For His Pleasure: The Boxed Set, Books 1-6 (For His Pleasure, For His Taking, For His Keeping, For His Honor, For His Trust, For His Forever) (64 page)

“Ashamed to be marrying you? Seriously? Is that the best you’ve got?”

“I’m not trying to prove I can keep up with you in the witty banter department, Red.

That’s not one of my life goals.”

He shook his head and walked away from her.

She wanted to yell and scream and get his attention, but it was a lost cause.

This stupid wedding had nearly ruined everything.

***

A couple of days had gone by and things hadn’t gotten any better between them.

Red was immersing himself in work and Nicole was still planning their wedding, which had now become so elaborate and expensive that it was defying explanation and reason.

Simply having the deposit in for the venue, the booze, the catering, the tables and chairs and custom decorations—all of it had become an issue because everyone needed the money yesterday.

She’d lost track of how many times she’d been told that large weddings like this were usually planned further in advance.

It became embarrassing to keep going to Red for a new series of checks to be written for the gigantic wedding that he didn’t approve of and she didn’t truly want.

Finally, he’d just handed her his checkbook and told her to “have a party.”

But she wasn’t having a party—quite the opposite, in fact. She felt sick and depressed and out of control, both of her wedding and her relationship.

Nicole thought that at least the worst of it was hopefully over, but she was wrong.

The morning of her cake tasting at Lady Cakes Bakery with her mother and Marcie—

things actually, somehow, got worse.

Red came into the bathroom while she was putting on makeup and handed her his phone. “Well we just got the biggest leak of them all,” he said, almost sounding proud of it, as Nicole looked at the screen.

There was yet another article in The Rag that revealed not just the date and time of their wedding, but the location as well. It went into detail about the kind of huge event the wedding would probably be, and of course made plenty of fun of Red and Nicole and the notion that the wedding would probably last longer than the marriage itself.

“I’m even impressed at just how badly our privacy has been compromised,” Red laughed. “I mean, this is a whole new level.”

Nicole bit her lip and tried to steady her nerves. “I don’t understand how this happened. I thought Danielle was the leak!”

“You didn’t send her an invitation? Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m positive,” Nicole said.

“Well, we only sent out four hundred invites—who’d have thought one of those random idiots we invited might leak the story?” he said, laughing again—but not really.

“Please don’t make this worse by poking fun at me,” she told him.

“Nicole, if I can’t even make a joke about how badly this whole thing has gone, then what can I do at this point?”

She didn’t have an answer.

Nicole wasn’t in the mood for cake tasting after that, but she had no choice. Her mother and Marcie drove all the way down from Syracuse for the appointment, and so she put on her best fake smile and tried to pretend everything was hunky dory.

The bakery was a cute, small place that Nicole had found online because of its astounding reviews. Marcie and her mother loved it from the moment they set foot inside.

The baker was a short, lithe blond woman with a pastry chef hat and tiny hands.

She gestured constantly as she spoke and gave tons of information about what services she provided.

During a break, the baker went in back and Nicole took the chance to tell Marcie and her mother about the leaking of all the important wedding information.

“Honey, in a year and a half, no one will remember anything except that you had one of the classiest, coolest, and funnest weddings in recent memory. Nobody cares about those stupid stories on the Internet. And besides, a little publicity can be fun for a happy occasion,” Marcie told her.

Nicole reminded herself that it would be inappropriate to slap her wedding planner at the bakery during a cake tasting, so she refrained from responding to Marcie’s inane dispensing of folk wisdom.

The baker at Lady Cakes came to the front again and started taking all of them through the cake choices and flavor combinations, setting one of her cakes down in front of them to taste and discuss.

That’s when Nicole got a phone call from Danielle.

While Marcie and her mother tried the white cake with vanilla buttercream icing, Nicole stepped away from the table.

She almost didn’t answer, but something in her gut told her she should take the call.

“Hello,” she said, uncertainty in her voice.

“Nicole, it’s me. Danielle.”

“How are you?” she asked, her voice carefully neutral.

“I’m fine. Listen, I know you don’t like me very much right now, but I still care about you and I’m sorry about what happened between us the last time I saw you.”

“Me too,” she said softly into the phone.

Suddenly, from behind Nicole, came the sound of roaring laughter. “Nicole, honey, you just have to try this cake! The frosting is to die for! No, I take it back—it’s to kill for!” More unruly laughter. Nicole put a finger in one ear and walked further away from them.

“But that’s not even why I’m calling you right now,” Danielle continued. “I can tell you’re busy so I won’t take up much more of your time.”

“It’s okay, I don’t mind. I’m glad you called.” She realized it was very true—she missed the sound of Danielle’s voice.

“Kane mentioned that The Rag ran another article about you today. It really pissed me off that they did that to you.”

“It’s okay, I know you’re not the leak, Danielle,” Nicole said. “I’m so, so sorry I accused you of that.”

Behind her, there was more laughter—cackling, ridiculous braying that caused Nicole to move to the door of the bakery and then finally outside to escape. It shouldn’t have been Marcie and her mother at the cake tasting with her, she realized. It should have been Danielle, and Red if he’d wanted to come. They could have had a nice time together.

“Anyway, I told Kane I wanted to know who was giving The Rag all of this information about your private life. I told him I’d make living with me hell on earth if he didn’t find out right away. It took him all of five minutes to make a phone call and get the answer for me.”

Nicole wanted to cry. “You did that for me, after the way I treated you?”

“We’re always going to be friends, Nic. You can’t change that by being bratty one time. Besides, I can understand exactly why you felt the way you did about me. I’m living with the man who owns the tabloid that’s making your life miserable!”

Nicole laughed. “That definitely didn’t help matters.”

“I’m happy to help you to plug the leak, Nicole. I think that will be mine and Kane’s wedding present for you.”

“That’s a generous offer.”

“Kane told me that the name The Rag gave him for the informant was Marcie Tilly.”

“Are you absolutely sure, Danielle?”

“Yes, one hundred percent. Do you know her?”

“Apparently not as well as I thought I did.”

Nicole turned and looked through the window of the bakery, as Marcie sat shoveling cake into her mouth, guffawing and laughing along with Nicole’s mother.

“Well, I’ll let you go,” Danielle said. “Hope you’re doing well.”

“I’m sorry about everything I said before,” Nicole told her. “Really sorry. If you were her right now I’d get down and kiss your feet.”

Danielle laughed sadly. “Don’t worry about it. Maybe we’ll talk again, sooner rather than later?”

“Absolutely,” she said, and then Danielle was gone.

She closed her eyes, took a few deep breaths, and then Nicole went back inside the bakery.

The baker was in back getting the next cake for them to try.

“Nicole, are you going to even have some?” her mother asked. “We can’t pick a cake of the bride doesn’t taste any of them.”

“Yes,” she said, picking up a fork and digging into the white cake. It was good—

amazing, even. She licked her fork clean.

“Are you all right, darling?” Marcie asked. “You look pale.”

Nicole glanced at her. She noticed—for the first time—that Marcie didn’t particularly like making direct eye contact. The large woman laughed and chattered a lot but rarely looked Nicole in the eye.

Nicole sighed. “I just got a pretty strange phone call.”

“Is everything okay?” her mom asked.

“Yes and no.” Nicole took another bite of cake, turning her attention to the wedding planner. “Marcie, has anyone from the tabloids ever called you for any reason?”

Marcie looked up with a startled expression. “Me? Why would anybody call me?”

“That’s an odd question to ask, Nicole,” her mother said.

Before Nicole could explain herself, the baker came back with the next cake, a chocolate devil’s food cake with vanilla icing. The baker talked about the properties of the cake, its flavors, and what wedding it might be best suited for.

Nicole could tell that Marcie was distracted and not her jovial self during the discussion.

“I’ll let you guys taste it and I’ll be just around the corner if you have any questions,” the blond baker said, smiling and walking off.

Marcie’s hands were twitchy and busy tugging at her large shirt. She smiled at Nicole. “You know, come to think of it—I do believe someone might have called me once.” She looked up at the ceiling and blinked furiously. “I’m trying to remember what they said. It was a reporter…I really didn’t tell him much.”

“Was it someone from The Rag?”

“I—I can’t even say.” She looked at Nicole and looked away again. “The whole thing is just so crazy. I’m a small town gal and we don’t really deal with tabloids and that sort of thing. I’m a trusting person, you know?”

“I do know. I wouldn’t blame you if you’d spoken to someone without realizing it could be a problem.”

Nicole’s mother was watching Nicole with a confused expression on her face.

“What’s going on? Is someone going to clue me in?”

Marcie laughed. “You know, this is silly. I’ve done nothing wrong, but somehow I feel accused.”

“Well, someone’s been talking to The Rag about my wedding, and it’s allowing a hateful online gossip site to write horrible stories about us, revealing our private information to the world.”

“And you think it was me?” Marcie cried. “Why would I do such a thing?”

“You wouldn’t,” Nicole’s mother said. “Nicole, stop insinuating these things about Marcie. She’s a good friend and a very ethical person, which I happen to know. So unless you have evidence that she did something wrong—“

“Actually, I do have evidence.”

Marcie’s eyes practically bugged out of her head. “I swear—Nicole, I swear—if I did speak to someone in the beginning—“

“So you didn’t tell someone at The Rag about the date and time and location of our wedding?” Nicole said. She was calm, about as calm as she’d ever felt in her life.

“Nicole,” her mother practically shouted. “How dare you accuse her of that?”

“Did you, Marcie?” Nicole asked again.

Marcie laughed nervously. “Now look. Let me just get something clear, Nicole.

I’ve been in this wedding and party planning game for a long time, and I might be privy to a few details that you’re not. There are marketing and publicity efforts that go on behind the scenes, and everyone does it. It’s good to have a high profile, fun wedding. Heck, sometimes the couple sells their own wedding pictures to People Magazine for millions of dollars! Did you ever think of that?”

Her mother was nodding at Marcie’s comment. “She’s got a point, Nicole. I remember when Tom and Katie did that. Everyone knows that goes on.”

“Well, you could have checked with us to see if that’s what we wanted to do,”

Nicole said.

“I assumed you did, and I guess I assumed wrong. But I never—never—meant any harm, Nicole. I swear to you, as God is my witness.”

Nicole had a hunch, and she decided to play one last card. Toying with her fork, she finally took a scoop of the devil’s food cake, which no one had even touched yet. “I do understand, Marcie, more than you even know.” She took a bite of the cake and chewed for a while. “It’s good,” she said. “I might like it better than the first one.”

Marcie nodded with frightened eyes. “Oh, good.”

“So, I also had someone from my security firm do a quick investigation and they said your husband never went to the hospital for heart issues, Marcie.”

“What? You think I lied about my husband’s heart condition now?”

Nicole looked Marcie squarely in the eye. She channeled Red from memory, the way he dealt with people who were weak, people he didn’t respect. She stood a little taller, set her jaw a certain way, and spoke with more force. “Don’t lie to me again, Marcie, or I swear I’ll make sure you never plan another wedding, a party—I don’t care if it’s just a five person Super Bowl party in Antarctica. I will make it my business to ruin you if you lie to me one more time. And if you know anything about my husband, you know he’ll help me make that threat a reality.”

Marcie gave an audible gulp. “Please don’t do anything rash.”

“It’s your choice. Just tell me the truth. Did you really have to take your husband to the emergency room, or did you purposely ignore my calls that day because you didn’t want to cancel all of those invitations?”

Marcie hung her head. “Nicole, I apologize for my actions. I just got overexcited and I did some things—I made some mistakes, obviously—“

“Just answer me.”

Marcie licked her lips. “No, my husband did not go to the emergency room.”

“Thank you for being honest. I do appreciate it. And now, I’m afraid I really should get going.”

“Nicole,” her mother called. “Wait a second. Marcie apologized and I think you can give her a second chance. It’s all out in the open now.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“She’s my friend. And she’s good at what she does.”

“Mom, I hate to say this in a public place, but for once in your life—just mind your own damn business.”

And then Nicole turned on her heel and left the bakery.

***

On her way back from the bakery, Nicole tried to call Red. She really wanted to tell him everything that had happened, she wanted to hear his voice. Nicole knew that more than anything she needed things to be right between them again.