10. All The Plans （Ethan）
ALL THE PLANS (ETHAN)
T hat sneaky, two-timing cobra fuck.
I slam the letter down on my desk and Hattie flinches.
Yes, I regret my temper, but didn’t I tell her to stay the fuck away from Cooper Daley?
“He had no right barging into your bookstore. What part of ‘closed’ doesn’t he get?” I growl, trying to moderate my tone and failing.
My blood roars in my ears.
Cooper Daley has a sixth sense for pushing all of my reddest buttons.
It doesn’t matter if this engagement is a farce designed to appease my dead grandfather and satisfy his bizarre will.
Hattie’s mine for the duration.
As long as she’s with me, wearing my ring, he needs to keep his greasy paws off her or there will be severed fingers to deal with.
She watches me cautiously behind those green eyes.
“See? I had a feeling you’d blow up like this. I knew I shouldn’t have given you that letter.”
“Fucking yes you should.”
“Definitely not before we meet with the wedding planner.” She sighs.
Right.
The damn planner.
That’s why she’s over at my house for the first time since I stormed her lips. We have a wedding to plan with a professional.
Not with Margot’s half-baked input, thank God.
She was pissed as hell we excluded her today, but this is a big deal.
A seminal event.
I can’t afford to make a single mistake. Not when our reputations are on the line and everything leaks to the press, one way or another.
I’d like to be the one controlling that drip, showing the world that everything is solid, and my grandfather wasn’t the last living Blackthorn with any sense.
It’s just hard to do that when I’m focused on what Cooper Daley has up his sleeve now.
I close my eyes, trying to clear my anger so I can shift back into the present. I need to be fucking grounded.
“Whatever. Let’s table this for now.” I take the note and shove it in my desk. I’ll read the cursed thing later, after my blood pressure returns to baseline. “For the record, Daley isn’t getting in the way of anything I can handle now.”
Business I can hopefully handle.
This is my first wedding and probably my last.
“How’s the bookstore coming along, anyway? You made any big decisions to make it fit your vision?” I change the subject, but Hattie’s face pinches.
Her lips press together.
There’s a crease between her eyebrows I want to smooth with my thumb.
“Um, slow going. But that’s okay.” She sighs like she’s holding up the world.
Another touchy subject.
Should’ve known, seeing how she never asked me to buy it for her in the first place and drop it in her lap.
But what’s done is done, and there’s no way I regret doing it.
That ratty place is better off in her hands. She could sell nothing but dirty gardening books and it would still be a massive improvement.
“You can tell me what’s new. I won’t bite your head off,” I say, rolling my shoulders and strolling across the room to the couch for the harbor view past the window.
My unruly brain snaps back to the way she tasted on the beach.
Ever since then, I’ve been doing my damnedest to forget, but the kiss returns to haunt me every time I try to banish it from my head.
That memory’s a siren song I can’t silence, repeatedly assaulting my senses.
Hattie’s soft, full curves in my hands.
Hattie’s lips, sweet as wine, drugging me to the brink of madness.
I was so fucking hard when I ripped myself away from her and marched back to the house. Ten more seconds and I would’ve been grinding against her like an animal.
Even Ares is better behaved in the humping department, for fuck’s sake.
Scrubbing a hand through my hair, I exhale between my teeth so she doesn’t sense the gutter my mind is stuck in.
I’m lucky I have Cooper Daley’s bullshit to hide behind.
It’s nothing new.
My mind’s been spinning since she showed up earlier this evening, wearing a cute button-down and leggings.
A far cry from the elegant dress last time, but somehow just as appealing.
Hell, maybe more so because she’s in her element.
Learning Cooper Daley ambushed her at the bookstore made me furious enough to forget the sexual static between us for five seconds, but now that there’s nothing but the sound of Hattie chewing her lip, it’s all I can think about.
Fucking helpless man.
Losing my wits over a kiss.
It’s pathetic.
Too long since I last got laid, perhaps, and I have zero interest in hookups right now.
Hattie and I are engaged.
Boning some random girl would be mighty disrespectful and an invitation for Portland to curse me again for the same sin.
Also, no matter what kind of raging asshole she thinks I am, I’m not about to cheat on her. I don’t care if we’re not technically ‘together.’
I’m not disgracing myself and humiliating her and making this harder than it is.
Easier said than done when the only person my cock seems to be interested in is her.
She walks around and perches on the armchair beside the sofa, drawing her legs up under her and wrapping her arms around them.
“I don’t know what I’m doing, Ethan,” she admits. “Bookstores are in decline across the whole industry. Fewer people are interested in showing up for print, so I’ll have to change something drastic.”
“So do it.”
“The question is how . Right now, we sell every genre, but I’m thinking we’re going to have to niche down. Really think about the market and what buyers we can appeal to. Who even visits bookstores anymore if it’s not for school? What are the demographics in Portland?”
“Market research,” I say idly. “An important aspect of any business.”
“Right. But I don’t have tons of data or endless time for research,” she says, like it’s my problem. “Either way, I’ll figure something out. I’m not throwing this opportunity away. It just feels like a lot right now.”
“You need inspiration.”
“Wow,” she deadpans, pushing up her glasses. “Helpful.”
“What do you want me to say, Pages? You’re a damn brainiac and you breathe books—why wouldn’t you have this down?” It’s my turn to throw her an incredulous look.
A wild dimple pops in one of her cheeks.
I stare at it too long.
“Easy for you to say,” she says. “You weren’t thrown into this headfirst without a day to prepare.”
“Close enough. I dove into the family business on a whim when it seemed like my last option. Without Gramps connecting me with a few people in the office, I would’ve been lost,” I say. “But I figured you’d find some way to blame me. No good deed ever goes unpunished.”
“It is your fault.” Her lips curl, teasing. “You’re the reason why I own a bookstore I don’t know what to do with.”
“Tough break, Pages.” I lean closer on my elbows, not looking away from her face. “What if I said you’ve got this? Because if anyone can turn around a musty-ass store that’s probably been failing for years, it’s the dork who’d dive into the harbor for a chance to meet some big-time author.”
She flushes.
I definitely should feel the victory surge at the sight.
Goddamn.
“But,” I say, leaning back, “only if you rename it something besides Sneed’s Books for starters. The name has to go.”
“And here I was thinking you loved it. So much history.”
“The name is only half of it. The vibe sucks, reminds me of a school library. You’ll be busy for sure with that awful place.”
“Why awful? Because it has books?” She tilts her head, silky hair pooling on one shoulder. “Did you forget how to read when you left Portland?”
I hold up my hands.
“You got me. I have a trained monkey who handles my correspondence now. Former lab ape, they gave him a brain implant that lets him rip through emails ten times faster than any human.”
“Such BS.” She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling.
“Just being around old books gives me a rash. Paper allergy or something,” I lie.
“Okay, stop!” She laughs harder now, throwing her head back, and I have another brief surge of happiness before I crush it.
I only need this dumb fucking banter to take the edge off.
Nothing more.
Then the doorbell rings, and I start walking, putting as much distance between Pages and me as humanly possible.
“There’s the wedding planner,” I say, relieved as I march forward to let her in.
I think I’m dizzy.
The wedding planner, Mrs. Anne Radish, is a small, owlish woman with glasses that make her eyes look too large for her face and permanently pursed lips too much like a beak.
She has both a tablet filled with pictures and videos, plus print catalogues for us to sift through.
Today, I’ve learned that weddings have more moving pieces than a custom-built house.
I knew they were complicated—everything in the public eye is—but I was coming at it from a business perspective.
Cameras.
Press.
Public image.
Fancy food.
Whatever suits our perception as the newly minted Blackthorn power couple—but forgettable enough to separate in six months without a spectacle.
Only, it turns out there’s so much more to it than that.
So many little details.
Appetizers, drinks, the different entrée options, wine lists and open bars and custom invitation cards.
Seriously, fuck those cards to hell and back.
What they look like, what names they’ll have, whether we want special versions for our parents—
I’m about to head down to the nearest drugstore and burn every card in sight just for spite.
We’re grown adults and this wedding isn’t real.
We don’t need to obsess over the invites.
If Julia Sage wants to fuss over a lackluster design, let her come and cuss me out to my face.
Worst of all, the fairy godmother planner is just getting started. She opens a fresh book thicker than an encyclopedia and carries on.
My eye twitches.
Place settings.
Sample music scores for the ceremony and DJs for the reception.
At least Hattie seems to be enjoying herself.
While I’m melting into my seat, not giving a shit if we have black forest chocolate or Italian lemon cake, or something entirely different like strawberry or coconut, her eyes shine like diamonds.
It’s not that I think she actually wants to marry me .