CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I arrived outside the luncheon and saw Anton, but no woman making a scene. I was about to approach him when I felt a pair of strong arms go around my waist. Camden pulled my back against his front, resting his mouth against the crook of my neck.
“Do you know that I haven’t been able to think about anything else besides you today? I was out there digging through sand and spent my time imagining being with you. Talking to you. Hearing about your day. Touching you, holding you, kissing you. I don’t remember ever feeling this way before.”
His words made me catch my breath. My heart flittered with excitement and happiness, but guilt swirled in my gut, too. There were secrets we had to share first and, more importantly, wedding crashers we had to stop. “Which one is Lilith?”
If he was put off by me not responding to his words, he didn’t show it. He quickly kissed my neck, released me, and scanned the area. “Over there. Talking on her phone. Speak of the devil, and she appears.”
“Do you think she’s calling Dan?” I asked as we walked in her direction. I took out my phone, texting Samuel, the concierge, and asking him to meet us with some security.
“He blocked her a long time ago, so I doubt it.”
Lilith was a tiny woman, and I had honestly expected her to look like Sadie, but she was dark-haired and dark-eyed and sporting a serious scowl. She hung up her phone when she saw us approaching.
“Camden! Are you surprised to see me?” There was so much venom in her supposedly nice words that if he wasn’t feeling surprise, I certainly was.
“I didn’t say Bloody Mary three times, so yes.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I want to speak to Dan and I’m not leaving until the two of us talk.”
“That’s not going to happen,” I said and she transferred her reptilian stare to me.
“And who is this? Your flavor of the month?”
I knew her words were designed to hurt and intimidate, and I had to admit that it worked. Because I was immediately wondering how many women Camden had dated. He said he never got serious. The sweet stuff he’d just said to me—was that the kind of thing he said to everyone he went out with?
“I’m the maid of honor,” I said, determined not to let her get under my skin. “And you’re not welcome here.”
“Sadie’s friend,” she muttered, and then immediately dismissed me, turning her whole body toward Camden. “Go get Dan.”
It was a good thing that everybody had been concerned with Sadie’s overexuberant fans trying to sneak into her wedding and that there was security in place, because only Irene had correctly anticipated that Lilith might try to do something like this.
“No,” Camden replied. “You need to leave.”
Lilith crossed her arms. “Things have changed and Dan needs to know that. I do want to have a family with him. Once he finds out, he’s going to dump that ... thirsty, ridiculous excuse for a woman and come running back to me.”
I was about to protest on Sadie’s behalf, but Camden was too busy laughing. “Do you really think that? He’s in love with Sadie. He’s totally devoted to her.”
This was not what she wanted to hear. “He’ll leave her when he finds out I’m pregnant.” She put her hands against her stomach.
A jittery surge of adrenaline slammed into me and I actually panicked. Pregnant? Sadie was going to die.
Thankfully, Camden was there to save the day. “Dan hasn’t seen you in two years. So unless you’re a whale or an elephant, there’s no way you’re pregnant with his baby.”
Now that my fear was subsiding, it was easy to see that this had been her final card to play, her last-ditch attempt at forcing an audience with Dan. I was so glad that Camden was there with me.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she hissed. “I’m not leaving. I’m a guest at this hotel and I have every right to be here. Dan and I are meant to be.”
“The only thing you and Dan are meant to be is over,” Camden retorted.
The concierge finally arrived, and he’d brought one of the security guards. “Is there a problem here?”
I pointed over at Lilith. “This is the groom’s ex-girlfriend and she’s trying to crash the wedding. We’d like her to leave.”
“You can’t make me,” she insisted. “I’m a guest.”
I turned to Samuel. “Your hotel is depending on positive publicity from this event. I think the last thing you want is some rogue guest ruining the festivities.”
He nodded. “You’re right.” He turned to Lilith and addressed her. “Kai here will escort you back to your room while you pack up your belongings. We will help you find another hotel to stay at.”
Lilith crossed her arms again, making it clear the security guard was probably going to have to pick her up to get her to move. “I don’t think so.”
“Given that she’s trespassing, you could call the proper authorities,” I offered.
That seemed to sink in and she glared at me. “Fine.” She spat out the word. “But you can’t hide him from me for forever.”
I didn’t need to hide Dan for forever. Just for the next few hours. Then Lilith would be free to try casting a spell or sacrificing a goat or whatever it was that she did for fun.
She gave us one final glare and marched away with Kai following close behind. I let out a sigh of relief and thanked Samuel for his assistance.
I hugged Camden. “I’m so glad you were here. I mean, I would have handled it on my own, but having you here with me made it so much easier.”
“You can do anything,” he agreed. “But dealing with Lilith happens to be one of my specialties. We’ll have to keep an eye out for her. I’m still surprised she showed up.”
“Irene won’t be. But we won’t tell anyone until after everything’s over, right?”
“Definitely. Nobody needs to know yet.”
Much as I enjoyed having him hold me, we had a wedding to get to. “We need to go finish getting ready.”
He kissed the tip of my nose. “Yep. Time to go get our best friends married to each other.”
That caused a twinge in my gut, and I tried to brush it off. Sadie was going to tell him and then we’d deal with it from there. “So we should go.”
Problem was, neither one of us was moving.
“I do have one wedding-related concern. If you could step with me into this hallway over here we could discuss it.”
“Of course.” I nodded, playing along.
We entered the empty hallway and he spun me so that he had me pinned up against the wall. “The problem is that I want to kiss the maid of honor and I’m going to have to keep my lips to myself for several hours.”
“That is a serious problem,” I agreed, reveling in the delicious tingles making their way through my body. “You should probably get your fill now.”
“Not possible,” he breathed before pressing his lips to mine. That fire he caused, the one that threatened to overwhelm me every time we touched, roared to life. He kissed me with hot, superlative strokes, and I loved the way he subtly responded to everything I did. Every time I met his feverish kiss, the way I ran my hands through his hair, pressed my body against his, he let out sounds that were an intoxicating and inexplicable mixture of frustration and satisfaction.
Was I ever going to get used to the way this felt? Like being engulfed in a waterfall of pleasure, not being able to breathe, but completely not caring?
He broke off the kiss and stepped back and I leaned against the wall, needing the support.
He took in a few deep, shaky breaths before he grinned and then had the audacity to say, “I hear you’re always supposed to leave them wanting more.”
Then he left.
I couldn’t believe it.
Camden needed to stop messing with me. I wasn’t strong enough to take it.
I arrived back at Sadie’s villa to find total chaos. I located Krista and quickly filled her in on what had just happened. The wedding crasher, not the kiss. I had taken a picture of Lilith while she was throwing her fit and forwarded it to Krista so that she could be on the lookout, too.
She pulled up the photo on her phone. “I don’t want to say this wedding might be cursed, but ... know that I’m thinking it.”
“Everything will be fine,” I reiterated for both of us. Even though I was kind of starting to think the same thing. Relatively speaking, these had all been minor fires that had been quickly put out. Nothing we couldn’t handle.
I just had to hope things stayed that way.
The makeup artist waved me down, insisting I sit in her chair. I looked around at the rest of the bridal party and the moms and realized I was the only one who wasn’t made up yet.
My phone rang and I tried to brush off the pang of dread that lanced me at who it could possibly be. We’d had our drama for the day, things were going to be fine now. I saw that it was my mom calling me. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or annoyed.
“Hi, Mom. I’m a little busy.”
“Close your eyes,” the makeup artist told me and I did as she asked.
“It’s the wedding day, right?” my mother asked. “I want you to take some pictures of the bride and send them to me.”
“Why?”
“So I can live vicariously and pretend like you’re the one getting married.”
It was too bad my eyes were closed because they could have used a good roll to the back of my head. “Mother, I’m not sending you a picture of Sadie. I have to go. Goodbye.” That woman. It was a good thing I loved her.
“Okay, go ahead and open,” the artist said and in the mirror I noticed Sadie standing near my shoulder.
“Was that your mom?” she asked.
“Yes. And she wants me to send a picture of you in your wedding gown so that she can pretend it’s me.”
Sadie looked sadly at our reflections. “At least your mom wants you to get married.”
Oh crap. Had Brandy been making more rude remarks while I was gone? No, Krista would have put a stop to it. “Your mother wants you to get married, too.”
“I don’t think she does. And I’m not really sure why.”
Ignoring the makeup artist’s request that I close my lips, I turned toward Sadie. “Well, I want you to get married. And Dan definitely wants you to get married.”
That made her laugh and it lightened my soul a little bit, too. I wished I could do more. I wished I could give her a different mom, one who would be happy and excited for her.
And as long as we were returning our mothers for new ones, maybe I could put in a request for a mom who wasn’t obsessed with the state of my uterus.
“Thanks for being here,” Sadie said. “I know this all started out a little ... unusual, but I don’t know how I would have done this without you.”
Regardless of how it had all begun, the fees paid, the contracts signed, the lies we’d told, I was genuinely glad to be here with her, and felt lucky to have the chance to stand up with her when she married the love of her life. “Same,” I told her.
She’d leaned over to hug me when there was a loud sound, like a cannon exploding. It made the villa shake.
“What the—” I said, standing up.
There was a flash of blinding light outside the windows.
Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and collectively we held our breath.
The next sound was that of the constant, incessant drumming on the roof. The rain was pouring down, streaking the glass and making it impossible to see outside.
This was every wedding planner / bride’s worst nightmare when it came to an outdoor wedding—unexpected rain.
“Oh no,” Sadie said.
“We’re on an island,” I reminded her. “This happens, these little flash tropical storms. I’m sure it’ll be gone in a minute or two. It will let up.” I tried not to think about her flowers getting pelted by this heavy rain, or how it would make the sand wet, or the way it would drench the gauzy fabric being used on the chairs and the arch that they were planning on getting married under.
We waited. And waited.
The rain didn’t stop.