She didn’t misunderstand, and her eyes bugged out. “You boned Danica Robinson? Are you kidding me?”
Josh barked out a laugh. “Jesus, 4C. We dated.”
Heather and everyone else continued to stare at him. “You don’t date.”
He lifted a shoulder. “Not now. I used to.”
“And back when you used to, you dated Danica Robison? How did I not know this?”
“She wasn’t famous back then. Not like she is now. A few appearances on Page Six, but not a household name.”
“How long did you date?”
“Two years. Give or take,” he asked, reaching for the fruit salad and helping himself to another spoonful. “We met at a party, and just sort of . . . started hanging out.”
He felt most of the group exchange looks.
“Two years is a legit relationship,” Brooke said slowly.
Josh shrugged, trying to tamp down on his irritation, reminding himself that they had no way of knowing how much he hated talking about that part of his life. “I never said it wasn’t.”
“Who dumped whom?” Jessie asked in such a no-bullshit kind of way he had to smile, even as her words brought back a memory that ripped at his very core.
“She ended things,” he said, picking up his mimosa.
Didn’t want to get shackled with a dying man.
That wasn’t exactly fair. Danica Robinson had hardly been the love of his life, and they’d started to fizzle out even before his life had started to fall to shit.
Didn’t make her abandonment any easier though. He’d never needed somebody quite so badly than at the exact moment she walked away.
Heather’s fingers touched his forearm, and he glanced at her, bracing for . . . something.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
He shrugged. “Long time ago. Dedicated bachelor, remember?”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, she seems like a real bitch,” Jessie said.
Alexis let out a horrified laugh. “Jessie! She’s a client! How many mimosas have you had?”
Jessie looked chagrined, but barely. “Sorry, but she is. We all think so.”
Brooke sipped her own drink and patted Alexis’s arm. “It’s true. The woman’s a nightmare. What kind of woman shows zero interest in planning her own wedding but also insists it be the event of the century?”
Josh snorted. “Sounds like Danica.”
“You know her,” Heather said, her voice speculative.
“That happens when you date someone, 4C,” he said.
“No, I mean you know her. What she likes. What she doesn’t like . . .”
“You’re not about to get kinky on me, are you?” he asked, giving Heather a wary look.
Her smile grew wider. “You know what this means? I no longer have to plan this wedding blind. It means that I have an inside track.”
Josh dropped the spoon back into the bowl. “Tell me you’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting.”
She patted his arm. “Let’s just say I think we figured out how to make amends for all those sleepless nights you’ve caused me.” Heather looked around at the other Belles’ encouraging expressions and smiled almost maniacally. “You, Josh Tanner, are going to help me plan this wedding.”
Josh stared at her before glancing around the table to see if anyone else was concerned that she was losing her mind. To his horror, the women were all nodding in awed agreement. Seth Tyler gave him a sympathetic look and handed him a nearly full champagne bottle.
“Yeah, that’s not happening, 4C.”
She sat back in her chair with a little huff. “Hardball, fine. What’ll it take? Banana bread? I’ll make you banana bread. Whatever you want, 4A, name it.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to say that he didn’t want banana bread—or anything—badly enough to help with his hideous ex-girlfriend’s wedding.
But as he met Heather’s hopeful green eyes, her lips pursed in a sexy little pout that made him remember exactly how sweet she’d tasted, he realized that maybe there was something he did want that badly.
He wanted Heather Fowler.
In his bed.
Chapter Twelve
LATER THAT DAY, STILL flying high from the unquestionable success of her first hosted brunch, Heather hunkered down for another treasured weekend ritual: a cup of cinnamon apple tea and her requisite Sunday-evening phone chat with her mother.