Page 5 of Nothing to the Wedding

“You didn’t consider that one of the people responsible for getting me there is Ballard?”

“Ballard loves me.He has to, he’s no fool, I know where the bodies are buried.Jilt me and I’ll put everything on blast.”

“Guess I have to show up then.”

“Guess you do.”

The door opened enough to let Tripp poke his head in.“Need my phone.”

“Uh, I’m naked in here.”

She wasn’t but could be, he didn’t know.

“Uh huh,” he said without reacting.“That your guy?Tell him to buy you a damn cellphone.”

“I’m sending Astrid,” Zairn said in her ear.

“No, I don’t need Astrid, I…” Hmm, wedding errands.“Yes, send Astrid.”

“Finally you learn to follow orders,” Zairn declared.“I put her on a plane two hours ago.”

“You put her on a plane?”

“Me, Tibbs, it’s details, babe.I love how you’re falling in line.Marriage is good for us.”

She scowled at no one.“This is not compliance, it’s kindness.Astrid prefers being with me than she does you.With you oozing that charisma all over the place and looking the way you do—which is kind of rude, by the way, around such a young, impressionable woman.You should really stop that.”

“I’ll look into it.In the meantime, remember it’s her cousin’s primary mission to ensure my safety.Not likely I’ll start screwing around in the family.”

“It is not,” she said, waving Tripp away when he came in, hand outstretched.“Ballard’s primary mission is to keep me safe.”She grinned.“Tripp’s growling.I’ll call when he’s done being impolite.”

“Love you, Lo.”

“I love you too, Casanova.”Though she stretched out every word in the sentence, Tripp did let her get it out before snatching the phone.“You’re rude.”

“Says the woman who creeps into my room at night to steal my phone.”

“No one important called.You’re not as popular as you think.Though one woman did cry when I said I was your wife.”

“Could’ve been my mother.”

She shrugged.“Could have been.”

Unlikely because his mother was sitting in their suite’s living room with her best friend, but Alice Breckenridge certainly would bawl, happy tears, if her fun-loving son settled down.

He started to turn away, already typing into the phone.

“No.No.No,” Roxie said.“Stay there, I need the phone back, I have to talk to Z about Porter and Crosby.”

A subject her lover managed to erase from her mind.That was the problem with their conversations, often they went off on their own tangents.Maybe that was why they ended up talking fifty times in a day.

Still typing, Tripp gestured slightly toward the running shower.“If you’re getting in there, I’m leaving the room.”

Good point.She wouldn’t shower with her brother in the room either.

“Okay, but don’t go too far.We have wedding errands today.”

That brought his slow blink up from the phone.“Wedding errands?Yeah, that doesn’t sound like my thing.My mom is here.It’s her thing.Carolyn’s too.”