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He supposed it was one of those typical June weddings. Logan Bennett hated weddings. He had skipped the ceremony and managed to come up with an excuse for missing the dinner and not showing up until they were well past serving out the cake.
But show up he did. He had to. Beau Briggs was both a client and friend and someone he owed big time for the contacts he’d sent Logan’s way during his struggle to rebuild a failing business. Beau’s loving pride in his wife, Hadley, who ran the events at Maxwell Point, meant Logan could not very well refuse her invitation to this circus of a wedding she had planned for a woman who was not only a client but also a friend.
So he had traipsed from the inn at the far end of the Maxwell Point Estate, along the walkways that meandered through landscaped gardens bursting with early summer blooms, to the sprawling white-columned mansion that was now the event center.
When Logan stepped into the huge ballroom decorated with flowers and filled with music and people dancing or milling about, he scanned the tables off to one side of the room where Beau said he would be sitting. A hand waved to him from a table right on the edge of the dance floor and Logan saw Beau and Hadley.
“Sorry to be so late,” Logan said as he took a seat next to Beau. “Got a phone call and had to do some troubleshooting.”
“Hey, I’d be surprised if it were any other way,” Beau said, his comment referring to Logan’s reputation for working nonstop. Of course, the silent smile he added referred to the comment he’d made to him yesterday about someday finding a woman and slowing down enough to have a real life.
“Are the newlyweds still here?” Logan tossed out, to avoid the possibility of Beau starting in on that subject again.
“Yep. There they are.” Hadley pointed out a plus-sized African American woman wearing a lacey tiered wedding gown. She was dancing in the arms of a blond linebacker-sized hulk. “Lexi owns a bridal and designer dress boutique and has her own line of clothing. Nate, the groom, had been living in Denver but was paired with Lexi as part of his sister’s bridal party a couple years ago. After a few months of trying a long-distance relationship he moved to the North Fork, and the rest is history.”
Logan just nodded, unable to share in her enthusiasm but giving it a try. Hadley loved weddings, and she and Beau had only been married less than a year, so they still wore that newlywed sheen that Logan was sure would wear off soon enough.
Beau flagged down a server and ordered Logan his usual Glenlivet 12, then said, “Didn’t you tell me you knew this area? That you used spend summer and holidays here with a friend’s family?”
“Yeah, a college buddy,” Logan said, the pang of regret that surfaced as fresh as if it were yesterday.
“He still on the North Fork?”
“I don’t know. We lost touch.” Yeah, Logan had lost a lot of things when Victor, the guy who’d been his best friend for years, his trusted ally, had turned on him. Logan’s trust level for people had not been too high anyway, but after that it was in the toilet. “So where is Kirk?” he asked. Kirk was one of Logan’s top-level employees he had brought along to assist in hashing out the new investment deal he came here to discuss with Beau. “Don’t tell me he is out there dancing?”
“If you call it that.” Beau peered sideways at his wife who was busy talking to a woman at the next table, then lowered his voice. “Kirk is over there trying to score with that gorgeous little firecracker whose dance floor moves are making every man present suffer greatly.”
Logan followed his gaze and—holy shit.
It couldn’t be her.
But it was.
Gianna “Jinx” D’Alessio.
Last winter when Beau had asked Logan to be a groomsman at his wedding, he had begged off, claiming to be up to his ears in work, when in fact, it was revisiting this neighborhood he’d wanted to avoid. This time he needed Beau’s help on a project and gave in, agreeing to meet Beau on his friend’s current home turf in the North Fork. Since his arrival here three days ago, Logan kept wondering if he would see any of the people who’d once been so important to him.
And there she was—the one who’d been most important of all.
Victor’s little sister.
By the time she was out of diapers, she’d proven herself to be such a hellion that her siblings started calling her Jinx—and it stuck.
And here she was, all grown up and sexy as hell.
And flaunting it like there was no tomorrow. Her blue skin-tight dress showed every luscious, agony-inducing curve. Shit, it practically showed the crack in her perfect butt as she waved her hips around, arms to the sky, her mop of thick brown waves flying as she tossed her head. Snug along the line of her small waist, the dress’s low-cut top held up by skinny string-like straps didn’t cover much of her ample breasts that looked like they might fall out completely any second.
And the men surrounding her were just waiting for that to happen, moving in close to sway next to her, ogling her, looking like big horny oafs next to the tiny beauty. Including the very married Kirk Trench.
Logan’s fingers squeezed his rock glass till his knuckles turned white and a low growl formed in his chest as he tried to keep himself from racing over there and yanking those bastards away from her and delivering a lesson that would put them all in the hospital.
Jinx D’Alessio had always been a firecracker, a little troublemaker who used to tickle his funny bone. But tonight her siren dance was tickling a different part of his anatomy. She’d obviously had too much to drink. If her big brother, Victor, were around he would be dragging her out of here and popping any guy who’d gotten too close.
Which was exactly what Logan was dying to do.
The song ended and the beat that was driving Jinx subsided to a slow dance. One of the four guys who’d been dancing with her reached for her, but she dodged him, saying, “I’ve got to sit down and have a drink.”
