Page 23 of The Wedding Wrecker

The joke was right there.So easy. So perfect.

I bit my lip to stop from speaking, because I only needed one look at her face to tell me humor wasn’t going to soften her. No. There was real hurt beneath her anger, and it was very possibly a bridge between us I wouldn’t ever be able to mend.

"Since when are you a 'family friend' anyway?" she demanded, turning to face me. "Because I think I would have remembered someone like you hanging around family gatherings."

I kept my face carefully neutral. "Your mother?—"

"My mother?" She dropped the shirt she was folding. "What about my mother?"

Shit. I probably should’ve been more vague. "I just meant?—"

"Did she hire you?" The color drained from her face. "Is that why you're here? To wreck another wedding? To wreckmy little sister’s wedding?"

I met her gaze, keeping my expression neutral. "Maybe I knew you’d be here. Maybe I wanted to see an old friend."

"We're not friends." The words had an edge sharp enough to draw blood. "Friends don't destroy each other's careers."

"I didn't try to destroy?—"

"Save it." She yanked open another drawer and dumped the contents in her concerningly stuffed suitcase. “Tell me why I shouldn’t go to Mr. Wellington right now and tell him exactly who you are and what you do."

“Well…” I hesitated, wishing there was a way to word this that wouldn’t sound like a threat. “Because he’s probably going to want to know why the wedding planner didn’t notice someone like that on the guest list? And now he’ll also wonder why you’re dating me. At the very least, he’ll wonder why you didn’t tell him the moment I showed up back there.”

Emma’s face scrunched in an adorably terrifying mask of anger. “So you’ve entrapped me. Perfect. Was this all part of your plan?”

“No,” I said. “I happened to overhear some creep hitting on a girl. I stuck my head in and was coming over to help even before I knew it was you. But considering our… history, we should at least be pretty good at making it look like we’re attracted to each other. So I’d call it a happy accident.”

“Okay,” she said, voice slow and dangerously quiet. “Maybe I should just ask why I shouldn’t strangle you in your sleep tonight? Hm?”

“That is probably a better question,” I admitted. “But even if Iwasworking this wedding, which I’m not…”Liar, liar.“It’s not like I ruin every wedding. People hire me toinvestigate.Sometimes, there’s absolutely nothing going on, and I just enjoy the free drinks and festivities.”

“I’m not going to believe you aren’t working this wedding for a second.”

Smart girl.

“Well,” I said. “That’s your choice. But I’m just here to have a good time and watch an old family friend get married.”

Her eyes narrowed into slits. “A good time, huh? Planning to fuck another wedding planner the night before you destroy her wedding? Oh, wait. It would be the same wedding planner this time, and she’s not going to fall for your charms again.”

I cleared my throat. Even her furious mention of what we’d done in that wine cellar was still enough to make my skin flush hot. She had been the best I’d ever had.By far.I would be a dirty liar if I said I didn’t think about her nearly every day.

“That was a mistake.”

“Fantastic. So you ruined my career and thought sleeping with me was a mistake. Is there anything else you’d like to say to deepen my hatred of you before night falls? Because this is helping. I wasn’t sure I’d have the willpower to murder a sleeping man, but I’m getting there.”

I ran a hand through my hair. “Uh, no. I think I’ll stop digging the hole deeper there. Here, let me help you zip that.”

Emma was struggling to close her overstuffed suitcase, so I put a knee on it and tugged the zipper shut.

“You really made the most of this suitcase, huh? Didn’t feel like carrying two?”

“Ever since Ireland, I’ve been doing much smaller weddings. They don’t pay as well, and I wanted to save the bag fees.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling myself wither a little more on the inside. I couldn’t say a single thing right around her. What the fuck was my problem?

We were both kneeling over the suitcase when she met my eyes. “You're here for a reason, and it's not because you're suddenly best friends with my family."

She was right, of course. Lying about why I was here was stupid, but I also thought it might make her less inconsolably pissed if she just heavily suspected it versus having it outright confirmed. Honestly, I was actually a little scared she might really try to kill me in my sleep if I made her any more angry.

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