Just for This Moment (Wishful 4)

“I’ll come with you.”

He started to rise, but she just pushed him back into his seat, smiling. “You and Brody are up next. Don’t want to miss your cue. Really, I’ll be right back.”

Weaving through the tables, she headed for the door. Her skin felt flushed and freezing at once and her heart was beating a rat-a-tat-tat in her chest that was more akin to terror than exhilaration.

The cool night air helped a little. The bands around her chest loosened a fraction. But not the ache somewhere in the vicinity of her heart. That still throbbed like a bad tooth. Absently, she rubbed at it.

"You okay?" Tucker’s voice came from behind.

"I'm fine." Total lie.

He circled around to look her in the face. "This is me you're talking to. How are you really?"

Her breath gushed out. "Terrified. It's like stage fright times a thousand."

A muscle jumped in Tucker’s jaw as he looked out over the green. "Myles told me what you're doing."

Piper's gaze snapped to his. "I thought maybe you'd figured it out."

"Well, what I thought was a lot less flattering. I accused him of using you."

"Tucker!"

"I should've known better. It's so very you to make that kind of major, snap decision. But you don't have to do this. This is real life, not a play. He'll understand if you back out."

Myles had been giving her chances to back out for two weeks. She knew him well enough to be certain that if she bailed, he'd be more concerned about her than about the impact her decision would have on his business. Which was why she knew she was going through with it.

"I'm not nervous because I think I'm making a mistake, Tucker. I'm nervous because I'm in love with Myles.” If she expected the admission to quell the panic, she was sadly mistaken.

“I’d think that’d be the preferred state you’d want to be in since you’re marrying the guy.”

Piper wrapped both arms around her middle. “I wasn’t when we started this. Not completely. And I don't know if he's there yet or not. I know he cares about me. I know he's attracted me. But I don't know if he feels what I feel, and I'm afraid that we'll go through with this and something will go horribly wrong. All other things being equal, I think there's a big chance we'd have ended up here anyway, and I'm terrified that this crazy plan of ours will screw that up somehow."

"Love's a risk, even under more conventional circumstances. But I think you stand a great shot at making it. I've watched you two together all week. You've got each other's back. If this doesn't work out, I don't think it'll be because one of you feels less than the other."

"You really think so?"

"The guy's crazy about you. If he's not in love with you yet, he's only about half a step away.”

Piper narrowed her eyes at him. “You say that like you know something I don’t know.”

Tucker held up his hands. “I’m just calling it like I see it. I do have eyes, last I checked.”

Was that what other people saw when they looked at her and Myles?

“Do you know why absolutely nobody questioned the story you told when you announced the engagement?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Because it was completely believable. And I’d have bought it myself if I hadn’t had inside information. The bigger surprise wasn’t the announcement. It’s that you actually weren’t together all those months. You two fit.”

“I’m the only reason we weren’t. Together, I mean.”

“Yeah, yeah. The rule. I always thought that rule was kinda dumb.”

“You never fell for your co-star because of the role, not because of who they were.”

“Did it ever occur to you that what happened with Brandon was just a relationship naturally fizzling out once the infatuation was finished?”