Before Adam, her life hadn’t been bad by any stretch of the imagination, but in the past two weeks, it had been bright and colorful in a way that she hadn’t known it could be. Part of it was the hot sex—of course she knew that had to be a factor. But if she’d been having sex with someone she didn’t like, they wouldn’t be hanging out and talking afterward. They wouldn’t be laughing together.
And they definitely wouldn’t be looking out for each other.
As the caterer gave her an update through her headset on their preparations for the post-wedding reception, Kerry knew now wasn’t the time to be thinking about her night or her morning with Adam. She had a job to do, and do well.
The groom’s mother had been one of her mother’s clients, a widow who had found love for a second time twenty-five years ago, and Aileen Dromoland had hinted on the phone that she might drop by. If ever there was a wedding to get right, it was this one.
Kerry always wanted her mother to feel that her daughter had done right by the company she’d worked so hard to build. So since it wouldn’t do to let either the bride and groom or her mother down, she corralled her focus and got back to work on making sure all of today’s moving pieces worked in perfect concert with each other.
The crush of guests arriving to take their seats began in earnest now that the ceremony was scheduled to start in less than fifteen minutes. Kerry had already checked in with the bride, her bridesmaids, and her parents, and all of them were relaxed and happy in the final minutes before the wedding began. The groom and his crew were also equally at ease, and she gave silent thanks that everything was so well on track.
Ushering an older couple to their seats came as second nature to her, and she enjoyed her chat with them about the gorgeous Seattle weather and how lucky they were to be there today. More than three hundred people would be attending. The groom was a prominent financier, and the bride owned one of the best beauty salons in the city. It stood to reason that their guests were an uncommonly good-looking and successful bunch.
Still, she couldn’t help but think that none of them were quite as good-looking as Adam. Perhaps she was biased, she thought with a little flush of pleasure she couldn’t quite contain, given that she had firsthand knowledge of just how gorgeous he was head to toe, clothes on and off.
A message from the florist popped up on her iPad, and she realized she’d lost focus again. It was so unlike her to daydream while on the job.
Then again, it was also extremely unlike her to meet up with a gorgeous, totally unsuitable man for wild sex.
Giving her head a shake, she turned to greet another guest. But her greeting stuck in her throat when she realized she was looking at her favorite face, the one she couldn’t seem to get out of her head no matter how hard she tried.
“Adam?” Her tongue felt all tied up, probably due to the way her heart and stomach immediately started jumping around whenever he stood this close to her. “What are you doing here?”
He held up his invitation. “My friends Jodi and Paul cordially requested the honor of my presence at their wedding and reception this afternoon.”
“You’re one of their wedding guests?” She usually knew the guest list like the back of her hand, but the bride and groom had made theirs months ago and, amazingly, had stuck to it with so few changes that she hadn’t thought she needed to review it.
He grinned as he said, “You’re their wedding planner?”
She couldn’t help but smile back. And why shouldn’t she? After all, it wasn’t a crime to be friends with Adam Sullivan. It was only the sex part that she didn’t want anyone to know about.
“When I mentioned I had a wedding this afternoon, why didn’t you say anything?”
He looked a little chastened as he admitted, “I might not have exactly remembered the wedding was this weekend. But if I’d known I would get to see you here this afternoon, I definitely wouldn’t have forgotten.”
“Figures you’d almost forget about your friends’ wedding.” The only reason she held back her eye roll was because they weren’t alone. But she planned on letting it loose on him in a big way once it was just the two of them again on Thursday night. “Although I don’t know how much you’ll see m—”
The caterer said something to her through her earpiece, and she cut herself off to quickly answer another question. At the same time, the iPad she was holding was buzzing with one message after another, all of them potential fires that needed to be put out, so she quickly typed a half-dozen messages back to keep everything on track.
When she looked up again, she was surprised to realize Adam was still standing in front of her. “I forgot you were still here.”
He put his hand over his chest. “Ouch.”
For a moment she couldn’t tell if he was teasing or not, but then she realized he was working to fight back another grin. “Honestly, it’s a really nice surprise that you’re here,” she told him, and she meant it. Maybe she should have been worried that he would do his best to distract her in his far-too-charming way, but the truth was that she was too happy about seeing him again to care. “And I also want to apologize in advance for the next zillion times I can’t give you anywhere near my full attention today.”
“Don’t apologize for doing your job.” But he gave her a look she knew too well, one that promised he wasn’t even close to done having fun with her yet. “And I won’t apologize when I steal you away from it all for a dance later.”
She opened her mouth to remind him that she was there to work and not party, but before she could get a word out, he pointed to her iPad. “Looks like a dozen new messages have come in for you in the last thirty seconds, so I’ll go take my seat.”
With a soft kiss on her cheek, he was heading off into the crowd and being heartily greeted by pretty much everyone, male and female.
Kerry knew she’d already been thinking about Adam Sullivan far too much. Far too happily, too, despite the fact that they could never be more than friends with really great benefits. And yet, as she took care of a dozen last-second details before the ceremony began, she didn’t do anything to squash the extra spring in her step or the extra-fast beat of her heart.
* * *
Adam made sure to take a seat where he could see his friends standing in front of the officiant and observe Kerry at the same time. She looked so professional, and utterly in control of every detail, as she stood just to the side of the last row of guests.
After the huge number of family weddings Adam had been to during the past couple of years, he knew a thing or two about them. Enough to know that putting on one this big was a massive undertaking. Odds were she was being given a dozen different updates from her staff and contractors through her headset, but she didn’t look the least bit stressed out.
And then, as the officiant began to lead the bride and groom into their vows, he watched her reach up to her ear and take out her earpiece.
He grinned, easily guessing that she didn’t want to miss even one word of the mushy stuff.
Adam was happy for his friends, but even though they were making major vows to each other today, they took a backseat to the chance to be with Kerry for a little while outside of one of their hotel suites. Considering she’d made it perfectly clear just hours ago that their relationship needed to stop growing outside of those hotels and work on the house she wanted him to revive, today’s wedding had gone from a waste of a perfectly good sunny weekend day to a total bonus.