Jennifer Snow – Tempting Kate (страница 1)
Everything depends on this one day
Would anyone hire a wedding planner who was left at the altar? The answer, Kate Hartley has found out, is no. It’s been nearly a year since her fiancé abandoned her at their destination wedding, and Kate’s career is nearly toast. Unless she can pull off the wedding of the century for her new clients, a Hollywood power couple. So why is the groom’s brother, sexy-as-hell resort owner Scott Dillon, trying to stop the wedding?
Scott wants to do the right thing—the bride-to-be is keeping a secret and Scott’s brother deserves the truth before he says “I do.” But if Scott doesn’t stop trying to stall the wedding, he’ll ruin Kate’s career, not to mention any chance he has of being with her.
“How’s the water?” a deep voice asked.
Opening one eye, she sighed, her relaxed muscles immediately tensing. “I was enjoying it better before you arrived.”
“Well, I was enjoying a lot of things better before you arrived,” Scott said, his voice tight. “Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I’ve changed my mind... You can plan the wedding here.”
She grinned, opening both eyes and sitting a little higher. “I know. Your mother told Liz an hour ago.” That was the only reason she was trying to relax in the hot tub instead of going another twelve rounds with him in his office.
His eyes narrowed as he approached the edge of the hot tub. “Here’s the thing, Ms. Hartley. You can go ahead and plan a wedding here, but that doesn’t mean my brother will actually be getting married.”
“We’ll see about that.” Clearly he had no idea who he was up against. She closed her eyes again, dismissing him, but the smell of his musky cologne continued to mix with the jasmine and eucalyptus. A long minute later, she heard the splash of Scott getting into the hot tub.
The last time we saw wedding planner Kate Hartley, she was brokenhearted from being left at the altar at her own destination wedding. In Tempting Kate, she just may find the happiness she deserves. But not without a few...roadblocks. Very few books come to me as fast and hard as this one did, but the moment Scott and Kate met on the page (on the side of a snowy road in Big Bear), they took over. Their chemistry was instant and their back-and-forth banter when they discover that they’re on opposing sides of this Memorial Day–weekend wedding made for such an enjoyable two hundred pages to write. This one is a little hotter than I usually write, so I hope that’s okay. ;)
I hope you enjoy reading this one as much as I enjoyed writing it.
xo
Jen
Tempting Kate
Jennifer Snow
JENNIFER SNOW is an award-winning romance author living in Edmonton, Alberta, with her husband and six-year-old son. She is a member of the Writers Guild of Alberta, the Romance Writers of America, the Canadian Authors Association, shewrites.org and FAVA. She has published articles in Mslexia magazine, Westword magazine, RWR and Southern Writers Magazine. Her publishing credits include her six-book Brookhollow miniseries published through Harlequin Heartwarming and an MMA sports romance series published through Penguin Random House’s Berkley/NAL. Her new small-town hockey series will release this fall through Grand Central Publishing’s Forever imprint. More information can be found at jennifersnowauthor.com.
To the authors of my favorite Blaze books—Joanne Rock, Tawny Weber and Karen Rock—for giving me so many sizzling-hot love stories to get lost in!
Thank you as always to my agent, Stephany Evans, and my brilliant editor, Dana Grimaldi, who loved this book from the beginning. And a very special thank-you to award-winning boutique wedding planner Jennifer Bergman for a glimpse inside the world of wedding planning.
Contents
“WE ARE LIVE in twenty seconds.”
Twenty seconds.
Kate Hartley scanned the set of Today’s Woman, but she couldn’t locate an escape.
The talk show’s host, Claire Jamison, nodded as she readjusted the microphone on the collar of her pale blue blouse. “Ready?” she asked her, tossing her long red hair over one shoulder.
No. Kate forced a confident smile. “Of course.” She sat straighter and slid her palms down the length of her tan pencil skirt. She crossed and recrossed her legs as the producer counted down the seconds to airtime.
When he signaled that they were live, Claire spoke. “Welcome back. Before the break, we saw Lario perform his hit ‘When We Were Us,’ and he will be back to perform again at the end of today’s show. Now, we are pleased to introduce our next guest—Hollywood’s own wedding planner Kate Hartley, from Belle Affairs.” Claire turned to look at her with a smile. “Kate, good to see you.”
“Thank you for having me,” Kate said, relieved that her steady voice revealed none of the anxiety threatening to suffocate her.
“So as if you weren’t busy enough planning the nuptials of some of Tinseltown’s most glamorous couples, you recently wrote a book.” Claire picked up the hardcover that had hit store shelves the week before and held it up to the camera. “How to Get Him Down the Aisle—great title, and I suspect a question many single women out there are dying to know the answer to. Tell us about it.”
“Essentially, the book is an added service that my company has recently started offering our clients. We refer to it as the ‘warm the cold feet’ effort,” she said. Her chest tightened even more. Breathe and smile. “Believe it or not, men want to get married just as much as women...they just need that extra reassurance, that push to get them to the altar.”
Didn’t she know it?
She brushed the thought away as her smile faltered.
Unfortunately, her interviewer capitalized on the opportunity, jumping to the question that had allowed Kate’s publicist to secure this television spot. “You have firsthand experience about what happens when there’s no one there to give them the push, isn’t that right?” Her smile was sympathetic as she reached across and touched Kate’s hand, but her eyes gleamed with the eagerness of digging up gossip.
Kate had prepared for the interview to take this turn, so she nodded slowly. “It’s true. Last year, I was ditched at my destination wedding.” Pause. Give the expected heartbroken look. Then, forcing a light, I’m-over-it, confident air, continue. “And that’s why I wrote the book. To help my clients avoid a similar fate.” Thank God for the training and prep work she’d done with her publicist, Alison Dunn. Otherwise the lies coming out of her mouth would have choked her to death.
Claire nodded. “Great way to take a heartbreaking situation and turn it into something positive,” she said. “So in your case, what went wrong? You were in Maui...family and friends were there. The day of the wedding, he disappears. What happened?”
If she only knew, maybe it would have made the last ten months more bearable. “I’m not sure I’ll ever know...” Kate paused when she saw Alison, standing behind the cameraman on the far right, shake her head.
Shit. Just stick to the rehearsed answers. “I’m an experienced wedding planner—” she gestured to herself, earning a smile from Alison “—and I’m confident if I’d been paying attention, I’d have seen the telltale signs of a potential runaway groom.”
“Let’s discuss these telltale signs,” Claire said. “In the book, which I’ve read cover to cover...”