: Chapter 16

“So today is going to be a fun one,” I said into the camera. “We’re making a dos-and-don’ts list for brides leading up to their wedding. And to help us, I have a special guest—Anna Wren from Park Avenue Wedding Planners. Anna has planned some of the biggest and most luxurious weddings in New York, including those of celebrities and Wall Street tycoons. She’s one of the most sought-after planners, and her fifteen years of experience have taught her a thing or two about good etiquette.” I took a breath. “And then toward the end of the show, I have a giant announcement I can’t wait to share.” I pressed a button to split the screen, and Anna went live with me. “Hi, Anna. Are you ready to get started?”

She pretended to crack her knuckles. “I am.”

We jumped right into the list, starting with simple stuff like:

Do take into account all of your bridesmaids’ body types when selecting dresses.

Don’t ask people to be backup bridesmaids. (I didn’t even know that was a thing.)

Do make sure dress fittings and rehearsals are at a convenient time for everyone involved.

Don’t fire your bridesmaid because she gets pregnant.

Most of the list was pretty comical, consisting of things I hoped most people wouldn’t need to be told, but brides got caught up when it came to their weddings. Anna and I laughed our way through the entire segment, and pretty soon it was time to ask the viewers for their input.

“Alright, ladies, you have our list. But we want to hear from you! So, we’re going to open the chat for you to give us your thoughts on what else we should add to our list.”

The suggestions rapid-fired in one after another, most of them don’ts, which clearly showed how many people have had bad bridal-party experiences.

Don’t ask your bridal party to chip in for your honeymoon. (Huh?)

Don’t tell your bridesmaids they must hold off on getting engaged until after your wedding so they won’t steal your limelight.

Don’t forbid your bridal party from eating the day of the wedding so they won’t look bloated in pictures.

One in particular caught my attention as it rolled in.

Don’t make your bridal party spray-tan themselves orange so they all have an equal amount of melanin.

The viewer’s handle? NumberSeventeen.

A tingle ran up my spine at the thought of Wilder watching. The man was traveling nonstop and pulling together a brand-new professional sports team, but he’d remembered my weekly show? It was almost nine o’clock here, so nearly two in the morning his time—assuming he was back in England tonight. He was like Waldo lately, popping up in my Instagram feed all over the place in different countries.

I smiled at the camera, feeling slightly flushed. “Alright, I think we’ll add NumberSeventeen’s don’t to our list—not requiring your bridal party to get matching spray tans so no one in particular stands out—and call it a day.” I rubbed my hands together. “But we still have the big announcement, which I’m going to share with you by reading a letter I received from a viewer. But first, I want to thank Anna for all of her help today.”

Anna waved. “Thank you for having me! And if we’ve made one person into less of a Bridezilla, I think we’ve done our job.”

“Definitely.”

“Bye, Sloane!”

“Bye, Anna!”

I pressed the button to go from split screen to just me and lifted a paper from my desk. “Alright, everyone, here we go. This is the letter I received from a wonderful viewer named Larisa … ‘Dear Sloane, I’ve been a fan of your show since I got engaged two years ago. A friend told me about one of your segments on unique venues, and I watched it and wound up booking a small farm you featured up in the Hudson Valley for my wedding. Unfortunately, things haven’t worked out, and my fiancé and I called off the wedding a few days ago. The entire thing is already paid for—in excess of fifty thousand dollars spent on the venue, catering, photographer, floral arrangements, hair and makeup, even a honeymoon suite. All of it is nonrefundable and going to go to waste, so I thought maybe I could turn something negative into something positive and pay forward the blessing I was able to afford. Would you be interested in running some sort of a contest with your followers to give away a pretty amazing wedding package? Best, Larisa Maven.’”

I leaned forward, unable to contain my excitement. “Of course I would! In fact, I’ve already spoken to Larisa several times and verified with all of the service providers that the services are transferrable. This is happening, everyone! The only thing you need to get is your dress. Larisa was going to wear her grandmother’s, which she obviously wants to keep.”

The comments section had been busier than usual all day, but now the messages were coming in so rapidly, I couldn’t even read them.

“So here’s the deal. One lucky person is going to win this ah-mazing wedding. To enter, all you have to do is tell us why it should be you, in three hundred words or less.” I pointed down to where a link had started flashing on the screen. “Just click below to submit your entry. We’ll keep the contest open for five days and announce the winner live on our next show! Good luck, and happy wedding planning.”

My laptop wasn’t even shut when my phone buzzed with an incoming text. I smiled and swiped.

I was shocked he’d noticed. It was only a trim.

I smiled.

Before I could type back, a second text came in.

I chuckled.

I chewed on my fingernail, debating whether I should ask about his current dating life. A few of the photos I’d seen of him in the last week had included women—attractive ones. They could have been employees or business partners or … I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. But maybe if I did, I’d stop stalking the man’s Instagram.

I chewed on my lip.

I laughed.

I swiped over to my calendar and did a little math before responding.

The little circles started to bounce around, then stopped before starting again.

Those dots started moving again, then stopped. Thirty seconds later, my phone rang.

Wilder spoke before I could even say hello. “We are not doing that shit before our wedding.”

The gravelly sound of his voice woke up the butterflies in my belly, but the thought of having sex with Wilder at all sent them fluttering still lower.

I laughed. “And here I thought I was the only one who made wedding plans before there was even a proposal.”

“I don’t give two shits about the when and where, but I care about being cut off from having you beneath me.”

“Beneath you? What if I’m more of an on-top girl?”

Wilder groaned. “You’re killing me, Cupcake.”

I couldn’t stop smiling. “Why are you up so late? It’s after two there, isn’t it?”

“I wanted to see you.”

My heart melted. “You stayed up to watch my show? That’s so sweet.”

Wilder went silent for a minute. I thought we might’ve gotten disconnected. “Hello?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m here. Was just debating sharing something. But I think it might be better if I didn’t.”

“Well, now you have to share.”

“I don’t know if you’re going to like it.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“I wanted to watch your show, but it’s not because I’m sweet, Sloane.”

“Okay…”

“I’ve been feeling sort of frustrated the last few weeks. You know, not dating and all. So I thought I might … take care of business while watching.”

My eyes bulged. “You masturbated to my show?”

“I didn’t. I felt like too much of a piece of shit. But that had been my plan. I figured phone sex was out of the question since you hadn’t agreed to a date with me yet.”

A vision of Wilder sitting in his bed, carved eight-pack on display, hand wrapped around his thick … “Oh my God.” I covered my mouth. “That’s hot.”

His voice lowered a few octaves. “Oh yeah?”

A nervous giggle escaped. “You don’t happen to have a show of your own I can watch?”

He chuckled. “No, but I’m sure you can find plenty of clips from my playing days.”

I could do that … This time it was me who went silent. But I hadn’t realized until Wilder spoke again.

“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?”

“Oh my God.” I swallowed. “We need to change the subject.”

“It won’t be half as fun, but if that’s what you want…” He paused. “How about we talk about your trip to London? The wedding is in a week and a half. You haven’t given me an answer about coming in a few days early.”

I’d thought about his offer enough, but hadn’t decided. I wasn’t so sure I could trust myself alone around Wilder for a few days. Especially now that I was planning my Google search for after we got off the phone. I wanted to take the next step with him, but I was afraid. “I have a few work things I’m not sure about the timing of,” I lied. “Can I let you know in a day or two?”

“Sure.” Wilder’s voice was throaty, sexy as hell, but he sounded exhausted.

“You sound tired.”

“I am. It’s been nonstop for almost two weeks.”

“I’ll let you go then.”

“Alright, but before we hang up, I wanted to ask a favor. A business one.”

“What’s up?”

“I’m working on getting office space in the city for the management and support staff of the team. But until then, a few people are going to use some space in my father’s building. A floor down from you, starting tomorrow.”

“Oh, wow. Okay.”

“One of the people who’s going to be parked there is my friend Andrew. He’s my in-house counsel. We have a bunch of press releases that have to go out—new player announcements, contracts signed, management hires. They all go through Andrew, but then they usually pass through Millie in my office, who cleans up the wording and fixes the grammar. Andrew graduated top of his class at Yale Law, but he must’ve slept though English in undergrad. Millie went out on early maternity leave today, so I’m hoping maybe you could hook Andrew up with a proofreader or a copy editor he could work with.”

“Oh, I can do it for you.”

“Really?”

“Sure. With one condition.”

“Name it?”

“You have to tell me what the tattoo is on your ass.”

“I’m trying to make a good impression. Don’t make me tell you about a stupid mistake I made.”

“How about if I promise not to hold it against you? I’m dying to know.”

“Does that mean you’ve been thinking about my ass, love?”

“Just tell me.”

He chuckled. “The numbers one, two, and seven. I made a stupid bet against my biggest rival the last year in the league. We lost, and that was the final score of the game. Twelve–seven.”

I covered my mouth. “Oh my God. So you have a losing score tattooed on your ass for the rest of your life?”

“It wasn’t my finest moment. But in my defense, we’d beaten them every single game for nine straight years. It seemed like a no-brainer, and I fancied the idea of leaving that mark on my rival my last year in the league.”

“Seems you got a little ahead of yourself.”

He sighed. “Apparently that’s a habit of mine.”

I laughed. “I’ll stop down when I get in tomorrow to introduce myself to Andrew and pick up the stuff you need proofread.”

“Thank you. I appreciate it. One more thing and then I’ll let you go.”

“What’s that?”

“Are the replays of your shows online right away after your live?”

“Yeah, why?”

He let out a sinister chuckle. “’Night, Cupcake.”

“Hi. Andrew?”

The tall, lanky, clean-cut guy flashed a boyish smile. “I’m guessing you’re Sloane?”

“I am. How did you know?”

“Wilder described you, right before he threatened my life about keeping my eyes to myself.” He covered his face playfully and extended his other hand to the guest chairs. “Please, have a seat. I don’t want to get my ass kicked like in sixth grade when I told a girl Wilder liked that he sits down when he pees.”

I laughed. “Does he?”

“He did for a few weeks.” He took his hand from his face. “He broke his ankle playing rugby and was in a hard cast up to his knee. Fucker could still catch me when I ran away from him.”

“You two have been friends a long time then?”

“Since we were in the carriage. Our moms were best friends.” Andrew leaned back in his seat and rubbed his bottom lip with his thumb. “So you’re the one, huh?”

“The one?”

“The one who has my boy all knotted up into a pretzel. I’ve never seen him this way. Usually he doesn’t remember the name of the woman he’s talking to.”

My face fell. Andrew noticed and put his hands up. “That wasn’t supposed to come out like that. He’s not a jerk or anything. Well, he is a jerk, but not because he treats women badly and can’t remember their names. He’s a jerk because he held me down and shaved half of my moustache during my Top Gun phase.”

I smiled. “It’s fine. I get it. Wilder hasn’t tried to hide who he is.”

“That means he likes you. Most guys who like a woman try to put their best foot forward, show them their good side. But not Wilder. If he cares about you, he’s protective—even wants to protect you from him. He gave me a hundred reasons why I shouldn’t take the job before we started working together.”

A woman knocked on the open office doorway. “Mr. Emerson?”

“Andrew, please.”

“Your first appointment is here. I put him in the conference room and gave him some coffee.”

“Thank you, Laura.”

Andrew shook his head. “One thing’s for sure, life with Wilder is never boring.”

“I bet.” I smiled. “I’ll let you get to your appointment. Wilder said he had some press releases he needed a copyedit on?”

Andrew searched around the piles of papers on his desk and pulled out a pack of stapled ones. “Thank you for doing this.”

“No problem. I have two meetings this morning, but I’ll get them back to you as soon as I’m done.”

“Thanks a lot. It was really nice to meet you, Sloane.”

“You, too.”

I went back up for my meetings, and then it was almost one by the time I got back downstairs with the edits. Wilder hadn’t been kidding—his friend wasn’t great at grammar. I’d made a lot of corrections.

Andrew was on the phone when I walked in, but he smiled and held up one finger. “Sorry about that,” he said when he hung up.

“No problem. Here are your press releases. I made some changes.”

He looked down and smiled. “The mighty red pen. Thank you for this.”

“Anytime.”

“Did you eat lunch yet?”

“Not yet. I wanted to get that done first.”

He nodded toward the door. “Me neither. Can I buy you lunch to say thank you?”

“That’s not necessary.”

“Come on. I’ll tell you about the fall of seventh grade when Wilder started wearing his dad’s shit—cologne, sweaters—to come off more mature when he hit on our thirty-year-old math teacher. He was thirteen at the time.”

I laughed. “How can I refuse that invitation?”

Andrew grabbed his suit jacket from the back of the chair. “You can’t. Let’s go.”

I snort-laughed and covered my mouth. “I’m definitely going to sip his drink the next time I see him drinking out of a can. If he likes cosmos so much, why didn’t he just make a batch and drink it out of a red plastic cup?”

“We were fifteen. He thought he had to act like a tough guy, and tough guys drank beer on TV, not red drinks in martini glasses. So he’d dump out the beer and pour in girly drinks—cosmos, Malibu and pineapple—I wouldn’t be surprised if he had hard Shirley Temples in there sometimes.”

“I guess it’s a good thing he grew up to be so brawny, since he has a penchant for things that might get him teased. Lucas already spilled that he likes mud masks and watches reality TV.”

Andrew held up a finger. “He’s also a closet Swiftie. He’ll deny it, but the dude knows every word to ‘Shake it Off.’”

My phone buzzed, giving me a fifteen-minute reminder about my afternoon meeting with the boss. I wiped my mouth with a napkin. “Gosh, I didn’t realize how long we’ve been siting here.”

“I’ve got enough material about Wilder to amuse us for days,” Andrew said.

“I bet you do. So we might need another lunch sometime.”

He grinned. “It would be my pleasure.”

I’d started to slide out of the booth when Andrew reached across and touched my arm. “Hey, I feel like we’ve had a lot of laughs at my friend’s expense. So give me one minute more to tell you a few things about him.”

“Okay…” I settled back into my seat.

“I couldn’t afford to go to Yale for undergrad. My family is comfortable, but not eighty-thousand-dollars-a-year comfortable, and I also have four siblings. Ivies are competitive. All the kids have better than a four-point-oh, so there aren’t many academic scholarships. Then at the last minute, a scholarship came through—a full ride. I thought it was strange, but I wasn’t looking a gift horse in the mouth. Two years ago, when I started working for Wilder, I was looking through some files for paperwork I needed, and I found a file with the name of the organization that had given me the scholarship. Wilder had taken some of the money his mother left him and set up a charitable foundation just to pay my tuition without me knowing. He knew I’d never take the money from him if he tried to give it to me directly.”

“Wow.”

Andrew nodded. “To this day, he doesn’t know I know. So please don’t share that with him. But that’s the kind of guy he is. And it’s not just money. When we were in high school, he played for one of the national junior rugby leagues, but he played for the worst team. He could’ve played for the one that won the championship every year. All the teams were clamoring for him. But his coach from middle school coached the shitty team. Guy has some health problems, and Wilder still visits him to this day.”

I nodded. “He’s actually mentioned his coach.”

“Recently I screwed up royally with my girlfriend. I was going to hide it from her, but Wilder talked me into coming clean. He might have a history with the ladies, but he’s always been honest.” He paused. “My point is, Wilder’s only going to tell you the bad shit. But it’s not hard to find the good stuff, if you take the chance to get to know him. He keeps most people at a distance, but the ones he lets in are there forever.” Andrew pointed to me. “And if you tell him I gave him any compliments, I’ll deny it.”

I smiled. “Your secret is safe with me.”

I went back to work, and later that afternoon, I was sitting at my desk still thinking about what Andrew had said. Hadn’t I already seen glimpses of the man he’d described? The loyalty to his brother. Small things like bringing me sugar-free desserts after finding out I’m diabetic, changing his flight to come with me to sell my old wedding dress, and inviting my dad to a rugby game. There was a soft heart under that hard exterior. And I couldn’t deny that I was ridiculously attracted to him. My heart began to race before my brain caught up.

Screw it. I’m doing it.

I was tired of staying in and reading self-help books to figure out who I was. It was time I figured it out by living. So I picked up my phone and texted.