Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
“Being your assistant, obvs.” I handed over the coffee I’d picked up from Annie’s for him. “I’ve been running errands all morning, boss. And frankly, I think I deserve a raise.”
Quinn’s scowl softened for a split second as he took a hungry sip, but as soon as the caffeine slid down his throat, the scowl returned. “Would’ve been nice if you’d informed me of your plan this morning. I wasn’t sure you’d even be here.”
“Awww, and you were missing me already, weren’t you, Pookie? Look at that face. So much love. So much adoration.” I reached out and ruffled his hair for good measure.
The resulting red streaks on Quinn’s cheeks and neck were somewhat comical and somewhat worrying.
“Remember, you owe me a wedding,” he growled in a low voice while he tried to finger-comb his hair back into place. “A good one. A fancy one.”
“As if I could forget. This morning I had to harass a couple of my people at Champion Security for overdue expense reports and put the fear of God into whichever one of those fuckers keeps messing up the bathroom sink since I’m not paying a plumber to come out a third time. Then I needed to talk to a client—”
This was code for quietly grinding my teeth while Jacob Horn, the entitled jerk who was CEO of HOG Corporate, cursed me out about Champion Security’s inability to lay hands on Gustavo Santiago’s Horn and disarm HOG’s PR nightmare before it went nuclear.
“—but I also made time to acquire this.” I held up Carter’s business card between two fingers.
Quinn snatched it away and stared down at it.
“Carter Rogers, M.D.?” he read. “Who’s that?”
I spotted Marissa and Levi, her pit bull of a security guard, walking out of the front door, and I gently urged Quinn toward them as I answered.
“That is your society wedding. Carter’s a well-known cardiologist from Vanderbilt. He practices near the Thicket now, but his family is as Nashville blue-blooded as they come. He and his groom are still in the early stages of planning. Still gathering intel, you might say.”
“Huh.” Quinn looked up at me with a wrinkled brow. “But they’re ready to hire me to plan their wedding? You’re sure?”
I shrugged. If Riggs knew what was good for him, they fucking would be. “Positive.”
Quinn clutched the card in his palm. “Thanks, Champ,” he said softly, and no lie, somehow all my shitty morning was a little less bad when he gave me a little smile.
I cleared my throat and faced our intended targets. “Whatever. No big,” I said gruffly. “Deal’s a deal. So, what I was thinking we’d do was—”
Before I could finish sketching out my plan, a horrible squealing sound came from behind Marissa and Levi. Quinn froze in his tracks before inching forward slowly.
I smelled the hogs before I saw them.
“No,” Quinn hissed. His nostrils flared in anger. “Oh, God. I thought I could do this, but I cannot. This is not a tactical consideration, Champion—this is absurd. This is unhygienic and disgusting. This is… Oh, hello!” His face lit into a big bright smile as if we weren’t in spitting distance from a great tonnage of pork flesh. “How’s the bride on this… lovely day?”
The four of us looked around at the cold and overcast sky before Marissa returned Quinn’s smile. “That’s one of the things I love about you! Your positive outlook. Trey felt like you had good energy right from the start!”
“Your energy wasn’t the only thing he was interested in feeling,” I said under my breath.
Quinn stepped on my foot in retaliation. “And where is your handsome groom today?”
“Oh, working!” Marissa said airily. “Trey’s a very hard worker. My mother was disappointed that she couldn’t tag along to see you work your magic, but she’s got so many luncheons and meetings, she couldn’t be away from town for the whole day. I told her I’d tell her all your ideas when I got back tonight. I’m sure you’ll have tons!”
“Tons,” Quinn said, looking around with a tiny bit of desperation, as if elegance would suddenly jump out from behind an old broken-down tractor and declare shabby pig farms the hot new thing.
“Quinn’s the best at turning lemons into lemonade,” I said, trying to think of an example. “One time our Chinese food was delivered without chopsticks, and he found… uh… he found us a set of pencils to use instead.”
Quinn slow-panned to me and shot me a now-familiar what the fuck expression. I shrugged again.
Levi looked confused. “Why didn’t you just use forks?”
Quinn crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Yeah, Love Chunk. Why was that, again? Something about your delicate—”
I cut him off quickly. “Also, he once planned a wedding at a venue that had been deliberately double-booked by one of his competitors. When the other wedding party showed up at the club, Quinn managed to move his own entire party onto the putting green, and it was so wonderful that people buzzed about it for months!”