For a second, I just sit there. Engine running. Staring.
I could leave. Turn around. Drive back to the city and figure out a different life. One that doesn’t involve pretending everything’s fine when it’s all falling apart.
But then I think about Ivy’s texts. Her excitement. The contract with my name on it.
This wedding is happening. It has to.
Because if I pull this off—if I can somehow execute the wedding of the year without a team, without resources, without anything but sheer determination and whatever’s in my emergency kit—then maybe I don’t need Miranda. Maybe I can do this on my own.
Maybe.
I kill the engine, check my face one more time, and open the car door.
Time to fake it like my life depends on it.
Because it basically does.
I step out of the car, smooth my dress, and immediately plant one Louboutin directly into something wet and squishy.
Still smiling.
Absolutely still smiling.
Even if it freaking kills me.
I look down.
“Oh no.”
It’s… not mud. It’s something wetter. More offensive. And deeply unwelcome. Something that was, at one point, probably alive or at least partially digested.
I gag once. Just a little.
But I’m prepared. I’m nothing if not prepared. I yank a biodegradable wipe from my bag and crouch down on the stone path, balancing on one foot like a deranged flamingo as I try to salvage my dignity—and my shoes.
Which is exactly when I hear a voice.
“Can I help you?”
Deep. Male. Annoyed. Very much not the kind of voice that sayswelcome.
I look up—and nearly lose my balance.
Standing in the doorway of the main house is a man. Tall, broad-shouldered, and absurdly good-looking in the kind of way that makes you briefly forget how sentences work.
His dark hair is neatly combed but already threatening to fall out of place. A five o’clock shadow clings to his sharp jaw like it’s made a permanent home there. A jawline that makes you reconsider your position on marriage. His eyes—gray? green? something stormy—are striking enough to make me momentarily forget that my foot is still covered in… something.
He’s wearing khakis and a crisp white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms, the kind of casual-office look that he somehow manages to make look intimidating.
This has to be Dean.
The grump. The groom’s brother. The anti-wedding energy Ivy warned me about.
And the universe, in its infinite sense of humor, has made himhot.
He is, objectively, alarmingly attractive. And unfortunately, I’m crouched in front of his house, one foot in the air, mydesigner shoe covered in shit, my entire life in shambles, trying not to cry.
Cool. This is going great.
