Hot Finish (Fast Track #3)(6)
Author: Erin McCarthy

But they never left her eyeballs and she damn well wasn’t going to let them do it now.

She widened her eyes, horrified at herself. This was not tear-worthy.

So Nikki was a Bridezilla and she and Ryder were still married.

There were worse things.

Like a full frontal lobotomy.

But she would get it together by sheer will and grit.

“Alright, Nikki, why don’t you come on over to my computer with me?” Suzanne said. “We can look at some venues. I’m guessing you’ll want to have the reception in a hotel, then? It would be the closest to what Elvis did shy of going to Vegas. I have a few ideas for great hotel ballrooms we could use.”

That way Nikki would be a solid eight feet away from the pizza aroma. “And do you want a popsicle from my freezer? They’re only fifteen calories a pop. It isn’t pizza, but it’s better than licking the air.”

“Really?” Nikki’s face lit up. “Can I have grape?”

“Sure.” Suzanne headed to her kitchen and caught Ryder’s eye.

Something she saw there made her very uneasy.

It was almost like admiration.

And while she could handle irritation, sexual desire, or bravado from him, she could not handle anything that smacked of genuine feelings.

“You’re being about as useful as a trapdoor on a canoe,” she told him. “Now will you stop staring at me and see if you can download some pictures of Elvis and Priscilla’s wedding?”

Her intention was to make him angry, but Ryder just grinned at her. “Yes, ma’am.”

Yeah, she was feeling all sorts of uneasy. Ryder wasn’t supposed to agree that easily with her.

But she needed to plan a wedding and a divorce, so she really didn’t have time to worry about it.

BY the time the last of the bridesmaids had taken their leave, and Nikki and Jonas were heading to the door, Ryder was feeling Suzanne’s pain. He could honestly say that if he ever had a career-ending injury he was not going to go into the wedding consultation business.

Brides were nuts.

At least Nikki was, and Ryder was paying the price of bringing up Elvis as a joke. If he had to watch one more YouTube video of the King and Priscilla passing cake into each other’s mouths, he was going to look up their divorce decree and plaster it all over Nikki’s bridal magazines.

The girl didn’t understand subtlety, that’s for sure. He had mentioned the King’s marriage for the very reason that it hadn’t worked out, and yet that one had gone right over Nikki’s head, and now Suzanne was pissed off at having to do this kind of wedding.

She wasn’t even hiding it very well, and that worried Ryder. He didn’t want her to lose a client before her business even got off the ground. The media attention from this wedding would bring in a lot of future brides for Suzanne and he knew she was counting on that.

“You ready to go?” Ty asked him, swiping the half-empty case of beer and tucking it under his arm.

“You all go ahead. I’m going to help Suzanne clean up.”

“Uh-huh.” Ty shot a look over at Suzanne, who was stomping around her dining room gathering up dirty paper napkins and tossing them in an empty pizza box. “Have fun with that.”

“Hit the road, McCordle.”

Elec was in the doorway. “How are you going to get your car?”

“Suz can drive me to it.”

A snort came up from Suzanne, but Ryder gave the guys a reassuring smile. “See you later.”

They left, and Ty pulled the door closed behind himself, murmuring, “Good luck, man. Call if you need help getting to the ER.”

“Go away.” Ryder sped up the process of closing the door, nearly taking off Ty’s foot. He did not want Suzanne to hear Ty’s ribbing.

“Let me get that stuff, babe,” he told her. “I’m the one who ordered the pizza.” The whole reason for the guys being at this meeting had been pointless, and he’d been hungry. It had seemed like a good idea at the time until Nikki had snarled at the poor pie.

“Yes, you did.” Suzanne whipped a balled-up napkin down on the table and stood up. “Why are you even in this wedding, by the way?”

“Strickland asked me.” Ryder went in the kitchen and pulled a clean trash bag out from under Suzanne’s sink. He flicked it open and started shoving pizza boxes in it. “This will be a good thing for your business, you know. With all of us drivers in the wedding party, there will be media buzz. Which means people will see your name and your work. You’ll have clients from here to the next decade.”

She gave him the look, the one that made his nuts want to withdraw back into his body.

“Who exactly is going to want to hire me after they see this mascara-laden paper bell wedding from hell?”

There really wasn’t any good answer to that.

“Well, but—”

Her hand shot up. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“It’s not like—”

“Stop talking.”

Ryder narrowed his eyes. Damn, he hated it when she talked to him like he was a naughty child. They were divorced. He was under no obligation to put up with that.

Wait a minute. They weren’t divorced.

But still. That was just a technicality. Ryder crammed the rest of the trash in the bag and sealed it a little tighter and with more force than was necessary. “I didn’t think Nikki would take me serious. I was just trying to help them brainstorm, get the juices flowing, you know.”

“She has no juices!” Suzanne shoved all the bridal magazines together on the table in a stack, her movements jerky and agitated. “That girl is so dumb, if she threw herself on the ground she’d miss.”

Ryder blinked, then he couldn’t stop himself. He busted out laughing. “Well, that’s probably accurate.”

“What?” She glared at him, but her lips were twitching with the urge to smile. “Don’t make me laugh. I’m determined to stay pissed off.”

Ryder grinned, sauntering in closer to her, leaving the trash behind on the floor. “Come on, it’s not that big of a deal. Truthfully, the more over the top the wedding, the more of a news bite you’ll get.”

“That might be true,” she said with great reluctance. “But don’t ruin my bitterness for me.”

Ryder had moved really close to Suzanne and he could smell her perfume, could touch any part of her body with any part of his with just one little shift. He could feel her warmth radiating from her, see the dimples she was struggling to suppress. Ryder had always loved Suz’s dimples.