A smart, sizzling new contemporary romance series from USA Today bestselling author Mira Lyn Kelly!
Four friends
Each a Best Man at a wedding
One chance to get it right
Jase Foster can’t believe his bad luck. He’s been paired with the she-devil herself for his best friend’s wedding: Emily Klein of the miles-long legs and killer smile. She may be sin in a bridesmaid dress, but there’s no way he’s falling for her again.
They can barely stand each other, but given how many of their friends are getting married, they’ll just have to play nice—at least when they’re in company. Once they’re alone, more than just gloves come off as Jase and Emily discover their chemistry is combustible, and there may be something to this enemies to lovers thing after all…
Excerpt:
August
On the upside, the
prelude had already begun, and chances were good that Mozart’s Sonata in E-flat
Major pumping through all those organ pipes would cover any sounds of distress
emanating from St. A’s sacristy.
Jase Foster crouched
in front of Dean Skolnic, groom du jour, and cursed. This had to stop
happening.
“You think she’s gonna
notice?” Dean asked, wincing as Jase pulled one strip of duct tape after another
off the garbage bag of ice currently secured to Dean’s shoulder.
“The arm?” Jase
clarified, because while he wasn’t an every-Sunday kind of guy, they were in a
church so he couldn’t flat-out lie. “No, man. I really don’t.”
Lena would take one
look at her husband-to-be’s swollen black eye, and she wouldn’t see anything
else.
Strike that.
She might notice the
greenish-gray pallor of Dean’s normally ruddy complexion, because coupled with
the way he was gulping air like a goldfish, it didn’t bode well for his stomach
or anyone within splatter distance.
The door opened behind
them, and Father John plowed in, five foot six inches of bristling irritation
and grizzled holiness. Scowling at the scene in front of him, he snapped his
fingers and pointed at the guilty-looking crew of lesser attendants—mostly Dean’s
cousins who’d driven in that morning—plastered to the back wall. “Crack the
fucking window.”
Jase steeled himself
against the laugh clawing to get free. Because, yeah, Father John had a mouth
on him. Something Jase had discovered when he, Max, Brody, and Sean were
muscling Dean out of the limo, barely clearing the door before the driver
peeled off. The priest had stopped dead in the mostly empty back parking lot, taken
one look at Dean, and let loose with enough four-letter words that even the
guys—seasoned professionals in the expletive arena—had been coughing into their
fists, studying the thick canopy of trees above and the new asphalt beneath their
feet, basically looking anywhere but at the pint-size priest with a bear’s
temper.
“How we doing, Father?”
Jase asked, pulling the bag of ice free and stepping out of blast radius.
“Need
any help?”
More grumbling as the priest
elbowed one of the groomsmen out of his way and opened the window himself. “Seems
you’ve done enough already.”
Probably. But Jase was
chalking this morning up as a learning moment. No matter how bad the groom’s
nerves, a quick game of hoops on the way to the church was not the answer, especially
when evening out the teams required bringing the limo driver into the mix.
Cutting a look over at
Max, Jase pushed to his feet. “Let’s get his jacket on.”
Max Brandt was working
his cop stance with his legs apart, his arms crossed over his chest, and a don’t-fuck-with-me
scowl firmly in place. He nodded down at Dean. “Get serious. He’s gonna blow.
We don’t put it on him until he does.”
Hell. Jase glanced around the tight confines of the sacristy to the
cabinets stocked with candles, chalices, napkins, and the rest of the holy
hardware, and he mentally amended Fuck
with the requisite apologies applied.
Jase wanted to think
Dean could pull it together, but when it came to hurling, Max could call it
from a hundred yards away. Even before the Chicago police force honed his
powers of observation to a sharpened critical edge, the guy had had a hinky
instinct about when to clear a path. That and about women too. Both handy skill
sets to have.
Grabbing a plastic
trash bin from next to the hanging rack of choir robes, Jase shoved it into
Dean’s good arm.
“You heard him, Dean.
Make it happen, and we’ll get you out there.”
That was a promise,
because unless one of his grooms had a definitive change of heart about
marrying the woman waiting down the aisle, no-shows didn’t happen on Jase’s watch.
The door opened again,
and Brody O’Donnel stepped inside. He wasn’t as tall as Jase or as menacing as
Max, but the guy had presence. He was solidly built with a broad chest and a wild
head of russet waves that fell well past his ears, which he’d only half
bothered to tame for the morning’s nuptials.
Whistling out a long
breath, he eyeballed Dean, who was doing his best to manage the task assigned to
him. Then nodding around the room, Brody grinned. “Father. Guys.”
Father John looked up
and broke into a beaming smile.
“Brody,” he boomed
like the guy was his prodigal son returned, even though the two had only met
the night before. Then shaking his head with a warm laugh, he declined when
Brody pulled a flask from the inner pocket of his single-button tux jacket and,
shameless grin going straight up, held it out in offering.
“Aw, come on, Father John.
It’s the good stuff,” he ribbed before passing it to one of the braver cousins.
Brody could always be
counted on for two things: his uncanny ability to make friends with just about
anyone and his propensity for always having a flask of “the good stuff” on hand
for emergencies. Which made sense, considering he owned Belfast, one of
Lakeview’s most popular bars. Booze was, in fact, his thing.
“Brod, so what’re we
looking at?” Jase asked, knowing they had to be running out of time.
“The girls are about
ready to go. Sean’s smooth-talking the Skolnics, and I’ve got the safety pins,
but…uhh…”
Jase knew that drawn-out
qualifier. Whatever Brody had to say, Jase was sure he wasn’t going to like it.
“What?”
“Maid of honor had the
pins and wouldn’t give ’em up if I didn’t tell her what was going on.”
Emily Klein. Fucking
fantastic. Because after managing to avoid her throughout the entire
engagement, now with everything else that morning, Jase was going to have to
deal with her getting up in his grill?
“She’s coming?”
“Nah, I talked her
down pretty good, so—”
And that was as far as
Brody got before the sacristy door swung open again and that old familiar
tension knuckled down Jase’s spine. He took her in with one sweeping glance and
then—just to piss her off—went back for a second, slower pass. She should have
looked like Natasha Fatale from those old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. She had
the height all right, but instead of the severe black hair, wickedly arched
brows, bombshell body, and calculating scowl, Emily was every kind of soft.
Soft strawberry-blond hair spiraling in loose curls over her shoulders. Big,
soft-brown eyes. And a soft, shy smile that hid her poison-dart tongue. Even
her body, tall and athletically lean, had a softness to its modest
curves—curves that had distracted the hell out of Jase in high school but that he’d
become immune to in the passing years.
Since he’d finally
seen through her soft snow job to the cold, hard ice
queen beneath.
“Jackass,” she
greeted, with a soft smile just for him.
“Emily. What can I do
for you?”
“Brody mentioned Dean
had—”
Dean coughed into his
trash can, and Emily’s superior scowl shifted to the man of the hour.
She looked from Dean
back to Jase, her mouth gaping open in soundless horror. “Is that
dislocated?”
The shoulder looked
bad, Jase knew. And with anyone but Emily, he would have been all about the
explanations, apologies, and assurances. Dean was going to be waiting at the
end of that aisle, ready for Lena, even if Jase had to hold him up there
himself. But since it was Emily… “No.”
He waited.
Emily’s toe started to
tap, a nervous habit she’d had forever. One he took unhealthy pleasure in
exploiting.
But Brody, a perpetual
fixer fortunate enough not to have any history with Femily Fatale, stepped in
with a reassuring shrug and his signature lopsided smile. “A little roughed up
is all. Don’t worry about a thing. He’s fine.”
Which was when Dean
retched up the contents of his stomach and a round of applause sounded from the
attendants stationed around the room.
Go time.
“Nice job, man,” Jase
offered, taking the trash-bag liner out of the bin and shoving it in Emily’s
direction. To his utter delight, she was so startled that her hands came up
before she’d had the chance to think. And then she was stuck quite literally
holding the bag.
Hauling Dean up by his
good arm, Jase and Max worked the guy into the jacket and started pinning his
sleeve to his coat. It wasn’t perfect, but if ever there was a pinch, this was
it.
“Oh… Oh no… Oh… What am
I supposed to do with this?” Emily asked shakily behind him.
Jase didn’t look back.
“See if one of the groomsmen can help you with it.”
He’d love to leave her
hanging, but this was Dean’s wedding, and he wouldn’t be doing his friend any
favors by screwing over his bride with a missing attendant. Even Emily.
“Uh-uh, no way,” Brody
said, laughing. “That has ‘best man’ written all over it. You know the drill, dude.
With great power comes great responsibility, or some shit like that.”
Not a chance. “Power
to delegate responsibly. Hey, you with
the braces, take this to the Dumpster out back and meet us up front.”
The skinny kid let out
a groan but hopped to, taking the trash bag from Emily and scurrying out the
door just as Sean Wyse strode in. Smoothing back his immaculate hair, he
flashed a picture-perfect smile at Emily. “Looking breathtaking today, but I
think you’re mixing with the wrong crowd here. Can I walk you back to the
girls?”
Emily was chugging
Sean’s BS like it was a Starbucks mocha latte, cocking her head appreciatively
but declining all the same. Then she was out the door, and the too-small space
around Jase opened up enough that he could breathe.
About time.
Sean reached into
Brody’s pocket and helped himself to a swig of what was probably Jameson. “You
ladies ready yet?”
Brody started lining
the guys up in order for their trip to the other end of the church, while Jase
took care of the sweat beaded on Dean’s forehead with a handkerchief he knew
better than to attend a wedding without. Then grabbing Dean by the side of his
face, he looked him straight in the eyes.
“You good, man?” he
asked, hoping like hell Lena was in it for the duration. Dean was too good of a
guy to get screwed over. “Ready to do this?”
Dean swallowed and
nodded. “Yeah. I am.”
The same thought that
tore through Jase’s mind every time he got one of his grooms ready echoed
then—the thought Emily Klein had played no small part in reinforcing:
Better him than me.
Jase smiled his most confidence-inspiring
smile, the one that closed deals, and jutted his chin toward the door. “Then
let’s get you married.”
Looks like a great new series! I loved hearing Dawn talk about the cover design process at RT.
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