Chapter 3
HARPER
Harper found herself experiencing a slight thrill of excitement at being left alone with Theo Davenport.
Max’s older brother wasn’t what she’d expected.
She supposed that she’d been anticipating an older version of Max himself.
She had imagined the same cheerful grin, the same fun-loving demeanor.
She’d thought that the two of them would automatically have nothing but good times planning the wedding together.
And though she wasn’t given to romantic idealism, she’d pictured them spending the day of the wedding together as a sort of pair.
She had thought they would dance together, eat and drink together, and generally toast to the success of their wedding planning.
She no longer thought that. This man wasn’t anything like Max. Max was so upbeat, so much fun to be around. His brother didn’t even seem as though he wanted to be a part of this.
To Harper, that was just a challenge. She would get him to see how much fun they could have planning this wedding. She’d get him excited about it.
The mimosas he had just ordered for them would help.
It was impossible not to have fun over bottomless mimosas.
When the waitress returned with the pitcher, Harper took the liberty of pouring some out for each of them, and then she raised her glass.
“To Max and Tara,” she said. “Since we couldn’t toast with them. ”
Theo cracked a smile. “I hope I didn’t make things too awkward for them.”
“Oh, no, I’m sure you didn’t. You’re not the first person who has offered Tara champagne since they announced their engagement.
” She grinned. “If you ask me, they’re the ones who made things incredibly awkward.
They invited us to brunch, and then they took off without even eating with us! What do you call that?”
Theo let out a laugh. “I know,” he said. “That was weird, right? It wasn’t just me?”
“No, it was very strange,” she assured him.
“And it was obvious that they had planned it in advance. They’re such schemers sometimes — well, I haven’t known Max all that long, of course, but Tara has always been this way.
She’ll come up with a whole scheme and do anything to make sure she gets her own way.
They could have easily just given us one another’s contact information, but they had to set all this up.
Still…” She grinned at him. “I’m glad they did.
It’s nice to have a chance to get to know the person I’m going to be working with, instead of just communicating over the phone. ”
Theo nodded. “I’m glad they put us in touch with each other directly. It’ll make all this much easier. And you look like you’ve done lots of preparation already.”
“I have,” she agreed. “But, you know, Tara told me that you would have a list of vendors yourself — do you want to compare? If there’s someone on both of our lists, that might be a good place to start.”
“I didn’t bring a list with me,” Theo admitted.
“Oh! Well, that’s all right. Next time.” She took a sip of her mimosa. “We can work from my list for today. Why don’t you look it over and see if there are any names you recognize?”
She pulled out the piece of paper at the very front.
This was her list of all the vendors she’d considered working with for every service they were going to need.
“I’ve done all kinds of research,” she said, handing it to him.
“And I’ve worked with a lot of these vendors before, so I can vouch for their reliability.
But I’m guessing some of these names will be familiar to you as well. ”
He skimmed the page and then handed it back to her. “Yeah, I’m familiar with most of these,” he said.
“What is it you do for a living?” she asked. “Tara never told me that; she just said you had experience in events planning. Have we been working in the same industry all this time? I feel like we would have run into one another sooner if that was the case! And surely Tara would have mentioned it.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Neither of them told you what I do for work?”
“I mean, in their defense, I didn’t ask,” she said. “I was too focused on the fact that my best friend is getting married. I’m sure you were excited too, when you found out about all this.”
He hummed noncommittally.
A spike of irritation worked its way through Harper. Was it too much to ask for a real answer? She was doing her best to get to know this man, and he seemed determined to behave as if she was a huge inconvenience to him. As if he didn’t really even want to be here.
“All right,” she said, because it was the only topic he had shown any real interest in so far. “What is it you do for work, then?”
“I’m the owner of the Stallions.”
“You own stallions? Like you’re a rancher or something?”
“No, the Houston Stallions,” he clarified. “The baseball team.”
“Oh.”
“Not a fan, I take it?”
“Well, it’s not like I’m against them,” she said. “I’m not really a baseball fan, that’s all. I like other sports more.”
“What other sports?”
She shrugged. “I’m into soccer.”
“We don’t even have a soccer team here in Houston.”
“No, I know that,” she said.
“So you’re just fine with not having a hometown team to support?”
“Well, obviously I would prefer if we did have one! But I’m not about to give up on the whole enterprise just because we don’t.” She appraised him, noticing the way his jaw had clenched. His whole body seemed to indicate tension. He was leaning away from her, sitting back in his seat.
It was an odd time to have the realization, but it washed over her nonetheless — he really was very attractive.
She had expected to find Max Davenport’s brother cute in the same way she found Max himself cute — easy on the eyes, yes, and pleasant to be around in a way that could make a woman cut loose and relax.
She had expected someone she could flirt with easily and casually, knowing that it would come to nothing; someone she could make some fun memories with and say a friendly farewell to when their time together reached its natural end.
Theo was almost none of those things.
He shared Max’s good looks, but it was as if they had been translated into a different font.
Where Max’s hair was unkempt, always as if someone had just run their fingers through it, Theo’s was immaculately styled.
Where Max had a softness to him that betrayed the fact that he spent a lot of time sitting around at ball games and watching, Theo had muscles that Harper could make out through the fabric of his clothes.
And even though she had come here to do a job, she found herself wondering what those muscles might feel like.
Don’t do that. This clearly is not a man who enjoys casual flirting. She couldn’t have that kind of fun with him. It was disappointing — part of the reason to look forward to Tara’s wedding had been the possibility of a harmless flirtation, but that didn’t seem possible with Theo.
The truth was, Harper wasn’t confident she could flirt harmlessly with this man, either.
He wasn’t the sort who made her laugh and then left her thoughts as soon as they were out of one another’s sight.
He was the sort who was bound to linger in her thoughts, and that wasn’t what she wanted; not after all the trouble she’d had in the past, all the ill-fated romances, all the false starts and flirtations that had proven to be anything but harmless.
After having the second of her two children, Tara had become intense — almost aggressive — about her desire for Harper to settle down and have kids of her own.
The two had dreamed, in their youth, of their children growing up together and being best friends the way they had been.
With every year that passed, that dream got further away.
But Harper had never, not once in her thirty years of life, been on a date with a man she’d have wanted to be the father of her children. She couldn’t compromise on that just because of her dream of raising children alongside her best friend.
Still, she couldn’t stop herself from smiling at Theo now. “Maybe you can get me tickets,” she suggested. “I wouldn’t mind taking in a game.”
“Thought you weren’t a baseball fan?”
“I could get into it. Besides, you and I are going to have to see a lot more of each other before all this is over, and maybe it would be more convenient for you if we could meet where you work.”
He pressed his lips together, and for a moment she was afraid she’d offended him. But then he nodded. “That would be convenient, as a matter of fact.”
“So, I’ll come to a game, and when it’s over, maybe I can sit down with you in your office or something?”
“We don’t need to do it like that,” he said. “You can watch the game from my private box.”
“I can?”
“Sure. Anyone I want to can do that,” he said. “As it happens, there’s a game the day after tomorrow. Do you think you could come?”
“Sure,” she said happily. Maybe it wasn’t going to be as difficult as she’d thought to get on the same page with him.
He had just needed her to meet him where he was, and for Theo Davenport, that meant recognizing that work was an important part of his life.
That was all right. Lots of men were like that — they didn’t know how to balance work and regular life.
And if he needed to maneuver around his professional life to make things possible, then she’d accommodate that for Tara’s sake.
Besides, a baseball game really might be fun.
“You don’t need tickets,” he told her. “I’ll leave your name at the gate, and someone will escort you to my box. You’ll just have to show ID.”
“Sure. I can do that.”
“Then I’ll let them know to expect you,” he said.
There was no smile, no indication that this was something Theo wanted, and Harper wondered just exactly who this man was.
He seemed proud of his job, but he hadn’t given any indication of wanting to share it or show it off.
Even now that she had expressed interest in it, he gave the impression that he was putting up with her more than actually wanting her to be involved.
That’s fine. We don’t have to be friends. She was just going to have to reframe her expectations for him, and for what their time together was going to be like. She could do that. And in the meantime, she would get to see a baseball game, and that would be fun.
Still, she thought as she made her way out to her car after saying goodbye to Theo, Tara is lucky I love her so much.
I think a lot of people would probably have a hard time working with this guy.
But I’ll do what has to be done. I’ll do whatever it takes to make this wedding exactly what she’s always dreamed of.
After all, Tara would do the same thing for me.
Her resolve made her feel slightly better about it all. By the time she got in her car, she had begun to look forward to the day they would spend together at the ball game.
And at least one thing was true. In five years, when she looked back at the pictures of this wedding, she would be on the arm of Theo Davenport in those pictures. Whatever he was like personally, there was little doubt in her mind that he would be the most handsome — the sexiest — man there.