StealingThe Bride Read online

  Previous Works

  Santa’s Helper

  Speed Dating

  The Marriage Clause

  Holiday Affair

  Take This Man

  Golden Treasure

  Ho, Ho, Ho and a Dom

  Bet on a Mistletoe

  Making the Man

  Lady Justice

  Trusting St. Nick

  Shot at Love

  Internet Rebound

  Secured Heart

  On the Prowl

  Rescued Mate

  Heated Restraints

  Arrested Heart

  Prisoner of Desire

  Designed for Love

  We Go Together

  A Piece of Me

  The Club

  By Invitation Only

  Cinnamon Buns

  To Have and To Hold

  Stealing The Bride

  Yvette Hines

  A Whispers Publishing Publication

  www.whispershome.com

  Stealing the Bride

  A Whispers Publishing Publication

  March 9th, 2012

  Copyright © 2012 Yvette Hines

  Cover illustration copyright © (Maggie Hall )

  ISBN Not Assigned

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system-except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the Web-without permission in writing from the publisher.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  Published by: Whispers Publishing, P.O. Box 1165, Ladson, SC 29456-1165.

  Dedication

  To my partners in crime, Aliyah and Bridget, thanks for hopping on another ride with me. To Dawn at Whispers, I appreciate your faith in us. To my readers, you all are out of this world and your support amazes me. My husband, the man who accepted and loved me from the beginning, thank you.

  Finally, to true friendship, let’s raise our glasses.

  Chapter One

  “We are officially the last of the Mohicans.” Leya Greenwood raised her martini up, toasting her two best friends sitting at the bar with her.

  “Are you kidding me? Everyone from college is hitched now but us?” Summer Carter circled the edge of her wine glass staring through the large window that separated them from the other wedding reception attendees. Most of who were dressed in bathing suits, splashing in and out of the pool with the bride and groom or lounging in the hot tub. Some people were dancing to eighties and nineties music on a large stone area that extended the length of the pool.

  “That’s right.” Leya glanced at Martha Sanchez now Danner, sitting on her new husband’s shoulders in a white two-piece that had “bride” written on her ass, playing chicken against two other couples locked together in the same manner. Two hours ago, Martha, a college friend, appeared beautiful and happy at her wedding in the downstairs ballroom. Last night at the bachelorette party she told them all Patrick had swept her off her feet after meeting her at a costume party last fall. Now here they were married six months later.

  “Best of luck to them,” Kathryn Maynard mumbled as she sipped from her sunset martini.

  Turning away from the revelers, Leya stared at Kathryn, dressed similar to her, in a one-piece red and gold bathing suit and sarong tied around her hips. The only difference was that Leya was wearing a white tankini and sarong.

  “Come on, Kat. Doesn’t the idea of the right man and a fabulous wedding just make your heart race with excitement?” Leya couldn’t help the joy in her own voice. Since she was a child she’d been collecting an album of her perfect wedding and man. She frequently watched bridal show marathons when she had time on the weekend.

  “Absolutely not.” Kathryn pulled her cherry from her drink and popped it in her mouth, and waving the stem around, she said, “What it does make me think of is how long until I get a call to represent one of the parties.”

  Leya could understand her friend’s perspective. Kathryn was a divorce attorney and had to deal with the worst of marriages every day. As much as Leya loved the thought of “happily ever after,” she knew she would’ve never been able to do her friend’s job.

  “This,” Summer looked away from the people dressed in swimming attire and frowned at the decorations of palm trees, coconuts, leis, and various plastic floating devices turning the Virginia Beach Country Club into a beach setting in March, “would never be my idea of a wedding. Who invites people to celebrate their new life and asks them to come naked?”

  Shaking her head, Leya hid her smile behind her martini glass as she watched the disgusted look on her friend’s face as Summer took a healthy gulp of her wine. Summer was a brilliant dental hygienist, but she was more than a little bit prudish. Not a pious kind of prude who was holier than though, not by a long shot. She just didn’t believe there was a reason to go naked unless a person was about to bathe or have sex, in private.

  The perfect example was the black knit jersey poncho over her one-piece bathing suit that came to her knees was two sizes away from being a muumuu on her. Summer, just like she and Kathryn, kept herself in tip-top shape and definitely wasn’t hiding out of shame.

  “Not my first choice either, Summer. If Martha likes it, I love it. Patrick is not even telling her where they are going for their honeymoon. Ah, a man that plans.”

  “I can do my own planning.” Kathryn downed the last of her first drink and signaled the bartender for a refill.

  “You don’t want a man, Kat?” Leya joked.

  “In my bed, yes. At the altar…uh, no thank you.” Kathryn winked at the bartender as he set her martini on a coaster in front of her.

  The three of them had been eyeing the scrumptious bartender who looked just like Bradley Cooper. He was a yummy specimen of man. However, Leya was not the bartender dating type. Not that she took issue with any employed man; for her it was a matter of not struggling financially. Money had been hard to come by when she was growing up. That was one of the driving reasons she had become a financial analyst. She wanted the benefits of making money and knowing how to keep it.

  To her, being a bartender just said someone was still trying to find a career while pulling in free-flowing money. A lot of them had ex or current drinking/partying issues and were still trying to live the single life.

  She shook her head, Mr. Bradley Cooper look-alike was probably a good lay, but not future material. Leya refocused on her friends.

  “Definitely not with a tropical beach party-themed reception.” Summer was saying as she rolled her eyes.

  “Well, Ms. Planner, when’s the last time you planned somewhere to go?” Leya sipped her drink. “Hell, when is the last time any of us went anywhere?”

  “With my client load, there just isn’t time. If people stop getting divorced then maybe I can have some time for myself.” Kathryn crossed her legs.

  “That’s not going to happen.” Leya sipped her drink.

  “I wouldn’t even know where to go.” Summer leaned back holding her glass in her lap. “I think about taking a vacation sometimes. Especially after the winter we had this year. I thought the icy temperatures would never leave.” She sighed. “Then time just gets away from me and I find myself fifty patients later still not having even researched anything.”

  “Well, the only thing I’ve had tropical was this coco cabanatini,” Leya declared, finishing off the drink consisting of Malibu coconu
t rum, banana liqueur, and other flavors and signaled for another.

  Summer and Kathryn laughed and agreed. Leya smiled; she really did love her two best friends. If she was going to be single and miserable, it was great to have the company of her girls.

  “You know what, Kat and Summer, there’s no telling when Mr. Honeymoon-Planning Man is going to show up in any of our lives.”

  “Forty would be nice.” Kathryn winked and picked up her second drink, balancing her elbow on the back of her other hand in her lap, still not drinking it.

  “Lord, no.” Summer’s eyes stretched wide.

  “I’m with you, Summer, I don’t want to have to blow the dust off my eggs to get started.” Leya picked out the cherry floating in her drink and dropped it in her palm pretending to blow and brush off the dust.

  Summer tossed her head back and laughed, Kathryn snickered behind a small cocktail napkin, tears of mirth welled up in her eyes.

  “Okay, maybe not that long.” Kathryn used the napkin to fan herself.

  “Surely. I’m only thirty-two. I don’t know if I want to sit on the shelf for another eight years. God forbid.” Exhaling a breath, Leya leaned back in her chair and stared at the guests. In a few weeks it would be hot enough in Virginia Beach to dip in the Atlantic. The humidity had already begun to reach record highs. However, even living on the coast Leya could not recall the last time she’d been to the oceanfront. At that moment she’d never felt as if she needed a vacation as much as she did right then.

  Leya dropped the cherry on a napkin and lifted her fresh martini. She took a moment to drink from it then lowering it, she turned to her friends and said, “We can agree we are successful in our perspective careers and that we’ve neglected ourselves. Chained ourselves to our jobs.”

  “Riiight,” Kathryn said, eyeing her suspiciously.

  Summer nodded.

  “I think we also can agree that a man and a honeymoon are not in our near future.”

  “And?” Summer asked.

  “I’m going to take a page out of Kat’s book—”

  “We’re going to get the bartender drunk and take advantage of him?” Kathryn wiggled her eyebrows.

  Laughing, Leya said, “Uh, not that book. The one where we can plan our own trips.”

  “We tried that a couple of years ago and it never worked out,” Summer declared. “Our schedules kept conflicting.”

  “I believe that was the year of the divorce case from hell,” Kathryn proclaimed lifting her glass as if she was toasting the memory.

  “We don’t have to do it together.” Leya set her glass down and leaned her elbow against the bar turning fully to her friends.

  “Alone?” Summer’s brows pinched inward.

  “Yeah.”

  “When?” Kathryn tilted her head and stared at Leya.

  “By the end of the year and all the holidays and family time start creeping in on us again. We all pick a place and take a trip. A nonworking vacation.” Grabbing up her glass, Leya held her glass out to her two best friends.

  “I don’t know. This is just not a good time for me with my caseload—”

  “Come on, Kat.” Leya stopped her friend, knowing that if she let Kathryn head down the road of thinking about her job, she would never agree. “I’m not saying you have to do it next week.”

  “Fine.” Kathryn raised her glass. “I’m in.”

  They both looked at Summer, who was still looking a little unsure.

  “If you pick a place with a beach, Summer, Kat and I will even buy you a shroud for the trip.”

  Laughing, Summer said, “I’m not that bad.”

  Leya and Kathryn eyed Summer’s current outfit.

  “Okay. Okay.” Lifting her glass she tapped it against the other two glasses.

  The high clinking sound resounded around them as they all lowered their beverages and took a drink sealing the deal.

  * * * *

  “I’m not sure this is a good time, Leya. It’s such short notice.” Zelda leaned back in her oversize leather captain’s chair and stared across her smoked glass top desk.

  Leya sat in the chair across from her boss, her legs crossed and her shoulders back, Zelda didn’t respect a lack of confidence. Even though Zelda was giving her the look of disappointment that Leya had fallen for repeatedly over the years, Leya held her ground.

  “I understand that, Ms. Hunter. However, this is time I need to take.” At Managing You financial firm or MY as everyone called it, when you were in management, you had to get any leave or time off approved by the head analyst, Zelda Hunter.

  “Now?” Zelda tilted her head.

  “Yes.”

  “Did a family member die or something? Are you giving a kidney to a sibling?” Zelda’s hands came up in the air as if she were awaiting an offering from the gods.

  Her boss was a workaholic and never took time off. Full dedication to the job was what Zelda believed in. If you wanted to move up in Managing You, then you gave the same commitment to the job. Over the eight years with the company Leya had lived by those same rules, putting her life on the back burner with promises of one day. Well now was her one day and she wasn’t going to push it aside for anything.

  “No, ma’am. I am just taking some personal time. I have enough time on the books to take about four months off.” Leya allowed that news to remind her boss she never took her two weeks of vacation time she earned every year.

  “Four months!” Zelda slapped her hands on the desk and looked as if she was ready to pop up out her chair.

  Leya bit down on the inside of her jaw. She had to keep herself from laughing or smiling at her boss’s reaction. Zelda could be over the top at times, but the woman was a badass financial analyst and Leya admired her greatly. “I will only be taking two weeks.”

  Zelda relaxed back in her chair, sitting quietly. Leya could almost hear the hamster running in Zelda’s brain.

  Sure enough, Zelda came out with her last-ditch effort. “There’s the Dumont conference coming up next week. I was hoping you would lead the seminars.”

  This time Leya allowed the smile to pull up the corners of her mouth. “Stacy has been in training with me for the last six months, and I have faith she is ready to take on the job. Ryan can accompany her to the Hilton for the week. It may do him some good to get more hands on with one-on-one prep and planning.”

  Tapping her lip with her index finger, Zelda eyed her. “So, not only do you want me to send an analyst to conduct the financial seminar without a manager overseeing her, but you want me to allow an inexperienced rep under her?”

  Damn it. When Zelda put it like that it did sound ridiculous, but Leya had to keep confidence in her own intuitiveness. “Yes, ma’am.” Leya lifted her chin and leveled her gaze with her boss. “Even though Stacy has only been in training with me for this portion of our MY’s services, she has been with us for two years and is excellent at her job. The reason the management team voted to move her to the training division.”

  Nodding at her words, Zelda asked, “And Ryan?”

  “I go back to Stacy. She not only will be able to handle the mass training but also provide guidance to Ryan during the individual scheduled sessions. Besides, I’ve monitored Ryan during the last two months and have been getting him grounded in indie management,” Leya finished with. She may have needed this vacation, but she wasn’t fool enough to put Managing You’s reputation on the line.

  That would put her out of a job and she was not having that. Hell no.

  “Permission granted.” Zelda leaned forward and picked up her pen, signing the leave form on her desk.

  When Zelda passed the sheet of paper to her to fax down to HR, Leya let a small sigh flow out her parted lips. Not enough to be heard, but just enough to let her relief out. If Zelda had held her ground, refusing her leave at this time, Leya would have been forced to cancel her vacation arrangements. In the last two months the thought of going somewhere tropical and escaping her work-filled world for two w
eeks consumed her. She worked hard all day, but researched on the Internet at night.

  “Enjoy your time.”

  Rising, Leya turned to head out of her boss’s office.

  “What are you planning to do? Take a trip?”

  Leya turned back around and saw her boss standing behind the desk now. “I don’t really have firm plans. Tomorrow I’ll meet with Monica and ensure she has temporary access to my case files and in the loop of anything that may come up with the team members in my division.”

  “Good. See you in two weeks.” Zelda looked suspicious.

  Zelda was right to thinking she was holding back; Leya was. Walking out of the head analyst’s door, Leya didn’t have any regrets about the lie she had told her boss. She would have everything handed over and covered by the other division manager, but she knew exactly where she was going. She’d be damn if Zelda would track her down to ask a work-related question while she was on her trip.

  Her boss would do it too; she’d found out which hospital Tom’s, the third division manager, wife was giving birth and called him. Zelda had sent a clerk to the hospital with papers for him to handle. Zelda could be too much. Just because she had no life but the company, she thought everyone else should live and breathe in the walls of MY too.

  Those days were going to come to a halt for Leya at five p.m. on Friday, at least for the next two weeks. She’d have to settle for that for now. During the next two weeks she was going to live life by the moment and not plan, strategize, or analyze every move as she normally did.

  It was time for her to Carpe her own diem.

  Chapter Two

  Leya pulled into the long-term parking spot at Norfolk International Airport at eight p.m. Friday night. Turning the car off, she sat there for a moment taking a deep breath. It wasn’t that she was having second thoughts; she wasn’t. However, she was nervous as hell. This was the most spontaneous thing she had ever done.