Prologue But First, A Wedding

Terra

My reflection stares back at me from the floor-to-ceiling mirror: she's displeased.

I smooth my hands over my hips—my wide hips, and my big, jiggly ass. The Spanx constricts me so tightly I can barely move, feeling like I'm wearing a wet suit two or three sizes too small. Yet even then, my shit just fucking jiggles. Because there's a lot of me to jiggle.

I mean, I'm not fat, okay? Not that there's anything wrong with being fat, I'm just not. Not exactly.

The last guy I banged said I was "thick fit", whatever the hell that means. Another guy said I was a short stack with a bangin' bod. Yes, he really used the word ‘bod.'

The woman in the mirror is five-three-and-a-half, weighs 175—180 when I'm retaining water—and has bottle-crimson hair in a thick fishtail braid down to my shoulder blades, with both sides shaved to the skin. Silver hoops run in a ladder up both ears from my lobes halfway up my ear, and I've got a moissanite stud in my left nostril. Tattoos cover my arms in full sleeves from wrists to shoulders—nature scenes, mostly. Stylized black sparrows wind around my forearms and fly all the way up in corkscrew around my upper arms, meeting in the middle of my shoulder blades and disappearing under my hairline; in the blank spaces, grayscale wolves prowl, hawks soar, and moose amble. Most of the work is by the same artist, a local prodigy with a penchant for photorealistic tattoos, so anything not the sparrows could be from the pages of Nat Geo. Thick black lines cover my breastbone, clavicle, upper fronts of my shoulders, and the upper swell of my tits in an intricate fractal pattern, the geometry of a spiderweb.

My hips are, as I've said, generous, and that's putting it mildly. My belly isn't exactly flat, but not bulbous or saggy either, just a little…squishy. I have amazing tits. Huge yet firm, nicely teardrop-shaped with wide dark areolae and slightly too big nipples that are crazy sensitive. Men love my tits.

My ass is the problem. It's just too big, too round, too soft and jiggly. No matter how much time I spend in the gym, it never changes all that much. I do squats, lunges, hip thrusts, deadlifts, anything and everything. Lots of reps, lots of weight. Every day is leg day. I try to eat healthy, try to monitor how much I'm eating. And yet…I'm perpetually a big booty Judy.

I've accepted it, for the most part. My ass developed before my tits did, so it's not like I haven't had time to accept the reality, but that doesn't stop me from chasing the pipe dream of having a smaller, tighter butt.

I groan, once more running my hips over my Spanx-cinched waist and hips. I shoot the evil eye at the dress draped over the chair to my left. My problem isn't so much with my body right now as much as it is that fucking dress. It's emerald green, for one thing. I mean, I've got pale Irish skin and an almighty fuckload of freckles, so it compliments my skin well—and my turquoise eyes, for that matter. It's my hair. Red and green? Really? I'll look like Christmas in fucking July.

"I fucking hate you , Emily," I shout.

"You love me," Emily calls from the bathroom. "Quit whining and put it on."

"No!"

"You're my only bridesmaid, my maid of honor, and my witness, bitch." Emily emerges from the bathroom in a lacy white barely-there strapless bra and an equally lacy and barely-there white thong.

She's everything I'm not: tall, svelte, with big but not too big tits and a curvy but not too big ass, naturally Barbie blond pin-straight hair. She's beautiful, sweet, and kind. She has a mom and a dad who are present and married and in love, she has a nice normal nine-to-five job at an office, with a regular paycheck and benefits. Her husband-to-be is good-looking, solidly employed, dotes on her, takes her on a romantic date every Friday night without fail…and fucks her brains out regularly.

But I'm not jealous.

No really, I'm not.

Okay, maybe I am, a tiny bit.

But regardless, she's my best and only friend, and I love the shit out of her. I'd do anything for her. I've thrown down in bars for her, played wingman to get her laid before she met Tom. I've bought her drugs, held her hair while she barfs, and kept her from getting raped at parties.

Emily's hair is done in an elaborate updo, courtesy of yours truly. Her makeup is dramatic, with a smoky eye and damn near perfect contouring. Again, courtesy of yours truly.

She plants her hands on her hips and glares at me. "What the hell are you wearing, Terra Siobhan Connelly?"

I pluck at the tan undergarment. "Spanx?"

She marches over to me and yanks the straps down, roughly stripping the garment off until I'm buck naked. "Why in the name of all that's holy would you put that on? What are you, forty? Fuck no. You are not wearing Spanx to my wedding."

I reach for the twisted mess of stretchy fabric. "I need it. Give it back."

"Since when you do wear Spanx?" She dances out of reach, eluding me with her stupid long arms and legs.

"Since my best friend is getting married to the man of her dreams, and that dress gives me back fat, makes my ass look even bigger than it is, and doesn't contain my out-of-control tits in the fucking slightest."

Emily finds a pair of scissors in her purse because she's that girl who will pull literally anything out of her purse at any given time. Right before my horrified eyes, she cuts the Spanx to pieces.

"Emily Eileen Cummings! That shit cost me a hundred and fifty goddamn dollars!"

"I'll pay you back," she says, throwing the ruined garment on the floor at my feet. "You'll thank me someday. Friends don't let friends wear Spanx when they don't fucking need it !" She marches back across the hotel room to my duffel bag, rummages in it, and pulls out a black thong and matching strapless bra. "Now get dressed. Tom is waiting."

"Goddammit, Emily. Why do you hate me? After all I've done for you." I angrily yank up the thong and angrily shove my tits into the bra. "But it's on you when you look back at the photos and see me looking like a trussed-up emerald trollop."

"Well, you are a trollop," she says, handing me the offending garment. "But you're my trollop, and I love you, and you're gonna be beautiful. You have an amazing body."

I lift one arm and turn sideways: yep, chub rolls hang over the side of the dress at my underarms. I turn around and glance over one shoulder. Huge green ass, like She-Hulk got shrunk to the size of a Munchkin from Wizard of Oz? Check. Back fat bulging in weird places? Check.

I turn to face front. Tits about to pop free if I so much as breathe wrong? Check and check.

I sigh, turn to face Emily, holding out my arms and then letting them slap against my hips. "Well? Here I am. Trussed up emerald trollop."

Emily tugs my bodice up and the hem down, and then cups my cheeks and kisses me full on the lips. "You're hot." She pops me on the butt. "Now help me with my dress. I want to eat cake, and I can't do that till I've gotten married."

I follow her into the bathroom, where her dress hangs from the hook on the back of the door. I pull it down, ease it off the hanger, and then carefully bunch the gown so I can gingerly work the opening over her voluminous updo. Once the hard part is done, she tugs it down over her hips with a wiggle, and I button the forty million tiny little buttons up her spine.

Her dress is vintage, an authentic flapper dress from the 20s, ivory with a beaded fringe hem at a rakish angle around her slim thighs and pearls studded in intricate patterns around the bodice and open back. I fit the stretchy ivory lace headband around her temples, adjusting the huge white dahlia pinned to the lace so it sits above her left ear, and then pull her bangs free to drape around her heart-shaped face.

"You're perfect roaring twenties hotness," I tell her. "Tom will be speechless."

She smiles at me gratefully and then examines her reflection. "You really worked magic on this dress, Terra." She meets my eyes in the mirror. "I can't thank you enough."

"Well, I could have made you a custom gown, but you wanted vintage, so..."

She rolls her eyes at me. "Half my wardrobe is your work, babe. Tom and I wanted a roaring twenties wedding, and you can't fake real vintage, not even you, Boston's most talented dressmaker."

She found the dress at a resale shop and brought it to me four days ago, begging me to work my magic on it. It wasn't in good shape—it had ripped seams, missing beadwork, and was a size and a half too big for her. And it was boring. So, I got to work. I replaced all the beads, took it in to fit her ridiculously slender frame, and then hand-sewed all the pearls on, which took hours and hours of eye-straining, hand-cramping labor. But for Emily, I didn't think twice.

It's just that a custom gown from scratch probably would have been easier. I have the patterns for it, for one thing. But what Emily wants, Emily gets—I've never been able to say no to her, no matter how wacky, wild, ludicrous, or illegal the request.

See, for all that Emily is a good girl from the right side of the tracks, she has a wild streak as deep and wide as my own. Or, nearly. She just doesn't have the street smarts to pull her ideas off...which is where I come in.

I'm a bad girl from the wrong side of the tracks. I'm a Southie chick, born and bred. Daughter of a Boston Irish frame carpenter and an equally Irish hotel maid, I was partying with my dad's friends by the time I was seven. Mom died when I was five, see. Dad lost his fucking mind, and quit trying to take care of me. He couldn't. All he could do was drink himself to sleep and go to work. I got myself ready for school. Fixed my own food, walked to school, walked home, made dinner, did laundry, and cleaned the house.

Fought off bullies.

Fought off Dad's drunk friends. Sometimes, I couldn't fight them off and the inevitable happened. After the third time, I learned to stay away from the house when Dad had friends over.

Except, that led me to hanging with a rough Southie crowd twice my age: teenagers who liked to party hard, do illegal shit, and didn't care that I was a little kid with no business hanging around them.

I learned to fight early, and learned to identify the guys who would cause me trouble even earlier. By the time I became a teenager myself, I was a hardened street rat. I could throw down with the toughest of the boys with fists and feet and bats and chains. I could do keg stands, drain handles of vodka, smoke pot and cigarettes, and fuck like a porn star.

The only thing I ever did for myself, the thing I tried—and failed—to keep secret from my hood rat friends, was my love for clothes. Since I couldn't afford the things I liked, I learned to make them. I'd steal the fabric and materials, figure out the patterns, and make my own clothes; my mom had a sewing machine which I claimed as mine.

By the time I was sixteen, I was selling pieces to my friends or trading them for food, booze, drugs, or a place to crash for the night.

By eighteen, I had a reputation and a steady clientele. Now, at twenty-six, I'm an established name in certain Boston circles. I even made a gown for the mayor's wife for a fundraiser ball last Christmas.

I feel Emily's eyes on me, and I can guess at her train of thought. " What , Em?"

She sighs. "I just wish you had a date."

"I'll walk with Yates, and pose with him for pictures," I tell her, like I have a dozen times already. "I don't do dates ."

"It's not the same."

There's a knock at the door, and Emily glances at me.

"I'll get it," I say.

I hurry to the door, expecting it to be Tom, begging for a sneak peek at Emily…again.

I yank open the door, speaking before I even have it half open. "Tom, for the last time, you can't see her before the wedding. Don't you know anything about—" I cut off, mouth flapping open and closed. "Kaleigh. You—you're here. I thought you had a work event in Florida?"

She's panting, out of breath, and has her bridesmaid dress over her arm. "It got canceled--there's a hurricane or something. Am I too late? Can I still walk?"

I back up and let her in, suppressing a sigh. "No, you're in time."

She looks me up and down, then smiles at me. "You look amazing! God, I wish I had your figure."

I snort. "Yeah, okay, Barbie."

She frowns at me. "What? I do!" She grabs and shakes her A-cup boobs at me. "What am I supposed to do with these little mosquito bites?"

I can't help but laugh. "Eat cake and stop running for five fucking minutes and maybe they'll grow a little?"

"But I like running," she laments. "It centers me."

I sigh, shaking my head in disgust. "You'd better get changed fast. Emily is getting antsy."

"Who is it?" Emily calls, emerging from the bathroom while fixing teardrop diamond earrings in her ears. "Kaleigh! You're here! How?"

"Hurricane," Kaleigh explains, stripping out of her matching PINK tracksuit, revealing perky albeit microscopic boobs she never bothers to wear a bra over, narrow hips, and perfectly chiseled abs any Instagram model would be jealous of.

"Well, hurry and get changed," Emily says. "Terra can fix your hair in a jiffy and then we can go."

In this case, a jiffy ends up being half an hour, because Kaleigh's honey-blond hair is so fine and glossy I can't get it to stay, and I end up using at least five thousand bobby pins.

While Kaleigh puts on her makeup, Emily pulls me aside. "You need a date," she insists. "Yates and Kaleigh will be walking together, now, and it'll be uneven."

I gape at her. "Your wedding is in…" I glance at the clock on the bedside table, "ten minutes ago. How the fuck am I supposed to find a date now ? Just go out and accost a random stranger and hope he just happens to have a tux and nothing to do?"

Emily shrugs. "If anyone can land a date last second, it's you. You don't have to like him, he just has to be willing to walk down the aisle with you, stand there for twenty minutes while Father Patrick blathers on about love and marriage, pose for a few photographs, and then he can go, if he doesn't want to stay for the reception."

"You're a lunatic," I cry. "It's impossible, I tell you."

"'Well first of all, through God all things are possible, so jot that down,'" Emily quotes.

I roll my eyes. " It's Always Sunny quotes can't help you now, Em. It's not going to happen."

That's when she does it. The Look. She widens her big blue eyes at me, quivers her lower lip, and blinks like a cartoon character. " Pweeeeease ?"

I groan. "Fuck! I hate it when you do that." I shake my hands in the air. "Fine! Jesus, fuck, shit, damn. Fine! Fine, you crazy-ass bridezilla bitch."

She throws her arms around me. "Thank you thank you thank you! I love you forever. Now go!" She flicks her fingers at me as if sprinkling fairy dust on me. "Stud-finder, activate!"

I cackle. "You're nuts! I can't guarantee he'll be wearing a suit, but I'll see what I can dig up."

"Boston always comes through," she calls after me as I shove my feet into the matching three-inch emerald green satin heels and exit the room. "Believe in Boston! Boston loves you!"

I snag my purse on the way out, making sure I have my phone, wallet, and room key, and then head for the lobby.

I scan the lobby first: Old guy, old guy, old guy...fat guy, ugly guy, Russian mafioso in an ADIDAS tracksuit...douchebag with a popped collar, Pharma bro in a three-piece Brooks Brothers suit muttering into a bone conduction earpiece, and…Yates.

At the bar in his tux, sipping a Manhattan and hitting on the bartender.

Classy, Yates.

I roll my eyes and ignore him, heading out onto the street. "I can't believe I'm about to ask a random stranger to go to a wedding with me," I mutter to myself. "Bitch better love me somethin' hard."

I scan the street. I assess my options from the sidewalk in front of the hotel, dismissing the vast majority of the men who pass me by.

And then, I see him.

He's sauntering down the sidewalk toward me, wearing a tailored black suit with a white button down, no tie, three buttons undone to reveal a tan, muscled chest. His hair is coarse and blond, buzzed on the sides, short on top, and swept back and to one side. He has a thick keloid scar on his temple—it looks like it almost claimed his eye. It gives him a rough, almost sinister air.

He's the hottest fucking human being I've ever laid eyes on in my entire godforsaken life.

His jawline rivals the Cliffs of Dover for craggy, angular ruggedness. His eyes are Kelly green, scanning the sidewalk with hawklike intensity.

Those eyes land on me, stutter, pause, flick away, and return. Jump to my chest, lingering. An appreciative smirk colors his lips, and then his gaze continues his blatant perusal of my body.

My body responds—instantly and intensely. My nipples tighten, my skin constricts around my muscles and bones, my pussy goes hot and damp, dripping desire down the inside of my thigh.

Jesus. What is this? Men don't affect me like this, ever. Men don't affect me, period. They fall into two categories in my life: fuckable, or not fuckable. If you're fuckable, you get a one-time pass, and then you're gone. If you're not fuckable, either because you're married, ugly, or have some affliction, then you're of no use to me and may as well be a bug crawling across the floor.

This man falls into a heretofore unknown third category: What The Actual Unholy Fuck.

As in, what in the actual unholy fuck was God thinking when he created this specimen, and why did He have to inflict him upon me NOW?

The Perfect Male has stopped walking three feet away from me. He shoves his huge, hard, powerful-looking hands in his trouser pockets, rocks back on his heels, and shoots me a grin that I guarantee you has melted his body weight in panties off of unsuspecting women's derrières before he ravishes them with that wicked looking mouth.

He's a few inches over six feet tall and built like Adonis. You could land airplanes on the shelf of his broad, straight, massive shoulders. His arms strain the sleeves of his suit jacket. His neck features thick cords of muscle.

He's got heavy stubble on his jaw, not quite a beard, but more than just having not shaved in a few days.

He has dark circles under his eyes, and the streetwise trauma victim in me, the part of me that can read people like books, whispers that this man knows pain. He knows suffering. He's seen and done the worst this life can throw at him and he's still fucking here.

He's staring down at me like a death row inmate looking at his last steak dinner.

"Mornin', beautiful," he drawls. "Looking for something?"

I stare back up at him—he's perfect, in every way. And something inside me is screaming at me.

The content of the screaming is what's confusing.

Half of me is screaming DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! Not because I get a sense of threat from him, but because something in my soul knows he'll be dangerous to me.

Stay away. Do not engage. Run, Forrest, Run.

The other half of me wants to climb his body like a tree and ride his perfect, rugged, beautiful, lickable face until I've got beard-burn on my thighs.

The latter is the reason for the former. Because, I fear, once I start riding, I can already tell I won't want to stop. Which just doesn't work for me.

He snaps his fingers in front of my face, yanking me from my staring reverie. "Hey. You with me down there, gorgeous?"

I shake my face and bat his hand away, and not gently. "Get your hand out of my face, you damn tree."

He just smirks, a cocky little half grin that makes my nipples turn to glass cutters. "You're standin' here lookin' like you're lookin' for something." He shrugs. "Just offering my services. Gallantry ain't entirely dead, you know." He cuts those Kelly green eyes down to mine. "So. You lookin' for something?"

I sigh. "Yeah."

I pinch the bridge of my nose in frustration because I just know this isn't going to turn out well, but I promised Emily, so…

"You."

"Me?" He quirks an eyebrow. "Come again?"

"Gotta come first to come again," I quip, the sarcasm splurting out of me unbidden, as is my wont. "And your smile isn't that pretty."

He laughs, and the genuine humor lightens his features, making him that much sexier. "All right, I'll bite. What do you mean, you're lookin' for me?"

"I need a date for a wedding."

He frowns, and even a frown only makes him hotter. "When?"

"Now."

"Now? Like now now?"

I roll my eyes. "No, genius, yesterday now. Tomorrow now. Yes, now. Like right now."

"Um."

"You got a tie with that getup?"

He tugs a slim black tie from his suit coat pocket. "I do."

"You're not marrying me, so don't get your hopes up."

I grab the tie from him, snag his lapels and haul him down to me, looping the tie over his neck. I pop his collar and knot the tie in short order, smoothing his collar down.

I pat his chest. "There ya go, handsome. Come on."

Belatedly, he straightens. "Um..."

I grab his hand and haul him toward the hotel. "Come on, you big weenie. It'll take half an hour. You walk down the aisle, listen to the priest, pose for some photos, and you can back to your life. You wanna stay for the reception, be my guest. Or, rather, Emily and Tom's guest since it's their wedding."

He lets me pull him into a walk, but hauls me to a stop once through the doors. "Wait, wait, wait. Hold up."

I huff, turning to face him. "What? Scared of weddings? Trust me, I won't be catching the bouquet. You've got nothing to worry about."

"No, it's not that."

I give him an impatient look and a shake of my head. "Well then? What? Spit it out, pretty boy."

"Jesus, you've got a mouth on you."

I shoot him a droll look. "Yeah, and under other circumstances I'd show you what else I can do with my mouth besides talk mad shit, but we don't have time. And trust me, that's your loss—I can suck a marble through a drinking straw. Now. If you've got something to say, say it. We gotta get my best friend married so I can get good and trashed."

He blinks down at me, absorbing what I've said. "Marble through a drinking straw? Fuck me."

"As I've said, no time. Maybe after, if you get your shit in gear. I know a good broom closet."

He laughs, scrubbing a paw through his hair, making it messy and so sexy my thong sizzles. "I just want to know your name."

"Oh." I laugh, sticking out my hand. "Terra Connelly."

"Terra. Cool name." He takes my hand and shakes—to his credit, he squeezes pretty hard, not crushing but also not acting like I'm a delicate little flower petal. "Saxon Cabot."

"Saxon? Like the dudes who invaded England?"

He nods. "The same."

I give him a once over. "It suits you."

I grab his hand again and haul him to the elevators, stabbing the button for the third floor, where the conference rooms are.

Abruptly, I feel Saxon go stiff as a board next to me.

I glance up at him and see that the blood has drained from his face, leaving him looking like a Roman statue. His eyes are fixed on a point dead ahead--the doors of the hotel.

I follow his gaze and see four men standing in a line abreast. They're all dressed like Saxon, in black suits with no tie. These men, however, radiate threat. Death lurks in their cold, dead eyes.

"Fuck." His voice is low, hard. "Fucking fuck. Fucking goddamn motherfucking shit."

"Friends of yours?" I ask as the doors slide closed.

He doesn't answer for a long time. "No."

I huff a sarcastic laugh. "No shit, Sherlock." I eye him. "Who were they?"

"Very dangerous men who want me dead."

"Well, that's fun."

He looks down at me. "No. It's not."

"Jeez, duh. Take a joke."

His green eyes are ice-cold, furious—the kind of fury that masks outright terror. "No, you don't understand, Terra Connelly. They want me dead. They wanted me dead years ago. And now they've found me."

"So, hide?"

"Not that simple."

"Sure, it is. It's a big world. Toss your phone, pay cash, and go live in the Maldives or something."

"You don't understand," he repeats. "They saw you. With me."

"And?" I look up at him, a certain discomfort taking shape in my gut.

"And…they will kill anyone and everyone even remotely connected to me. Your mom, your dad, your friends Tom and Emily, your dog, your hamster, your grandma. And they won't just shoot you to make a point to me—they'll torture you and send me the video."

"Well Jesus fucking Christ on a bicycle!" I shout. "What the fuck did you do to piss them off that bad?"

"I refused to kill an innocent woman."

"Who?"

"Camilla Marccione."

"Oh. Fuck."

Camilla Marccione is the daughter of the most dangerous Italian mafia gangster on the entire East Coast. She's heir to that fortune, and by all reports, takes after her father in terms of cold-blooded calculation.

"Who would want her dead? Who could…And why did they want you to kill her? Shit, I have a million questions."

"All you need to know is that you're up shit's creek with me now."

"I don't like shit's creek," I say. "It stinks." I glance up at him. "Do you have a paddle?"

"A paddle?"

The doors open and I haul him toward the conference room where the wedding and reception are taking place.

"Yeah, big boy, a paddle. Since we're up shit's creek and all?"

He laughs, a bark of amusement that seems to burst out of him despite his best efforts. "Oh. Maybe."

"Maybe. Reassuring." I yank him to a stop outside the doors; I shiver since the hotel is kept at a damn near Antarctic temperature. "Well, since you got me in this mess, can you at least protect me from the four horsemen of the apocalypse?"

He stares down at me. "Those four aren't the problem."

"Then what is?"

"The rest of them."

"How many are there?"

"A fuckin' lot."

I run my eyes up and down his huge hard frame. "Well, you look like you can handle yourself." I pat his chest. "Come on. Let's get Em hitched, and then we can figure out the rest of the plan."

"You need to run."

"Run?"

He gestures toward the exit sign marking the stairwell. "Yes, Terra. Run. Literally." The elevator dings. "Now. Run now ."

I hesitate.

He growls like a cornered bear and spins around, jogging back toward the elevator.

Holy shit, he's fast. His gait is that of a predator, a smooth, quiet lope.

The elevator doors hiss open, and a black-suited figure emerges, followed closely by three more.

Each one has a silenced black pistol in his hand.

Oh.

Fuck.

Big time fuck.

Saxon explodes into a fury of motion.

He grabs the nearest man's wrist, twists it around, and his fist descends like Thor's hammer, cracking the joint inside out. He strips the gun away, jams the barrel against the man's thigh and pulls the trigger twice. The man falls, screaming.

Exactly one eye-blink has elapsed.

Next, Saxon drives his knee upward, catching the next man in the kidney. The gun pops again, sounding somewhat like someone cracking open a jar of spaghetti sauce, but a little sharper. The man falls, holding his stomach.

I've blinked twice.

Saxon's foot lances out, turning the third man's knee in sideways, and then he spins around on one foot and his heel cracks against the man's skull; it sounds like someone threw a watermelon against the wall. Another pop: a bloodstain erupts on the third man's thigh.

Four: Saxon slashes the barrel of the gun against the last assassin's throat, causing him to stagger backward, gurgling and gasping. POP ! He drops, clutching his stomach.

Thirty seconds, at the very most, have elapsed since the elevator dinged.

Saxon shoves the silenced pistol into his waistband, under his jacket. He grabs a second pistol and places it next to the first, then rummages in pockets until he finds four spare magazines; these he puts in his jacket pockets, two on each side. Last, he bends, grabs a man by the shirt front and tosses him, a little too easily, into the elevator—it's all happened so fast the elevator hasn't even closed yet.

He throws all four men into the elevator and then presses the button for the top floor.

He turns to look at me, and he's not even winded. "Let's go."

I just stare at him. "You're like John Wick." I frown at him. "You didn't kill them."

"I took a vow to never kill again," he explains, crossing back to me and grabbing my hand. "Now, come on. We've got to get scarce."

I haul back as hard as I can. It's like pulling on a mountain, but he allows me to pull him to a stop. "I'm not missing Emily's wedding."

He growls. "Did you miss what just happened?"

I shake my head. "Not a chance. It was hot as fuck. You scare me, but it's hot." I pat his chest. "Listen, hot shot, Emily is my ride or die. I don't care if all the orcs in Mordor are after you, and by unfortunate extension, me. I'm not missing Em's wedding. No way, no how, not happening. As soon as she says I do and kisses Tommy, we can run like Thelma and Louise, okay? But I have to be at her side when she gets married. It's not up for debate."

"You've got a screw loose."

I burst out laughing. "What was your first clue, Hercule Poirot?" I pull him back to the conference room doors, humming Pachelbel's Canon. "Bum bum bumbum …"

"Fuck," he snarls, jerking his hand away and straightening his jacket and pawing at his hair so it's neat again. "Come on. Let's get this over with."

I shake my head, hopping up to grab at his head. "Get down here."

He frowns, but crouches. "What?"

I mess up his hair again, plucking at this strand and that one, until it's artfully messy once more. Then I tug his tie a little loose, opening the top button.

"Good," I say, patting his chest. "Now we can go."

"Fuckin' wacky ass nutjob, you are," he mutters, but I hear amusement and respect in his voice. "Anything else?"

I huff into my hand and then wrinkle my nose up at him. "Got any Tic-Tacs?"