“I don’t think women do that anymore.”
“Did I mention the sex every night part?”
“That’s only if you handle the honey-do list properly. She’s going to tame you, man.” The thought terrified Kyle.
“Taming wouldn’t be so bad, not if Lissa loves me every day for the rest of my life.”
Kyle gave up and sighed. “You’ve got it bad.”
“Yeah.” Kevin’s grin went wicked as he lifted his pager and studied the message. “Oops, gotta go. Lissa’s boss is heading out for a meeting.”
“So?”
“So Lissa wants lunch.” He waggled his eyebrows. “And I’m the entree.”
“Oh, jeez.” Kyle winced at the image. “Don’t tell me that stuff.”
“I have to. It’s why you have to go back out there right now and do my fitting for me.”
“No way am I going back out there, it’s a bridal shop. A three-story bridal shop filled with…bridal crap.”
“Exactly. You need the little dude with the pins sticking out of his mouth to measure you again. For me this time.”
“Once was bad enough.”
“Oh, come on, a guy can never get fondled enough.”
“No. I still can’t believe I have to wear a tux, too. You’re really going to owe me.”
“I’m begging you, bro.” Kevin waved the pager. “I have wild animal sex on the line here.”
“It won’t work. I’m bigger than you are,” Kyle said a bit desperately because damn it, Kevin was giving him the puppy-dog eyes. He’d never, in all his sorry life, been able to resist the puppy eyes.
Some tough, badass cop he turned out to be.
“Not so much bigger,” Kevin wheedled. “Come on, please?”
“There are people out there.”
“Just a few women from the wedding party coming and going for their fittings, too. Please, Kyle? For me?”
“You want me to wear this tux for another half hour, just so you can get laid?”
“Well, yes.” Kevin beamed. “I’d do it for you, in a heartbeat.”
“You’ll never have to,” Kyle vowed, weakening.
“Then I’ll do something else. Anything.”
“Yeah? Promise me you’ll only get married once.”
Kevin laughed and slapped him on the back. “Deal. Now get out there and take it like a man. I’m going to sneak out back, and get it like a man.”
1
“DRESSES, and anything pink, should be outlawed,” she muttered while pulling on stockings. She hated stockings, but at least she’d purchased the thigh- high kind.
Her own little defiance.
Princess Andrea Katrine Fran Brunner of Grunberg specialized in defiance. At twenty-six, Annie considered herself a grown-up now, but she was a tomboy at heart, and always had been.
Wearing a dress felt like…wearing a straitjacket. She couldn’t run in a dress, couldn’t ride her mountain bike. She couldn’t plop herself down on the beach and watch the waves. She couldn’t climb the highest tower of her castle home and stare off into the neighboring country of Switzerland, contemplating life, wearing a stupid dress.
She couldn’t do anything worth doing.
But it wasn’t up for discussion on this particular day. A bridesmaid had to wear a dress, and as improbable as it seemed, she’d landed herself a bridesmaid position.
She could put it off no longer. With an anticipatory frown, she straightened, took a deep breath, and turned in the tiny dressing room to face the mirror, much in the same way a prisoner would face an executioner.
“Oh, dear God.” She slapped her hands over her eyes.
She shouldn’t have looked.
Ignorance had been bliss.
Oh, man, it was bad. But she was strong, looked life straight in the eye, so she lowered her hands and faced her fate. Pink satin hugged her from breasts to hips, then flared out in ruffle after ruffle, all the way to the floor. Pink, pink and more pink.
She’d landed in hell, wearing Little Bo Peep’s dress.
She actually felt weak just looking at herself, and she sank to the floor. Immediately her skirts, aided by no less than three hoops, flew up over her head.
The words that erupted out of her mouth were not the words of a nice little princess. Blinded by the horrifying fashion nightmare, she tried to shove down the skirts, but it was a feat of fabric magic and couldn’t be done.
Struggling to her knees took all the considerable strength she had, and by the time she managed to get upright again she was huffing and puffing, her irritation at an all-time high.
“So much for losing my misery in champagne at the wedding,” she muttered. She’d need all her wits about her to keep from suffocating.
Breath still heaving, she stared into the mirror. Nothing had changed, except now her skirts were crooked and one breast nearly was exposed. Oops. She righted the bodice and swore the air blue again just because she could, which felt good. But facts were facts.
She was still wearing the ugliest bridesmaid dress to ever grace the earth.
At this point, regrets were useless, and a waste of time. She’d come to the United States, to Taos, New Mexico to be exact, to be in Lissa’s-the daughter of her mother’s best friend-wedding, and that’s what she would do.
Even if she’d rather have her fingernails slowly ripped out one by one.
But this dress. Granted, any dress might have given her some qualms, but she wasn’t unbendable. She’d made the occasional exception. Hadn’t she worn a kilt to Uncle Seany’s eightieth birthday party just last winter? Uncle Seany had appreciated the gesture, even if the press hadn’t. She’d been highlighted as a big fashion
No biggie. She’d spent most of her life being a bit of an enigma to the press, her friends…her family. When all the other good little princesses had been happy wearing dresses and lace and learning their place, Annie had climbed trees and tore her clothing and generally made everyone’s life-but mostly her British nanny, Amelia Grundy-a living hell.
Now, years and years later, the tomboy image had stuck. So she was stubborn, strong willed and tenacious. So she knew her mind and wasn’t afraid to speak it. So she wasn’t likely to catch a husband that way, so what?
She didn’t care.
Okay, she cared. She knew she scared men away with her frankness. With her attitude. Or by just by being a royal. But she was who she was, and no way would she be anyone different.
But she did have to wear this dress. No way around that. And though they’d just laugh their butts off at the sight of her, she wished her sisters Natalia and Lili were right next to her.
“Just get it over with,” Annie told her reflection. Knowing Lissa would ask how she liked the dress, Annie attempted a smile. It came out more like a snarl, so she tried again. The glass didn’t crack. Good sign.
Lifting her skirts in two fistfuls so she could walk, she pivoted, took a step, put her foot down on her own skirt and…fell on her face.
“Damn it.” Struggling, she managed to get up. She grabbed more fistfuls of pink satin and, muttering ungraciously beneath her breath, exited the fitting room without further mishap.
The main room of the bridal store was nearly all mirrors, surrounded by white silk-flower arrangements and built-in closets opened to reveal rack after rack of dresses that Annie wouldn’t have been caught dead in.
When she got married, she-
