For Better or Worse (2 page)

“Hey, 4C,” he called, just as she was about to step back into her place.

In spite of her better judgment, Heather glanced over. “What?”

He winked. “See you around.”

His door shut with a firm click, leaving Heather staring like an idiot with her mouth gaping open. She clenched her fists, walked back into her new apartment, locked the door, and got back into bed. But while it was finally quiet, her mind was racing a million miles a minute.

What. In the fresh hell. Was
that
?

Chapter Two

H
ONEY, IS THAT YOUR
third cup of coffee?” Brooke Baldwin asked. Heather's friend and colleague gave her a curious look.

Heather let out a snort. “Try fifth,” she said sourly, topping off her cup from the elegant silver carafe the Wedding Belles always put out for the various vendors on wedding days. Caffeine didn't necessarily make the never-ending chaos of a Saturday wedding easy, but it certainly helped.

“Okay, well at least eat something to soak up all the caffeine,” her friend said, plucking a muffin out of the pastry basket and handing it and a napkin to Heather.

“I'm not hungry,” Heather said, lifting her coffee cup to her lips and turning to watch with a critical eye as some of the florist's assistants scattered the gold glittery fall leaves on the table with less care than Heather would have liked.

The muffin reappeared in front of Heather's face. “Come on. It's delicious. Banana walnut.”

“Ugh, then I
definitely
don't want it,” Heather said, the mention of banana reminding her of the reason she was on her fifth cup of coffee. The adolescent-brained nutcase in 4A.

“What do you have against bananas?” Brooke asked, taking a huge bite of the rejected muffin.

Heather liked that about Brooke—the way she ate whatever she wanted to eat, no apologies. Chocolate, cupcakes, banana muffins . . . all fair game. Sometimes Heather wondered if it was all the sweetness going into Brooke's body that resulted in the constant
output
of sweetness. She doubted it though. Heather was no stranger to chocolate herself, and she had a serious weakness for ice cream, but there was no sweet goodness flowing through her veins.

Brooke Baldwin though—she was good people. Brooke was the newest member of the Belles. She'd moved from California to New York this past January to escape a doozy of an ex-fiancé, and Alexis, the owner of the Belles, had snapped her up to join the team.

If Heather was
all
-the-way honest with herself, and she usually was, she'd been a tiny bit resentful when her boss told her that they were hiring a new wedding planner rather than promoting one they already had.
*cough, Heather, cough.*

Brooke had come on board simply as wedding planner. Not
assistant
wedding planner, as Heather had. It had stung, a tad, knowing that Heather had put in two years of her life with the Belles and had been outranked by a newcomer.

But after about five seconds of looking at Brooke's
portfolio, she knew that the woman had deserved absolutely every bit of the full title. Not only had she started her own company in Los Angeles, but Brooke was good.
Really
good.

It helped that Heather and Brooke had hit it off almost immediately, and it was hard to hate someone as nice and decent as Brooke. Case in point, Brooke had managed to land the hottest, richest bachelor in the city within just a few months of arriving. Seth Tyler had hired the Belles to plan his sister's wedding, and Brooke had been given the plum job as her first assignment. Only,
that
wedding didn't happen once it turned out the sister's fiancé wasn't quite who she thought he was. It hadn't mattered. By then, the billionaire hotel god had fallen hard and fast for Brooke's sunny California girl charm.

They now lived downtown in a gorgeously renovated old building, complete with a built-in bar, a hot tub big enough to fit a family of four, and no wannabe musician neighbor.

Heather would be seriously hating Brooke right about now if the gorgeous blonde wasn't such a good friend.

“How about I go buy you a breakfast sandwich with some protein?” Brooke said around another bite of muffin. “You're looking hangry.”

Damn. She
was
kind of hangry.

“Nah, I'll go get it,” Heather said distractedly as she noted that some of the gold chair bows looked a little crooked and reached out to fix one.

“No way,” Brooke said, washing down her muffin
with a sip from her bottle of water. “This is your gig. I'll get the dang sandwich.”

Heather glanced at her in surprise. “This is your and Alexis's gig, too. We agreed all three of us would tag team this one, since it was last-minute and you were overbooked.”

Brooke shrugged. “Sure, but you've done the most work out of the three of us. It's your vision, babe, and it's a good one.”

“It
is
a good one,” said a third voice from behind them.

Heather turned around to see the founding member of the Belles trio standing behind them, elegant arms crossed, nodding approvingly as she surveyed the surroundings.

Heather rolled her eyes at her friend and boss. “Seriously? How the heck are you pulling off that dress right now?”

Alexis was wearing a sleeveless sweater dress in a shade that could only be described as
nude
. But whereas the formfitting beige sheath would have looked hideous on Heather—and just about any other woman she knew—Alexis looked effortlessly chic.

But then, when was Alexis not effortlessly chic? The Belles' founder was one of those women who managed to channel old-school glamour right alongside modern-woman girl power. She was pretty, yes, but it was more that she was so damn
together
. Her dark brown hair was in a slick chignon more often than not, her makeup always natural and polished, her posture straight out of an etiquette manual.

Alexis glanced down at her dress. “Is it no good? I bought it online, but the model had considerably bigger boobs than me, and I'm a little worried it makes me look like a stuffed condom.”

Brooke choked on her water. “
So
not what I thought you were going to say.”

Heather let out a laugh. That was the other thing she loved about Alexis—the woman had the look of a 1920s film starlet and the mouth of a trucker when it suited her. It had taken Heather a while to figure that out. When Heather had all but thrown herself across the stone steps of the Belles' headquarters after ­seeing a write-up of Alexis Morgan's hot new wedding ­planning venture in
The Knot
, Heather had at first been intimidated as all heck by the other woman's chilly sophistication—though not quite enough not to practically beg that Alexis hire her on as an apprentice.

But little by little, Alexis had loosened up, revealing a woman who was kind, generous, and a little bit badass. Heather wasn't sure at what point they'd crossed from boss and employee to friends, but the two of them got each other, in an opposites attract kind of way. Heather was a little bit noisy, a touch crass when her trailer-park slipped in; Alexis, former country-club darling, was the opposite.

Stuffed condom comments not withstanding.

As though reading Heather's thoughts, Alexis pursed her lips. “I think my lack of recent sexual exposure is starting to manifest.”

“Hear, hear,” Heather said, raising a hand before fixing yet another bow. “I can't remember the last time I've
seen
a stuffed condom.”

“Okay, is nobody else thinking that's a gross visual?” Brooke said. “It makes me think of sausage.”

“Ooh, speaking of sausage . . .” Heather's head snapped up.

“On it,” Brooke said, finishing off her water bottle. “Alexis, want anything from Starbucks? I need to feed Heather before she kills someone.”

“Ooh, get me a coffee, too,” Heather said. “A big one.”

“Only if it's decaf,” Brooke replied, holding up Heather's fifth cup of coffee, which was nearly empty, and looking at her pointedly.

“Decaf coffee is like an
un
stuffed condom,” Heather argued. “Completely useless to me.”

“I give up,” Brooke said, throwing her hands in the air. “If you start levitating later, it's on you.”

Alexis gave Heather a concerned glance. “You didn't sleep? I can recommend a nice tea.”

“Is it a nice tea that will turn my noisy musician neighbor into a nice, quiet accountant?”

“Oh, but musicians are kind of hot,” Brooke said interestedly.

Alexis gave a nod. “They are, rather.”

Heather narrowed her eyes at both of them. “First of all, they're only hot when they're not next door. Second of all, I didn't peg either of you as the musician type.”

“I think every woman is the musician type. At least a little,” Brooke argued.

“Nope.” Heather shook her head. “Your type,” she said, pointing at Brooke, “is tall, dark, and grumpy. And yours,” she said, pointing at Alexis, “is . . .”

Alexis's eyebrows lifted. “Yes? Believe me, I'm dying to know.”

Heather exchanged a quick look with Brooke. “Um, I was going to say wickedly brilliant, a little bit serious, and gloriously British?”

Brooke nodded in enthusiastic agreement as Alexis groaned. “Not this again.”

Heather shrugged. “Hey, you asked. And I don't know why you're complaining. I
just
got done saying how nice a quiet accountant neighbor would be.”

Heather had just described Logan Harris, the Belles' longtime accountant and Alexis's friend-but-supposedly-never-lover. The man was
ridiculously
sexy, especially with his English accent. Objectively speaking, of course. Heather had never been truly interested, because despite her boss's constant ­denials, Logan had always seemed to belong to Alexis somehow.

It's like they
went
together, only neither had realized it yet.

But Alexis was getting that stubborn look that she always wore whenever they brought up Logan in a romantic light.

Brooke changed the subject, probably sensing Alexis's impending shift in mood. “Are you seriously telling us that you don't
kind of
get the appeal of a hot musician?” she asked.

Heather pursed her lips, a picture of Josh's chiseled abs and very nice biceps coming to mind.

“Aha,” Brooke crowed. “Busted.”

“Okay, he's good-looking,” Heather allowed. “But in that too-many-martinis-fling kind of way, not like a throw-your-heart-at-him kind of way.”

“Flings have their place.”

“They do,” Heather said slowly. “But I'm not going to have one with the guy whose mailbox is next to mine. Plus, I'm sort of . . .”

“Tired of flings?” Alexis finished for her.

Heather shrugged. “I don't know. It all just seems like a waste of time, you know? This fruitless wait for The One, who's statistically likely to break your heart. I'm not saying it'll
never
happen for me, I'm just not . . . holding my breath, you know?”

And that, right there, was the heart of the matter. Heather had never been in love. Not even close. Lust, yes. Affection, sure. But she'd never experienced that head-over-heels, lose-your-heart-to-him
love
.

And at twenty-seven, she was
way
past due, and yet she was also all too aware of how disastrous it could be to fall too hard and fast for the wrong type of guy. She'd seen it time and time again with her mom. Not that her mom had dated jerks—well, okay, a couple had been rotten—but Joan Fowler had ­always moved fast. Every guy she'd brought home was “The One,” every guy who'd lasted a week, her soul mate.

Heather's mom was a smart woman. Scrappy, feisty, and street-smart. Except when it came to men. But while Joan Fowler
still
hadn't learned from her romantic mistakes, Heather had. Sometime around the age of fourteen, Heather had learned to stop hoping for happily ever after. For her mother or for herself.

Still, it didn't stop her from fantasizing. Sometimes,
in moments of weakness, she wanted. She wanted the white knight, the white horse, the whole gig.

But even in the
weakest
of moments, Heather knew that too-good-looking musicians were not the guys that smart girls fell for.

“Much as I wish I had the love of your life in my back pocket, the best I can offer up is breakfast meat,” Brooke said sympathetically.

“I'll take it,” Heather said, shoving aside her pity party for a better time. “Bacon, egg, and gouda? And don't forget the coffee.”

“Got it,” Brooke said. “Alexis?”

“No, I'm good, thanks. And before you go . . .”

Heather and Brooke both looked at their boss expectantly. Alexis's smile was slow and victorious. “We got the Robinson wedding.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, followed by a whole lot of squealing, most of it coming from Heather's own mouth.

“Seriously?” Heather said, wrapping her arms around her boss's shoulders and squeezing happily while unabashedly jumping up and down.

Danica Robinson was the biggest thing in socialite culture since the Kardashians broke onto the scene. The daughter of Hollywood's biggest director and an international supermodel, Danica had the stunning looks and unlimited income that made for legendary weddings.