His Band Of Gold. Melissa Mcclone
didn’t understand what was going on. Okay, that wasn’t the entire truth. But the truth bothered her, made her feel lower than low. Not even worthy of being on the bottom of the food chain. Will might be Faith’s brother; he might even be married. But Kelsey was attracted to him, attracted to his looks and his smile and his easygoing manner.
And she hated herself for the way she felt.
She sunk into the luxurious leather seat and leaned her head back. Married might as well mean leprosy because in her book Will was untouchable, off limits, you name it. She would not be a catalyst to the breakup of a marriage. Kelsey would sooner gouge out her eyes than get involved with a married man. Which meant she had to ignore her attraction for Will Addison, had to ignore he was even a man.
She knew exactly what infidelity could do to a marriage, to a family. Her father had been the first to stray, but her mother had followed in his footsteps until all hell had broken loose. The accusations, the fighting, the tears. She and her brother, Cade, had been the ones to lose, the ones turned into pawns in a vicious winner-take-all custody battle.
Will shifted in his seat and stretched his long legs out in front of him. His calf brushed hers and a burst of heat emanated from the point of contact.
Ignore it, she ordered herself. Something told her she would be having to ignore many things over the next two weeks.
“So how did you become a wedding consultant?” he asked.
Thank goodness. A safe topic. Business related even. Kelsey counted her lucky stars. “My parents divorced when I was nine. When it came time for them to marry others, they both asked for my brother’s and my input. I think it was their way of trying to make things easier on us. My brother couldn’t have cared less, but I got into it. Each time they remarried—”
“Each time?”
“My father’s been married eight times, my mother six, though she’s currently engaged to number seven,” Kelsey admitted. It wasn’t a big secret to anyone who knew anything about the Armstrongs. Many followed the happenings of America’s second most famous family. “Needless to say, I had lots of practice planning weddings.”
“How did you pick Beverly Hills to open your business?”
“When I was thirteen, my mother married a producer, who moved us from Chicago to Beverly Hills and introduced me to the entertainment industry. He’s husband number three and five.”
Will’s eyes widened. “She married him twice?”
Kelsey nodded. “And divorced him twice, too.”
Will frowned. “Your family sounds a lot different than mine.”
“I know. Your parents have been together forever. Starr was very proud about that.”
Will smiled. “Divorce is a four-letter word in our house. No Addison has ever been divorced.”
“None of them?”
“No grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins or siblings.”
“That’s…unbelievable.”
“But true.” Pride rang out in his voice, and Kelsey felt a stab of envy. “We’ve all been fortunate to find the right person.”
“Not Faith.”
“She hasn’t married yet.”
“You don’t have to remind me.” Kelsey stared at him. “So, do Addisons stay in miserable marriages to avoid divorce?”
“We don’t have miserable marriages.”
And there was a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow. “Seems to me most marriages end up that way eventually, unless you are lucky.”
He raised a brow. “This from a wedding consultant?”
She nodded. “That’s why I take my job so seriously. Every bride deserves to feel like a princess and every groom a prince. The least I can do is give a couple a day to remember, a day to hold close to their hearts after things sour.”
“Is that why you keep a scrapbook of your clients’ divorces? Not one showing the successful marriages, the pictures of babies and children that come from the ones that work?”
A mixture of embarrassment and anger washed over her, yet she contained her temper. Like it or not, Will was a client. And as she’d learned from her parents, blowing up over something that couldn’t be changed never solved anything. She shrugged, but the last thing she felt was indifference. No one had ever seen her scrapbooks. Until that moment she’d forgotten she’d put them in the ottoman instead of their usual hiding place. “Not many of the marriages I coordinate last.”
“No doubt because of your Wedding Consultant to the Stars moniker.” Sarcasm laced his voice. “You haven’t seen what real marriages are all about, how good, how strong they can be.”
“Is that how you feel about your marriage?”
“Yes.”
She’d seen too many failed marriages to believe the Addisons had the market cornered on happy ones. “You think you found your soul mate?”
“I have no doubt.”
Kelsey heard the conviction in his voice. Such a romantic. She couldn’t ignore her curiosity about his wife, the woman who’d captured Will Addison’s heart. “How did you know she was the ‘one’?”
He got a faraway look in his eyes. “It happened the day I met her.”
Love at first sight? Talk about a fairy tale. This she had to hear. “How did you meet?”
Will glanced out the window to the red-streaked sky. The sun was setting slowly. “It was Sadie Hawkin’s day. I was in sixth grade. All the boys tied their names on their belt loops and the girls got to chase us. If a girl managed to get your name, you were hers for the day.”
He and his wife had been childhood sweethearts and still together after all this time. Kelsey found that hard to believe in this day and age. “Sounds…fun.”
“For the girls maybe,” he admitted. “Sara, my wife, was new to the school. I’d never really paid much attention to her before because she was so shy and quiet…” His voice trailed off.
“Go on.”
He hesitated. “Sometime during the chase, one of the girls pushed her. Sara fell. Her knee was bloody and she was crying. I went over to help her up.”
“Don’t tell me she grabbed your name tag?”
He nodded.
“And that’s how you knew?”
He moistened his lips. “Sara was holding on to my name and she smiled, a wide grin with a mouthful of braces, and I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That one day I would marry her.” He glanced away. “And I did. Two days after I graduated from college. That was ten years ago.”
“You were young.”
“I wish I’d married her sooner.”
“That’s sweet.” Saccharine sweet, Kelsey thought. How could he feel that way after ten years? Longer if one counted how long they’d been together. Maybe he’d gotten lucky, like his parents and grandparents.
His eyes glimmered. Tears? Kelsey found that almost as hard to believe as being married forever. Maybe he wore contacts and had a piece of grit in one of his eyes. That would explain it.
“I’m looking forward to meeting her,” Kelsey said to break the silence.
“You can’t meet her.” The green of Will’s eyes darkened and his lips tightened. “Sara…is dead. She was killed in a car crash eight years ago.”
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