“That would be amazing.” And Hadley meant every single word of it.
Adalyn hopped up from her bed at the same time that Hadley bounded up from the chair, and they met in the middle of the room and hugged in one of those mind-meld events that only sisters could have when you said about a million things without uttering a single word. By the time they broke it up, they were both happy crying and, looking around at their mom and Aunt Louise, they weren’t the only ones.
“The photographer is going to be here in a couple of hours,” Adalyn said, wiping away a tear. “Go get dolled up in your bridesmaid dress. We have a party to kick off. Be sure to tell Will that we wear cowboy hats with tuxes around here.”
Every single champagne bubble of happiness filling her chest popped at once and Hadley flinched. Looking at the hopeful faces and smiles, she almost gave in to that little voice that told her to make up some excuse as to where Will was, to keep the perfect image intact. However, those days were gone.
Releasing a deep breath, she let the truth out. “Will’s gone.”
“Where did he go?” Aunt Louise asked.
“Back to Harbor City.”
“What happened?” her mom asked.
Bringing her family up to speed wasn’t fun, but it was so much better than feeding them a bunch of excuses. By the time she told them about tossing the rental car keys to Will and telling him to get lost, there was no doubt from the grim expression on the other women’s faces that they were most definitely in agreement that she did the right thing.
Of course, the only problem was that she still hurt as if there was a gaping hole in her chest where Will used to be. For the past year, he’d been a constant—driving her nuts, teasing her, turning her on, making her laugh, surprising her, and yes, showing her the man she’d finally fallen for so hard that she’d never even realized it was happening until it was too late.
“Well, I sure called that one wrong,” her mom said once the true story was all out in the open. Then she pulled Hadley into a hug. “I’m sorry. I thought he really cared about you.”
“Me too. I mean, not at first, but with everything that happened and—” Emotions clogged her throat, making it next to impossible to talk and the tears that in the past she would have held in to keep her family from seeing the real her fell free.
“So it’s an independence party tonight,” Adalyn said, joining in on the group hug.
Aunt Louise wrapped her arms around as much of the trio as possible. “Yee-fucking-haw.”
Their mom gasped. “Language, Aunt Louise.”
“Some days call for water and some call for vodka, Stephanie.” Aunt Louise squeezed harder. “This is a vodka kinda day.”
Their mom squeezed her girls a little harder, too. “Yee-fucking-haw.”
The shock of hearing their mom cuss—let alone drop the F bomb—was enough to make everyone burst out in laughter. And by the time Hadley was headed back to the cabin to change into her bridesmaid dress, her steps were lighter, if still dogged by heartbreak. It wasn’t until she walked inside and saw Will’s black cowboy hat on the floor that it hit her like a Mack truck and she forgot how to breathe again. Then the absurdity of the situation came to her in a whoosh of hot fury. She hadn’t done anything wrong beyond falling in love with the wrong man. She’d learned her lesson. She wouldn’t ever let that happen again.
Fuck him. He’s an asshole.
Will fucking Holt really was the evil twin and the absolute worst. She swept the cowboy hat up off the floor. That was coming with her tonight. No doubt there’d be a bonfire, and this was going to go right in the middle of the flames.
By the time she was done up in full makeup, her hair pulled back in an updo, and wearing her bridesmaid dress, the tears had stopped but the pissed-off remained. She swiped the hat off the bed and walked out the door, ready to have the time of her life with her family because that’s what the Donavans, the Martinezes, and the Donavan-Martinezes did—whatever it took to support one another because they were family and that was pretty much the most awesome thing there was.
…
Three days later, Hadley was back in Harbor City and once more sharing a bedroom with her sister. Last night, Fiona had welcomed Adalyn into their cramped apartment with a hug and a beer.
“I come from a family of seven kids,” she said as she helped haul one of Adalyn’s five suitcases up the four flights of stairs to their place. “Three people in one home is nothing. Trust me.”
This morning, the two of them had taken off for a tour of the neighborhood—aka Bloody Marys at Medusa’s Grill and Adalyn’s first trip ever to a bodega—while Hadley stayed behind and tried to figure out how in the world she was going to take her charity consulting firm from a box of business cards under her bed to a real live business.
She needed two things: a plan and clients.
Harbor City had more billionaires per capita than any other place in the world, so there were definitely people with money who wanted to do good, or at least get a write-off on their taxes and some positive PR. She preferred to work with the first group, but the money from the second still helped fund the food kitchens, children’s cancer wings, and adult education efforts throughout the city, so she wasn’t about to be a snob about it.
Staring at her open document on her laptop, she exhaled a deep breath and started typing.
Possible Clients
Then she sat back. The only billionaires she knew were both verboten. Brokenhearted and now without a best friend, since she wasn’t going to force Web to make the awkward pick between her and his brother, she allowed herself a moment of self-pitying sniffles. Each day was a little bit easier when it came to getting out of bed in the morning, but the nights were still long, sleepless, and too full of memories and hopes of what could have been if Will Holt hadn’t turned out to be such a dick.
The knock on the door pulled her from staring blankly at the computer screen while trying not to remember the past week. Figuring her sister and Fiona were back early, she walked over to the door, pulled it open, and then her heart stopped beating.
Will stood in the hall wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a smile, as if the past week had never happened. Her breath came back in a whoosh and she was ready to shut the door in his face when she noticed the mole. The person waiting on the other side of the front door wasn’t the last person she expected to see, but he was next in line.
“Web,” she said, not sure what else she could say at the moment as her adrenaline rush began to slow.
“So since you’re not answering my texts, I had no other choice but to bring brunch to you.” He lifted a large bag with the Medusa’s logo on it. “While there, I spotted your roommate, who glared at me and then flipped me off. Did I do something to piss Fiona off or did she think I was Will?”
“Will.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, that happens more than you’d imagine.”
“Web, you don’t have to.” She waved at the bag, unable to come up with the words. “He’s your brother. You have to stand by him. I understand.”
“You understand that I’m not my brother or that I’m just as annoyed with him as you are?” He took a closer look at her puffy eyes and probably still red nose. “Okay, maybe not as much, but I have sustenance—including a carafe of Bloody Marys that I had to promise never to tell anyone I got them to let me take off the premises.”
As if the Harbor City cops were going to arrest a Holt. “You own the restaurant.”
“True, but liquor laws are liquor laws.” He walked in and headed straight toward the bistro table in the tiny kitchen and started to unpack the bag.
“Why are you here, Web?” Quite frankly, she couldn’t take another breakup from a Holt.
If Web was aware they were about to have a friendship breakup, he didn’t act like it. “To feed you and ply you with spicy liquor until you agree to do me a huge favor.”
“I’m not talking to Will.”
“Me either.” He grabbed two clean glasses from the drying rack next to the sink and poured the Bloody Marys. “No, this is for the Holt Foundation. I have a last-minute job, and I know you probably have other clients already lined up, but I’m desperate. We have an event on Friday to raise funds for the Best Buds organization and need someone to talk to potential donors about why it’s such a great opportunity.”
“That was the charity I recommended we work with before I got fired.” It paired shelter animals with kids newly adopted from foster care who helped to take care of them, the end result being that they bonded and it made the transition easier for both kids and animals.
The people at her old job felt the charity was too “downtown” and had opted to stay with their current projects of building hospital cardiac wings and adding libraries to university campuses.
“It was? Imagine that.” Web took a long drink of his Bloody Mary, looking anything but surprised. “Anyway, we’re not working with your last employer anymore and could use an innovative consultant to make sure we’re doing the most with our donations and the funds we raise at events.”
Damn. The tears were back. Sucking in a deep breath, Hadley stared extra hard at the kitchen cabinets to the left of Web. She didn’t want to turn down the chance to help Best Buds, but there was no way she could work with the Holt Foundation, not after what Will had said. Then she would just be using him, maybe not as a gold digger, but it was close.