Kitabı oku: «Last-Minute Bridesmaid»
She’s taking her bridesmaid duties very seriously!
It wasn’t how she planned to spend the weekend—but now Kate Lovat has been drafted in to be an emergency bridesmaid!
It may mean squeezing into the original bridesmaid’s dress, but it’s not all bad. She’s spending the day with Heath Sheridan, her old school crush turned publisher extraordinaire! She’s living out her teenage fantasy—with limos, stylish dresses and hanging out with Heath. But the sparks flying between them are even greater than she could ever have imagined, and soon Kate realizes that you have to be careful what you wish for—because sometimes you get a whole lot more than you bargained for!
LAST-MINUTE BRIDESMAID
“Let me check that I understand the deal,” she whispered.
“One all-expenses-paid wedding, complete with bridesmaid duties, in exchange for two full days of your time as a business consultant. And you would be doing the actual number crunching—not some minion. Okay?”
Heath took her hand and pressed his long slender fingers around hers and held them tight just long enough for her to inhale his intoxicating scent. Combined with the texture of his smooth skin against hers as he slowly raised her hand to his lips and kissed the back of her knuckles, sensible thought became a tad difficult for a few seconds.
Because the moment his lips touched her skin, she was seventeen again and right back on her doorstep.
“Better than okay. It’s a deal.”
Dear Reader,
Do you remember that high school St. Valentine dance when you were the only girl who turned up without a date?
Kate Lovat was rescued at the last minute by the stepbrother of her best friend Amber. Heath Sheridan is a gorgeous star university student and heir to the Sheridan publishing empire—and as far as Kate is concerned, the dreamiest date alive.
Now ten years later, it is Heath who needs the favor. Heath is the best man at his dad’s third wedding and has just been dumped by his girlfriend. He needs a replacement bridesmaid in a hurry!
Handsome business executives, limos and manor houses—bring it on!
And where would Kate be without her very special friends? Amber, Kate and Saskia met up again at a high school reunion and are all back in London and all working hard to make new lives for themselves.
Saskia is still single and trying to stay sensible and in control, while Amber had been reunited with her teenage love, Sam. Look out for Saskia’s story, which will be coming soon.
In the meantime I do hope that you enjoy Kate and Heath’s journey to love and the happiness that they each deserve.
I am always delighted to hear from my readers and you can get in touch through my website at www. NinaHarrington.com.
Every best wish,
Nina
Last-Minute Bridesmaid
Nina Harrington
About Nina Harrington
Nina grew up in rural Northumberland, England, and decided at the age of eleven that she was going to be a librarian—because then she could read all the books in the public library whenever she wanted! Since then she has been a shop assistant, community pharmacist, technical writer, university lecturer, volcano walker and industrial scientist, before taking a career break to realize her dream of being a fiction writer. When she is not creating stories that make her readers smile, her hobbies are cooking, eating, enjoying good wine—and talking, for which she has had specialist training.
MILLS & BOON
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Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Epilogue
Excerpt
PROLOGUE
High school parties were the worst punishment in the world! In fact, there should be a law banning them for all girls who had not managed to find a date—especially on Valentine’s Day.
Squeezing in between the gaggles of teenage girls who had formed a tight huddle on the other side of the dance floor, Kate Lovat clutched her empty plastic cola glass with both hands and tried to push her way through to the bar by waggling her hips and elbows.
It would be so much easier if she was a couple of inches taller!
Not even the high-heeled sandals she had bought in the January sales could bring her up to the shoulders of the posh clique of rich girl prefects who had made it their duty to take guard duty on the bar.
From this much sought-after position they could snigger and make snide comments about what every other girl at the sixth form school party was wearing or not wearing, who they had brought as their date and generally act superior in their designer mini dresses, which barely covered their gym-tight assets.
Kate had seen those assets in the school showers many times over the past three years and they still had the power to make her feel that she came from a different species of teenage girl. The kind that hated exercise and would rather eat her own feet than strut around the changing room in only a thong and heels, pretending to look for a hairdryer, which was Crystal Jardine’s speciality.
Shame that Kate was providing them with such excellent entertainment.
So far the evening had been a disaster and she could not even rely on her pals to get her out of this one. Kate lifted her chin and tried to look around the crush of bodies to catch a glimpse of her backup crew.
Amber was laughing and chatting away with Sam in the corner, oblivious to anyone else in the room, Saskia was doing her best to entertain a girl cousin who had arrived from France the day before, and Petra was flirting with every boy in the room while her handsome date was at the bar. Nope. For once she was on her own.
‘Kate...what a lovely dress,’ Crystal simpered as she sneered down at her. ‘It was so clever of you to find something second-hand suitable for a petite figure. Is that why you’re the only girl in the class to turn up without a date on Valentine’s? What a shame. After you’ve gone to so much effort to clean yourself up.’
A ripple of amused snorting ran around Crystal’s little band of followers, which had been dubbed the Crystallites by Saskia. Cold and transparent and all the same.
She couldn’t help it. Kate had to run one hand down the side of her new strapless dark purple satin prom dress. She didn’t have much in way of boobage or hips for a girl aged seventeen years and one month, but she had done what she could with the help of her friend Amber’s bra collection. ‘Oh, do you like the dress?’ Kate looked up with an innocent expression and tried to fling off a casual reply. ‘I designed it myself but I wasn’t sure about the colour for my evening gloves.’
The tall blonde replied with a dismissive choke, ‘Evening gloves? For a school disco? What era do you think this is? It’s really embarrassing for the rest of us—in fact I suggest that you should take them off right now.’ And with that she reached down and started pulling the sleeve of the glove down from Kate’s elbow before she had time to snatch it away.
Kate gasped in disbelief and took a breath, ready to tell Crystal exactly what she could do with her suggestion, but before she had a chance to reply, four things happened in quick succession.
The plastic cola glass in her right hand fell, clattering, to the hard floor, Crystal blinked, pushed out her chest and did the hair-over-one-shoulder flick she reserved for full-on boy entrancement, the other girls in the group stopped yapping and started gawping and Kate instantly knew in every cell of her body, even before she turned around, that a very tall, very gorgeous man boy had just invaded their little world.
Her senses seemed to tune out the noise of the disco blasting out from the stage and the chatter that only forty teenage girls and their assorted friends and dates could make. It was as though she had been waiting all evening, no, all her life, to hear that rustling sound of crisp fabric and a rich aromatic aftershave which smelt of everything that represented old-school class, elegance, wealth and gorgeousness.
But she was still not prepared for the manly arm that wrapped around her waist and practically lifted her off her feet.
‘Katherine, there you are. I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’
Kate half turned in the circle of his arms and slowly, hesitantly looked up into the face of the one and only Heath Sheridan.
Amber’s stepbrother. Captain of the university polo team, heir to the Sheridan publishing empire, top of his business class, the celebrity party favourite, nice to children and animals.
And, to her, the most gorgeous twenty-year-old man alive.
He was smiling down at her with the full-on power smile she had seen him use before on the rare occasions that he came over to London from the Sheridan estate in Boston.
But she had never been on the receiving end of it up close and personal before. At this distance she could see the flecks of gold in those amazing dark brown eyes and the small scar on his smoothly shaven chin where, according to Amber, he had fallen off his sledge as a boy.
Well, that boy was long gone.
And hurrah and hallelujah and no complaints from her about that fact.
Heath’s neat brown hair was clipped tight around his ears but just long enough at the back of his neck for her hand to touch as she raised both arms and linked them behind his head—just to lay it on extra-thick for the open-mouthed gawping audience, of course.
The fact that he instinctively slid both arms around her middle, forcing her to literally cling to his body, was a truly special bonus.
‘Darling, you look wonderful,’ Heath said, his gaze totally locked on her face. ‘And that dress is divine on you. I am so sorry my flight was late getting into London. Can you ever forgive me?’
His voice was so husky, tinged with a soft transatlantic accent and deep and intimate that she could eat it with a spoon. It seemed to echo back in the small space that separated them, burning up the air and lodging inside her head, making her feel dizzy from lack of oxygen.
‘Of course, Heath,’ she replied in a low whisper. Her eyes fluttered closed for a second as her chest pressed against the open-necked silky white shirt he was wearing, which revealed just the smallest amount of chest hair but enough to do serious damage to her blood pressure, especially when his lips pressed into the top of her hair.
‘Sorry, ladies,’ he breathed, scarcely breaking his gaze to flick a look at Crystal, ‘but I am going to have to steal my gorgeous girl away from you. We’ve been apart for far too long. Don’t you agree, baby?’
A very unladylike squeak and part giggle escaped her lips and she managed a tiny self-satisfied but apologetic shoulder shrug as she slid back into her sandals, her feet hit the floor and she clung onto Heath’s arm.
With a brilliant smile, his arm tightened around her waist, pulling her even tighter against his body and his lips met her forehead this time, claiming her in front of the entire posh clique, who were slowly moving from stunned shock to dagger-looks mode. As they moved away like some romantic three-legged race, Kate flicked her hair back and silently mouthed the words elbow gloves to the thunderous face of Crystal Jardine.
Two minutes later, Kate’s feet had hardly touched the floor and she found herself standing propped up by Heath, next to Amber and Sam, who were smirking like mad—at her.
‘How did I do, Kate?’ Heath whispered in his very best husky voice into her ear, with his chin pressed against her temple. ‘Do you think those girls got the message? Now why don’t I get you that drink before I escort you all home?’ Heath grinned and tipped up her chin with a cheeky wink. ‘I take my job as a stand-in party date very seriously. So don’t you dare go away. I’ll be right back.’
She waited until Heath’s hand had slid languorously down her arm and his back was turned before grabbing Amber by the arm and flicking her head towards the ladies’ room.
‘We’ll just be a minute,’ she absent-mindedly flung at Sam, who simply shook his head, far too used to their little gang of rebels sticking together whenever possible. Petra seemed to have gone outside with a boy—typical—but Saskia didn’t even have time to ask what was happening before Kate propelled her into the powder room and as far away as possible from the cubicles where most of the other girls in their class seemed to be either crying or noisily suffering the effects of cheap wine and vodka cocktails.
‘What’s the emergency? Has Crystal been winding you up again?’ Saskia asked, trying not to shout above the ear-damaging background noise. ‘I keep telling you that the girl is only jealous.’
Kate swept her two best pals into a tight huddle before taking a breath so that all of her words came out in one long rush. ‘Heath Sheridan has just rescued me from the Crystallites and called me darling. And now he has gone to get me a drink. Amber, help me out here. What shall I do? I didn’t think that Heath even knew my name!’
‘Do?’ the six-foot-tall stunning blonde replied with a laugh. ‘You’re asking the wrong person. He might be my stepbrother but Heath has always looked out for me. I say go with it and then accept his offer of a lift home. Your grandfather’s place is just a few streets away and, from what I saw, he would be more than happy to see you home safely after he has dropped me off.’
‘Safely? This is your Heath we are talking about here. You know, the boy who has his pick of the rich, gorgeous girls at university? And what about those celebrity mags you keep showing me? He always has some flash, sophisticated lady draped over him at some big cheese event or other. Boys like that don’t have time for a seventeen-year-old wannabe fashion student.’
Saskia wrapped her arm around Kate’s shoulder. ‘Stop putting yourself down like that. You’re gorgeous and he knows it. Top marks to Heath—and it’s not as though he’s a stranger. You have met him before and Amber adores him.’
Amber sniffed. ‘I do. There is nobody else my mum would trust to deliver me home safe and sound—not even Sam. Go for it, Kate. He won’t let you down. Be brave.’
* * *
Brave? Brave was fine when she was with her pals but it was a very different matter sitting in the passenger seat of Heath’s sports car an hour later.
Alone. With Heath Sheridan.
Listening to his warm deep voice chatter on about the lecture he was planning to attend the next day. The radio was tuned to popular music, the brightly lit streets spun by and it seemed only minutes between leaving Amber’s third dad’s house and pulling up onto the pavement outside Kate’s grandfather’s shop. Her brain was spinning to come up with something clever and witty and eloquent to say. No chance! Breathing was hard enough, never mind talking.
Heath must think that she was a complete idiot. It was so humiliating.
And now he was opening the car door for her. If she was going to say something this was the time.
‘Thank you, Heath,’ she choked through a throat as dry as the Sahara as she took his hand, locked her knees together and swung her legs out of the car with as much decorum as she could manage and lifted her chin. ‘It was very kind of you to bring me home.’
His reply was to wrap one arm around her waist, push the car door closed with the other and half support her all of the four steps to the front door of the shop. Then wait until she had fished her key out of her tiny evening bag.
It was heaven and she sneaked a cuddle before he laughed out loud and whirled her around. ‘You are most welcome, lovely lady. Any time.’ And before she could reply he had lifted her gloved right hand to his lips and kissed the back of her knuckles. ‘It was my pleasure.’ He wrinkled his nose up and winked at her. And slowly, slowly, slid his hand from hers and half turned to go.
He was leaving. Heath was leaving. No!
Which was when she did it. Kate Lovat, doing-okay-but-not-likely-to-win-any-prizes high school student, trainee fashion designer and glove aficionado extraordinaire, stepped forward, grabbed the lapels of Heath’s jacket with both hands, raised herself as high as she could on tiptoe, closed her eyes and kissed him on the mouth. Hard.
The startled and strangely delighted look on his face when she did squint her eyes open made her whirl around, turn the key in the door and hurl herself inside before she had to face him.
‘Goodnight, Heath,’ she whispered as she pressed her back to the door, heart thumping and lungs heaving. ‘Goodnight. And very, very sweet dreams.’
ONE
Eleven years later.
Heath Sheridan was going to kill her.
He was going to jump up and stomp around and scowl and say that he knew that he had made a huge, huge mistake trusting her with something as important as making the bridesmaid dresses for his dad’s wedding.
Kate Lovat lifted her left arm and squinted at her wristwatch for the tenth time in the last five minutes, then winced, sighed out loud and joggled from foot to foot.
Amber had warned her that Heath hated people being late to meetings. Hated it.
After all, he wasn’t some heart-throb student any longer. Heath Sheridan was a serious publishing executive running his own media empire. He might have turned up late for that Valentine’s Day dance, but this was different. This was business.
And she was now officially, undeniably, without doubt, late.
As in already ten minutes late. And that was allowing for the fact that her grandmother’s watch always ran slow.
If only she hadn’t bumped into Patrick, the friend she shared her loft with, on her way out.
Of course Pat wanted to check that he hadn’t left anything behind in the studio, and then they’d got talking about his leaving party and then Leo had arrived to organise the photo shoot and...she’d finally escaped almost thirty minutes later. But it had always been the same. She was hopeless when it came to her friends.
Simply hopeless.
Just like her business management skills.
Good thing that she was a goddess when it came to the actual tailoring.
Kate slumped into the corner of the carriage of the rush-hour train on the London underground with both arms wrapped so tightly around her precious dress box that whenever the carriage lurched to one side, she lurched with it.
Today, of all days, the tube was slow leaving every single station on the route from her lowly design studio to the posh central London address for Sheridan Press. It seemed to be teasing her and the faster she willed it to go, the slower it went.
She had given up apologising to the other passengers after the first few times she had crashed into them and braced herself against the grubby glass partition instead.
The fact that she was too vertically challenged, as her friend Saskia called it, to reach the plastic loop swinging above her head was entirely immaterial when every lurch and rattle of the train seemed to be calling out in a sing-song tune the word late, rattle, late, late, rattle, late. Taunting her.
But it didn’t matter. She had worked so hard on these dresses and they were lovely.
She would make Amber proud of her and prove to Heath and the wedding guests and their friends, hairdressers, postmen and anyone else they knew, how fabulously professional and creative she was and that they should choose Katherine Lovat Designs to create all of their future outfits.
With a bit of luck this wedding would be exactly the type of promotional opportunity she had been looking for. The first three dresses had already been delivered to the bride and the fourth and final dress had been finished right on deadline. Just as she had promised it would be.
Now all she had to do was go out into a thunderstorm and deliver the final dress—and she would be done.
Kate glanced down at her damp high-heeled peep-toe ankle boots and crunched her toes together several times to get the circulation going again.
Okay, maybe they weren’t the most sensible footwear in the world for trudging through city streets on the way to make a special delivery, but it shouldn’t be raining in July. It should be sunny and warm and the pavements dry enough to walk on without being in danger of being drenched from passing cars.
The train slowed but Kate’s pulse started to race as she peered out at the curved tile walls as they pulled into the tube station.
This was it. She swallowed down a lump of anxiety and nervous tension the size of a wedding hat, and then she lifted her chin and turned on her trademark bright and breezy happy smile.
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. Everything is fine in Kate land.
No problems at all.
The lease on the warehouse studio which she rented with Patrick had not just doubled in cost in the last year, Patrick had not just decided to leave London and move to Hollywood as a wardrobe assistant in the movie business and, biggest of all, she was totally, absolutely not nervous about meeting the man she was on her way to see at that minute.
Heath Sheridan was Amber’s ex-stepbrother. That was all. And her silly teenage crush was over years ago!
So what if she had pounced on Heath the last time that she had seen him? They had both kissed a lot of other people since then. He was bound to have forgotten that embarrassing little incident...wouldn’t he?
She had never seen Heath since that night and he certainly hadn’t got in touch with her. But of course that was the autumn his mother had been taken ill and coming back to London wasn’t included in his plans.
No. This was a straightforward business transaction. Heath needed the last of the four bridesmaids’ dresses today and was willing to pay extra to have it delivered in person.
Why should it matter if Heath saw her looking like a drowned rat? With her soggy bare toes sticking out of her damp designer boots?
He probably wouldn’t even notice that she was late for their meeting. And wet.
Probably.
And if he did, well, she could simply make a joke of her problems. The way she always did.
The glass doors slid open behind her back and Kate exploded onto the crowded platform with the crush of other passengers behind her with such momentum that she had to press one hand against the wall to protect her precious cargo.
And instantly winced.
She had just touched a wall decorated with graffiti, and who knew what else, with her white lace summer gloves.
Well, this day was getting better all the time.
It would actually be funny if she wasn’t so nervous.
She sucked in a breath of hot fuel and soot-filled air charged with that tang of electricity from the tracks.
Nervous? Kate Lovat did not do nervous.
Kate Lovat was brave and strong and invincible and courageous.
Kate Lovat was going to exude an aura of total confidence and professionalism and Heath’s family would recommend her work to all of their friends.
Kate Lovat had just spent an hour on her make-up so that it looked natural, and much longer choosing a professional outfit which would impress even the toughest of clients.
She clutched the dress box to her chest as she boarded the escalator.
She needed high-profile clients like the Sheridans to adore the bridesmaids’ dresses she had created. After all, she had followed the brief Heath had emailed her to the letter.
Okay. Maybe she might have added a little something extra. After all, she had to stamp some Lovat flourish on her work. Otherwise, what would be the point of making something unique?
A smile crept up from her mouth to her eyes and a quick chuckle caught in her throat.
Watch out, Heath Sheridan. Ready or not, here I come. Get ready to be dazzled.
* * *
‘The trade fair figures are not what we wanted, Heath. The presentations were brilliant and every buyer I spoke to was impressed with the quality of the hardbacks, but they are dragging their heels when it comes to firm orders,’ Lucas explained, his exasperation clear even down the cellphone from a Malaysian hotel. ‘The book stores simply don’t want to hold a wide range of reference titles which only shift a few copies a year.’
Heath Sheridan scanned through the sales figures that had arrived onto his notebook computer in the past few minutes and quickly pulled together a comparison chart of how book sales were tracking in each region.
No matter how he mapped the data, the results were the same.
Sales were down in every category of reference book that had made Sheridan Press one of the few remaining commercially successful privately owned international publishing houses. The company had made its name one hundred and twenty years ago with high end, beautifully produced reference books. Biographies, dictionaries and atlases. Lovely books designed to last. And they did last. And that was the problem.
Over the past few weeks he had worked with Lucas and his talented marketing team to come up with a brilliant promotional campaign which focused on how Sheridan Press had invested in digital technology to illustrate the books which were still bound by hand so that every single reference book was a unique work of art. A superb combination of the latest technology with the finest hand-crafting techniques that four generations of the Sheridan family had created.
Shame that the booksellers did not see it that way.
That was precisely the kind of approach that his father had been looking for when he’d asked Heath to inject some new blood into the company—and save the jobs of hundreds of employees who made up Sheridan Press in the process.
Growing up, he had spent more time watching men embossing gold letters onto beautiful books than he had watching sports. These men had given their lives to the Sheridan family, just as their fathers and grandfathers had done before them.
He could not fail them. He would not fail them.
Heath exhaled long and slow before replying to his father’s Far East sales manager, who had lost just as much sleep as he had preparing for this sales trip. ‘I know that you and your team did the very best you could, Lucas—thank you for all of your hard work,’ Heath said, trying to inject a lighter tone to his voice. ‘Let’s see what Hong Kong brings! I can just see all of those new undergraduates heading off to university with some Sheridan books under their arms this fall.’
‘Absolutely.’ Lucas laughed out loud. ‘Call you when we get there. Oh—and don’t forget to take some time out to enjoy yourself at the wedding of the year. I’m glad I don’t have to come up with a best man’s speech for my own dad.’
‘Hey! I’m going to be a great best man. But, talking about enjoying yourself—why not take the team out to celebrate on Saturday? I’ll pick up the tab.’
‘Sounds good to me. Call you later in the week.’
The cellphone clicked off, leaving Heath in silence, his quick brain working through the ramifications of the call. Frustration and exasperation combined with resigned acceptance. This promotional tour of the Far East book fairs had to pay for itself in increased sales. This was precisely the market the investment in new technology was designed to attract.
He had been convinced that the techniques that had worked so brilliantly in the commercial fiction line of the Sheridan publishing empire, could be applied to the reference book section. He had taken over a tiny and neglected division straight out of university and transformed it into one of the seven top commercial publishers in the world. The profits from Sheridan Media had been keeping Sheridan Press afloat for years.
Surely it was time to reap the benefits of ten years of driving himself with a punishing workload. When was the last time that he had a holiday? And what about the series of failed relationships and missed family events?
There had to be a way to use all of that hard-won success to save the reference books. And save his relationship with his father at the same time.
His father had reached out to ask for his business advice. It was a small step—but a real step. And an important one in rebuilding their fragile family life. The media loved it and Heath had set up press releases and interviews which had rippled through the publishing world. New technology and traditional craftsmanship. Father and son. It was a golden ticket. Heath Sheridan was the equivalent of calling in the cavalry to save yet another much respected publisher from going to the wall.
He had jumped at the chance, excited by the possibilities. And excited by the opportunity to spend more time with Charles Sheridan. They had never had an easy-going relationship and this was the first time they had worked together as professionals.
Of course he hadn’t counted on being asked to be best man at his own father’s wedding. Especially considering who the bride was. That was an unexpected twist.
Asking for help or acknowledging any kind of problem had never been Charles Sheridan’s strong point. Maybe he should report back on what Lucas had told him.
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