Page 1 of Hat Trick Holidate

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EMMALINE - EIGHT YEARS AGO

There’sa knock on the ornate wooden door of the oldest church in southern California, a gorgeous eighteenth-century building.

“Don’t come in. I’m dressing.”

“Emmaline?”

“It’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding. Just call me,” I say, stressed but not wanting to tempt fate. But instead of him agreeing, the door creaks open, and footfalls close in.

Grant, my fiancé, stares at me in the full-length mirror. It’s not the gaze of a man overtaken with emotion at the sight of his bride. He takes a deep breath, and I smile.

“Couldn’t wait to see me?” I ask playfully with a trembling voice.

“You look beautiful,” he says, but his tone is flat. Tightness grips my chest as he rests his ass against the vanity just to the side of the gold filigree mirror. “Emmaline… you value honesty, right?”

My brows draw into the center, and anxiety creeps up my throat. “Yeah.”

He looks so dapper in his tuxedo with his black hair slicked back off his face. His jaw twitches. I know that means he doesn’t want to confront whatever it is. Reaching for my hands, his smooth thumbs skim over my skin, and he twiddles with my ring as his Adam’s apple peeks from his collar. “I can’t do this.”

“Do what?”

“Marry you. I haven’t been faithful. I love you, but I’m not in love with you.” His eyes finally land on mine. They’re clear, not red.

My throat closes as I stand there looking at my reflection. Watching as my eyes blur and tears fall from my lashes. With quivering lips and a heart that understands his words, but my brain can’t compute them—it’s like he’s speaking a foreign language.

“What… what are you saying?” I pull my hands from his because my heart knows.

Grant stands, taking a step toward me. “I’m calling off the wedding.”

“Why are you saying this? Why didn’t you tell me last night?” I ask, sobbing. I can’t look at him, so I stare at the mirror. Tears stream like a waterfall down my cheeks, yet I look perfect, like a porcelain doll. The makeup artist promised me I would be streak free in case I cried at the altar.

Grant’s chest rises, and he continues, “That’s when I realized. At the party, I had sex with…”

My eyes round, and my mouth drops open,remembering the only people at the after-rehearsal dinner party were my bridesmaids. “You had sex with one of my friends. Who?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says.

I struggle to remove my wedding dress, but it’s not cooperating. The sheath dress is too tight and requires more effort than I can muster.

“The hell it doesn’t.” But soon, I’m standing in front of him in a corset with my boobs popping out the top, a garter belt, and a thin strip of lace. He swallows and lust shadows his eyes. “Who? Who, you son of a… no, I can’t call your mom that. She would be so ashamed of you.”

“Emmaline, I do love you. We’re just not compatible sexually. I can’t be what you want.”

Yet his gaze says the opposite.

How does he know what I want? He’s never freaking asked. “Get out,” I cry, then pick up the bottles from the vanity and hurl them at him. “I hate you. I hate you.”

When the door closes, I collapse onto the floor, muttering how much I hate my fiancé and how I’ve wasted the past three years of my life. My maid of honor finds me. “Emmaline, what’s wrong?”

And when I tell her, she doesn’t seem surprised. I overlooked all the flirtations, passing it off as she’s an extrovert, a bubbly, pint-sized princess.

Wanting too much—expecting too much is a toxic trait. The life I dreamed of shattered only hours before my wedding by my best friend and my fiancé.

My world crumbles in ten minutes. The world I woke up to this morning, no longer there. It’s bright and sunny inCalifornia, yet gray skies are all I can see. My parents are out thousands of dollars for a wedding. I’m humiliated and my brother Roman is angrier than I’ve ever seen him.

Why? Because Grant is Roman’s best friend and agent.

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