Insert Groom Here Read online

  A mumble of laughter traveled throughout the studio. Kevin looked down at the floor. Coward. She should have known he wasn’t up to the challenge when she had to push him to retake the bar exam. No, he was ready, after one little setback, to squander it all and spend his life living between her couch and his rich stepfather’s bungalow, making it party-hopping off his good looks and charm. Well, no more.

  Eva jabbed a finger into his chest, and Kevin looked back up. This time satisfaction nipped at her as she saw a glimmer of anger in his eyes. “Six years! I have wasted six years dealing with your wishy-washy indecisiveness, and here we are about at the finish line, and you go and back out now. Stopping in the fourth quarter? Eighth inning? On the last lap? What kind of man are you? Well, I’ll tell you. You’re the type to use up all the best years a woman has, and then when it’s time to commit, you bail.” As she said the words, she felt a lump form in her throat and tears well in her eyes.

  Oh hell no. There was no way she would let that happen. No way would she let Kevin know he’d gotten to her.

  She swallowed and then continued, “Well, I’ve got news for you. There are plenty of men who I’m sure would be happy to take your place. Just ask Cheese Head.” Eva looked back to the window, but Cheese Head was gone. She guessed the cheese was fine, but apparently pointing out your sausage was a bit much for morning TV. She turned back to Kevin and continued, “No matter, I will still have my wedding. You are replaceable. The question is, Who’s got next? I will have my wedding! And I’ll have it on the date as planned!” She pointed to the empty spot beside her. “All I have to do is just insert groom here!”

  It was then that Eva detected a murmur going through the studio. Oh crap. Did she really say what she had just said out loud? She looked up and saw the red light flashing like a beacon out to New York, Chicago, Iowa, and beyond. And did she really just say it to not only Kevin, but to Jim, Diane, and the rest of America?

  Eva closed her eyes. Oh God. Please make this a bad dream. It has to be. But when she opened them and focused on everyone around the studio, the same people who had smiled at her with admiration moments ago were all staring at her now like she was the Wicked Witch of the West or someone ready for a straitjacket. Shit. This dream is way too real.

  Panicked, Eva jumped off the raised stool; pushing back sharply, she heard it crash to the ground behind her as she ran off the set.

  “Well, um, that was spirited. We’ll be right back, folks, and in our next half hour, bringing romance back into the kitchen!” The irony of Jim’s words almost had Eva cringing as they echoed through the studio’s speakers. His ridiculous “Har, har, har” laugh kept time with the clanking of Eva’s retreating heels.

  Chapter 2

  “Shit, shit, shit!” Eva couldn’t stop herself from kicking the worn leather couch in the studio’s surprisingly not at all green greenroom. And if she had thought about it for more than fifteen seconds, then, well, she probably could have stopped herself—that is, if she really had wanted to—but the physical release of her anger felt too dammed good.

  It felt new. It felt real. It felt free.

  So she turned and banged her fists against the wall without a care for her hands, then regretted it as hot pain shot up through her arm. “Freaking hell!”

  Add that to her list of dumb moves of the morning. Funny, though not even, it never looked that painful on TV. “Ugh!” She let out a hard, un-lady-like grunt. The thought of TV instantly brought the scene she’d just escaped from back to her mind. Who the hell breaks up with someone on national TV? But, worse, who flips out like she did?

  Eva sucked in a breath. What was she thinking? She never lost her cool and went off like that. At least not so publicly. If there was one thing she knew, it was the value of keeping her true emotions hidden. But then Kevin’s nonchalant shrug came back to the forefront of her mind, and once again without thinking, Eva went for the wall.

  Like Kevin, the wall won.

  “Damn. It!” Eva looked down at her red, quickly swelling knuckles and winced. And damn you, Kevin. You piece of crap, spineless betrayer! If he wanted to do the breakup in a public place, why couldn’t he pick a Starbucks like a normal human being?

  Eva felt a hot tear fall and swiped it away. She didn’t even know why she was crying. In the moment, it certainly wasn’t over love lost or any such nonsense. She didn’t have time for that type of bull. Not that she didn’t care for Kevin. Sure she did. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have put so much time and energy into him and their relationship. But now that she thought about it, she guessed it was the betrayal and, worse, the embarrassment that hurt so much. She was sure she didn’t deserve it. In their time together, she’d done nothing but raise Kevin’s low-performing stock.

  Sure, she knew she came off at times as a tad cold and had a reputation for being somewhat demanding, and yes, there were some who referred to her as straitlaced, perhaps stuffy for her age. The word uptight may have been bantered around. And probably she should have beat Kevin to the breakup punch when he had the nerve to call her a prude because she wouldn’t go all in for some of his kinkier tie-me-up antics in bed. But what did he know? She could get plenty kinky and have just as much fun as any woman if given the right incentive, but lately he’d been barely any incentive at all. The funny, kind, attentive, okay maybe he was a little too into video games guy she’d first met had somehow morphed into this pompous, pocket-square-wearing asshole the world saw dumping her this morning. So the last thing she wanted to do was jump through some sort of fetish hoops when, both inside and outside the bedroom, he was a total bore. But still, the fact remained that she’d stayed and had invested years of time and energy in Kevin for just this moment. Bailing was not an option.

  As her mother often said, “Bailing is never an option.”

  Eva sucked in a breath and stilled when the low hum hit her ears. Her cell phone was on VIBRATE in her purse on the glass coffee table, and it was currently pulsing so much the whole purse did a little shimmy. It was her mother. Without even looking, Eva knew it had to be. Valerie Ward was probably sitting with either her finger or her assistant’s finger pressed hard on the REDIAL button at that moment. Suddenly Eva had the desire to kick the table, just to hear the glass smash. But of course, she didn’t. She couldn’t. She had to pull herself together. Get some control here. Her moment of going full-blown nutter was done and over.

  Instead, Eva ignored the phone and rested her forehead on the wall, forcing herself to take slow, deep breaths. She’d deal with her mother soon enough. She had to come up with a plan. Or they’d come up with one together. Either way she had to get a handle on what had happened this morning and get started on her own damage control. She’d handled worse for her celebrity clients, and she was a nobody, so this should be easy to handle with a bit of rug sweeping. She just had to step back and look at things objectively.

  A lump lodged in her throat. Still it made no sense. She and Kevin were perfect—despite the kinkiness non-compatibility factor—and she had invested the right amount of time and energy into the relationship. More than enough, actually. They were right on track with her plans. And at the age of twenty-eight, she was precisely on schedule. On schedule to be Mrs. Kevin Rucker Esq. before age twenty-nine. Add a couple of years of them being an “it” couple about town and then, bam, the first child by thirty-three and then baby number two by thirty-five. There would be no bar hopping, awkward setups by friends, or code-worded online profiles for her in her mid-thirties. She was getting her shit together. Well, to hell with you, Kevin, for totally messing this up.

  Thoughts of the gorgeous monogrammed towels she had pre-ordered for their registry with their initials—ERK, in script—on Pima cotton came to her mind. Damn. She really wanted those towels. Had bought into the whole stupid fantasy of them.

  “Well, screw you, Kevin, and your sorry-assed I love yous!” Eva yelled as she swiped once more at an errant tear and stomped her foot. Tendrils of her shoulder-length brown
hair came undone from her chignon and fell into her eyes.

  Then she heard it. A slight shuffling of feet that caused Eva to freeze, then turn around. And there he was. Right in the doorway, capturing her every sad and desperate move, stood a very tall man, and that was a lot for her to say, since she was five nine without her heels. His skin was a burnished tan, mostly natural, though some, she could tell, came from being outdoors in the sun, his worn T-shirt showing the tan line around his muscular biceps. She looked down, and said tee was tucked haphazardly into well-fitting faded jeans. When her eyes came back up to his face, the sexy scruff on his jaw showed he hadn’t taken time to shave that morning, or maybe the past few mornings, before coming to work. Work. That was the worst part of it all. His work. Because slung over the top of this man’s very broad shoulder was a TV camera, and in that moment it was trained directly on Eva in all her overly emotional meltdown glory.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Eva inwardly cringed as she heard her own voice come out in an unflattering high shriek. “Haven’t I been humiliated enough?”

  Nothing.

  Just silence from T-shirt camera dude for one long beat, and then another, as Eva stared at him open-mouthed, waiting for some sort of answer or apology, or at least for him to put the blasted camera down, anything but this blank, emotionless stare.

  And then he did it. He finally moved. The hunky camera guy’s left brow went up, and at the same time so did his shoulders. They went up, and then they slumped right back down again. Eva took a step back, bumping into the coffee table behind her. Did he just shrug? Hunky freaking body-hugging tee, faded-jeans, perfect-stubble camera guy looked at her and shrugged. What the total hell! She was having a perfect, full-on meltdown, and he shrugged.

  This was her second dismissive shrug of the day. Flashbacks of Kevin’s casual shrug mere moments ago washed over her, along with even worse images of Kevin’s eyes lingering too long on other women’s legs in short skirts or paying special attention and laying on that old Kev charm with any woman with boobs over a C cup. When she’d catch him, he’d shrug then too, in a “Well, boys will be boys” kind of way. Well, she’d had enough of this bullshit. This was her last shrug of the day. She wasn’t taking it anymore.

  Sucking in a deep breath, Eva smoothed her hair as best as she could, then tugged down, straightening her disheveled skirt. She reached toward the table and slung her purse carefully over her shoulder before finally straightening her pearls.

  Then, churning on pure hate, Eva walked toward him. She couldn’t see his full face, since it was half hidden behind the camera that was taking in her supposedly private meltdown, but she did get a closer look now at the challenge in his one sparkling, heavily lidded, dark brown eye. She thought she may have seen that eye, that sexy frame once or twice wander in and out of the studio, but she wasn’t sure. Letting her own eyes wander, Eva also caught a hint of a tattoo peeking out from beneath the cuff of his tee. When she looked back to his full lips, they twitched up at one corner.

  “You find me amusing?” she asked, holding tight to the reigns of her control. “Cool. It’s nice to see someone getting a chuckle out of this day.” Too bad it is at my expense, she thought. Just like Kevin was probably laughing now. Just like all of The Morning Show’s viewers were probably laughing too.

  Eva’s blood boiled over at the hitch of that too-pretty lip and the smug look in his one dark eye. And then everything seemed to go dark. Her world turned to pinpoint tunnel vision as she continued to be propelled forward, only seeing that sparkling eye of his and that twitching lip. And as if on autopilot, Eva bit her own lip, gave it a light lick. At the last moment, she put her freshly manicured hand up to the front of the camera’s lens and watched as Mr. Hunk quickly shifted his head from behind the camera and looked at her, hitting her with the full force of his masculine beauty. Bam! Smooth skin, dark slashes of brows, a strong square jaw, and those full, generously curved lips made her mouth instantly water. She saw him begin to open those lips in protest over her hand on his camera, but before he could get a word out, Eva moved in and covered his mouth with her own, capturing him in a hard, searing kiss.

  His lips were at first firm and unyielding, but after a few seconds she felt a shift when they went soft and pliant as her pressure was returned. Then he surprised her by kissing her back. Instantly, Eva was swept up in a haze. It was a sensual fog of her own making, and in that moment, she felt herself swept up on a soft ocean breeze as her body seemed to awaken and come to life like never before. A slow wave of dangerous pleasure washed over her, and then—wham—the wave broke as if hitting a sharp rock when awareness struck, bringing Eva back to herself.

  She pulled away, making a quick assessment of herself and the situation.

  Quirking her own lip in a half smile, she looked into camera guy’s dark-chocolate-colored eyes and saw his expression change from amused to confused, and as Eva looked deeper and briefly lower, she could see he was aroused. Her gaze shifted. He still held tight to the camera high on his broad shoulders, though.

  That freaking camera, the cause of all her humiliation. Well, that and Kevin, of course. Kevin and his shrug. But Kevin was not there, so Eva focused on camera dude and gave him what she hoped was a saucy wink, then swiftly raised her right knee, slamming it hard and fast between his widespread legs.

  For a moment she felt bad. Only for a moment.

  That one went out to all the shruggers.

  It was satisfying. And now she was amused by the sound of his weak yelp as he doubled over in pain and made his way to the floor. “Next time, you’ll ask permission before you go around filming people like some type of new-age Peeping Tom.”

  And you’ll think before you shrug, she silently added. She was not one to be screwed with or dismissed. Now, if only Kevin were around to get the next knee to the balls.

  With that, Eva pivoted on the toe of her red-bottomed heels and walked down the hall, turning right at the end and out the studio door with her head held high and straight into the blinding light of dozens of flashing bulbs.

  Oh crap, this morning just kept getting better and better.

  Chapter 3

  As Aidan Walker sank to the floor, all he could think was he hoped he didn’t black out from the pain radiating throughout his groin, because he was really enjoying the view of her walking away.

  Still, on the way down, nice view or not, through his pain-blurred eyes he found it hard to focus on the sway of his assailant’s slim hips as she took her long, confidant strides down the studio’s corridor. He shifted against his poorly timed, hardening erection as searing heat hit him anew, flaming through his body, licking at all the wrong spots. “Shit, shit, shit!” he muttered through closed eyes, then paused. Wasn’t that what she’d said not three minutes ago as her on-air humiliation hit her? And to think he actually had felt a smidge of sympathy for her when that asshole had publicly jerked her over in the studio.

  Aidan shook his head. This was what he got for letting his guard down. He, more than anyone, knew never to let your guard down. Letting your guard down only led to trouble. At worst, it could get your ass shot off or, at near worst, your balls repositioned somewhere near your throat. All were lessons he should have learned from his last failed assignment overseas. He shifted again as the ache in his groin subsided and the now more intense pain of humiliation began to set in. Damn, he hadn’t been caught off guard like that since his early days on assignment. But come on, how was he supposed to expect a low blow like that from the prim, straitlaced package that was Eva Ward? And he sure as hell wasn’t expecting that kiss.

  Subconsciously, he licked his lips, still tasting the lingering hint of sweetness from her tongue. His dick throbbed in response, and pain flared anew. Holy fuck!

  She sure was some piece of work. Talk about fire and ice. And she had the nerve to taste like honey and whipped cream. Aidan narrowed his eyes, forcing himself to see things objectively. But there was no reading that woman. The kneeing
and the kiss both came out of left field. She was an enigma, and it was damned frustrating since Aidan prided himself on being able to read people. Hell, as a reporter, it was his job. In the time he’d been watching her, he’d thought he had her pegged, and now it seemed he was all wrong.

  Not that he’d been watching her any further than his job of observing a subject required; he knew how important staying detached was. And not that she was even one of his subjects—she was no more than an intrigue that caught his eye on the way to fulfilling his obligations. Still, he could admit the jam to his balls, no matter how painful, sparked his interests even more. She didn’t strike him as the type, all buttoned up as she was, with her sweater set and pearls. No way, or he never would have stood there like he did. All open and wide-legged and stupidly self-assured. Ridiculously sure that he knew her next move. Aidan couldn’t help the chuckle escaping his lips. Man, his father would laugh his smug ass off if he could see him now. This was just the sort of situation that proved his point when he’d taken him off field investigations. Women were always the Walker downfall. Women, and leaping before one looked. He’d always said that Aidan was too impulsive, and this little episode was just another thing to add to his outtakes.

  For a moment, Aidan thought of Kate Harmon, his sometimes—well, now former—partner on assignment and in adventure, both in bed and out. Kate would probably shake her head at him too, seeing him on the floor as he was. And any laughter on her part would be well deserved. Any censure too. In the beginning, Kate had liked his impulsiveness. Like most of the women before her, it was a draw. But that sort of thing got old quick, especially when there was more than passion on the line.

  Turns out, when things got dangerous, Kate wasn’t as cut out for the adventurous life as she’d let on. Not that Aidan blamed her. Kate was ready to settle down, and after it got too dicey on that last assignment—well, it was Kate’s last straw. Hey, he got it. It was perfectly normal for a young thirty-something to get bit by the marriage slash mommy bug when she was looking into the eyes of death and being held for ransom. Just then, telling a story might not have seemed all that important compared with getting back home and starting to live the quiet, carefree life portrayed on TV between the peak hours of eight and ten PM.