His Love Match. Shirley Hailstock
tuxedo fitting, and his name had been added to the programs. Jennifer expected him at the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. The wedding was the following weekend.
The answering machine clicked off. Scott grabbed the television remote and pressed the power button. He smiled to himself. What was Diana going to think when he showed up at the wedding rehearsal? He remembered her strutting out of sight as she walked into the garage. Her parting words told him that she never wanted to see him again. She was wrong. She’d see him. And sooner than she thought.
He’d angered her. There had been times in the past when he’d intentionally intimidated her, but today that wasn’t his plan. They had rubbed each other the wrong way since their first meeting. While he’d followed her to the garage, she could have heard only one side of the conversation he was having—if she was listening. He was sure she was. In his experience, women always listened. But Diana had never followed the mold. He couldn’t say he knew her, but he knew that beneath the facade of calm she showed to the world was a smoldering woman. He’d found that out when he kissed her on campus in broad daylight, a lifetime ago.
To think that all these years later, he could still remember that kiss. Her kiss. Scott had kissed his share of women. They seemed to hover around him like skydivers in formation, but none of them were memorable. None but Diana.
And next weekend he’d have another chance to piss her off.
* * *
Scott didn’t know how long he’d been waiting, but he was getting irritated. He had a flight today, and he needed to get this fitting done and return to this office. Pulling out his phone, he reviewed his missed calls. His sister Piper’s number and her photo appeared on the display. He couldn’t help smiling. The photo was taken at her wedding four years ago. It was of the two of them, their faces near replicas of their parents. He should have returned her previous call, but with all the appointments this wedding required, it slipped his mind. He pushed the send button and waited for her to answer.
“Hi,” she said. “I’ve been dying to talk to you. How was the meeting? What did she look like? I have a thousand questions. Did the two of you connect?”
Scott laughed from deep in his belly. His sister was a nonstop talking machine. He sobered and tried to decide how to begin and how much to tell. He should have thought of this before he dialed her number. He’d tell her about the meeting. He could describe Diana, give Piper all the answers she wanted, but he would leave out the fact that the woman in question was Brainiac.
“Well, go on. Tell me,” she commanded. “Is she the woman of your dreams?”
“I’m not sure about that.”
“Did she meet all those ridiculous requirements you put in?”
“I haven’t found that out yet,” Scott said. “We only met for lunch. I didn’t have time to interrogate her.” Scott’s forced laugh took the sting out of his words.
He went through describing Diana. He told Piper she had dark hair, omitting that it was lustrous and fell over her shoulders and down her back like a cascading waterfall. He shared that her eyes were brown, but he didn’t add that they were like looking into melting pools of coal. He said she was dressed in business clothes, but didn’t say that the suit hugged her curves the way his hands wanted to or that her shoes supported legs that were as long as the Garden State Parkway.
“Did the two of you connect?” she asked.
“In a way,” Scott hedged, knowing his sister would not let that go.
“What do you mean?”
“Remember the woman I told you about when I was in college? The one with the long hair.”
“You mean the one who always had her head in a book?” Piper asked. “Didn’t you call her something? Brain something. Yeah, Brainiac.”
“Her name is Diana Greer.” It was her, but Scott didn’t want to tell his sister. He’d said so many things about Diana that were not flattering that he didn’t want Piper to have a more negative picture of her than had already been painted.
“Was it her?”
“It was her,” he admitted.
Piper laughed for a moment. “It’s like that movie. You probably don’t know it. It’s a chick flick—You’ve Got Mail. The couple don’t realize they know each other. It has–”
“I know the movie,” Scott interrupted.
Piper seemed to sober. “I’m sorry this didn’t work out, Scott.” Piper was the only person he’d told about the matchmaking service. Of course she supported him. She always did. “I remember you said she had so much hair that when she had her nose in a book, she looked like Cousin Itt.”
Scott winced at that. “She’s changed a lot.”
“I hope so. “ Piper paused. “Are you going to try again?”
“This is not over yet,” Scott told her.
“You’re seeing her again?” Surprise was evident in her voice.
“At a wedding next weekend.” He forced a laugh for the second time. “I’m a replacement in Bill Quincy’s wedding. Diana’s company is the wedding consultant.”
“From what you told me, I thought she’d be running General Motors by now. She’s a wedding consultant?”
“Actually she owns her own business. Weddings by Diana. She’s got stores in several states. While they might not be General Motors, if you put her up against the president of GM she could hold her own.”
“Oh.” Piper held on to the word as if it was the end of a song. She sounded impressed.
“You’ve heard of them?”
“Who hasn’t? She’s been all over the financial pages. It seems everything she touches turned to green, that’s as in money. Her franchises have been expanding like they were a fast food chain. I wish I’d used her when I got married.”
Scott felt his heart tug at that. When he saw Diana he was impressed that she had changed over the years, but her changes were for the better. He supposed she was always there under the hair and out of the book, but he rarely saw her or even looked at her. It wasn’t until that one day in front of Nassau Hall that he saw her face. It was naked of any makeup. Her skin was flawless, and the depths of her dark eyes were enough to drive a man crazy.
And where she was concerned, he was all male.
Chapter 2
The parking lot of Darlington Wedding Gowns and Tuxedos was packed when Diana pulled into the only available space. And that was as far from the door as she could get. Darlington had been several steps away from her offices, but with Scott’s new use for the property practically everyone had relocated. The store was now housed in a huge strip mall several miles from her.
Final fittings for the Embry-Quincy wedding party was scheduled for today. Diana wouldn’t let anything having to do with Scott deter her. She stepped into the June heat and felt her clothes and body deflate. It shouldn’t be in the nineties this early in the season. And she shouldn’t be here. First she was the owner. She worked with the managers of new locations and Teddy ran the consultant staff. But Jennifer Embry came from old money, and she insisted Diana consult her wedding. As such she was the wedding planner, not the dress approver. However, she’d learned early in this business that a wedding planner’s duties were fluid. Some brides were demanding. Others only wanted her to take care of the ceremony and the reception. But she and Teddy ran a soup-to-nuts organization.
Pulling open the door of Darlington’s, she silently thanked the air-conditioning gods for their invention of such a useful mechanism.
“Diana,” Jennifer greeted her with a relieved smile. “I’m glad to see you.”
Jennifer stood in front of a triple