LITMIR.BIZ

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wedding, nothing riding on her cousin saying “I do.”

      No doubt about it, Kelsey was his best shot.

      The following evening, Emily twirled around the hotel’s atrium, her arms outspread like Sleeping Beauty. “You were right, Kelsey. This is the perfect place for the reception. Don’t you think so, Mother?”

      She looked so beautiful and happy Kelsey half-expected cartoon animals to surround her at any moment. Smiling at her cousin’s unfettered happiness, she breathed a sigh of relief. Connor McClane was wrong, dead wrong. Emily and Todd were meant to be.

      “It’s lovely,” Aunt Charlene commented without looking up from her mother-of-the-bride notebook. “I knew we could count on Kelsey to find the perfect place.”

      “Um, thank you, Aunt Charlene,” Kelsey said, surprised and pleased by the compliment. Even after eight years, Kelsey and Charlene had a tentative, tightrope relationship that had yet to get past a disastrous beginning.

      When Kelsey had first come to live with the Wilsons, she’d been overwhelmed by their obvious wealth, and her cousins’ beauty and grace had left her feeling outclassed. Especially when Charlene took one look at her and declared, “Someone must take this girl shopping.”

      Looking back now, Kelsey realized her aunt had been trying to relate to her the same way she did to her own daughters, who loved nothing more than a day spent raiding Scottsdale boutiques. But back then, as an intimidated, awkward teenager, Kelsey had suffered the pain of being seen as an embarrassment by her new family.

      She’d survived the multiple fittings and outfit changes—a living, breathing, silent mannequin—as her aunt and a shopkeeper went back and forth over which colors, styles and accessories best suited Kelsey. But when she stood with her aunt at the register, when she saw the hundreds of dollars a single item cost, a sick sense of disbelief hit her stomach.

      How many weeks’ rent would that pair of shoes have paid for when she and her mother were living in tiny one-room apartments? How many months of food? How much better might her mother’s medical have been with that kind of money?

      In a quiet, cold voice, Kelsey had told the saleswoman to put every item back, before marching out of the store.

      Later, once Kelsey had calmed down and realized how ungrateful her actions must have seemed, she tried to apologize to her aunt. Charlene had declared the matter over and forgotten, but never again did she offer to take Kelsey shopping.

      Their relationship had yet to recover from that day. By asking Kelsey to coordinate the wedding, Charlene had helped breach the gap, but Kelsey knew this opportunity didn’t come with second chances. This was her one shot.

      “I’ve always thought this was an amazing place for a reception,” Kelsey said, hearing the dreamy wistfulness in her own voice. The glass ceiling and towering plants gave the illusion of being in a tropical paradise, and from the first time she’d seen the hotel, Kelsey had known it was perfect.

      Perfect for Emily, she reminded herself.

      Although between having so many of her friends working the wedding and Emily’s willingness to let Kelsey make so many of the decisions, the entire event was feeling more like Kelsey’s dream wedding.

       Except the choice of groom…

      The insidious thought wove through her mind along with images of Connor McClane…His rebellious saunter, his too confident grin, his…everything.

      “I hope Todd likes it.” Emily lowered her arms, a small frown tugging at her eyebrows. “Do you think he will?”

      “It’s a five-star hotel, one of the finest in the state,” Charlene said imperiously.

      “I know, but Todd’s family is from Chicago. They have all those historic buildings and…Todd can be particular.”

      Kelsey’s hand tightened on her day planner at her cousin’s hesitant tone. Suspicions planted by Connor’s too-pointed comments threatened to sprout into tangled choking weeds, but Kelsey ground them down. Finger by finger, she eased her grip before she left permanent indentations on the leather book.

      Her cousin was a people pleaser. Of course she worried what Todd would think. “He agreed to let you make all the decisions about the wedding,” Kelsey reminded Emily, who had in turn, left most of the decisions up to her. “So he must trust your choices.”

      “I know, but…” Emily took a look around the atrium without the excitement she’d shown moments ago. Trying to see it through Todd’s particular eyes?

      “But what?” Kelsey prompted gently.

      “It’s—it’s nothing.” Emily shook her head with a laugh. “I just want everything to be perfect. You understand, don’t you, Kelsey?”

      Yes, she knew all about trying and failing again and again. But not this time—not with Emily’s wedding. “Of course I do. And your wedding will be perfect,” she insisted, before an already familiar masculine voice filled the atrium and sent shivers up and down her spine.

      “Hey, Em! How’s the blushing bride?”

      “Oh, my gosh! Connor!” Emily squealed her former boyfriend’s name and ran to meet him. A broad smile on his handsome face, he caught her in his arms and spun her around. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

      Keeping an arm around Emily’s shoulders, Connor glanced at Kelsey. “When Kelsey said you’d be here, I had to see you.”

      Heat rushed to Kelsey’s face. Bad enough Connor had outmaneuvered her. Did he have to rub it in in front of her aunt?

      Connor McClane had been in town less than twenty-four hours, and she could already feel the familiar undertow of failure dragging her under.

      “You told him we’d be here?” The words barely escaped the frozen smile on her aunt’s face. Charlene would never make a scene in public. Even if it meant smiling at the man out to ruin her daughter’s future.

      “No! I didn’t.” Except she had told Connor Emily was making final arrangements for the reception that evening, and he would know where the reception was being held. After all, he’d been invited. “I didn’t mean to,” she almost groaned.

      Charlene straightened her razor-sharp shoulders, taking charge of a situation that had gotten out of control. Out of Kelsey’s control. Interrupting Emily and Connor’s conversation, she said, “Mr. McClane, you’ll have to excuse us. Emily has a wedding to plan.”

      “Mother!” her daughter protested. “Connor’s come all this way to see me. We have so much to talk about. Can’t this wait?”

      “This is your wedding we’re talking about, Emily! The most important day of your life.”

      The most important day of your life. Kelsey understood the sentiment. Every bride wanted her wedding day to be perfect, and she was doing everything in her power to see that this affair was the type every girl dreamed about, but Emily was only twenty-eight years old. Shouldn’t she have something to look forward to?

      Why Kelsey chose that moment to meet Connor’s glance, she didn’t know. He flashed her a half smile as if he could not only read her thoughts but agreed one hundred percent.

      “You’re right, of course, Mother.” Emily turned to Connor with a smile. “I’m sorry, Connor. We don’t have much time before the wedding, and there’s still so much to do.”

      “Don’t worry, Em. We’ll have plenty of time to talk before then. I’m in Room 415.”

      “You’re staying here?” Kelsey blurted the words in horror. At the hotel where not only the reception was taking place, but also the rehearsal dinner.

      Connor’s grin was maddening—and disturbingly enticing. “Thought it would be convenient.”

      “Convenient.

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