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She’d wanted a horse for over a year, ever since she’d seen the movie, Black Beauty, and when she’d asked, her father had said, “Maybe.” Later, he’d gone on to say that it was more complex than just getting a horse, since they lived in New York City and would need to board it. When Melissa had suggested they move to Wyoming, her father had just laughed at her.
Well, she’d show him! Opening the back of her camera, she slowly inserted the film just as Jimmy had illustrated for the class. The key to success in business was filling a niche. She’d heard her father say it a thousand times. And now, with Jimmy Delaney gone from the paparazzi business, there was a niche to fill. Since Melissa’s dad had been a linebacker for the NFL before retiring and becoming a sportscaster for a network, Melissa could get access to TV studios. The network even had an after-school program that Melissa had previously refused to attend.
Who could shoot celebrities more easily than a kid, after all? Adults never noticed kids. Melissa couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of this before. If she wanted to do so, she could even get supersexy pictures in the girls’ dressing rooms. If everything went as planned, she could sell the pictures, earn enough money to buy a horse, and then she wouldn’t even be tempted to steal in the future.
Not that Jimmy was directly suggesting the kids should go into his line of work. But he’d chosen it, hadn’t he? And that meant he’d decided it was a good job. Now, all Melissa had to do was convince Jack Stevens to help her sell the pictures she took. She’d need a grown-up to do things such as open a bank account. She could almost see the beautiful black stallion she was going to buy, and maybe…
Jimmy Delaney paused beside her desk. “What kind of pictures do you want to shoot this week, Melissa?”
When he leaned down, close to her desk, Melissa could smell a faint tinge of soap and aftershave lotion. She wanted to tell him he was so beautiful that he could be a movie star, but she only sent him a huge smile. “Close-up shots of flowers mostly,” she said sweetly. “Maybe you can teach me how to make them look soft and fuzzy,” she continued, trying to make her voice sound breathless. “The way they do in the art magazines.” She paused. “How much money do you make when you sell things to the Post?”
His eyes widened. “When class began, I said I wasn’t going to talk about that,” he said, leaning even closer.
Her dark eyes locked with his. “Ballpark?”
For a moment, he was still, then his shoulders started shaking and he laughed. “Soft and fuzzy flowers,” he repeated. “I’ll be happy to give you some pointers on that, Melissa.”
Melissa. She blew out a slow, shivery breath, barely able to believe that Jimmy Delaney—the Jimmy Delaney—had called her by her first name. Ever since the incident at Bloomingdale’s, she’d been so depressed, but now life was looking up! And regarding her question about picture fees, Melissa wasn’t the least bit concerned. She was a whiz on the Internet, and absolutely no information had ever eluded her.
2
“WHY DON’T WE MOVE into the front room again?” Edie Benning suggested, glancing between a dark-haired woman named Stacy LaPaglia and her husband-to-be, Reggie Hammer. The Darden wedding aside, business was slow, so Edie couldn’t afford to alienate even one client. She was doing her best to be diplomatic and fulfill the couple’s desires; yet, she could hardly let Stacy and Reggie remain in the conference room, perusing notes, sketches and lists pertaining to the Darden event. “Really, what we most strive to do at Big Apple Brides,” Edie coaxed, “is to make each wedding absolutely unique. I want to concentrate on you and Reggie, Stacy, on any special needs you two may have as a couple, and on your own dreams and goals….”
Stacy only moved closer to the board table, grasping her fiancé’s hand and dragging him with her as she lifted a sketch of Julia’s gown, which Edie’s mother, Viv, a seamstress, had been commissioned to help design and make. “So, this is a picture of the gown Julia Darden’s wearing?”
“Uh…yes,” Edie managed. “It is, but as you and Reggie probably understand, we’re keeping her and Lorenzo Santini’s plans as private as possible.”
“But most of the preparations have been made public in Celebrity Weddings magazine,” countered Stacy, “which is why Reggie and I are hiring you.”
“I appreciate that, but…” Vaguely, Edie gestured toward the front room again, wishing these two would take the hint, so she wouldn’t have to become more explicit. While what Stacy had said was true, other notes on the table pertained to less public matters, such as the security strategies for the Darden wedding, and that really was private. Thankfully, the notes involving security weren’t in plain view.
“Since you do like Julia’s dress,” Edie ventured, “I’ve got a sense of your taste now, and have some others I’d like to show you. In fact, in the next room, I’ve got photographs I believe you’ll be very interested in seeing, Stacy—”
Suddenly, Edie’s heart missed a beat and her voice trailed off as she glanced through the conference-room doorway, across the reception room and through the front windows. No one’s there now. And yet for the umpteenth time this morning, Edie sensed something amiss. Just now, she could have sworn someone had been at the windows, staring inside. She tried to take a deep breath, to calm herself, but it was no use. Her senses had gone on alert. All the colors in the room seemed brighter; the objects were outlined in sharper detail, except for Stacy and her fiancé, who might as well have vanished. Should she call the police?
Since October, shortly after Julia Darden’s wedding had been announced, someone had started threatening the heiress’s life. During a meeting about wedding safety, the head of the Darden’s security staff, Pete Shriver, had shown Edie some of the poison-pen letters sent to Julia, and he’d even stationed a man on Edie’s block for a few weeks to watch the shop, until Edie had convinced him it wasn’t really necessary. Being watched around the clock had only made Edie more nervous; besides, Julia was the target, and as the wedding had neared, she’d quit coming into Big Apple Brides. Lately, Edie had been going to Long Island whenever she had business to discuss, and now, with only two weeks until the day, most preparations were taking place on the site of the event, anyway, which was the Dardens’ estate.
Edie would be so glad when all this was finally over. Puffing her cheeks to blow, she exhaled, now wishing it hadn’t started to snow again. The weather had been so unpredictable that she still didn’t know whether to expect another blizzard or blooming spring flowers, come April first. One day last week, the temperature had hiked to seventy degrees only to plummet to thirty once more.
Well, everything’s going to be fine, Edie assured herself, shaking her head to clear it of confusion. And yet, she was scared. A few weeks ago, an unidentified intruder at the Darden estate had fired gunshots while Julia and Edie’s sister, Marley, had been jogging in the woods. According to Pete Shriver, the incident was probably some sort of scare tactic. As he’d put it, “If someone wants you dead, they can usually do it, Edie. But this guy’s only sending letters and shooting bullets that never seem to find a human target.” Pete had said that the bullets found lodged in the trees indicated the perpetrator had aimed high, which meant he hadn’t really been shooting to kill.
Not that such information gave Edie comfort. She was a wedding planner, for heaven’s sake. A diehard romantic. That her hearts-and-flowers business would wind up involving bodyguards had never once occurred to her.
Welcome to my life, she thought now. Her pulse was still skyrocketing, and as she worriedly licked her lips, she scanned her eyes slowly over the premises—first over the interior of the reception area, the neat desk, the muted carpet, the shelves lined with wedding-planning books. And then she looked through the windows. On one, the words Big Apple Brides were painted in gold. Draped with satin swags, both glassed cases brimmed with wedding items: champagne glasses, a hope chest, garters and bouquets. A winged mannequin wore a gown of white feathers, a bed waited in invitation, and roses were strewn across the floors. The effect was pure fantasy, inviting couples to come inside the shop and create their ultimate dreams.
There! Her heart beat double time. Yes…she recognized the man who was walking past now! She’d seen him more than once this morning. It wasn’t her imagination. He didn’t look dangerous, though. In fact, he was the picture of respectability, wearing a dark gray wool coat open over a light gray suit. His hair was short. Now he passed the window again, as if trying to decide whether or not to come inside.
A walk-in? Yes, she thought with sudden relief. That was probably the case. Ten to one, he was considering proposing to his girlfriend. After Stacy and Reggie were gone, he’d probably come inside to get estimates for a wedding. While paying for the event was the bride’s family’s responsibility, traditionally, the escalating cost of creating a perfect day was prompting more grooms to pitch in, sometimes even bearing the whole cost.
Good. Edie was so desperate for clients that she suddenly felt tears pushing at her eyelids. Not that she’d cry. Still, she simply couldn’t stand one more thing in her life going wrong. And since starting Big Apple Brides had been her life dream, she really wanted it to fly. If the guy didn’t return, Edie decided, she’d call Pete Shriver, just to make sure he hadn’t put another security man on detail outside her shop without telling her.
What a day! Months, she mentally amended. Ever since she’d been hired to plan the Darden wedding, her life had spun increasingly out of control. The latest challenge was that her assistant, Cheryl, had quit. In itself, this would have been upsetting, but Cheryl’s reason for leaving made things much worse. She’d run off with a man she’d met at Big Apple Brides—a man who’d come into the shop with his fiancé to plan their wedding. Now Cheryl was vacationing with him in St. Martin.
Unbelievable, Edie thought, suddenly fuming. Even worse, the stack of résumés faxed to her by a head-hunter had hardly turned up the perfect replacement. Besides, Edie couldn’t pay enough to attract the sort of assistant she really wanted. Before hiring the head-hunter to screen applicants, most people who’d responded to her newspaper ad had shown up with tattoos and visible piercings. One had brought her dog. Another was addicted to chewing grape gum and was furious when Edie had told her she couldn’t read novels on the job.
The man outside had vanished, so Edie turned her attention back to Stacy, who was saying, “Oh, Reggie, look, here’s the list of songs Julia Darden’s playing. I really do like her dress. I think I’d like to have one just exactly like it. What do you think, hon?”
“Please,” Edie managed, still feeling caught between a rock and a hard place. “We’re going to have to move out of the conference room—”
“But we’re hiring you because you’re planning the Darden wedding,” persisted Stacy.
“Of course,” Edie agreed, glad for the business, “but I want to help you consider all the possibilities for your own wedding. So, if we could…”
Just as Stacy replaced the drawing of Julia’s dress, a male voice sounded from behind Edie. “The dress really is stunning.”
Edie turned, and when she saw the man framed in the door, she felt as if her whole world was sliding off-kilter again. It was the guy who’d been lurking outside. He breezed past Edie, heading for Stacy with a proprietary air as if he owned the place, and Edie wondered what was going on. Was he an acquaintance of Stacy and Reggie’s? Had he been waiting for them? He was even better looking up close. Medium height, medium build, brown hair, brown eyes. A small mole by his mouth. Nothing special, but the whole package was appealing. So was the whiff of cologne he left in his wake.
Edie’s jaw slackened as she watched him shrug out of a silk-lined coat that seemed to float down the arms of his snazzy suit. He clapped Reggie hard on the shoulder, then thrust out his hand, offering a quick, rough handshake. “Name’s Seth Bishop.”
Which meant he didn’t know Stacy and Reggie, after all.
Nevertheless, he slid his hand under Stacy’s elbow as if they’d known each other for years, then began steering her gracefully from the room, staring down at her from the vantage point of comparable height and sending her an utterly disarming, charming grin that clearly mesmerized the woman. As he passed Edie, he winked, and while she was still gaping, he took advantage of her stupefaction to deposit his coat into her arms.
“Thanks,” she managed.
“No, thank you,” he said, guiding Stacy across the threshold and into the next room, where Edie had been trying to direct her for the past ten minutes. As Edie and Reggie followed, the man calling himself Seth Bishop said, “That dress is great, but Julia Darden’s one of those tall, skinny, willowy types…”
Stacy, who’d looked as if she’d been placed under a spell a second ago, now glanced over her shoulder at Edie, frowning. “Are you saying I’m not—”
“Scrawny?” He laughed. “Absolutely not.” Turning, he winked at Reggie. “Julia’s beautiful, yes. But in a sort of supermodel way. She’s got a figure that needs to be fleshed out a bit, which is why Ms. Benning helped her choose the Empire gown you were admiring. You, however—” he glanced from Stacy to Reggie for support “—have other…” He paused delicately, as if searching for a word, then settled on, “Assets. And so, I think Ms. Benning intends to show you gowns that Julia Darden couldn’t have gotten away with wearing…gowns that can show off your figure, and—”
“You’re saying you think my figure’s better than Julia Darden’s?” Stacy asked breathlessly, chuckling with delight.
“Well,” conceded Seth Bishop. “We don’t like to compare clients.”
The man was acting as if he worked here! Unsure whether she should be furious or relieved, Edie decided it was in her best interests to simply hang up the man’s coat and start hauling down books of dress-design illustrations. The next hour passed in a blur. Seth Bishop, whoever he was, was a real hard-sell animal. He appealed to the couple’s vanity and their pocketbook, but his methods hardly mattered because by the end of the hour, Stacy and Reggie were well on their way to creating their own dream wedding, rather than copying Julia Darden’s.
Edie and this stranger had worked together beautifully, too, hand in glove. After setting Stacy and Reggie up with a future appointment, the man even showed the couple to the door, and when he shut it behind them and turned around to face her, Edie found herself laughing, dryly saying, “Should I be impressed or terrified?”
He raised a thick, dark eyebrow, his lips upturning in a warm, inviting smile, his dark eyes sparkling. “Terrified? Of me?”
Leaning against the desk behind her, Edie crossed her arms, surveying him a long moment. Unable to wipe the smile from her face, she felt strangely glad this was one of the mornings she’d gotten up early to wash and blow-dry her shoulder-length blond hair. She was wearing one of her most flattering suits, too, with a tailored A-line skirt and a dark brown forties styled jacket. She nodded. “Yeah, terrified. And resentful,” she added.
He chuckled, his brows knitting in an expression of mock concentration, as if he had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. “Of moi?”
“I’d been trying to get Stacy out of the conference room for ten minutes when you got here.”
“True. I was standing outside watching. But in your defense, she was a tough case. It seemed better to use guy charm.”
Edie nodded. “Hmm. Guy charm?”
“My specialty.”
From what she’d seen, she wouldn’t disagree with him. “And you are?”
His mouth curled further, twisting into one of the most disarming smiles she’d ever seen. “Besides charming?”
“The charm piqued my interest,” Edie assured. “Now I need more information.” She paused. “I did see you outside, and I thought maybe…”
“Yes?”
“You wanted an estimate or something.” Up close, it seemed obvious that the guy couldn’t be connected to the Darden’s security problems. Oh, Edie had seen enough movies to know that even serial killers could fool people. But she didn’t really believe that. No, she trusted her own gut instincts about people, and this guy exuded basic decency. More than Edie had ever sensed upon meeting someone new, in fact. Everything about him—the way he carried himself, the tasteful way he was dressed, the depth of warmth in his dark brown eyes, his easy sense of humor—made her sure he was trustworthy. He did, however, look puzzled.
“Estimate?”
She nodded. “For a wedding.”
A brief pause ensued, during which his luscious eyes widened, then he suddenly burst out laughing. “You thought I was getting married?”
Edie hardly wanted to examine her motives, but the truth was, she’d never been so instantly attracted to a man in her life as she was to Seth Bishop. One look—and she’d started imagining how he’d look with his clothes off. If the truth be told, she’d been through a dry spell. The last man she’d dated had wound up with her sister, so she was due some excitement. She considered. “Marriage,” she repeated. “Is that such a strange idea?”
“Uh…yeah,” he deadpanned as if he’d never heard of anything so ludicrous. “Especially since I don’t even have a girlfriend.”
Edie tried not to overreact to the information she’d been fishing for, but her chest got tight. “Then what are you…”
He looked surprised once more, then blinked as if he’d just come to his senses and swiftly slid a palm against his shirt, into the side pocket of the suit and withdrew a folded paper, which he handed to her. “Sorry. I thought the agency told you I was coming.”
“Oh,” she managed as she studied what turned out to be his résumé, barely able to believe it. “You’re applying for the assistant’s job?”
“I guess we had a kind of action-oriented interview.”
As she scanned the résumé, she couldn’t believe her luck. He was from Ohio, and in addition to graduating from art school, he’d worked as an art director at two high-profile companies. He also had experience in sales, which, given his handling of Stacy and Reggie, was pretty obvious.
“I won’t lie,” he said quickly. “I lost my last job in a company reorganization. There were no hard feelings, and I got a good severance. So, I am interviewing for more professional positions, in keeping with my background.”
“And you’re interested in Big Apple Brides because…”
“I want to hold out for a dream job, so I don’t expect it to materialize overnight. I figured while I interview for something more permanent, it wouldn’t hurt to keep a hand in, do some lighter work. The agency thought some of my skills might be of interest to you….”
It was almost too good to be true. Right now, all Edie really needed was support staff while she finished the Darden wedding. Then she’d have more breathing space. Not to mention more money, to hire the sort of permanent assistant she most wanted. She eyed Seth Bishop again. Pete Shriver had talked to the headhunting agency at some length, regarding how background checks were to be conducted, since employees would necessarily come into contact with Julia Darden. Also, Edie was to fax Pete the résumés of any applicants she hired, so she wasn’t too worried about Seth Bishop in that respect…. “I know the agency checked your references,” she said anyway, “but I’ll need to do so again.”
“Of course.”
He didn’t look the least bit nervous, which was a good sign. “If what you did here over the last hour is indicative of how you work, we should get along famously,” she found herself saying.
“Then why don’t you check my references and call me. I’m ready to start whenever you want me to come in.”
“Deal.” Edie stuck out her hand, and when his found hers, she was hardly surprised to feel heat flood her system. Nothing more than the casual touch made her every last nerve dance. And her last thought as he shrugged into his coat and walked through the door and into the swirling snow was that she would never be able to work with him without taking him upstairs to her apartment—and to bed.
“STACY WAS DEFINITELY right about one thing,” Seth said several days later as he helped Edie sort through the sketches on the board table. “That really is a beautiful gown. You and your mother did a great job.”
Edie couldn’t help but lean closer to him, drawn by the scent of his cologne and animal magnetism she simply couldn’t resist. “Actually—” Deciding to take a break, she pulled out a chair, seated herself at the table, then looked at the picture again. “That was my own dream gown.”
Following suit, Seth rolled a chair across the gray carpet and sat next to her. “Yours?”
Nodding, she took a deep breath, relaxing. “Thank you for everything,” she inserted, instead of pursuing the conversation. It was their third day on the job together, and Seth really had turned out to be a godsend. Sexy, too. He’d done nothing to diminish the initial sense that she’d like to get into bed with him. Today, he was wearing a dark charcoal suit, blue shirt and an unlikely lime-and-red-striped tie that looked so fabulous it prompted her to say, “You do have an amazing eye for color, Seth.” She’d met few people who could mix and match color and fabric with his unique flair. “Are you sure you want to go back into art directing?”
He laughed. “Offering to make me a partner?”
“Maybe,” Edie teased. “You can go, by the way. It’s about five. I’ve got to stick around for the mailman. I’m his last stop, and he brings in the papers, which should be in the outside box by now.”
Seth made no move to leave, but merely surveyed her, an easy smile still on his lips. “You’re evading the subject.”
“Which was?”
He pointed at a sketch. “The gown.”
She shrugged, blowing out a wistful sigh. “Honestly, a lot of Julia’s wedding includes elements I used to fantasize about when I was a kid. Things I thought I’d have in my own wedding. Even the music. My sister Bridget’s fiancé, Dermott, finally agreed to arrange some pieces. And I’d always thought of asking him, myself.”
As if sensing the conversation was headed for deeper turf, Seth rose, circled around to a counter and poured them both cups of coffee, fixing hers with cream and sugar, the way she liked it, then he returned, setting hers down before reseating himself. “Why didn’t you save the ideas for your own wedding?”
She considered. “You mean, besides the fact that I don’t have over a million dollars to spend?”
“Yeah.”
“And besides the fact that I’ve just about given up on ever having a wedding?”
He stared at her. “You can’t be serious.”
She thought a moment, then flashed him a smile, deciding to come clean with the whole story. “Maybe I should tell you the real reason I opened Big Apple Brides. You see, rumor has it that a Southern belle named Miss Marissa Jennings put a curse on all the Benning women during the Civil War when her own love life didn’t work out,” Edie began, then she plunged into the wealth of family stories told since time immemorial about the wedding curse, including the fact that Joe Benning wasn’t her biological father, since her mother had previously been married to a man named Jasper Hartley.
“You don’t remember him at all?”
She shook her head. “Nope. I was too little when he died. Bridget had just been born. And Mom met Joe shortly afterward, so he’s all I’ve ever known as a father. It’s been great. Our only real legacy from Jasper Hartley is the family’s wedding curse.”
“And because of this, no Benning woman will ever marry?”
“So the stories go.”
“Not very nice of Miss Marissa,” Seth commented, clearly warming to the tale. He leaned forward as if to hear better, coming so close that their knees touched under the table. He pulled away, but not before a white-hot jolt shot through Edie’s system.