A year ago, twenty eight year old Lisa Armstrong Reed 'princess of Oakenville', lost her husband, Keith. And now, she just got invited to her aunt's wedding at Miami. Determined to forget her dead husband for good, Lisa takes a chance at a holiday and hops into the next available flight to the Florida city, in anticipation for a well-deserved vacation. What she doesn't expect is to have her hotel room next to Keith's handsome brother for whom she harbours a yearlong crush! Damien Reed 'kinda kissed' his brother's wife last year, and she shut him out almost immediately. Now with his brother dead, and Lisa miraculously turns up as a bridesmaid at his friend's wedding, he's more than prepared to let her know how he feels about her. In the midst of a mysterious looting, stalkers and greeting cards claiming to be from Keith, will the two finally find a happily ever after together or is a second chance at romance too hot to handle?
View MoreDamien's POV I wrench the door open to find Dad's large frame filling up my doorway with the most exasperated frown I've ever seen on him since I dropped out of med school. "Hey Dad." He stalks in like my apartment is just another extension of his house, and halts in the middle of my living room to take in the decor. I imagine him scanning the room for even a promise of architectural failure, as he has learned to associate my name with everything unsuccessful. "How'd you know I rented a condo out here?" I try to find out. "That is barely the issue," he huffs, fingers flexing around his briefcase. His gaze alights on the couch indented with a proof of passion. Lisa's lacy red bra is lying at the foot of the couch. Dad narrows his eyes. Bummer. "Is that a woman's underwear I see?" I stride over to pluck up the undergarment and hide it under a fuzzy gold throw pillow, alongside a grin. I contemplate a suitable punishment. "Technically. Come on Dad,
Lisa's POV The massive condo building is all luxurious concrete and sleek glass structure, but what claims the breath in my lungs is the colossal, gleaming windows with the ocean view that gives the living room an airy sense of freedom. Tall, potted plants nestle in sleek pots, their green leaves popping against white walls like occasional pools of crystal water in a dreamy vast oasis. The living room is wide and open like the Miami breeze. This much light can very well cure twenty people's seasonal depression. I feel my own mood begin to brighten. "I had a feeling you'd like it." Smug as the cat that got the cream, Damien stands by the door with Willow asleep in his arms. "Wow. You have a nice place. Really beautiful." "Newly rented, barely been lived in, but yeah, thank you." I flop down on a tan leather sofa that's angled towards the window. "You used a designer?" "Guilty." He wanders down a hall, but retraces his steps and peeks around the
Lisa's POV Five Months Later"We're here." Damien kills the engine of his rented Prius at a parking spot before the Miami police department. "Yeah." I pat down Willow's hair at the backseat and stare at the building. Selena's being detained somewhere within these walls, recently taken into custody for the murder of Garth Whitehorse. A fifty thousand dollar payment was traced from Selena's to a hotel employee's bank account, who confessed to poisoning the food she took up to Garth and Mom's suite on the former's command. "You know I still can't believe it." Damien says from behind the steering wheel. "Even after that scene Becca caused at their wedding, I still couldn't." "Me too." Willow purrs, busy with a pretty plastic doll Damien got her from a store on our way here. Pain, raw and palpable, clutches my heart at the thought Selena was just as plastic with me all this while. "I don't even know what to feel about Wade." "You should go in. I'll watch Wi
Lisa's POV Curtis hauls me by my upper arm into a dark room at the ground floor of an apartment building, silent but for the steady hum of a refrigerator, and dumps me into a leather sofa that squelches as I sink into it. He flips a switch, and the room is suddenly illuminated. I lift a hand to shield my eyes from the momentary flash. "Believe me Lisa, I don't want to hurt you." Curtis stalks around to the camera resting on a tripod stand in front of me, his large form nearly taking up all the space in the tiny living room. He fiddles with the digital camera. "As long as you cooperate, you won't even have to spend the night here." I swallow, and observe the austere decor of the room. This place is empty, save for the sofa I'm sitting on, a center table, the camera, and a chair that has apparently seen better days against the wall behind Curtis, just by the side of the single, closed blinders in the room. "What do you want from me?" "Oh. Nothing challenging,
Lisa's POV The moment Selena offered me champagne, I was immediately back in the spa washroom, with Tiffany's warning reverberating in my head. I wanted to disbelieve her, wanted to tell her she was wrong about Selena. I found it ridiculous even, that my first friend with whom I played house and fantasized happily ever afters with, would hurt me. Maybe the malicious glint I saw in those beautiful blue eyes was just in my head, and the way her hands moved to throw the drink on me was only a figment of my imagination. Jeremy's bouquet toss announcement booms out of the speakers as I nudge my way past bodies, some wielding cameras and phones, others converging around the dancefloor for the sheer thrill of entertainment. Now if only I can find the nearest restroom. "Hi dear." I approach a waiter heading back with an empty silver tray in his clasp. "I was wondering if you'd show me the nearest restroom…" "Over there, miss." He gestures to a door by the far right
Damien's POV I tug at the pink tie Selena must have insisted to match the bridesmaids' dresses ( and Jeremy said made us look like sissies) to allow me a less constricted throat, waiting for the bridesmaids in the foyer at the entrance to the dining room for the wedding reception, alongside Jeremy, Matt, Glenn and Wade, after completing a torturous, wedding photo session. The atmosphere was terribly glum for a wedding. The guests, even the hotel staff too, seemed to lose a substantial, exuberant part of their spirit. Well, a guest being mysteriously poisoned in one of their hotel suites is bad for business. The others had needed a great deal of convincing to allay fears for their own safety, at least after the wedding is over. In spite of all this, the groom is awfully chipper. This certainly is what it feels like to finally marry the woman of your dreams. " I wonder what's taking them so long." Glenn inserts a finger inside his collar to adjust the pink neck garment. " Even
Selena's POV "Hey gorgeous. Look at me, will you?" I adjust the trailing fabric of my figure-hugging strapless white lace wedding dress, drop one shoulder, and aim my seductive moue at Harry's lens, lips partly open, sex and sin in my expression if not in my heart. Clicking his digital camera shutter, Harry, a fashion photographer at JK magazine, prances around in patent leather shoes, snapping shots from different angles. I twist around to look over my shoulder, lashes lowered. The lace of my dress shimmers with a thousand stones sewn into it. I miss this. Those days in the fashion industry as a rising model. The shoots in Italy, New York City and Paris. Striking a sexy pose before cameras. The thrill. I could, always can, enchant the male species through a single, seductive photo. I was wanted. Admired. Desired. That was the moment of my life I felt most powerful. But I was still painfully naive. " Darling, what's on your mind?" My head jerks up.
Damien's POV Within hours after the rehearsals, everyone's already streaming into the chandelier-lit, spacious dining room, drifting towards their respective places at the tables. I locate with ease the eight person round table reserved for bridesmaids and groomsmen near the window overlooking the grounds, thanks to Matt's muscle-bound giant form. He is gently pulling back a seat for Leigh to lower her butt onto. " Damien, hi," Tiffany greets, bubbly as champagne, immediately I stride up to them, stunning in a low cut red dress. " Good to see you." I air kiss both of her cheeks while at the same time scanning the table for Lisa. Glenn sits with a scowl between Leigh and Jeremy, absentmindedly eye-sweeping the surrounding people and decor. He catches me staring, and holds my gaze for a beat before looking away, scowl deepening. He reminds me of a miffed dog. I suppress a laugh. Earlier I had the utmost pleasure of shuffling around the name cards at the table, sit
Lisa's POV The wedding party gathers around a gazebo across from the hotel's manicured lawn, a ten foot diameter wood dais with a cone-shaped roof supported by four round columns, framed against the backdrop of a blue sky awash with late Friday afternoon sun, friends and family of Wade, and a sprinkle of Selena's acquaintances who had recently arrived and are now settled into the hotel for tomorrow's event. We didn't exactly know any family aside from Mom. But it will be a miracle if she's truly here. She was barely present at my own wedding. I scan the cluster of well dressed men and women for a familiar face. Leigh, in a soft cream slip dress that showed off her toned limbs, stands dwarfed near Matt as they both converse with a brownskinned, middle aged and expensively dressed couple holding champagne flutes by the stem, alongside a slender woman I suddenly feel I've met before. It isn't until I see Wade approach from the corner of my eyes that I finally realize the rese
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