Page 3 of The Bad Wedding Date

“Excuse me?” came a deep, male voice beside me.

I squinted against the July sunshine to find myself hitching in a small breath when I glanced the stranger’s way, taking in the stiff white collar around his neck, the broad shoulders and heavy bicep muscles pressing against the navy fabric of his tailored suit, and the perfectly knotted grey tie that drew your attention to his thick neck.

Holy shit!

When my eyes roamed over his sharp jaw covered in a perfectly-formed blond beard and up to the matching, well-groomed hair on his head, I couldn’t stop myself from swallowing lightly.

The man was a suited and booted, real-life, dapper Norseman.

Ugh. I had to close my mouth. I wasn’t the kind of woman to drool.

No doubt he was another one of London’s finestFerrariboys, anyway, though they didn’t usually affect me so much, but even I had to admit that there was something spectacular about this one.

The guy looked like he could protect you from the world then destroy you in private. My thighs squeezed together at the thought of it.

I hadn’t had sex in averylong time.

The stranger raised his brows. “You okay?”

“Yes. Great. Thank you.”

“Sorry. I thought you’d said something to me before.” He smiled, warm and friendly, his almost-grey eyes never leaving mine.

Were they grey, or the most silverish of blues?

He was the kind of man my sister Emmie would gobble up and then dispose of the next day because she had another thirteen versions of him waiting to take her out—or at least that’s how it used to be before her soon-to-be husband Lucas Williamson came along.

Lucas… who also happened to be the Mayor of London’s firstborn son! My sister didn’t do anything by halves. What she wanted, she got, no matter who or what stood in her way.

The stranger beside me dropped a hand to the bench and leaned closer, a slight scowl creasing his brows. “You’re not lost, are you?”

“Me?No.” I sounded like a hyena on crack.

“Not… escaped from anywhere?” He smirked.

“Definitely not,” I laughed.

His eyes held mine for a moment before he jerked his chin. “Well, all right then.”

The phone in my purse pinged again, giving me a reason to look away from Mr Blue-Grey eyes.

Jonah: P.P.S: If you get the chance to dance with a hot guy in a nice suit… take the chance, Char. You deserve it more than anyone.

“Goddammit.” I sighed to myself, pushing my phone back into my purse and clipping it shut with an air of frustration.

“Okay, you definitely said something that time,” the guy said.

Tugging the cream shawl around my shoulders—the one I’d also borrowed from a girl at work—I glanced at him again, wondering why he kept talking.

People in London didn’t do that with strangers. It was one of my favourite things about the city, how you could be practically pressed up against someone on the tube, chest-to-chest, more intimate than you’d been with your own lover in months, and neither one of you would feel the need for small talk. It was a public fuck-and-run, and nobody felt guilty about any of it.

I scowled at the guy’s handsome face. “Are you trying to make conversation? If you are, I’m not very good at that. I’m not very good with subtlety either, so you must be blunt with me, otherwise, I tend to read these things wrong. I come off as either too enthusiastic or too arrogant depending on who I’m talking to…andfrom that look you’re giving me, I can already tell that you think I’m a complete psycho. Cool. This day is the day that keeps on giving.”

The guy’s eyes widened, and for a moment, I thought I’d offended him… but then his smile rose to a full beaming grin, showing off his perfect row of straight white teeth before his laughter poured free.

Of course, he had a smile to die for.

He was a regular bus stop pin-up, this one.

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