Page 1

Sienna

“My buddy says you’re looking for a date.” A giant biker with a long beard and tattoos stands at the front door of my shop. He looks like the type of guy you’d hire as personal security, but who also moonlights as a stripper on the weekends.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a man this built. His biceps are the size of… well, bigger than anything I can think of at the moment. He steps inside and suddenly the thousand square feet I’ve been using as an event shop shrinks immensely.

His eyes lock onto mine. They’re sharp and dark, as though he’s waiting for a response.

Oh yeah, I need to talk back.

“Umm… yeah.” I smooth down the fabric of the floral dress I ordered a few months back. I haven’t had a chance to wear it yet, and I’m not sure how I feel about the A-line cut, but it’s rocking every shade of pink, which makes it my new favorite dress. “I wasn’t aware that you’d be dropping by.”

“Well, I was down here grabbing a few things and figured I’d stop in and say hello.” He drags his massive hand down over his face and stares at me with the same hardened look he was rocking before.

“Yeah. I… you’re here, so lets…” I have no idea why I’m stammering.

I’m not a stammerer. I’m a talker. Ask anyone.

I’ll talk a stranger's ear off about anything. Heck, I once spent twenty minutes in line at the grocery store talking to the woman in front of me about ketchup brands. She was impressed by how much I knew, and truthfully, so was I. Apparently, it’s not mainstream knowledge that ketchup is used for polishing metal and the rest can be used to bake a cake.

“Is this a bad time?” the giant continues.

“No, not at all. It’s not a bad time. It’s… I’m a little shook up this morning is all. My cousin sent all these texts last night with last-minute changes to the guest list, and there’s a fountain issue. So… distracted.”

“Is this the same wedding you’re looking for a date to?”

Somehow, this idea sounded less humiliating when I was abstractly talking about it with a friend and thinking about finally losing my virginity instead of valuing rational decision making. Now, in real life, it’s just … weird .

“I mean,” I pause and close my eyes, trying to conjure up the words to answer his question without sounding like a complete loser, though I’m thinking that’s exactly what I’m looking like, “I guess I don’t really need a date. I was just being crazy and weird. I’ll… it’ll be fine.”

The giant watches me closely, weighing my words as though he’s deciding whether I mean them or not.

His stance is relaxed, but the way he stares at me makes me feel all kinds of gooey inside.

“So you were looking for a date, and the second you see me, you’re not?

” He laughs under his breath as he crosses his massive arms over one another. “You’re giving me a complex.”

“No, I’m sorry. You’re great. I mean, look at you. You’re so big. I mean… you’re good looking.” Why am I still talking? “You seem like a nice guy, but, ugh, I’m… I don’t think I need a date. It’s complicated.”

Wow! What the hell was that? I never act like this.

He pulls a chair out from the table and lowers himself down carefully until the seat disappears and it looks like he’s floating in thin air. “I’ve got time.”

Oh, great. He’s got time.

I don’t know why I thought maybe he’d be a little less attractive. This guy is like action-movie attractive.

I lean back against the counter awkwardly.

“Umm… weddings are weird. My assistant quit a few days ago to run off to California, I’m missing a bunch of flowers, I have an issue with a fountain, and my family…

especially my mother. She didn’t believe in this whole business venture thing of mine, and now I’m putting on my cousin’s wedding and everything is going wrong.

I didn’t want to show up without a date too.

So, I figured a big, rough, tough, biker dude would keep her quiet.

But… I was overthinking it. She’ll see straight through all this, anyway. I’m better off just biting the bullet.”

He grins and I swear I hear the smirk in his voice as he says, “You sure? I’ve been told I clean up really nicely.”

I’d love to see how well this man cleans up, but going to a wedding together would mean acting normal around each other, and clearly I’m not as capable of that as I thought I was.

“Trust me, you wouldn’t want to deal with my mother. She’s an evil witch from Planet Zargo, and she has no remorse for anything or anyone.”

The man laughs. “Planet Zargo, huh? Sounds like a challenge.”

I widen my gaze. “More than a challenge. She’s got a perfected side-eye that destroys souls on contact. It’s a mess.”

“No offense, but I’ve handled far worse than a perfected side-eye.”

I wrinkle my nose and glance toward the action star at the front of the store. “Oh, you haven’t felt her side-eye. It’s deadly, trust me.”

“Look,” he stands from the chair and steps toward me, one heavy boot at a time, until he’s so close that I can smell the motor oil and leather that surrounds him, “I gotta be honest with you. I’m backed up on good deeds, and this one’ll count for like eight…

at least. You gotta let me do this.” He shifts his weight to the right and flexes his arm, showing off a horseshoe tattoo with an eagle in the center.

“Think of me like an assistant. These are workin’ muscles.

I can lift and carry whatever you need, including your mother, to the door if necessary. ”

I smile and stare down at the ground at thoughts of this massive man protecting me from everything, especially my mother, but now I’m a little concerned by the hard sell.

I mean, why does he want to be at this wedding so badly?

I know who these bikers are. There’s chatter all over town that these guys are ex-hitmen. That said, I really could use the help.

“I don’t know… you have a reputation.”

“My buddy told me that’s why you wanted me there. I’m here to scare the questions away.”

That is true. I did say those exact words.

“Besides,” he continues, “I thrive in chaos. Point me to the soul-crushing, side-eying mother from Planet Zargo, and I’ll perform accordingly.”

I narrow my brows. “Accordingly… how? I’m not sure we have the same idea of accordingly .”

A flicker of a smirk lifts his face. “Intimidation is a language I speak fluently. Also, for your personal knowledge, I’m more than whatever shit this town is saying.”

“Oh yeah?”

He nods and readjusts his baseball cap. “I was a military medic for years.”

I tilt my head to the side, studying this big, rough, massive man in front of me. That wasn’t in the rumors going around town. Truthfully, it’s hard to believe this is the kind of guy that would care about anything enough to save it.

“So… when did you change out the scalpel for a switchblade?”

“Oh, you’re a smart-mouthed one. I like it.”

A shock of energy presses between my legs as his deep voice rumbles through the air.

What the hell is wrong with me? This man is in his late forties and he’s clearly pretending to be a doctor.

I need to steer clear. Really, really clear.

Or… jump on him now, get it out of my system, and move on with my life.

I think I like the second option better.

“I have family that was in the military. What branch did you serve?” This should make him nervous.

“Army.” He says it with a pause, and I swear his shoulders tighten. Maybe I’ve caught him in a lie. “I started out in pursuit of medical school, but it didn’t work out the way I’d planned.”

My phone rings, interrupting my full-scale operation to catch this guy in a lie.

I glance down at the screen instinctively.

It’s my cousin. I’m sure she’s freaking out.

We’re two days from her wedding, and I know what’s on the other end of that line is a bomb.

A bomb I need to let explode over the phone or it’ll come crashing into my shop.

“Sorry, it’s my cousin. I have to take this. ”

“You do your thing.” He scratches his number down on the back of a pamphlet for the inn that I keep sitting on the counter. “Text me later and we’ll work all these details out.”

I answer my phone as I stare the man down. I knew he was a big, rough guy when I asked my friend to set me up with him. This is what I wanted. But now that he’s standing here, this whole thing is a little more intense than I expected.

“Hey, Mae. What’s up?” I say, as the giant who scribbled Tennessee over his number leaves the building. Is that his name or is he telling me what state he’s from?

This guy is weird.

“Have you gotten any of my texts?” Her voice is biting, and though it’s not an abnormal sound to hear from a bride two days before a wedding, I’m not as prepared for it this morning as I should be.

“Yeah, sorry. This morning was weird. I had this guy in here and—”

“I don’t care!” she shouts. “I just need you to tell me that everything is going to be okay.”

“Why wouldn’t everything be okay?”

“Because I’m making so many last-minute changes, my dress won’t be ready from the tailor until the morning of the wedding, and I have like three hundred million things on my mind. Not to mention your assistant quit, didn’t she?”

“What?”

“You weren’t going to tell me?”

“How do you know?”

“She sent me an apology text last night.”

My cheeks heat with fire. “It’s not that I wasn’t going to tell you. I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Plus—”

“No! I don’t want you to wrap this in some pretty little bow, Sienna! This is bad. Really bad.”

It’s not great that I don’t have an assistant anymore. In fact, it’s kind of horrible. Now I’m responsible for everything all at once, at the most important event of my career, and since I stepped away from my parents’ fortune, I have a whole lot of nothing, with everything to prove.

My heart hammers hard against my chest and my throat goes dry. What the hell am I going to do?

“Hello?” Mae presses. “I can call your mom. She’ll hire someone to help and—”

“No!” My mother is the last person I’d ask for help. She’s sitting on her mountaintop waiting for me to fail. I glance down at the number the biker scratched on the pamphlet for the inn. “I just hired someone. That’s who I was talking to.”

I can almost hear the wrinkle in her forehead. “What?”

“Yeah. It’s a, ugh, my boyfriend. He’s really big and strong, and he offered to pick up the job for me. So… we’re good.”

“Your boyfriend? This is the same biker guy you’ve been talking about for a month now?”

“Yup. Same guy. He’s the best!” Why is my voice so sunny? “I’ve gone over everything with him this morning and we’re solid gold.” I clear my throat to make room for another lie. “He’s on his way to fix that fountain issue right now.”

“Seriously?” Mae’s voice finally relaxes. “Oh my God, I love you! I’m sorry. There’s just so much going on.”

“It’s cool. Trust me. It’s tough being a bride, but I’ve got everything under control. Okay?”

“Okay,” she sighs. “Thank you. I appreciate you so much. Sorry for the way I—”

“Girl, don’t worry about it. I’ll update you later, okay?”

“Okay,” she echoes. “Thanks again.”

The second she’s off the line, I stare blankly at the wall, and my lungs seize like they’ve forgotten how oxygen works. Why did I lie? What was I thinking? What the hell am I going to do?

I stare down at the biker’s number that’s daring me, begging me to press it, taunting me to set this whole circus into motion.

My thumb hovers over the call button. Maybe he won’t answer. Maybe he walked outside and felt like he dodged a bullet. Then again, maybe that would be for the best. Maybe that’s the universe’s way of throwing a wrench into my chaos before I get the chance to mess everything up.

That said, he answers on the first ring.

“Damn. You cracked fast. I thought I’d have to show up again tomorrow.” His voice is impossibly deep, and the gritty rasp behind it only lends to more throbbing between my legs.

Clearly, I need to get a grip.

“I need to hire you. You said you’d be my assistant. I need that.” Complete sentences would be nice, but like I said, my brain isn’t functioning right now.

“Assistant. Sure. You tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

“There’s pay involved. It’s not much,” I sigh. I should’ve thought all this through before I picked up the phone. “It’s about five hundred for the event. I can go over the details with you tomorrow if you have time.”

“Sounds good.” He pauses for a second and I hear the low hum of an engine on his end of the line. “Breakfast by the lake? I’ll bring the pastries. You can tell me everything you need.”

The lake? I love the lake, but this is a business transaction… sort of.

“Breakfast here at the shop is probably best. I need all my materials to show you. You do coffee?”

“Black with two sugars… if you’re trying to butter me up.”

That was easy enough. Maybe I should tell him he’s my date, too. It’ll be a lot easier to say that over the phone than to explain it in person. Then again, I can’t summon boldness more than once a day.

“Two sugars it is. I’m thinking eight a.m.”

“Perfect.” He settles into the role steadily without teasing or commentary, easing the anxiety that’s been sitting on my chest since this morning. “I’ll be there.”

The line disconnects and I sit there, my phone still pressed against my ear with silent anticipation. What kind of hell did I just summon?

I only know it wears leather and boots, and tomorrow morning, it’s walking through my door.