Operation Happily Ever After (Trust & Tequila)

Chapter 1

Return of the Mack

Henry

Noah Spencer, my inestimable and remarkably efficient personal assistant, has finally lost his damn mind.

Shockingly, I had nothing to do with it.

“I planned this wedding for fourteen months.” His pale, round cheeks have darkened to an alarming shade somewhere between freshly slapped and tomato red, and his British accent has sharpened to a blade. “My brother has wreaked havoc in less than six hours.”

“‘Havoc’ is hyperbolic,” I murmur in my best attempt to soothe. “The villa hasn’t crumbled into the Mediterranean, and I haven’t heard a single explosion.”

Utterly unsoothed, Spencer sends me a look that edges toward feral. “Yet.”

I blink.

Under normal circumstances, Spencer and I understand each other perfectly. In many ways, we’re alike. He would never blindside me with a new brand of toothpaste, for instance. And, like me, he prides himself on his self-control and dignity.

I don’t like to see an unflappable man . . . flapping.

“As long as I’ve got a ring on you by the end of the weekend, our wedding isn’t ruined.” Dante, my childhood friend and head of my security team, runs a big hand over his fiancé’s ginger curls.

At least, Dante is acting like himself.

I was honored when Dante asked me to be his best man at his wedding to my PA. Legitimately touched by his request. Now, I think I was touched in the head to say yes.

Spencer turns into the much bigger man’s arms with an abject moan and rests his cheek against Dante’s jaw, the hectic burst of agitated color pressing against the warm brown skin of his future spouse.

My wife shoots me a brief glance before her gaze slips away from mine and back to Dante and Spencer. Late afternoon sun gilds her tan skin and forms a gentle halo of light on her caramel-streaked hair.

As I watch, her shoulders lift and fall on an almost imperceptible sigh.

Standing in the open double doorway, her cherrywood cane in hand and the hem of her red sundress ruffling in the warm breeze, Franki looks healthy. She says she’s “fine.”

But something is wrong. I expected her to be happy after she completed her doctorate. Instead, she’s been distracted. Maybe even sad.

Therefore, I created a plan. Rest, orgasms, and sunshine improve mood. A sleepy village on the Amalfi Coast should’ve been the perfect place for all three.

Operation Relax Franki is on my itinerary.

And, according to that itinerary, Franki and I should be alone right now. Naked.

For the tenth time today, I pull the black plastic fidget spinner from my pocket and give it a swirl. It’s either cave to the urge to stim or leave. Those are my reasonable options.

This is Spencer and Dante’s third “wedding weekend disaster” today. It’s unreasonable.

The first catastrophic event involved Spencer’s brother, Elliot, picking up the glass cake topper to examine it, then fumbling it on the return. It shattered to nothing on the majolica tiles.

My suggestion that a naked cake tastes just as good as one with a decoration on it made Spencer sniffle.

At the disturbing sight, I overcorrected. I didn’t promise another cake topper. I promised an exact replacement.

It turns out that specific tchotchke was handmade in limited editions by a French artist.

Getting a guarantee a matching ten-inch chunk of glass would be here by tomorrow morning required the kind of ass-kissing that didn’t involve my lips on my naked wife.

If I spoke French, I’d have called the man myself. Instead, Franki, the very person I’m supposed to be pampering, picked up my slack.

I read the conversation on a translation app and paced beside her as the man droned on and on about the inconvenience. He only paused long enough to jack up the “value” of the item in increments and tell her to remind him, again, why he was brilliant and important.

I don’t give a shit about the blatant extortion, but listening to Franki suck up to that egomaniac made me want to hurl her phone into the sea where, best case scenario, a shark would eat it.

The second crisis involved discovering a mother cat had hidden her litter of kittens in the open base of the lectern meant for the wedding ceremony.

This, happily, had nothing to do with Spencer’s brother and everything to do with the large local population of strays.

Franki suggested we put the kittens in a basket to move them.

But given Mama Cat’s protective nature, it was an extraction requiring surgical precision.

So, the staff and I moved the entire lectern.

Mother and kittens are now resting comfortably—in our room—and we’ve been hand-feeding the runt kitten formula with a syringe.

No baby animal will starve on my watch, by God.

Our pet sitter, Piper, added kitten-feeding to her schedule when we aren’t around. Considering she has to keep the animals separated to avoid Mama Cat and our dachshund, Oliver, fighting like literal cats and dogs, I tripled her wages.

Two crises, one of which has turned our room into a petting zoo, is enough.

Franki glances my way, once more. I stare back and attempt to project “Let’s get the fuck out of here while we still can,” straight into her brain.

Instead of nodding and silently slipping closer, my wife raises her eyebrows in the middle. Beseeching me.

I shake my head and mouth, “No.”

“Henry,” she implores quietly.

“We are not getting sucked into their family drama,” I mutter.

Dante rubs Spencer’s shoulders. “Everything will work out.”

I cut my eyes from Franki to Dante and back again. See? Dante has everything handled.

“A member of the staff caught Elliot in the kitchen. He said he was going change the menu,” Spencer says tearfully.

Oh. That is . . . unfortunate.

Dante closes his eyes. “Is he aware my mother is a professional chef?”

“He knows,” Spencer says. “He also knows she’s the one who planned the menu.”

Phyllis has been Dad’s chef my entire life, through the loss of her first husband in the Vinucci war. Through the shit that went down with the Russian Bratva. Once, when we were looking for a missing kid and the fucker who trafficked him wouldn’t talk, Dad asked to borrow Phyllis’s fillet knives.

Her answer was to show up on site wearing her full uniform—hat and checkered pants included—her blonde hair tucked into a pristine, net-wrapped bun at the base of her neck, ready to work.

No one but Phyllis uses Phyllis’s knives.

“This is what happens when you bring oblivious people into a situation they don’t understand,” I say.

Spencer moans.

Shifting a fraction closer to my wife, I slip my arm around her waist. She leans into me, allowing me to support some of her weight. That tells me enough. She needs rest.

This is a wedding, not a mafia war. Dante is my head of security, for God’s sake. He can handle a little domestic dispute.

“What did Elliot say, exactly?” Franki asks.

Spencer hesitates before answering, “He said the wedding menu should be more accessible.”

That doesn’t sound too bad. “What does that mean?” I ask. “Allergen-free? Vegan?”

Dante’s jaw tightens. “Mom already took that into account. She’s meticulous.”

“Elliot has a problem with my career. He calls me a sellout. And he called your mother’s menu . . .” Spencer bites his knuckle, then chokes out, “Pretentious.”

Dante and Franki both audibly gasp, their fingers covering their mouths in identical expressions of offended dignity and horror.

I’m just confused. As far as Elliot knows, his brother is a personal assistant to an extremely boring businessman. And the menu isn’t fussy at all. Though, maybe, I’m not the best judge in that department.

“You haven’t sold out in any way, shape, or form. He doesn’t know Henry or anything about him,” Franki says hotly.

“Elliot used the menu to take a cheap shot at you. That menu is the opposite of pretentious. It’s traditional food,” Dante grumbles.

“It’s rustic and wonderful,” Franki agrees.

I wink at my wife, determined to remind her of what we’re supposed to be doing right now. “I like many rustic things.”

Leaning down, I whisper against her ear, “Banging my wife in our rustic cabin is my favorite thing.”

Franki swats me gently for my bad timing and worse joke, but her lips twitch in a repressed smile.

My PA scowls. “Why are you winking and whispering? It’s disturbing.”

“I’m a man. I think about sex at inconvenient times,” I drawl.

Dante and Spencer offer commiserating head wobbles of “you’ve-got-a-point.”

Franki attempts to guide the conversation back on track. “This situation is salvageable. Dante, just ask your dad to distract your mom. And, Noah, you have your mother keep Elliot out of trouble.”

“She is no longer capable of keeping him in line. He’s twenty, not five,” Spencer says.

At twenty, he should be capable of keeping himself in line, as far as I’m concerned.

Dante exhales slowly. “Dad is patient. But if Mom loses it, he’s backing her up. He’s not running interference against his own wife. He’ll step in himself.”

Dante’s father has been a McRae soldier since before I was born. If Clay decides to act, it won’t be pretty.

Spencer looks my way with entreating eyes. “We need you to keep my brother occupied and away from everyone but my family.”

“No.” It’s a complete sentence. No room for interpretation or argument. I will not be swayed. My wife needs rest, sunshine, and copious orgasms, not stress.

Spencer sighs deeply. “For nearly a decade, I’ve managed all the irritating details of your life for you. It seems a small favor to ask in return.”

“Managing the irritating details of my life is your job, which I pay you to do,” I say acidly.

“Agreeing to be Dante’s best man is a social contract,” Spencer returns.

“I agreed to guard the rings and arrange a bachelor party with excellent charcuterie, not involve myself in your family problems. You and Dante are more than capable of managing this situation.”

Dante runs a hand over his cropped black curls and juts out his bottom lip. “We’re busy getting married. We’d hoped we could enjoy it.”

“I’m not falling for clear emotional manipulation. Stop giving me puppy eyes. It’s beneath you,” I say.

Dante wipes the look off his face. “We thought since you’re so good at—”

“Yes, I know. I’m good with logistics. But I’m terrible with people,” I say. “This is a known issue.”

“That’s not true,” Spencer says, in what I can only categorize as a blatant lie.

Franki opens her mouth to say something, lifts a finger, then snaps her lips shut and snatches her finger back without a sound.

“It’s profoundly true. I don’t soften things. I don’t—” I gesture vaguely with one hand. “Charm.”

“Of course you do,” Franki says. “It’s just alarming when you do it.”

I glance her way.

“Not to me,” she says.

“Nothing hurts your feelings,” Spencer insists.

“How is that a selling point?” It’s not even true, but only Franki . . . and maybe my sister . . . are aware of that fact.

“Because you won’t take anything he says or does personally,” Spencer says.

“Behavior is data,” I say. “I respond accordingly.”

Muscles bunch under Dante’s jacket as he shifts his weight. “We need someone neutral who won’t escalate the situation. That’s you.”

“I could escalate a nun on vacation,” I remind them.

Franki strokes my forearm soothingly. “That was an accident.”

“That’s my point.” I raise my eyebrows. “I have no filter and very little patience.”

“Less than my mother?” Dante asks.

Touché.

I stow the fidget spinner back in my pocket and lift my glasses to pinch the bridge of my nose.

The silence yawns between us.

Franki nudges me with her shoulder.

“A little bluntness may be just what the doctor ordered,” Spencer coaxes.

Franki pats my arm. “Between the two of us, this will be easy.”

She says that because she has the patience of a saint. Franki watches the two grooms with empathy written all over her sweet face. My darling wife knows what it’s like to brace for family damage and what it costs to manage other people’s volatility so joy isn’t crushed beneath it.

It’s not in her nature to step back if she can help someone, and—dammit, everyone here knows it’s not in mine.

I like to meddle and arrange and make things work out the way they should. It’s my besetting sin. If I weren’t fixated on my pre-existing plans with Franki, I’d have known about every one of these issues and dealt with them without being asked.

But Franki is finally getting her energy back after a busy year and changing her meds for her rheumatoid arthritis. And I still don’t know what’s bothering her.

When she stretches up to speak in my ear, I bend closer to listen. “I’m fine, Henry. I’ll worry if we don’t.”

Well. That’s that, isn’t it?

I brush her hair behind her ear. “You are the kindest person I’ve ever known.”

I can’t admire her empathy when it benefits me personally and steamroll or disparage it when it doesn’t.

I straighten and address the men. “We’ll take care of everything. You concentrate on enjoying yourselves.”

Spencer exhales so hard his lungs probably ache.

I brush my thumb over the freckle on Franki’s pinkie. “Leave Elliot to me. I’ll keep him in line.”

“Within reason,” she says.

“Define reason.”

“We’re going to be friendly about it. We’ll attract more flies with honey.”

“That’s a terrible analogy. Who would want more flies?”

Her lips curve upward. “Maybe you could try to look less intimidating?” she asks.

“I look exactly like a businessman with a PhD in astrophysics. How is that intimidating?” I’m tall to the point of awkward, lean enough that my jacked-up brother-in-law roasts me for it, and my hair looks like it survived a tornado eighty percent of my life. “I have freckles.”

She studies my eyes with a smile in hers. “Just . . . try to be nice.”

“I am nice,” I say, affronted. “Children and animals love me.”

Her entire face softens. “Yes they do.”

When she aims to place a kiss on the cleft in my chin, I swoop down and catch her lips with mine. After a too-short moment of my mouth on hers, I raise my head, and she grins.

“I’ll attempt pleasant,” I concede.

She squeezes my hand.

Spencer beams. “Thank you. Truly. You really are perfect for this.”

I’m a man with no filter and a Glock under my suit jacket about to finesse a twenty-year-old kid with the survival instincts of a kumquat.

I am not perfect.

But I hold on to Franki’s hand, and we step forward, prepared to take on the most dangerous task of the weekend.

Small talk.