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  To Me I Wed

  She’s done, finished, had it. Between her family’s

  expectations and being always-a-bridesmaid, Lily

  Perry is fed up with being nagged to find a husband.

  She’s happy with her life—and tired of being burned

  by “nice guys” who demand she fit their dreams.

  So she’s going to settle the issue once and for all:

  by marrying herself. And celebrated chef Vincent

  Caro’s fabulous restaurant is the perfect place for a

  big-time, blow-out, not-hearing-it-anymore wedding.

  Lily doesn’t care if everyone—including Vincent—

  thinks she’s crazy. Especially when his mouth-

  watering talent and no-commitments style ignites

  one sizzling, no-strings fling, or two . . . or more.

  COMING SOON

  The Betting Vow

  COMING SOON

  Enjoy the following excerpt from To Me I Wed . . .

  Chapter 1

  “You’re not just gaining a wife, you’re getting my best friend.” Lily Perry took one look at her sister, Sophie, and realized her mistake. Shit. Now she’d done it. Did she really just use the same best friend line on Sophie that she had with Sophie’s twin, Audrey, at her wedding? Or was it Peggy that she used that line on when she married Marcus? Her sisters had been getting married left and right and all the weddings and toasts were starting to blur together. You’d think they were in some sort of great marriage race or something.

  Lily looked around the banquet room of the VFW Hall and caught her Aunt Ruby pulling a face and whispering something to her newly engaged daughter, Nikki. Lily swallowed back a grimace. Jeeze, even Nikki was jumping the broom. At the rate her family was going, there would not be a broom or a groom to be snagged in all of The Rockaways. Not that Lily was actively looking for either. She had a vacuum in her apartment for sweeping and well, for other tasks, if her dating life hit a lull she had an electronic device to take care of that too. It was way more reliable than men anyway. Still, Lily glanced left and caught her mother Renee staring. Her hair and makeup, as usual, was flawless and her skin was smooth and unlined. To the untrained eye one would never know she was the mother of five grown daughters, three married, and with a grandchild on the way. One would also not know that at the moment she was highly pissed. But Lily knew. She caught the glint of disapproval in her mother’s eye and the ever so slight pull of tension around her perfectly lined mouth. Lily wondered if it was due to her speech faux pas or the fact that, one table over, Lily’s father was sitting with his arm draped casually around his current girlfriend who was happily sipping on her pink cocktail and batting her long, glued on lashes.

  Lily cleared her throat as her cousin, Nikki, smirked and rolled her eyes in her direction. Unperturbed by her cousin’s cutting glance, Lily raised her glass higher, giving her sister what she hoped passed for a glowing smile before turning to the crowd. “I’m the luckiest woman in the world to have been blessed with the world’s best sisters. And to all my brothers-in-law, you’d better treat them right or there will be hell to pay.” She then directed her final words to her newest brother-in-law, Simon, who looked ecstatic to be marrying Sophie. His big blue eyes shining brightly for her as they had been every day since they’d met in Sophie’s improv class.

  Both budding actors, they made a slightly sickeningly perfect couple, the two of them. Sophie with her cocoa brown skin and finely chiseled model features and Simon with his wavy dark hair and captivating blue eyes. The couple looked like something out of an aspirational car ad or the picture that comes in the frame that you replace with your mediocre second best. Plus there was fact that they were always smiling and complimenting each other. If Lily didn’t know them in person and up close, she’d swear their love was faked for some reality TV show or something. Lily smiled at her new brother-in-law and continued from her heart. “Simon, I’m not worried about you. Your love for Sophie has been shining bright since day one. May it shine on forever.” Lily turned back to the now beaming crowd. She had them. Hell, even Aunt Ruby was blinking back a tear.

  But just as Lily took a sip of her champagne, she caught sight of a sneer from freaking Lacy Colten. Ugh, why had Sophie invited that man stealer? A nemesis since high school, it was well known that Lacy frequented weddings for the free booze and easy prey. Lily watched as Lacy stopped sneering, quickly sat up straighter, and stuck her already on-display double D’s out even further as she looked across the room, no doubt, at her next victim. Lily’s eyes shifted.

  It was him and he was staring at her, not Lacy. Oh crap. His eyes so dark and intense they reminded her of hushed quiet in the dead of night. Midnight. Lily frowned as the heat of his stare penetrated her being. Working her over from the inside out. What the hell, dude? Mind on your own business. Lily pointedly tried to look in any direction but his as she wondered what she was doing there and mentally cursed Thomas for backing out at the last minute and leaving her to attend this wedding on her own. She’d fix him the next time he needed someone to attend one of his boring corporate functions and one of his usual airheads just wouldn’t cut the mustard.

  “Your toast was great,” Scott, Simon’s brother, said as he took his spot to make the best man’s toast and thankfully pulled Lily’s attention away from Midnight and the task at hand.

  “Thanks,” Lily said, her voice feeling slightly shaky.

  Why was he staring so dang hard? As a matter of fact, why was he there at all? Lily knew he was a friend of Simon’s, but were they really close enough to warrant an invite to an intimate family affair? She snorted to herself. Hell, Lacy was there. Seems anyone could get into this party. But still, she couldn’t believe she missed his name on the guest list. Wait, she couldn’t believe she missed his name altogether, as in the fact that she couldn’t remember it. How could a person not remember the name of another person they made out with pretty hot and heavy one night? Lily inwardly shifted as she wondered what her mother would say to that. She’d probably purse her lips so hard she’d pull a muscle or something. But still there it was. For the life of her in that moment she couldn’t remember his name. Not that it was all that much of a bad thing. The not-remembering-his name deal, Lily considered a bit of a triumph. Since after their hot and heavy make-out session on the beach those months ago he had gone radio silent with zero communication. So Lily made it a point to not dwell on him for longer than the week she’d given him to call and mentally erased his name from her “give a crap database.”

  Still Lily worried at her bottom lip. It was a short name; that she knew and she felt her face heat when she recalled that his name was the only thing short about him. Lily felt the color rise on her cheeks as she looked back at Midnight Eyes and caught a distinct raise of his brow just as she was turning to take her seat once more. It was as if he knew what she was thinking. And it was then that she almost tripped on the hem of her dress, getting it caught in the toe of the stupid dyed-to-match satin and sparkle shoes that Sophie insisted they all wear for her wedding. If it were her day, there would be no matching dresses. Come on, no one dress flattered everyone. And dyed to match? Please. The horror. Had she not taught Sophie anything?

  Lily righted herself with the back of the spindles of the rented gold chairs and once again her eyes connected with Midnight’s. He smirked and raised his beer in mock salute. The freaking nerve.

  Lil squelched down a blush as she turned away and tried to focus on Scott’s speech. He was going on about something or another to do with a keg and a goat and she told herself she really should have vetted what he’d planned to say. It was a rookie move leaving the best man’s speech up to chance. More than one fight had broken out due to mention of a boys gone wild bachelor party.

  Lily shook her head as the crowd laughed and her thoughts went back to Mr. Eyes. Maybe he was the plus-one of another guest. At that thought Lily got a surprising and completel
y unwelcome knot in her stomach. What should she care if an old hook up was a plus-one at a wedding she was attending? That wasn’t awkward at all. Well, not all that much. And what was he doing looking at her like that if he was someone’s plus one? She let out a deep breath and did a quick flip back in her mind, his overly dark, practically midnight, eyes taking Lily back to their first and only meeting the summer before on the beach where Sophie and Simon were on a not-quite-date with a group of friends and she tagged along, still feeling slightly salty after Thomas gave her his little speech about them not being mutually exclusive. Well, hell she’d wished she’d known that bit of bullshit before she’d gone and turned down her fair share of good looking man candy while he was tipping around the city spreading all his joy. For the life of her she didn’t know why she still gave Thomas the time of day. And now here she was, obviously dateless, when he was supposed to at least be available as her plus one, mutually exclusive or not.

  No matter though. Right now Lily was focused on Midnight and she couldn’t help but note that he looked just as good now as he had then. Though now he wore his hair shaved close to his scalp and he had this scruff that looked quite, well, touchable on his chin. And his shoulders, which were wide then, seemed even wider now. As a matter of fact they were practically straining the hell out of his black suit jacket. And just like he’d done on the beach that afternoon where they’d shared beers and tacos then later quite a bit more, making out under the dock, he was looking at her as if he could see right through her dress and her swift cover up with the speech. Forget the champagne, maybe she needed a cold shower.

  Sophie leaned over to Lily as she sat and patted her hand. “Nice toast, sis,” she whispered between smiling clenched teeth. “I liked it the first time I heard it too.”

  Lily shook her head and turned her younger sister’s way. “Can you cut me just a little slack? You only gave me three months to put this shindig together and I pulled out all the stops for you, calling in many markers with my vendors, mind you, even passing on a job in order to slip you in. So sorry if I bungled the toast, but you have to admit the rest of your day has been perfect.”

  Sophie shook her pretty head in agreement. Yes, it had been perfect, Lily knew that. As a high-end social event planner, Lily was just getting to the top of her game or at least she could envision the top from where she was standing in the valley. And she had been pulling out all the stops for her sisters as of late. “Thank you, this day has been wonderful,” Sophie finally said. “I just wish you would be present and in the moment with me in it. You’re not a robot, you know. And we’re family, I’m not just any of your other clients.”

  “Of course you’re not just any other client,” Lily started just when the DJ decided to strike up a particularly annoying nineties dance track that had the crowd quickly exiting the dance floor and heading back to their seats. Lily frowned and looked at her sister. “If you were any other client, I wouldn’t have let you hire Awful Roy from high school to DJ this gig.” She let out a sigh. “But thanks to me and my extra special care of treating all my clients like family, I’m going to handle this for you and go and kick some Sorry DJ ass right now and get this party on track.”

  As Sophie let out a breath and shook her head, Lily headed in Roy’s direction. A new and improved set list was the only thing on her mind.

  “So when is it going to finally be your turn to walk down the aisle? You can’t let your sisters have all the fun.”

  Really? The slightly slurred voice came at her from behind and instantly ruined Lily’s semi-good mood post-Roy smackdown, just when things were starting to get back on track. People were dancing once again and DJ R-Town, aka Roy Husker, had promised no more songs with the word groove or celebration in them. Sophie was currently booty shaking in a semi-disrespectful way around her longtime love and newly minted husband, Simon.

  All was in place and running beautifully. Not to mention the normally slightly drab VFW hall on the North Shore of the Island had been transformed to a bridal oasis, all done up in Sophie’s colors of lavender and rose. It took Lily pulling quite a few strings with some of her vendors to get everything in place, but when they heard the wedding was for her sister, none of them would turn down the opportunity of doing Lily a favor with hopes of being called upon for some of her more high profile clients.

  Yes, the day was going well, or at least better than expected given the fact that she was once again showcased as a bridesmaid, which wasn’t all that much of a problem, despite the shoes. But she was a surprise dateless one, thanks to Thomas and his unreliable ass. Well that just made things unnecessarily inconvenient. He was supposed to be there for her as a buffer against stupid ass questions like this one.

  Lily gave herself a mental kick though. She should have known the question was coming. Even with Thomas by her side at her other sister’s wedding she’d never made it out unscathed, without the big M question somehow coming her way. She didn’t know why she’d thought she’d make it through this one. Maybe it was the long lull that gave her a false sense of hope that just once she’d get through one blasted family wedding without the focus turning to her lack of a significant other. Today it was Uncle Gene holding up the singleton mirror as he jabbed at her with his not so innocent questions. Lily turned away from her inspection of the ice cream martini bar to face a bleary eyed Uncle Gene. She tried her best to reach the back corner of her heart to come up with a retort that was, if not kind, at least not, the “step off and mind your own damn business and while you’re at it maybe lighten up on the whiskeys. Oh, and by the way, my eyes are up here Uncle Gene,” retort that she really wanted to blurt out.

  Nope. Lily knew that comeback wouldn’t do so she sucked in a breath and forced a smile for her half drunk, but mostly harmless, uncle. Still she was just about to say something when out of the corner of her eye she caught him staring at her . . . again.

  Okay, this was getting highly uncomfortable if not wholly unwelcome. It wasn’t like he was an unattractive man, he was quite the opposite; she just wasn’t in the mood for flirty games, well not much. She looked past Uncle Gene to sweep him with a brief glance. Hell, it wasn’t like Thomas showed, or like they were exclusive, Lily thought as she twisted at her lip. And if he were a plus one, well, where the hell was she?

  Lily glanced again. Broad shouldered and tall, even by her standards, which meant exceptionally tall since she was five foot ten, Dark Eyes was handsome in that slightly rough way that went against her norm but was just her thing back when they hooked up. Smooth, tanned skin, full lips and now with that shaved close head that was the opposite of his chin. He had her mind instantly thinking of how incredibly tactile he’d feel beneath her palms. But it was his eyes that really pulled her in. Framed by full brows, they were deep set and dark as midnight and still after all these months, looked at her in a way that made her feel like he was seeing way too much. Like he knew what she looked like under her clothes, past her Grecian styled one shoulder dress that matched her sisters’, but was just a darker shade of rose, highlighting her status as maid of honor. The dress skimmed her generous curves in a flattering way but was still modest enough to not cause any stirs. But with the way Midnight Eyes was eyeing her, she may as well have been naked in the middle of the VFW. It was as if his eyes caught it all.

  It was then that Uncle Gene snapped a finger in front of her face. “Earth to Lily. Girl, are you listening to me? That last boyfriend run out on you due to your lack of hearing?”

  Lily felt the rage start at her toes and work its way up. Screw niceties. Uncle Gene had gone too far that time. She opened her mouth to let him have it when another voice entered the fray.

  “Shut your drunk behind up, Gene, and leave the child alone!”

  Lily couldn’t help the smile that quirked at the corner of her lips as Uncle Gene’s face fell with the verbal smack down from her grandmother, Delilah. Immediately, he flipped from being annoying Uncle Gene to being Gene, set upon son-in-law. “Aww, come
on Mama Dee. I’m just teasing her. I don’t mean any harm.”

  Mama Dee leveled him with a hard stare and a wave of her regal hand. “What you need to be doing is stop worrying about everyone else and go get your wife so she stops harassing all the eligible groomsmen on the dance floor.” Mama Dee shook her head as, in unison, the trio turned and looked towards the dance floor to get a glimpse of Aunt Ruby as she turned a two-step into three, confusing her young dance partner as she swiveled around him in her glittery ensemble, each time she passed his backside giving it a swift and hard bump with her hip. Mama Dee shook her head. “When will that child learn? Now, I’m all for a bit of fun but at least do it on beat and with the proper undergarments. Her hips about straining the life out of that skirt.”

  Lily couldn’t hold back and snorted as Uncle Gene shook his head and put his drink down on a passing waiter’s tray as he ran off to rescue the groomsmen from Aunt Ruby. “There,” Mama Dee said, “that takes care of him.” She leaned back a bit and gave Ruby a long stare. “Now, what are we going to do about you?”

  Lily frowned then let out a breath. “I didn’t think I needed doing, Mama Dee.”

  Mama Dee let out a small huff and shook her head, sending her grey curls bouncing. “Well, you need something. Running from one corner of this hall to the other, doing nothing but giving orders and if not that then holding up the wall or warming the chairs.”

  “But I’m the wedding coordinator,” Lily argued. “It’s my job to do all these things. To make sure everything runs smoothly. If I don’t, who will?”

  Mama Dee just shook her head harder. “You can’t run forever girl. It’s not your job to take care of everyone in this family. I don’t know when you’re going to learn that. It’s your biggest fault.”