that. Now, go make that B&G whatever smile and love you. I’ll be around to check on you soon.”

By the time the B&G were on the dance floor, cake cut, and toasts made, all Arianna wanted to do was take off her shoes, strip off her dress, and take a long bubble bath.

“They look like they’re they only two people in the world,” Harper whispered in her ear, and she shuddered, his warm breath tickling her skin.

She licked her lips, trying to remember that this was Harper touching her, running his hand over her hip. This was her best friend, not someone she should be thinking naughty things about.

And oh were they naughty.

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