Hot Finish (Fast Track #3)(15)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“I would know,” she reassured her, reminding herself that she had to stop at the bank to deposit that check from Jonas. “Now are you ready to go? I really think you’re going to like the Hilton. It has everything you’re looking for and it will be easy to give it that faux middle eastern feel the Aladdin had.”

“But it is classy?”

Classier than the bride. But Suzanne gave her a bright smile. Honestly, it wasn’t Nikki’s fault she had br**sts ten times the size of her brain. “Of course.”

Nor was it Nikki’s fault that Ryder Jefferson still managed to get under Suzanne’s skin, festering like a splinter she couldn’t extract.

She should have a little more sympathy and compassion and patience for Nikki, and she vowed to do just that.

EIGHT hours later, she was only thinking it was a good thing Nikki’s neck was so scrawny because it would be much easier to wrap her hands around it and choke the life out of her.

“None of these appealed to you at all?” she asked Nikki again, just to confirm that out of six very elegant ballrooms, Nikki hadn’t found one that she liked. They had crisscrossed town, shaken hands with six different fawning catering managers, and Suzanne had been forced to use two public restrooms. Her feet hurt, her head hurt, her nerves were shot, and her thoughts had never so frequently strayed to homicide. Not even when she was with Ryder.

“No. They’re just . . . wrong. That one was too big, the other too small, the one had those gross pillars, and one had blue carpet. I mean, eew.” Nikki shuddered, like blue carpet was a personal affront to her.

The wind was cutting through Suzanne’s peacoat as they stood in the waning darkness of the hotel parking lot. This was unreal. Every one of those rooms had been perfectly acceptable. “Virtually anything in a ballroom can be obscured or altered with the right decorations,” she told Nikki, praying for patience, something she’d never had a hell of a lot of.

“You can’t change blue carpet.” Nikki pulled a hair off that had gotten stuck to the lip gloss on her plump lip.

“You want to bet? I can change anything,” Suzanne said, feeling a rise of defiance. She wasn’t going to lose this wedding, and she wasn’t going to be forced to jump through any more hoops. They were going to pick a venue today if it killed her, or hopefully, if it killed Nikki. “I can lay down a series of rugs that match the theme in a pattern, and stitch them together. Or put a circular rug under each table. I can do whatever you want, but we can cover the carpet.” She really wasn’t sure she could, but once she’d spoken the words, she knew she’d find a way or die trying.

“I can change anything,” she repeated, wishing that were the case in her personal life. If she could just cover her shitty feelings with a carpet, she could sell that secret for more than a dollar.

Nikki tilted her head, clearly contemplating this. “Okay. Let’s go with the blue carpet place then. I liked the entrance. Can we go back there tonight? I’ll call Jonas and he can meet us there.”

“Sure.” The sooner she had Nikki and Jonas sign on the dotted line with the hotel, the better.

Because then she could take a swan dive into her bed and not reemerge for a good twenty-four hours. She felt beyond whooped.

Checking her own phone while Nikki called Jonas, Suzanne saw she had a voice mail. It was Jackson, the lawyer.

“Got a court date. December twenty-third. Merry Christmas, here’s your divorce.” He gave a chuckle then said, “Call me if you have any questions for me.”

She did, like how had her life become such a joke?

Chances were he wouldn’t have a clue, any more than she did.

A sour taste was in her mouth, like she’d eaten too much chip dip and it had curdled. Suzanne fished in her purse for a stick of gum and contemplated a divorce decree under her Christmas tree. That was festive.

Nikki’s wedding was December twenty-second, after which she would undoubtedly be exhausted and cranky. Then came the divorce, and finally, to cap off the week just right, she would have a Christmas to spend all by her lonesome while everyone else in America opened presents together.

Where was a goddamn violin when she needed one?

And she didn’t even have any freaking gum left.

Suzanne closed her eyes briefly and wondered if this day would have gone differently if she’d had an orgasm at Ryder’s hands the night before.

Probably not.

But it would have been good while it was going down. While he was going down.

Suzanne sighed.

Her phone vibrated in her hand and she glared at it for scaring her.

It was a text from Ryder.

I’m sorry, was all it said.

So was she.

For all the things she’d said, and all the things she’d never said.

Me, too, she wrote.

Ryder sent her a smiley face back. It was so unexpected, Suzanne laughed. He’d never texted her a smiley before.

Girl, she wrote, adding a smiley of her own.

Punk, was his answer.

“What’s so funny?” Nikki asked her.

“Just a private joke.” Suzanne held her phone tightly in her hand and decided that the day didn’t suck so bad after all.

CHAPTER SIX

“THIS is the way it should be,” Ty said as he settled back into a folding chair, the flames from the fire pit dancing in front of him. “Just us guys, relaxing in nature, no women, no complications.”

There were murmurs of approval from the other guys around the fire, a sort of forced joviality. Ryder gave a similar lackluster response. He wanted to enjoy himself, wanted to sit there in the woods around Lake Norman without a care in the world, drinking beers with his buddies, but he was having a hard time getting into the spirit of this guys’ weekend.

It had been five days since he had seen or talked to Suzanne. It had seemed like they’d ended on a positive note with their teasing texts, but then nothing. Not a word. And it bothered him, he could admit it.

“Maybe another time we could bring the women with us,” Jonas said casually, his eyes on his beer can.

They had decided to start including Jonas in their outings since he had invited them into his wedding, but those kinds of comments weren’t going to win him friends, not when Ty and Evan were determined to pretend they were having fun without female companionship. Elec had stayed home with his wife Tammy and her kids, pleading bonding time with his stepchildren. Nobody had dared argue with that, and Ryder had to admit he envied the guy at the moment. Not that he wanted to be at home, because in his case, he’d be all alone, but he envied Elec his family.