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One
She’d just witnessed a train wreck.
Oh, no, not a literal one, Pia shook her head now at the wedding reception. But a figurative one was just as bad.
It was funny what a train wreck looked like from one end of a church aisle, with yards of ivory satin on display and the mingled scents of lilies and roses in the June air. As a wedding planner, she’d dealt with plenty of disasters. Grooms with cold feet. Brides who’d outsized their wedding dress. Even, once, a ringbearer who’d swallowed one of the rings. But surely Pia’s always-practical close friend would have no such problems at her wedding. Or so Pia had thought up until about two hours ago.
Of course, the passengers in their pews had all been agape as the Marquess of Easterbridge had stridden purposely up the aisle and announced that, in fact, there was an objection to Belinda Wentworth marrying Tod Dillingham. That, in fact, Belinda’s hasty and secret marriage to Colin Granville, current Marquess of Easterbridge, had never been annulled.
Collectively, the cream of New York City society had blinked. Eyes had widened and eyebrows had shot up in the pews of St. Bart’s, but no one had been so gauche as to actually faint—or pretend to.
And for that, Pia was grateful. There was only so much a wedding planner could do once the dog ate the cake, or the cab splattered mud on the bride’s dress, or, as in this case, the legal husband, for God’s sake, decided to show up at the wedding!
Pia had sat frozen in her position off the center aisle. Angels, she’d thought absently, were in short supply today.
And on the heels of that thought had come another. Oh, Belinda, why, oh, why didn’t you ever tell me about your Las Vegas wedding to, of all people, your family’s sworn enemy?
But in her gut, Pia had already known why. It was an act Belinda regretted. Pia’s brow puckered, thinking of what Belinda was dealing with right now. Belinda was one of her two closest friends in New York—along with Tamara Kincaid, one of Belinda’s bridesmaids.
And then, Pia heaped some of the blame on herself. Why hadn’t she spotted and intercepted Colin, like a good little wedding planner? Why hadn’t she stayed at the entrance to the church?
People would wonder why she, the bridal consultant, hadn’t known enough to keep the Marquess of Easterbridge away, or why she hadn’t been able to stop him before a very public debacle ruined her friend’s wedding and Pia’s own professional reputation.
Pia felt the urge to cry as she thought of the hit that her young business, Pia Lumley Wedding Productions, would take. The Wentworth-Dillingham nuptials—or more accurately now, almost-nuptials—were to have been her most high-profile affair to date. She’d only struck out on her own a little over two years ago, after a few years as an assistant in a large event planning company.
Oh, this was horrendous. A nightmare, really. For Belinda and herself.
She’d come to New York City from a small town in Pennsylvania five years ago, right after college. This wasn’t the way her dream to make it in New York was supposed to end.
As if in confirmation of her worst fears, right after the bride and both her groom and her husband had disappeared at the church, presumably to resolve the irresolvable, Pia had been standing in the aisle when a formidable society matron had steamed toward her.
Mrs. Knox had leaned close and said in a stage
whisper, “Pia, dear, didn’t you see the marquess approaching?”
Pia had smiled tightly. She’d wanted to say she’d had no idea that the marquess had been married to Belinda, and that, in any case, it wouldn’t have done any good to intercept His Lordship if, in fact, he’d still been married to Belinda. But loyalty to her friend had kept her silent.
Mrs. Knox’s eyes had gleamed. “You might have avoided a public spectacle.”
True. But, Pia thought, even if she had known enough to try to stop him, the marquess had been a man on a mission, and one who had at least sixty pounds and more than six inches on her.
So Pia had done what she could do after the fact in order to try to save the day. After a quick consultation with assorted Wentworth family members, she’d encouraged everyone to repair to a show-must-go-on reception at The Plaza.
Now, as Pia looked around at the guests and at the waiters passing to and fro with platters of hors d’oeuvres, the low and steady murmur of conversation allowed her to relax her shoulders even as her mind continued to buzz.
She concentrated on her breathing, a relaxation technique she’d learned long ago in order to help her deal with stressed-out brides and even more stressful wedding days.
Surely, Belinda and Colin would resolve this issue. Somehow. A statement could be issued to the press. With any luck something that began with Due to an unfortunate misunderstanding…
Yes, that’s right. Everything would be okay.
She shifted her focus outward again and, right then, she spotted a tall, sandy-haired man across the room.
Even though he was turned away from her, the hair at the back of her neck prickled as a sense of familiarity and foreboding hit her. When he turned to speak to a man who’d approached him, she saw his face and sucked in a breath.
And that’s when her world really came to a screeching halt. In her head, engines collided, the sound of crunching metal mixing with the smell of smoke. Or was the smoke coming out of her ears?
Could this day get any worse?
Him. James Fielding…aka Mr. Wrong.
What was James doing here?
It had been three long years since she’d last seen him, when he’d abruptly entered—and then promptly exited—her life, but there was no mistaking those seduce-you, golden Adonis looks.
He was nearly a decade older than her twenty-seven, but he hardly looked it, damn him. The sandy hair was clipped shorter than she remembered, but he was just as broad, just as muscular and just as impressive at over six feet tall.
