Page 53 of Never Fake Date the Financier
Nerves swell in my gut as I hear the wedding planner over the speakers again. I can’t tell what she’s saying, but I’m sure the countdown is imminent.
“Never seen Adrian so smitten before.” Her voice is so soft it’s ethereal, as though I’m imagining it.
“Oh?” I mutter, not sure what to say.
“Never thought he’d ever marry. Then again, I never thought he’d meet someone like you.”
Oh god. I’m feeling dizzy. Loopy. So completely unstable as it becomes clear that Trudy has been talking about me. I’m not imagining it.
“Adrian doesn’t fall easily. Never has. Even as a child, he was cautious with his affections. Deliberate. But when he does fall…” She smiles. “Well, I haven’t seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you. Not even Sariah.”
I don’t know what to think. First Sariah and now his mother? It’s becoming harder to deny that there’s something between us, when people who are close to him, know and understand him, tell me that he’s smitten with me. But if I’m being honest, I never needed them to tell me. I’ve felt it. Experienced it every time I’m around Adrian. Even now, I feel his absence, and he’s only been gone a few minutes.
All I want is to see him again. That smile. His touch. His scent.
…His lips.
I’m craving everything about that man.
“Last chance,” Trudy mutters, nodding at the spectacle. “But, if you ask me, I don’t think you’d need a bouquet to get Adrian to propose.”
Whoosh. There goes all the air in my lungs.
And then again when I see Adrian from across the room, smiling at me with two drinks in his hand.
“Alright, ladies! Are we ready?” Sariah’s voice jerks me out of my head, and I glance at the mob again. They’re just as rowdy, if not rowdier, but there’s something inside me pulling me toward them.
I shouldn’t.
I wouldn’t.
“Three!” the crowd chants.
I glance at Adrian again. He’s closing in on me as another thought enters my head. A different voice. Adrian’s.Some do.And I think Adrian believes in superstition more than he’d like to admit. He’s not always rational. And right now, I’m feeling a little irrational as I bend down low. A little out of character.
“Two!”
A little… I turn to Trudy. “Hold my shoes. I’m going in.”
“One!”
I dart forward, weaving through the crowd, just as Sariah launches the bouquet high into the air.
Everything fades as the bouquet becomes my singular focus. I swear everything’s in slow motion. Like I’m in the damn Matrix. I’m bobbing, weaving, and leaping as I track the bouquet’s trajectory, somehow mapping where it’s going to land with crazy mental mathematics. I turn, calculating the optimal route when I see my opening.
One of the bridesmaids stumbles, falling to her hands and knees a few yards in front of me. Perfect. After one last glance at the bouquet, I turn, take one giant leap off the back of a bridesmaid, and then launch over the outstretched hands of a half dozen wild women, frothing at the mouth like I’m an Olympic high-jumper.
My fingers close around the stems just as I realize I have no plan for landing.Noooooooooooooooo. The words come out deep and slow until I crash back to earth in a less-than-graceful heap as time catches back up, the bouquet clutched safely to my chest.
The room erupts in a mix of cheers and laughter as I scramble to my feet, slightly dazed but grinning.
Adrian materializes out of nowhere. “Never knew my girl had hops,” he says, his arm sliding around my waist.
“Neither did I,” I admit, breathlessly, although I’m not sure it’s from the exertion. The way Adrian’s holding me in his arms certainly isn’t helping my lungs fill up with air.
I catch a glimpse of Lillian from across the room, a sour expression on her face, and it makes the victory even sweeter. But I don’t have time to think about her. Not with Adrian holding me.
“Impressive,” Adrian murmurs in my ear, sending a shiver down my spine. “Though I’m not sure your form would pass Olympic standards.”
