The Wedding Date Disaster (Harbor City 4)

He nodded, not sure he could do more than that at the moment. “Thanks.”

One long, lingering look later, she closed the door, leaving him alone in the hallway, already halfway to forgetting why he was here.

Fuck. He was in so much trouble.

…

The drive had seemed like a better idea last night. Now all Hadley could picture as they sped down the stick-straight highway was the water droplets clinging to the dusting of hair on Will’s obnoxiously well-muscled pecs. If it had been anyone else, she wouldn’t have had a moment’s hesitation. Her panties would have been floor-bound.

But, of course, it had to be Will.

And, of course, the towel he’d had wrapped around his hips had been deliciously small.

So that meant, of course, she’d just spent her entire shower weighing the benefit of masturbating and releasing all that totally inappropriate tension versus the just-her-luck likelihood that she’d slip at exactly the wrong moment and would be found—by Will—knocked out cold on the shower floor with her fingers on her clit.

In her moment of shower indecision this morning, she’d opted for imagined dignity over orgasmic relief. Regrets? Oh yeah, she had lots. All of which added up to her being overwhelmingly horny and stuck in a car for three hours with the man she totally hated all while she couldn’t help thinking about all the ways she’d climb him like a tree if given the chance.

But lucky her, she only had an hour and a half left of the three-hour drive with a guy who—she glanced over from the corner of her vision—was starting to turn green and had a white-knuckle grip on the can of ginger ale he’d grabbed from her mom’s fridge. Good. He was her nemesis and he could stand to be as miserable as he’d made her after the incident.

So Hadley kept her mouth shut, just as it had been since they got into the car and she turned on her playlist. Still… Guilt started to pluck at her resolve. Still… Yes, he was an asshole; everyone who met him would probably agree to that. Still… She started to scan the highway signs for just how many miles were left until The Stop Inn so Will could get out of the car for a few minutes and his stomach could settle.

Why? Because she was still salty about what had happened after the incident—and she had every right to be.

Seriously, she had former coworkers who were no doubt repeating what Will had said about what a loser she was to potential clients, which meant when she started her own consulting firm—and damn it, she was going to do that—there was no way she’d ever land their accounts.

If being single in the city didn’t already have her mom worried, being unemployed and single in the city would send the woman into a flurry of criticizing-out-of-love activity. That was exactly why she gave her mom and everyone else in her family a very curated idea of what was going on in her life. Everything was fine. Always. No complaints. No whining. Absolutely no failure.

“Hadley,” Will said, sounding less like a multimillionaire from birth and more like someone on the verge of losing his breakfast. “Can you stop for a minute?”

“Are you going to puke?”

“No.” The denial would have come across more believable if he hadn’t said it while wincing in misery.

“You look like you’re going to puke.” Did she have to poke him at this moment? Probably not, but she needed to distract him until she got to the next exit.

He flexed his jaw and stared up at the car’s ceiling with an intensity that bordered on desperation. “I do not do a damn thing I don’t want to.”

Bypassing her blinker—there wasn’t a car around for miles—she turned right onto the main street of the blink-and-you-miss-it town of Myrtle. “Spoken with the determination someone would expect from the likes of Will Percival Holt, the youngest CEO of Holt Enterprises in five generations and the wonder of the stock market.”

“How do you know my middle name?” he asked, sitting up straighter and pivoting in his seat to look at her.

“I told Web he had the dorkiest middle name ever, and he corrected me.”

“That really hurts, Trigger.” A half smile curled one side of his mouth upward. “I’m not going to puke.”

He sounded more confident that time—maybe because she’d pulled into the parking lot of a gas station / grocery / diner called The Stop Inn.

“Whatever you say, Percival. Let’s get you some fresh air and after I pick up my sister’s wedding gift, we can get you another ginger ale.” She cut the engine and took a better look at him. The man was definitely close to the color of day-old guacamole. “And maybe some Dramamine.”

He looked around and then stared back at her, total confusion making his forehead wrinkle. “You’re buying a wedding present at a gas station?”

“This isn’t just any gas station. It’s The Stop Inn.” Not that she expected him to understand what that meant, but for her entire high school life, this place had been about as close to magic as it got.

When a person grew up in the sticks, there were limited entertainment options. They could cruise up and down Main Street. They could have beers and a bonfire in someone’s back pasture. They could come to The Stop Inn for coffee that was more non-dairy creamer than java and make detailed plans of exactly how they were going to escape their small town. She didn’t have to glance over at Will to know he didn’t get it. How could he? He grew up rich in the big city where his every want was granted.

“And The Stop Inn means?” he asked, following her inside.

The smile that broke out on her face started in her heart. “Stacey and Kristine.”