Page 12

Sebastian

K nuckles rapped my bedroom door and I pushed the covers away, angry. Spoiled sure, for not getting what I wanted. Was it so much to fucking ask, that I wanted my wife?

Ugh, I wasn’t sure how I would face everyone now. Yesterday had been easy, having had sex all night. I’d barely slept last night as well, but for all the wrong horrible reasons.

I’d slept alone the last six months and that had utterly sucked. One damn night with Kennedy and now it was agony.

“What?” I swung the door open, horror spreading through me.

Kennedy stood there, her hair in an unwashed ponytail, a pair of jeans, low riders showing off her cute tummy thanks to the tight tee-shirt. “Bagels in Savannah’s suite. Everyone’s there. Let’s go.”

More faking it. Great.

“Five minutes.” I pushed the door open and wandered back into the bedroom.

“Sleep okay?” she asked.

“No. You?”

“Barely a wink.”

I stopped and turned around, my fingers sliding into my boxers. Her eyes crawled over me, taking me in. My heart pounding, I skimmed the cotton groin-hugging Hanes past my waist.

Her breath grew ragged and she glanced away. “Five minutes.” She left and closed the door.

Shit...

I REMEMBERED MY WEDDING day from an entirely different perspective. I’d woken up in my bed alone which I hated even back then because Kennedy wanted to be traditional and not see me until she reached the altar.

All I’d had to do was put on a tux and let a photographer snap some pictures of me. Luke and Tristan had been there, but Grayson was still in school at UT Austin and couldn’t get to Maryland for the weekend.

What fun we had, sitting around my and Kennedy’s cramped Baltimore apartment smoking cigars in our boxers. Before the photographer had arrived, that is.

Before we were all billionaires too.

A woman getting ready for her wedding felt like a bell had gone off at a bull-riding event.

Hand in hand, Kennedy and I padded into my parents’ suite next door. The entire family loitered in the kitchen picking at a spread of bagels and pastries.

Hair and makeup people arrived along with a Kleinfeld rep who showed up just to put Savannah in her dress. All while Zelda paced in front of the balcony wearing a whistle and used it when all the cats she’d been herding weren’t moving in the right direction.

After the fourth toe-curling screeching sound, Luke stormed in wearing jogging pants and a white tee-shirt, sweat beading on his forehead. “Who the fuck is blowing that whistle?” he yelled.

“Luke! Savannah, I’m sorry.” Aunt Marissa rushed toward her son holding a mimosa. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I gave everyone an entire floor,” Luke said. “All of my villas. But we’re getting calls about a whistle.”

“We’re on a schedule, Mr. Hart. It is a wedding,” Zelda said with the plastic noise-maker dangling out of her mouth like a cigarette. “What a grump.”

This may have been the exact showdown I had wanted to see, but I didn’t want it happening in front of Savannah.

Before I could break up the potential cage match, Tristan sauntered in, dressed in a tight-fitting sweater and jeans. He calmed Zelda down, even took some items off her to-do list.

With the whistling gone, Luke ran a hand through his hair. “Tristan, I swear, if you’d gone on your cruise this week instead of next week, I would have killed you.”

“What cruise?” Kennedy asked, pulling apart a bagel.

“Just something I do once a year,” Tristan said, blushing.

Luke strutted out of the villa suite, presumably to finish his workout.

Kennedy narrowed her eyes at me. “Are Tristan and Luke planning to give Savannah a cruise for her honeymoon?”

I sawed off a much-needed laugh. “No.” Then quickly dismissed the vision of my prim and proper sister, the kindergarten teacher on a sex cruise.

“Why was that funny?” Kennedy crossed her arms.

“I didn’t laugh.” My pulse raced, not wanting the cruise to come up anymore. I more than likely wasn’t going.

“Yes, you did.”

“You did laugh, honey,” my mom said, steering Savannah to one of the spare bedrooms to get her hair done.

“See?” Kennedy opened her mouth, but the whistle blared.

“Florist. Downstairs. Who’s letting them in?” Zelda barked, holding her phone.

“You’re the wedding planner, why aren’t you doing it?” I asked her.

“I plan. I don’t do .”

I shook my head. “I’ll go downstairs and let Samantha know.”

“Samantha?” Kennedy asked, standing in front of me. “The blonde walking around the lobby in a short skirt?”

“She’s the event planner and I believe that’s a suit.” I loved how jealous she got so suddenly.

I knew I had shit to fix in our lives, but one thing that had never ruffled any feathers between me and Kennedy was the idea that I would have been unfaithful to her. Perhaps reminding her how lethal I was in bed had her worried what I’d be giving to another woman once I signed those papers.

Fuck, that. I wanted Kennedy.

I wanted my wife .

Shaking my head, I reached for her hand. “Come with me and we’ll talk to Samantha in the short suit together.”

“Oh, Samantha has the florist guy. They’re setting up in the ballroom,” Zelda announced.

False alarm.

“Photographer is here.” Grayson waltzed in wearing jeans hanging very low on his hips, no shirt, and bare feet.

“Whoa,” I said to the group of six guys and one woman all dressed in black. “You guys are early.”

“No, Seb.” Kennedy made notes in her wedding planner book. “Savannah wants the whole day captured.”

I watched the lone female in the photography entourage snap photographs of Grayson who stood against the wall flexing his muscles for her.

“How tall are you, handsome?” The woman crouched down with the camera pointed up at Gray like he was Mount Everest.

The woman was cute as hell and the way Grayson posed, fluffing up his shaggy reddish-blond hair, I worried Savannah would be down one photographer in a few minutes.

I snapped my fingers at Aunt Marissa and pointed to the soon-to-be X-rated photoshoot.

“On it,” my aunt said, scampering that way. “Grayson, honey, let’s go find a shirt for you to wear.”

“Was it like this at your parents’ house the day we got married?” I asked Kennedy, tugging her closer.

“No,” she snorted.

I had a vision. If we renewed our vows, I’d be the one with the whistle, cheering for the underdog because Kennedy and I made it work.

But how?