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Faith turned to him. Her luggage was in his room? She supposed that asking for a separate room would raise a few eyebrows. Obviously the women he brought home slept in his room. But she was not one of his women and had no intention of losing her brain this weekend.
Her heart, well, she planned to keep that closely guarded as well because falling for him would be way too easy when he already occupied so much of her thoughts.
Her suitcase was in his room.
She wanted to say something, but bit her tongue. She’d put him on the floor, because if he thought they were sleeping in the same bed, he had another think coming.
Since arriving, he’d been unusually quiet. Unusually attentive. Probably in an effort to convince his family they were truly involved so they wouldn’t start up with the matchmaking.
“Seeing you with your family almost makes you seem like an ordinary man.” Right, because ordinary men drank Cristal from real crystal while walking on gleaming marble floors with million-dollar paintings hanging on the walls. It was enough to make a girl’s neuron synapses fuse.
“I don’t want you to think I’m ordinary.”
She almost snorted. As if.
“No one would ever think you’re ordinary, Vale,” she assured in a purposely condescending tone.
His lips twitched in amusement. “You have a sharp tongue, Faith Fogarty.”
“That’s why you hired me,” she reminded him. “My sharp tongue and sharper wit.”
Vale threw his head back and laughed. Reaching out, he took her hand into his and lifted it to his mouth. “You might just be right about that.”
What was he doing?
Why wasn’t she stopping him?
Why were her knees trembling?
Why was every cell in her body going berserk, wanting to get closer and closer to him?
“Come on. Let’s head outdoors,” Sharon called, rushing everyone out the elaborate glass French doors that led onto a patio boasting a sparkling blue pool and hot tub, along with privacy created by the sand dunes behind the back yard.
A large white marquee had been set up along the back side of the property where the wedding reception would take place. On the opposite side, white chairs had been lined up in neat rows facing a gazebo where the bride and groom would stand, their attendants on the sides.
Still reeling from Vale’s attention, Faith sat in one of the chairs near the middle and watched as Sharon ordered everyone around like a five-star general.
Thirty minutes later, Faith watched Vale take his place yet again two spots down from the groom, watched as they ran through the events one last time. He was bored but humoring his family and as much as she want
ed him to be enough of a distraction to fully occupy her mind, for once he wasn’t.
Sitting was pure torture. Being there was pure torture in so many ways. Each time the wedding march started, bile sloshed in her stomach, burning her throat, making her clench and unclench her fingers.
She detested weddings.
Had from the very first one she’d attended.
That had been the moment she’d had to admit to herself that her father wouldn’t be coming home ever again. That she’d never have her happy family back.
That her father had truly abandoned her and her mother.
That her mother had moved on and so should she. And although her mother moved on, time and again, Faith never had.
Next to Faith, Virginia clapped her hands and sighed, apparently not suffering from a similar distaste for weddings.
“Oh,” she sighed. “Everything is just perfect.”
Perfect, because that’s what weddings were.
