Maddie

From the corner of my eye, I see him. The token wedding guest with the audacity to approach me. He has the confident stride of a man who is certain this will end well for him—shoulders back with a surefootedness that tells me exactly what’s coming. Can’t a woman do her job without having to deal with men all the damn time?

Here we go.

“You must be the wedding planner.”

No, I wear a headset, carry a clipboard, and wear a belt bag to all the black-tie weddings I attend. I bite my tongue in an effort to keep my signature loose lips closed.

Obviously, I’m the wedding planner.

I refuse to look up from my clipboard. In part because I don’t want to give him the satisfaction and, more importantly, the transition from cocktail hour to the reception begins in five minutes. Requiring me to move three hundred people from the terrace to the ballroom, organize the bridal party, and find thirty seconds to use the bathroom. There’s far too much work to be done right now to entertain the groomsman, cousin, family friend, or whoever this guy is who thinks right now is the appropriate time to hit on the wedding planner.

Despite myself, the corners of my lips curve into a smile as I keep my eyes focused on the timeline I’ve all but memorized. Getting hit on at work may be annoying as hell, but I’d be lying if it didn’t boost my ego the tiniest bit. And an ego boost is something I desperately need right now.

My final, for real this time, we’re never getting back together breakup with my on-and-off situationship of years, Baxter, is as fresh as the oysters on the raw bar behind me.

You’re too much, Maddie.

Screw him. I may have lost the breakup, but I am going to win the ridiculous tradition the other planners and I have had for years now. While it almost definitely goes against the rules of feminism, winning the title of “First Wedding to be Hit On” will do wonders for my ego. Baxter can have his new girlfriend who isn’t too much and I can gloat for one full week until one of the other planners at Summer Soirees inevitably takes the crown next weekend.

It happens to every planner at the agency. Some of these guys see the wedding planner uniform—black dress, sensible heels, take-charge attitude—and they follow their dick over thinking not only do I have time to flirt with them, I want to flirt with them. They’re cocky and have had just enough to drink. They assume the first thing I’ll want to do after a 16-hour-day sweating my ass off is hop into bed with them only to be met with whiskey dick.

No, thank you.

Been there, done that.

Zero stars.

Do not recommend.

As soon as I send this nuisance on his merry little way, I’ll fire off a text to the Summer Soirees planner group. Typically, it’s quiet on a Saturday night as we all manage our respective events though every so often there’s an SOS message for troubleshooting something gone wrong. I just have to hope someone doesn’t get to claiming the title before I get rid of this guy.

“Yes, sir.” My tone is professional and my gaze doesn’t leave my clipboard. “Is there something I can help you with?”

The heat of this man’s gaze on me is so strong, I can practically hear him counting the freckles that dot my chest. He inches a little closer and out of the corner of my eye, I see a lowball glass with an amber liquid.

Whiskey.

Knew it.

“You were at Preston and Hannah’s wedding. Last summer.”

Well, damnit. Color me intrigued. There were some good-looking men at that wedding. Rich, arrogant assholes but good-looking. Some innocent flirting might be just what I need.

“Are you a friend of theirs?” I tear my eyes from the timeline and look at the man.

Then I bring my gaze up.

Something I don’t often have to do when I’m in heels, even sensible ones. I’m usually eye to eye with the men who approach me. My mouth falls slightly open as I take him in and he lets out a warm, deep chuckle.

He’s got to be 6’4”. His cobalt eyes are the most arresting shade of blue I’ve ever seen. There’s no way I saw him at that wedding. I’d remember this face. Those eyes. The strong, broad shoulders, tan skin, and dark brown hair, so dark it’s almost black but not quite. There’s just enough of it to grab with your hands should the occasion call for it. Paired with it is a short, neatly trimmed, equally dark beard covering a defined square jawline. Suddenly my desire to quickly dismiss him is replaced with an entirely new desire.

Shit. He’s hot and he fucking knows it.

I hate when a man knows the effect he has on me. It’s a terrible imbalance of power. There’s only one place I welcome that and it’s not next to a raw bar when I’m working.

“I was one of Preston’s groomsmen,” he says. “Westley.” He reaches out his hand. His very large hand.

Ah, I wasn’t the lead planner at that wedding, and I didn’t spend much time with the groomsmen. Not to mention, I only had eyes for Baxter at the time, and he was working that wedding too, handling all the rentals required for a four hundred person tented wedding. We were in the middle of a fight, and I was trying to win him back over. It was a low point.  

“Maddie,” I say, taking his firm hand in mine. I don’t often feel like a small girl around men. My height bothered me when I was younger but as soon as the hourglass curves arrived in high school, I embraced all of it. It was right around the time I stopped caring what anyone thought about me—at least pretending I didn’t care. Act like everything’s fine and it will be fine. Act like you don’t care and you can convince yourself you don’t.

Or maybe I’m melting into a puddle on the ground thanks to the warmth of his touch and the way his eyes bore into mine. He already knows I find him attractive; there’s no hiding that. I quickly drop his hand, anxious to hide any other vulnerability he might find.

He sips his whiskey and I can’t help but watch his throat work. “You don’t look like a Maddie.”

I make an awkward noise that’s something between a laugh and a scoff. “What the fuck do I look like then?”

My hand flies to my mouth as soon as the curse comes out of my mouth. Typically, I keep my foul mouth in check when I’m working. It’s a difficult exercise of civility.  

That chuckle again.

“Is it short for something?”

“Madeline.”

“Mad-e-line,” he says slowly, letting each syllable dance in his mouth. His mouth that I can’t seem to stop looking at. Either this man is literally making my knees weak or it’s time to change out of my heels and into flats for the rest of the night—something I rarely do.

“After the children’s book,” I say, filling the silence with the inevitable rambling that occurs when I’m flustered or nervous or overwhelmed. In this case, all three. There’s little I can do to stop it. “You know…in an old house in Paris…but when these curls started growing my parents started calling me Maddie.” I point to the wild red curls on my head that are currently pulled into a high ponytail, falling in a dozen different directions.

Why am I telling him this? Right, because I don’t know how to keep the inside thoughts inside. Baxter once asked me if I ever stopped talking. I thought he found my endless chatter endearing. I was wrong. 

Westley reaches his hand toward me as if to grab one of said curls but quickly pulls back and shoves it in his pocket. Even without any contact, there’s an undeniable current between us.

“Madeline suits you.”

“Uh…thank you.” I think? I guess that’s a compliment. “But no one calls me that anymore.”

His eyes flicker with suggestiveness. “I’d like to call you that.”

The audacity. But fuck if it’s not hot. My skin heats as flush crawls across it. When you’re a fair-skinned redhead wearing a sleeveless, V-neck dress, it’s impossible to hide.

“What makes you think you’ll be calling me anything?” 

He takes another slow sip of his whiskey, his eyes never leaving the flush on my neck, and gives me a teasing smirk. The need to hear him say my name again overtakes my senses. I shake the thought away. It’s been a while, that’s all.

“Okay, W…” Did I forget this extremely handsome man’s name already? Of course not. I need him to think I did. Mixing business with pleasure is a very bad idea and a lesson I’ve already learned the hard way with Baxter. Westley needs to be put in his place. I still have four hours of this wedding to get through followed by breakdown and the drive home.

“Ouch.” He brings his hand to his chest. “Here I thought we had a connection.”

I give him a shrug but add a playful smile.

“Westley,” he says.

“Westley,” I nod.

My phone buzzes in my belt bag. It’s not the alarm I set for the end of cocktail hour but a text from my sister asking for the hundredth time for me to help her with an upcoming work event. Either way, it brings me back to the here and now. The wedding. “Shit, I have to run. Introductions are about to start. Nice meeting you. Enjoy the wedding.”

See ya never!

As handsome as he is and as desperately as I could use a quick romp in the supply closet with a gorgeous man, it’s a terrible idea to hook up with a wedding guest. And though my best friend Brooke doesn’t work at Summer Soirees anymore, I’d get an earful from her about appropriate workplace behavior if I so much as thought about going home with him. I mean, I am going to think about it. A lot. In about six hours. Alone in my bed.