Page 9 of Revenge Honeymoon

“It’s not that bad,” said Ruby as they approached Gorgeous Max who tinkered with the unruly lights.

“It feels pretty bad.” Emily tugged on the skirt and had the strange sensation the slit in the skirt had reached half way up her ass.

“It’s not that bad,” her friend repeated. “Just a few photos. It’s only going to be from the front. Nobody will see. I promise.”

This was not how Emily imagined her first meeting with Maxwell the Perfect—stuffed into a too-small dress with her very unsexy, very matronly underwear on display.

“I want to go back to the room,” she whispered. Her armpits were damp. Her heartbeat sped up to the pace of a racehorse on his last stretch of the Kentucky Derby. She was about to meet the sexiest man alive, and...no, it wasn’t going to be like this.

Was it?

“Number, please?” Maxwell said with a masculine rumble that nearly shook her ovaries loose.

He barely looked at them as he attended to the light stands, readjusting them, while mumbling, “It will be only a week, he said. Great money, he said.”

“Excuse me?” Beautiful, innocent, vulnerable Ruby asked.

Why did she let Man Magnet Ruby have the first words? The story of her life. Ruby took a single step, and men fell all over her. Emily exposed her ass to the whole room, and it was as if nothing happened.

Maxwell brought his gaze up from his work. His green—yes, they were green!—eyes caught the dazzling lights and glowed as if they were on fire. Green gorgeous fire from the depths of some Irish fairy tale come to life. Were there Irish fairy tales? Was Maxwell even Irish? Did she care?

“Oh,” his voice caught in his throat.

His gaze stuck to Ruby like glue.

Yeah, the usual. Emily’s fate as cruise third wheel had begun. But maybe it was for the best. She kept her backside facing the wall behind them—the only safe angle. If she moved too much to the right, the rest of the newlyweds waiting in line would figure out that Kim Kardashian’s Skims line really did work miracles. If she moved too much to the left, well, Maxwell might have to hold back a laugh...and Emily wanted to avoid that humiliation as much as possible.

“Miss, your dress.” Maxwell picked up a suit jacket he’d laid across the back of a chair near his equipment and handed it to Emily. “You might want to put this on.”

What? He’d noticed her and handed her a jacket that smelled like manliness and muscles and sandalwood?

She must be dreaming.

“My dress?” Oh, God, did his jacket smell incredible. Was she clutching it too closely to her nose? Was that weird?

“The rip?” He gestured at the wall behind her.

“What?” She looked over her shoulder. A full-length mirror stood leaning against the wall. The giant rip that had created a fault line the length of Florida up the back of her skirt assaulted her eyes. “Crap.” She slipped into the jacket smelling of gorgeous man and attempted to laugh off the humiliation. “I had no idea,” she said.

Yet she had every idea. And so did Ruby. But Emily wouldn’t let on. No, she wasn’t about to admit that she’d continued to stroll about the room knowingly in such a state. That any number of Moscowitzes and whoever the hell else stood in line for their oh-so-important free honeymoon portrait got a good look at her unmentionables and that they weren’t even newlyweds and this whole idea had been stupid, stupid, stupid from the very beginning.

“That actually looks really good on you,” Mr. Beautiful said. “Somehow it works.”

Ruby took a step back. “He’s right.”

“It does?” The sleeves hung down below her wrists, and the shoulders sagged on her narrower frame. But she was willing to believe anything that came out of the sexy mouth of their photographer. Two perfect lips accentuated by the dark bristly shadow of his beard.

“You just need to zhuszh it a little bit.” Ruby pushed the sleeves up to her elbows. “See?”

Ruby spun her friend around so she could view the transformation in the evil mirror that had exposed her Skims-encased rear to the perfect Maxwell.

He nodded his approval. “It gives your photo a little more of that ‘bride and groom’ aspect.” He sucked in his breath. “Was that offensive? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with two brides.”

And everything that Emily had been building up inside her head crumbled at that very moment.

Right. The lesbian newlyweds.

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