Page 8 of The Wedding Wrecker

And what emergencies could there even be? It was just food, drinking, and dancing.

This is fine,I told myself.Calming it down is overrated, and why shouldn’t you get to live a little when the opportunity presents?

One of his hands settled on my lower back, the other still holding mine. My free hand found his shoulder, and I tried not to think about the solid muscle beneath my palm.

"Relax," he murmured, his breath stirring my hair. "You feel so tense."

“Sorry,” I said, letting him guide me through the music as the tension began to melt from my body.

The song changed, but neither of us moved to break apart. His hand spread wider on my back, and I had to bite back a gasp at how small it made me feel. How protected. How... wanted.

His thumb traced small circles against my spine, each touch sending sparks through my entire body. I could feel his heartbeat against my chest, strong and fast. At least I wasn't the only one affected.

"Emma," he said, his voice rough. "I should tell you?—"

"Ms. Marshall?" One of the servers appeared at my elbow. "We have a situation in the kitchen."

Reality crashed back in. I stepped away from James, immediately missing his warmth. "I'll be right there."

I noticed him give the server a strange look, as if wondering why he was bothering me with problems in the kitchen.

Maybe he still didn’t realize I was the wedding planner? And why would he?

But I put the thought from my mind as I hurried toward the kitchen, my skin still tingling where he'd touched me. The kitchen crisis turned out to be minor—a dispute about wine pairings that took all of five minutes to resolve.

When I emerged, James was gone.

I told myself it was for the best. I had work to do. A wedding to coordinate. A career to build. I didn't have time for... whatever this was. Despite the still-lingering heat in my belly and the aching feeling of that magical potential fading, I got to work.

I threw myself into last-minute preparations, triple-checking details that definitely didn't need checking. As the dinner wound down, I found myself in the castle's wine cellar by myself, counting bottles I'd already counted twice.

"There you are,” a familiar, deep voice said.

I spun around to find James leaning against the doorframe, jacket off, dress sleeves rolled up to reveal strong forearms. The dim lighting cast shadows across his face, making him look dangerous in a way that did nothing to calm my racing pulse.

"Here I am," I said automatically.

He pushed off the door and walked toward me. "It looks like you're hiding."

"I don't hide."

"No?" He was close now, too close. "Then why are you down here counting wine bottles at midnight?"

"It's my?—"

His hand came up to cup my face, thumb brushing my bottom lip. "I think you’re incredible."

"James..."

Something crackled in his eyes as he came closer. “Fucking. Incredible,” he said, voice a low whisper.

“You’re not so bad your?—”

Then he kissed me.

Everything else disappeared. The wedding, the castle, my carefully constructed professional boundaries—all of it vanishedin the heat of his mouth on mine. His tongue swept past my lips and I moaned, my hands fisting in his shirt to pull him closer.

He backed me up against the wine rack, bottles clinking softly as his body pressed against mine. One of his hands tangled in my hair while the other gripped my hip, fingers digging in just hard enough to make me gasp.

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