Read Online Last-Minute Bridesmaid by Nina Harrington - Free Book Online Page A

the fine weave luxury cotton shirt. But for once she held her ground and looked up into his face rather than give way.
    ‘Let me check that I understand the deal,’ she whispered. ‘One all expenses paid wedding, complete with bridesmaid duties, in exchange for two full days of your time as a business consultant. And you would be doing the actual number-crunching—not some minion. Okay?’
    Heath took her hand and pressed his long slender fingers around hers and held them tight just long enough for her to inhale his intoxicating scent. Combined with the texture of his smooth skin against hers as he slowly raised her hand to his lips and kissed the back of her knuckles, sensible thought became a tad difficult for a few seconds.
    Because the moment his lips touched her skin she was seventeen again and right back on her doorstep.
    ‘Better than okay. It’s a deal. Delighted to have you on my team—because I don’t have minions,’ he replied with a full-on, headlight-bright grin.
    ‘Team,’ she whimpered. ‘Right. Now that is settled. What time do you need me to be there on Saturday?’
    ‘Oh, didn’t I tell you? I’m going to need you there on Friday morning so you’re ready for the wedding rehearsal and dinner. I hope that isn’t a problem.’
    * * *
    ‘Think musketeers. Think swagger and swords. Think Johnny Depp.’ Saskia Elwood picked up a cake fork and pretended to have a mock sword fight with the china teapot on Kate’s kitchen table.
    ‘Okay, okay, I am thinking and drawing at the same time. Designing pirate gauntlets is not easy, you know.’
    ‘Never said it was—that was why I came to the best. You are the only girl I know who spends most of her life in a fantasy world inside her head. You are a saviour, Kate Lovat.’
    ‘ Flatterer. You know my hidden weakness for pantomime,’ Kate replied with a short salute. Then she looked at Saskia over the top of her spectacles. ‘Why are you the person who always ends up running these projects when you have a business to run?’
    Saskia shrugged then chuckled. ‘I seem to have one of those faces that scream out—come and ask me to help and I will drop everything and do it for you. You would have thought that I would know by now, wouldn’t you?’
    ‘No—’ Kate laughed and patted Saskia on the arm ‘—you have always been generous with your time and your heart. That’s who you are. And I wouldn’t want you to change a bit.’ Then she gasped. ‘Wait. I have had a brilliant idea. Why don’t you go to this wedding in my place? The dress might be a tad short but you’ve got the legs to get away with it. Heath wouldn’t mind a bit.’
    ‘What? And deny you the vision of Heath Sheridan standing in a sunlit old church in his grey morning dress? All tall, dark and handsome. Oh, I couldn’t do that...not after your little teenage interlude. ’
    Kate rolled her eyes and sighed in exasperation. ‘I should know better than to call you and Amber. Two hopeless romantics who are determined to overlook a few rather important facts about the brown-eyed heir to the Sheridan empire.’
    She coughed and counted them out on her fingers. ‘Let’s start with the fact that he lives in New York and works in Boston. Not London. Boston. Then move swiftly on to the fact that he thinks I am a loon. And thirdly—and most importantly—the one and only reason that he asked me to this wedding is because I fit the dress I made for the girl who dumped him over the telephone. Do you remember the last boy you dated who was on the rebound?’
    Saskia gave a dramatic shiver. ‘Hugo the horrible stalker. How could I forget—but you seem to have missed something out.’
    ‘His dress sense. All black single-breasted suits. Purrleese.’
    ‘Actually, I was referring to the fact that he is both lustalicious and you like him. You like him a lot and you always have.’
    ‘That’s two things. I liked the old Heath who I met when I was seventeen and he was young and free