LITMIR.BIZ

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in the full-length mirror in his hotel room before heading out. His tie was straight, fly done up. Rings in one pocket, speech in another. He was good to go.

      His room was on the third floor where most of the bridal party and a few of the guests were staying. The bride and groom were spending their wedding night in the penthouse bridal suite and the remainder of the guests were scattered throughout the hotel.

      Seth knocked on his door and he opened it. “Ready to do this thing?”

      “Yeah.”

      “Okay.” And they strode off down the hall.

      The wedding planner had given them a staging area in the lobby, and they showed up with a minute or two to spare. The woman standing there with a headset and a clipboard wasn’t the main planner. She was some kind of assistant. She checked them out, stepped forward and straightened Seth’s tie. “You have the rings?” she asked Jackson, and he nodded.

      She spoke into a headset. “I have the groom and best man ready to go.”

      They stood around for a few minutes like soldiers waiting to go into battle. It would have been less nerve-racking if there were more guys in the platoon than just him and Seth. But for all that she’d wanted a fancy wedding, Amy had insisted she only wanted Lauren to stand up for her. Which meant Seth only got a best man. No groomsmen.

      The assistant pulled out two florist’s boxes, and he was forced to stand there while she attached a white rose boutonniere to his jacket. The smell of roses always reminded him of the only funeral he’d ever attended. He hated that smell.

      “And you’re cleared to go,” the young woman said to them, as though they were a pair of jets on a runway.

      “Good luck, buddy,” he said.

      Seth turned and gave him an awkward hug. They slapped each other on the back, and then they made their way out to the wedding venue.

      The garden looked like something out of a cheesy movie he would never watch. Something with Hugh Grant in it and a load of English accents. There were flowers everywhere—on a rose arbor that he and Seth had to walk under, on the chairs lined up precisely on the lawn where the guests were already seated, and all over the gazebo where the ceremony would take place. A harp was playing softly.

      The guests were dressed so well, some of the women in hats, that he barely recognized anyone.

      He trod down the aisle and paused, as they’d rehearsed, in front of the minister, who consulted a book so earnestly it looked as though he was refreshing himself on the words of the marriage ceremony.

      Behind him, he heard shuffling and low conversation. Somebody was sniffling. Crying already? Or allergies? he wondered idly.

      After a minute or two, the intro to “Here Comes the Bride” started up. He knew the piece had a real name, but he only ever heard it played at weddings.

      He and Seth both turned, as did every person in the audience.

      Lauren started walking up the aisle.

      He might find spending time with her as fun as, say, stumbling into a hive of hornets and escaping only to land in a field of poison ivy, but he had to admit she looked good.

      Gorgeous, even.

      Her dress was a pale green that left her shoulders bare. He’d never really noticed what nice curves the woman had or that her legs were spectacular.

      She wore her dark hair piled high and whoever had done her makeup had highlighted her big, dark eyes and colored her lips so they looked plump and kissable.

      As though she felt his gaze on her, Lauren looked his way and he felt sucker punched.

      Quickly, he averted his gaze but not before he’d seen her eyes widen and felt a completely unexpected and absolutely unwanted stab of lust.

      That was the trouble with weddings, he’d always thought. They made a person act like a fool. People were forever hooking up at weddings with girls they wouldn’t be caught dead with normally.

      He wasn’t going there.

      Even as his breath caught in his throat, he assured himself he wasn’t going there.

       2

      LAUREN WENT THROUGH the motions of being the perfect maid of honor. She took the bouquet from Amy when it was time for her and Seth to exchange rings. Helped her adjust her dress after she and Seth had kissed and they were officially married, then fell in behind the beaming bride and groom with Jackson by her side.

      There was an invisible force field between her and the best man. They couldn’t stand each other, so what had that strange moment been about when he’d stared at her as though he’d never seen her before and she’d felt for a second as though she couldn’t breathe?

      No doubt he’d seen as much crazy hooking up at weddings as she had. Or maybe he was one of those guys who thought bridesmaids always wanted sex.

      She’d rather have sex with—well, she couldn’t think of anybody she’d rather have sex with right at the moment, but the point was she didn’t want to have sex with Jackson Monaghan.

      Although, looking around the crowd at the number of women checking him out, she seemed to be the only single woman who didn’t.

      They were stuck side by side in the receiving line, and she shook hands and kissed cheeks and smiled politely as guests passed by on the way to congratulate the bride and groom. A woman named Cynthia who had gone to school with her and Amy held on to Jackson’s hand a little too long.“You look so good in a tux,” she gushed. Then, still holding his hand, she turned to Lauren. “Doesn’t he? Doesn’t he look good in a tux?”

      “Yes. He looks like you could slip him a twenty and get seated at the best table in the house.”

      “Oh, I know exactly where I’d seat you,” he said to her, his eyes narrowing.

      Cynthia giggled awkwardly and moved on.

      She blinked her eyes. “Not the best table? What would that take? Fifty bucks?”

      He squinted his eyes like a gunslinger at high noon. “We could work together. In that dress you look like the cigarette girl at the bar in Mad Men.”

      There was a break in the stream of guests coming down the receiving line. Amy turned to her and said, “How are you holding up?”

      “Fine. Except Jackson thinks I look like the cigarette girl at the bar in Mad Men.”

      Amy’s eyes grew wide. “That’s so weird. That’s exactly what you said when you first tried on the dress.”

      It was one thing to say it about yourself, and another thing to have a guy say it about you. But Amy had already turned to greet the next guest who stopped before her.

      The wedding was designed so that guests could enjoy drinks and appetizers outside while the wedding party had their photos taken and then move inside for dinner and dancing later.

      Amy was so happy it was impossible not to feel happy for her and an equally elated Seth, pleased everything had worked out for them and hopeful for their future.

      The wedding party spent an hour with a professional photographer who had the easiest job in the world since the location was nothing but one big photo op and Seth and Amy were two blissful, attractive people.

      But Gunter, the photographer, was German and a perfectionist. He took ages setting up each shot, ordering his assistant to move Amy’s bouquet slightly to the left, waiting for the slight breeze to drop before snapping a photo of the newlyweds.

      Then he brought Jackson and Lauren into the photos. They stood stiffly side by side, not touching. Gunter stared through his viewfinder, shook his head, muttered, “Nein,” and then muttered some more in German. He stepped forward and placed Lauren’s bouquet in her right hand and

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