Royal Bastard (20 page)

“
Y
ou’re kidding me
, right?”

I stared at the tear-streaked bride who was surrounded by her brigade of bridesmaids, a bottle of vodka in her trembling hands. I’d been in the middle of discussing the final positioning of the floral arrangements with the florist down in the ballroom of the exclusive hotel; a gorgeous arch that had been flown in from Hawaii for the special day when I got the 911 emergency call from the bride. Or had it been Barbados? I couldn’t remember anymore; the stress of this wedding was starting to make me crazy. It was always one thing after another… and now I had to deal with the worst case scenario that every wedding planner dreads.

Of all the ones I had planned in my short but lucrative wedding planning career, this was definitely the most stressful. The bride, Crystal Wagner, was a socialite who not only demanded perfection but expected it to be delivered on a silver platter to her too.

Bridezilla on steroids.

I’d actually been afraid that she’d tear down this entire hotel with one of her tantrums. I couldn’t tell you how many times we’d gone back and forth about every minute detail of this wedding, my initial ideas never ever good enough, only to have her tell me the exact same idea the next day and take all of the credit. She’d driven me batty but this was my one chance to shine. So, I’d kept a smile pinned to my face thinking and dreaming of my future, of running my own wedding planning business.

She’d also insisted on doing the whole Hollywood thing and making it a surprise ceremony for the guests, making my job a thousand times more difficult to keep the whole damn thing as quiet as possible. And so far I was doing a bang up job; there hadn’t been a peep from the press, which I was grateful for. But that wouldn’t last for long, not now.

This was a nightmare.

Tonight’s dinner had been the start of the longest weekend of my career. Most of the time I enjoyed making a bride’s special day come true, but this bride…well, I was definitely looking forward to the commission on this one.

“I’m not kidding!” she wailed as the bridesmaids cooed around her, patting her shoulders. “He fucking dumped me after he… after… oh my god, he’s a fucking bastard!”

“It’s okay, Crystal,” one of the women said, handing her a tissue. “He’ll come crawling back tonight. You wait and see.”

“You don’t know Connor,” Crystal replied, pushing the woman away and swigging another healthy gulp of vodka. “When he says something, he means it. The asshole! I should have known better. I thought I had him… this was my ticket to fame!”

I thought about the groom; Connor Haden, the cocky, very self-assured star quarterback of the LA Lions. His on-the-field performance was one that would make him a hall of famer someday, but it was his off-the-field antics that had truly made him a household name, for all the wrong reasons, though. The tabloids were constantly full of him with his shirt off posing for the cameras, not to mention articles about his man-whoring ways, dumping this girl then the next. Going through whole batches of women like the disposable tissues Crystal had managed to work her way through.

The world had been shocked and surprised—teenage girls as well as disappointed housewives no doubt crying themselves to sleep—when the announcement had come that he’d gotten engaged to the smug socialite; and I remember reading polls about how long it would last… turns out Connor’s limit was two months.

I only knew him from watching football, one of my favorite players this season because he was
that good,
but that was it. He hadn’t been involved at all in the wedding preparations… I supposed that could’ve been a warning sign right there. But right now, all I wanted to do was punch him. He was ruining my entire existence by dumping his bride two days before her wedding. Really, who did that?

“Maybe someone can go talk to him,” another bridesmaid suggested, her words slurred. She was getting just as hammered as the bride. Crystal pondered the suggestion as she chugged the last of the vodka from the bottle, her mascara leaving black streaks down her cheeks.

As I watched her and studied her performance, it was difficult to feel sorry for the woman who’d made my life a misery for the last few weeks, but I knew I was being hard on her. She’d just received extremely terrible news, but if I didn’t know better I would’ve thought she was putting on a show for hidden cameras. She looked nothing like the radiant woman who had gripped her groom’s arm tightly just hours earlier while I‘d watched from the wings of the room, ensuring that everything was where it should be, and everything like a soap-opera star ready to deliver her next line.

Her bridesmaid had a point, though, maybe someone should go talk to him. It was my job to ensure that the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours went smoothly and right now, I was failing miserably. This was my chance to save the day.

“I’ll go,” I finally said, the entire group’s attention swinging to me. Someone really did need to go have it out with the bastard, and if I couldn’t get him to see sense then I would gladly give him a piece of my mind, I thought.

“You would do that?” Crystal asked, surprised as she looked at me. I shrugged, it was part of my job… kind of. I’d never had this happen before, but if I could figure out a way to obliterate all instances of the color orange in the hotel for the bride—because it “offends my sensibilities,” then I could surely figure out a way to get a blasted quarterback to say “I do”.

“Sure. I am the wedding planner, after all, and without a wedding, I can’t do my job.”

Her eyes narrowed and I saw a range of emotions flicker across her face before she turned on the charm. Perhaps she didn’t want the wedding to go ahead either, I pondered, but instantly dismissed it. She wouldn’t be in this state if she wasn’t hurting, unless it was all fake of course. “Okay, you go talk to him. Tell him I am distraught and that if he knows what’s good for him he will change his mind before I do something he will regret. This was supposed to be the wedding of the year!
My wedding!
” As she delivered her mind-numbing whining shriek, I winced. She’d be in full meltdown mode again in any moment, so it was best to get out while I could, I thought.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make your feelings known,” I said firmly as I headed to the door, not really intending on passing on Crystal’s veiled threat of blackmail to Connor. I would have to play it cool to get him to change his mind and patch everything back up with a woman who clearly wasn’t in the relationship for love. I supposed I couldn’t blame him for calling it quits; if she was anything like the spoiled brat she was with me, then I’m sure his patience had worn thin.

But the groom was sorely ruining my chances of getting away from my boss and opening up my own party planning business. So, I had to at least try to fix it. I’d planned on using the bulk of the commission from this successful event to get set up, not to mention the amount of exposure I would garner from all of the VIP attendees who liked to throw parties. Unlike my current job, I wasn’t going to limit myself to just weddings. I wanted to do it all. Big lavish events, parties, weddings, and birthdays, each with class, style and sophistication. The parties I envisaged would almost be like theatre productions, with me as the director, the guests the actors, and all my finishing touches as the backdrop of the stage.

I jabbed the call button for the elevator and slapped a determined ‘don’t fuck with me’ expression upon my face.

Connor Haden didn’t know whose dream he was messing with. But he was about to find out.

I
leaned
my head against the tufted high back chair within the VIP area of the club below the hotel and sighed, glad that my celebrity status had come in handy for once. I’d have some relative peace and quiet for a few moments—I doubted Crystal and her entourage of pink plastic friends would find me down here. And even if they did, I’m sure I could’ve persuaded them, with a few well-placed panty-dropping words, to switch to my side and join the festivities that were to come later. Every one of Crystal’s friends were like mini-vultures, trying to land a big whale… and I wasn’t naïve, I knew that they knew damn well I was the prize they longed for.

The club was hopping but it was still early, just before ten o’clock. Tonight was supposed to be my bachelor party and I wasn’t about to let the tradition of booze and scantily clad women go to waste just because I’d ended it with the bride-to-be. Hell, once the boys arrived we could turn the whole thing into one huge party instead.

And it wasn’t as if anyone actually knew, anyway—only a few trusted teammates. It had been Crystal’s idea to keep the entire thing a secret, one of her crazy-ass ideas that was actually paying off now. She’d been determined that only our wedding party know exactly what was going on so that she could sell the exclusive ‘secret wedding’ photographs to the highest bidder. The event would have been front-page news since the paparazzi already followed us around anyway, but after word leaked out that I had dumped her ass, we would be hounded for an entirely different reason. Tonight would probably be my last night of total freedom before the fallout and I wasn’t about to squander it.

Now, I just had to figure out how I was going to break it to my buddies and best-man, who also happened to be my agent, that I’d decided not to go through with it. Most of them coming here tonight were teammates of mine, a mix of my offensive and defensive line that protected my ass every Sunday. They probably wouldn’t care anyway, though my agent would no doubt tell me I was being a fool, give me the stink-eye, and complain that I was about to let thousands of dollars of sponsorship money slip through my fingers now that I wouldn’t have a “wholesome image” to use as leverage after marrying.

At least the rest would be all for turning my bachelor party into an ‘I dodged a bullet celebration’. No ball and chain for me, thank you very much. I grinned at the thought. Everything was going to be just peaches and cream tonight. Bring on the booze and girls!

“H-how could you do that to her? Do you not have a shred of decency in your body?”

Speaking of peaches and cream.
I looked up to find a curvy redheaded woman. She definitely wasn’t one of Crystal’s friends come to shout at me… too natural, too deliciously untouched and sumptuous. It took me a second but then I recognized her. Standing right at the rope, clutching the red strands that kept the gawkers and freaks out of my space, was the wedding planner Crystal had been adamant about hiring.

She looked pissed, and her face flushed with anger as my bodyguard tried to push her back. I guess she got the memo that the wedding was off. She must’ve been furious that all that time spent doing Crystal’s bidding had been for absolutely fucking nothing.

I gave her my signature smile that normally stopped all women in their tracks but she continued to glower at me. Might as well get the lecture over and done with, I thought.

“Let her through,” I said, motioning to James, who was doing a damn fine job protecting that rope. He unhooked the barrier and she charged in like a tropical storm, her wild hair flying about uncontrollably. She looked severely out of place in her black pants and pink blouse that gave no hint to the skin that was underneath in comparison to all the practically butt-naked women that were dancing around. My eyes lingered upon her body for a second too long; the straining material at her chest told me everything I needed to know about the curves and cleavage that she seemed eager to hide.

I grabbed the bottle of whiskey I was nursing and poured her a glass, pushing it across the table. “Here, join me, have a drink.”

“I don’t want a drink!” she fumed and came within a few feet of me, pointing her finger at me like I was a naughty schoolboy. She pursed her lips, and I sat back ready to take what was about to come from the would-be sexy schoolteacher of whom she was doing a damn good job at portraying.

“You’ve ruined that woman’s life upstairs with your…your…whatever it is! Seriously, how could you?”

I laughed. The last thing I had done was ruin Crystal’s life. Hell, she would probably thank me once the shock wore off. She didn’t need me anymore, she’d be fucking famous once the story broke. “Trust me, honey, I haven’t done any such thing.”

“Don’t call me, honey, you prick!” she said. Her eyes went wide as if she’d just realized what she’d said to me… an ex-client, but still a client all the same. “I’m not your honey,” she mumbled, her cheeks blushing, seemingly regretting the words that she couldn’t control around me.

I quirked a serious eyebrow at her and waited for the onslaught to continue, doing my best not to break down in a fit of laughter. “Would you like to be?” I dared to ask her, making her squirm.

She stared at me in horror and I took the moment to look at her, really look at her, not really expecting an answer. She had been underfoot, forcing me to attend this fitting and that cake tasting for weeks on end, though I’d managed to get out of most of it. I was really looking forward to not having her and Crystal drive me insane. But as I took in the woman in the prim outfit, her usually-smiling brown eyes flashing extreme anger at me, I couldn’t help but want to do naughty, dirty, things to her—to remove that uptight stick from her ass and perhaps replace it with something a little more pleasurable for us both.

She was of average height, nothing at all like the tall stick figures Crystal hung around with. The little wedding planner had a pretty great rack, her buttons straining as her chest heaved in anger. Oh yeah, she was pissed at me. “Eugh, you disgust me. How can you say that to me after what you did to your fiancée? I can’t believe that you would say something so, so crude,” she finally said and shook her head. “How can you be like this to the woman you love?”

I really laughed then, thinking of how ridiculous that sounded. Hell, Crystal and I weren’t getting married for love. Sure I liked her, maybe even cared about her just a little, but love? Love was for pussies and daydreamers, and I was neither. Love wasn’t what made the world go round or paid my bills. My own parents weren’t in love. They’d fought constantly and ended up getting divorced when I was ten, so yeah fuck love and the horse it rode in on. “I don’t have to explain this to you. The wedding’s off and there’s nothing you can do to convince me otherwise.”

Her eyes widened and some of her anger dissipated, replaced by an emotion that looked, well, disappointed. Did the successful wedding really mean that much to her? Surely not.

“You’re just… I can’t believe it, I hate you,” she blurted out, clapping a hand over her mouth as her face reddened an even darker shade in the club’s dim light. I grinned. She was actually kind of hot when she was embarrassed.

“The cute way you’re blushing tells me one thing for sure, you don’t
hate
me. Seriously, have a drink. Let’s get to know each other a little better without all these hostilities…” My hand reached out to hers to encourage her to sit down with me. There was something about her wild hair and the fire in her eyes that made me want to devour her.

My grin must have made matters worse because she slapped away my hand, picked up the glass I’d fixed her and threw it, the cold shock of whiskey hitting me square in the face. “Why don’t
you
have a fucking drink! I hope you rot in hell,” she seethed before marching away, pushing her way past the group of men that were descending on the VIP area.

“Well, Connor, I see you haven’t lost your touch with the women.”

I looked up at the man in the front of the group and shrugged, then picked up a bunch of cocktail napkins and wiped my face with them. “Oh, we were just flirting. Besides, not like you could do any better.”

My running back Eddie grinned and sat down beside me, grabbing the bottle from the table to take a long swig. “Dude, I could do so much better than you.”

The rest of the guys, all from the team, filed into the VIP section as a line of fine waitresses brought various bottles of alcohol to the tables for us, all pre-planned for a wild night. Eddie held onto the bottle of whiskey, looking at the women who started to press themselves against the rope in hopes that we would let them in. Eventually they would be let in of course, in due time; they’d work themselves up into a frenzy and be gagging for it by the time I gave the nod.

“So, who was that feisty morsel?”

“The wedding planner.” I frowned. “She’s pissed that I called off the wedding.”

Eddie spat out the whiskey he’d taken a swig of, spraying it across the table and laughing hard. “I knew it! I knew you wouldn’t go through with this! Hey, Chase, he backed out!”

Chase, the nearly three-hundred pound defensive tackle, held up his glass in salute. “You owe me five hundred bucks, Eddie!”

“What the fuck?” I asked as the word spread to the rest of the guys.

“We knew you weren’t going to get married, dude,” Eddie laughed. “There’s not one single relationship that you’ve been in that has lasted over a year. And it’s not like it’s the first time. How many times have you been engaged now? I think I lost count.”

“That’s not the point,” I grumbled.

Eddie shook his head, his grin wide. “Think about it, Connor. Even the one relationship that I half thought would work, you just broke it off. Face it, you’re scared of long term commitment.”

“And you’re an asshole,” I said. Did they really think I was unable to commit? Hell, I had enjoyed my fair share of relationships in the past, just none of them could hold my attention for an extended period of time, that was all.

“Call me what you want, but it’s true,” Eddie said, tipping his glass to me. “Unless you’d like to prove to me otherwise.”

“Hell, I’ll take those odds,” Chase chimed in, a bottle of expensive-ass champagne in his large hands and a huge grin on his ugly face. “Easy way to make some funds anyway. What do you say Connor, you a pussy or what?”

“Not like any of you are any better.”

“We don’t propose to every girl we see, though. Stick it to her and move on… but you, fuck, it’s like you want to play house but can’t go the distance.”

Anger flared within me that they were making a huge joke of my love life. I could commit, no fucking problem. It wasn’t my fault. No way. It was the women and how they didn’t keep my attention, that was all. Crystal bored the fuck out of me. I couldn’t end up being chained to her for the rest of my life, I’d go nuts! Besides, I was only thirty-one, in the prime of my career and my damn life. I didn’t need to be tied down anyway.

“I’d give him two weeks,” Chase was saying, his words starting to slur. For a big guy, he couldn’t hold his alcohol to save his life. There had been more than one occasion that we’d had to carry his fat ass out of a bar because of a few drinks. “Two weeks. Hell, I’ll even put a grand on it, maybe two. Ha!”

I glared at him. “You really don’t think I could stay married for two weeks?”

“I’ll sweeten the pot.” Eddie grinned broadly. “I’ll put ten grand in, and if you win, Connor, we’ll give you all of it.”

“Ya’ll are crazy,” I scoffed. “I can do two weeks with my eyes closed.” Ain’t nothing to it…I stayed with Crystal for longer than that, a couple more weeks won’t hurt. Or maybe there was another way, I thought as I started to scan the club, looking at all the eligible ladies that I could persuade to join me, to be holed up with for two weeks.

Wasn’t there a honeymoon still on the table that I had laid down an enormous amount of cash for? It would be fucking perfect to have some rest and relaxation with a mystery lady. I’d already scheduled the time off from practice and it sure as hell would beat hanging around here to get hounded once the press heard of my split with Crystal. They would never give me a moment’s peace. This little bet wasn’t sounding so bad after all.

“Come on then, bring it on. This will be a piece of piss, you guys are just throwing your money away.”

“Not so fast there, Stud. Since we are fronting the money,” Eddie continued, “we pick the ‘bride’.”

“Hell no,” I said, shaking my head. Knowing them they would saddle me with someone three times my age and who farted in her sleep at night. I wasn’t going to fall for that.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be fair about it,” Eddie said, clapping me on the back and chuckling. “But I don’t want this to be a walk in the park for you either.” He scanned the club and the rest of my teammates joined in looking out onto the dance floor, running their eyes over every woman like they were the prey and we were the pride about to take them down. “Bah, none of these will do,” Eddie said.

“What do you mean? That one there is perfect, the blonde with the ass that wont quit. She seems like she’d be a handful… not too easy, not too hard,” Chase replied almost drooling.

I glanced at the woman he was fucking with his eyes. Yeah, she’d be all right, I thought. A solid eight on the women-I’d-like-to-fuck scale. She had cleavage I could drown myself in for two weeks. “She’s good,” I said, attempting to play it cool. If they went for her it really would be a cake walk.

Eddie scrunched up his nose. “Nah. Way too fucking easy, mate.” A slow smile crept over his face, his eyes coming back to me. “I’ve got the perfect one for you.”

“Who? Put me out of my misery, why don’t you,” I said, almost afraid to even find out as he had this look about him; like he already knew he was going to win. Surely he wouldn’t be so evil as to make me go after one of my exes or one of Crystal’s clone-like friends. Fuck that, I would concede and pay up right then and there.

“The wedding planner chick,” he grinned. “She’s the one. There’s no way you could last two weeks with her, but it’s going to be fun to watch you try.”