“Put her in her place,” he suggested.
“Whatever. And Evan isn’t my ex. We went on one date.”
“Close enough. Do you have other exes?”
I bit my lip. “Sure. I dated a guy in high school for a year. He mostly smoked pot and wanted blow jobs. Not great for the self-esteem. And I dated a guy in college who played video games and wanted to be a gamer but was a business major.” I shrugged.
“That’s all?”
“Well, no. I dated a guy when I first started nannying for Sutton. He seemed with it. I thought he was the one. But we, uh…had a falling-out.”
To put it nicely. He’d found out about my anxiety medication and gone off for weeks about how people who took medicine for “mental issues” were weak. That I should be able to just fight it. He actually hid my anxiety pills for a week, and it was bad. Bad. He’d called me crazy. I’d sworn to never tell anyone else about it if I could help it. I definitely wasn’t planning to reveal that to Julian anytime soon.
“You?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Yeah. Jordan calls me a serial monogamist.”
“I don’t see how that’s bad.”
“Right,” he said, waving his hand. “Anyway, I think this is the longest I’ve been single since high school.”
“It’s only been a couple months.”
“Yeah. Well, I hadn’t planned to date.” His smile hit me full force.
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“You are anything but a disappointment.” He pressed a kiss to my fingers.
“This camera is going to suck,” I muttered.
“Oh?”
“Just going to have to take a million pictures before we get there.” I brought it up to my eye. “Say cheese.”
He laughed and I snapped the picture. “Feel free. Also I upgraded us to first class.”
I nearly dropped Evan’s camera. “What?”
“Yeah. Hope that’s okay.”
“How? How is that even possible?”
He shrugged. “I’m a Wright.”
Which seemed to be enough. I was learning a whole new world while dating a Wright.
It turned out that first class to Cabo was an event. We drank a little too much champagne and snuggled up in the enormous seats while I figured out Evan’s camera. By the time we landed in Mexico, I was bubbling with excitement to photograph this wedding. The Nikon was now my bitch.
* * *
“So, I should just stay out of your way?” Julian asked.
I grinned. “Well, that’s not exactly what I meant. Mostly that I’m going to be busy for the next few hours. The ceremony is late.”
“Can I come?”
I furrowed my brow. “I don’t know why you’d want to go to a stranger’s wedding.”
“Because you’ll be there.”
“Well then, sure,” I said with a shrug and a flush. “If that’s what you want.”
“It is,” he said, dropping the bag in our swim-up suite.
I was already rummaging through my own bag so that I could change and get going. I kissed Julian on the way out and made my way to the bridal suite, which was a massive presidential suite with as much room as Piper’s house. I introduced myself to everyone involved and then got to work. My mind was completely focused on taking pictures of the bridal party and then the first look with her groom—always my favorite part of any wedding—that I didn’t even realize we were quickly approaching sunset.
I took my final pictures of the bride walking toward the beach before dashing forward to capture the groom. This was where a second shooter would be valuable, but most people couldn’t afford to send out two people to Mexico. I had to be good enough for two of me.
But when I stepped onto the beach, my feet froze. The small contingent of friends and family who had shown up for the elopement were milling around the beachside wedding display. A towering archway wrapped in blossoming flowers stood behind the groom. The crowd was dressed in summery sundresses. The groom and his best man were in gray slacks and blue short-sleeved button-ups.
It wasn’t the most beautiful wedding I’d ever attended, but it was absolutely stunning in its own right. The start of these things always took my breath away. As if I were perpetually stalled in a single perfect moment.
Then my gaze drifted to the lone person at the back of the party. The one person who didn’t belong. My smile grew as Julian took me in—frazzled and excited—and liked all of it. My cheeks heated. I’d always appreciated his fashion sense, but today was above and beyond. He took my breath away in slacks and a peachy linen shirt, rolled up to his elbows. His dark hair blew gently in the beach breeze, and those eyes were solely focused on me.
For a whole minute, I forgot what I was doing. Just couldn’t believe that Julian Wright was mine. This beautiful, amazing man was my boyfriend.
Then the music changed, and I needed to get back to work. No rest for the wicked.