Tame Me (The Macintyre Brothers 3)

"Yes, I think you should break up with him."

Then she rolled over on her own bed and glanced at me, a smirk on her face.

"Steph!" I said and threw a pillow over at her. "Don't even joke about it."

"Sweetheart, if I could talk you out of it, you would be making a mistake. You know in your heart that it's not a mistake. You're just thinking about Jerkface and the wedding that never was. Don't. That was then. This is now."

I exhaled and lay on my back, staring at the wedding dress. "You're right. I just wanted you to reassure me. I love Josh. He's such a good man. We have so much fun together. We don't want to be apart. Ever."

"You're apart this weekend," Steph said.

"We mean, separated for any serious length of time. We want to live together and make our lives together and one day have a family."

"There," Steph said. "You've said it yourself. You love each other. You want to make your lives together and have a family. That's why you get married."

"It is," I said and put my cell down. "We both know what we want out of life. We just want to go for it together."

I rolled onto my stomach and watched Steph, who was filing her nails while lying on her back.

"Perfect," she said and sat up, dangling her legs over the side of the bed. "It's time to go meet Mr. Glutes and future Mr. Macintyre-Carlson for some food."

"Let's get ready."

The two of us got dressed and finished our makeup, and finally, I texted Josh to see if he was ready.

ELLA: We're hungry. Meet you downstairs like we planned?

There was a pause and I was curious why he didn't get right back to me. Finally, about five minutes later as Steph and I were sitting on the bed, watching local news, I got a text that made me frown.

JOSH: You two better go without me. Something came up that I have to deal with. Don't know how long I'll be, so go ahead and eat without me. I'm sorry about this but I have to deal with it. We'll have dinner tomorrow night okay? I'll text you later.

"Huh, that's weird," I said and texted him back. "Josh can't come right now. He says to go without him."

"Oh, that's too bad."

ELLA: No problem. See you tomorrow. Text me later so we can catch up.

I sent the text and shrugged.

I got off the bed and grabbed my bag then went to the door.

Steph came to my side and slipped her arm around my shoulders. "Well. Looks like it's just you and me, kid."

"That it does," I said and together, we went downstairs to the restaurant. "I hope everything's okay with Josh. He was kind of cryptic."

"That's text for you. Don't worry. I'm sure if it was really serious, he'd tell you. It's probably just something that came up at work he had to deal with at the last minute. These billionaires, you know. Always working."

"He's not a billionaire," I said, although I knew he would be one day unless things really fell apart.

"Okay, multi-millionaire," Steph said with a laugh, squeezing my shoulder. "If that makes you feel better."

"Just trying to be real," I said and pushed the elevator button. We rode down to the lobby and went to the restaurant, which wasn't a real restaurant, but was a bar that served appetizers that were so big and delicious, they could pass for full meals.

I wished Josh could be there with us, but it was fun being with Steph.

Luckily, we were able to get a nice table and were pampered by our waiter, who seemed really pleased to have a couple of young women to serve. Steph and I amused ourselves by examining all the guests and commenting on them all, trying to guess their occupations and life stories.

While I was happy to be there with Steph, I was so looking forward to being there with Josh, too, so they could get to know each other better.