Bargaining with the Bride (Honeybrook Love, Inc. 1)

Sort of…

She thought about her mother, trying her best to frown through the Botox that kept her face so perfectly disinterested. Her father, detailing every call to the wedding vendors while showing her check after voided check for her wedding expenses. All the while, they’d be saying how they should have seen it coming. That flighty Rachael would never actually get married…

Now wasn’t the time to worry about the fall out, now was supposed to be a time for celebration. For freedom. She focused on the road signs, trying her best to push past her self-doubt, and discovered herself driving to work.

Figures.

It was always where she ended up, especially when she'd been forced to sponge bathe Lance or help him with something she now realized he was perfectly capable of doing. It had probably been his idea of a hilarious inside joke. The prick.

She turned into the lot and then parked in her usual spot, thankful that the place had already halfway cleared out for the day. With any luck, she’d be able to throw herself into her latest project and forget that her life was falling to crap around her ears.

After stalking across the lot, through the wide, glass doors, and then riding the elevator, she hustled to her office in the far corner of the top floor. It was a nice spot for someone so new to the company and it didn't hurt that she really believed in the business, either. Organic Chemistry was set to be a game changer for a lot of people—it was the first dating company to use scientific data in conjunction with personality matching in order to help people find love.

She served as the head of research development, examining the data pulled from the head scientist a co-owner and his team of researchers. Working closely with the foundations of what made a relationship work. Sort of ironic, considering her own situation.

She plopped onto her leather couch and dreamt of oblivion. But then she kicked her legs onto her bulky, worn coffee table, and found notes from her secretary staring back up at her.

With a sigh, she sat up and took the letters in hand. Phone messages. The first, from her sister, Eliza, who needed advise on how to handle their mother. The second from her mother, asking again if it would be inappropriate to wear white to the wedding and when she would finally get to meet Lance.

In response, she crumpled the messages into tiny balls and then tossed them at the can behind her desk. She'd deal with her family and the wedding, but for right now it was time to enjoy her freedom. She'd gotten rid of the noose around her neck. The anger and stress of the afternoon faded away and a kernel of joy hatched in her belly. She was free.

And that solid five seconds of enjoyment was pretty awesome. But it wasn't enough to stave off the panic that was quickly setting in.

She was relieved to be rid of Lance, definitely, even if the way things went down were a little less than flattering to her ego.

Whatever. No point in getting mad again. That was all in the past.

Still, the wedding loomed overhead, way too present to be shoved away as easily as Lance had been.

She couldn't call it off. Her father had spent a fortune on it, not that it was even a drop in the bucket of his wealth. And her mother… She stared at the crinkled message, laying inches from the trashcan, and considered getting up to kick it. She couldn’t begin to fathom the emotional warfare her mother would wreak if the wedding was canceled.

The damn thing was only a month away. People had made plans. Gifts had been sent. Hotel rooms had been booked. For all intents and purposes, it would be better to get married and then divorced. Then, at least, she could say she’d tried.

But the idea of calling Lance…

Her stomach twisted. No, Lance was entirely out of the question.

What a miserable freaking day.

Heaving a sigh, she lifted herself off the sofa and peeked her head out of the door to her office. Everyone was just about packed up for the day, making their goodbyes before they headed out to their cars and made their way home. Well, at least there would be no witnesses for her parade of misery.

She turned on the little stereo that sat behind her desk and pumped the bubblegum eighties pop she listened to whenever she was depressed.

"It's a nice day for a white wedding, indeed," she mumbled to herself in time with Billy Idol's crooning. Reaching into the bottom drawer of her desk, she pulled out one of the little bottles of vodka she'd kept hidden away for a special occasion.

This might not qualify as special, but it was certainly an occasion.

She poured herself a glass and settled into some work. Tomorrow, the next day—those could be nice days for white weddings. Tonight, she would lose herself in her spreadsheets and sort the rest out later.

2

Quarter after six. The debriefing had gone well yesterday, but there were still some loose ends to be tied up. Matchware was playing hardball with them, and if Garret Adams didn’t have solid data for them by the end of the month, he could kiss the merger—and the move to a high rise in the city—goodbye.

The logistics he could deal with and his brother, Brooks, could certainly handle the schmoozing. But the innovative research…

He sighed. There wasn't much time for planning a full-scale roll out of the new system, but maybe if he talked to Natalie and Rachael he’d be able to get some ideas.

Garret rounded the block of cubicles, heading toward the largest door—his own. He read over the gold wording emblazoned on the frosted glass: “Co-owner and lead scientist: Garret Adams.” It felt like a pat on the back every time he caught sight of it.