From This Day Forward

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I
f Leah McHale had learned anything in her decade as a wedding photographer, it was that Sunday mornings were meant for sleeping in. This was
especially
true when last night’s wedding had involved the bridal party taking tequila shots and insisting they’d pay her extra for photographing the drunken train wreck. Until three a.m.

In other words, Sunday brunch was rarely an option for Leah.

Today, however, Leah made an exception.

Because when a friend who
also
happened to be owner of the most elite wedding planning company in Manhattan asked you to meet her at a trendy West Village hot spot at eleven thirty on a Sunday morning, you didn’t say no.

Alexis Morgan was already seated at the restaurant when Leah arrived, which came as zero surprise, since the wedding planner thought being late should count among the deadly sins, nestled right alongside sloth.

Leah smiled in thanks as the hostess pointed out Alexis’s table on the patio, and wound her way through the crowded mess of sidewalk tables until she reached her friend.

Alexis was writing something in her ever-present day planner, but the second she saw Leah, she gave one of her small, trademark
I have a secret
smiles, shutting the planner before standing for a hug.

“Leah, you look lovely.”

“Um, stop,” Leah said, giving the smaller woman a squeeze. “I’m not one of your brides to be pampered and fluffed. You can tell me the truth. I look tired and I’ve gained seven pounds since we last hung out.”

“Nonsense.” Alexis fluttered her napkin to her lap as they both sat down. “I never know which one I’m more jealous of: that gorgeous red hair or those curves.”

“Yeah, well.” Leah patted her padded hip. “The curves are real, the hair not so much.”

“
Really
,” Alexis said in surprise, leaning forward and studying Leah’s hairline curiously. “That’s not your real color?”

Leah shrugged and took a sip of her water. “It used to be. I was one of those girls that the other kids called carrottop on the playground. But somewhere in my twenties the bright orange decided it wanted to be more of a muddy copper, so let’s just say I, um,
enhance
it.”

“No judgment here.” Alexis lifted a pink manicured finger to her own shiny dark hair. “These roots aren’t my own, either. Prematurely gray even though I’m thirty-three. Tell anyone, I cut you.”

Leah let out a surprised laugh. Alexis Morgan had always reminded Leah of a badass Audrey Hepburn. She had the same slight figure and wide brown eyes as the iconic Hollywood starlet, but whereas there’d been a sweetness to Audrey, Alexis was . . . fierce.

Kind, definitely. Loyal, for sure. But if Audrey Hepburn was the type to soothe you during the teary phase of a bad breakup, Alexis was the “quiet revenge” friend. The one you called when you needed a kick in the pants to get your life back on track.

“Mimosa’s your day drink of choice, right?” Alexis asked, motioning a server over with a subtle lifting of her hand.

The waiter was by their table in seconds. “Mimosa for my friend, and I’ll take a Bloody Mary, heavy on the horseradish,” Alexis said.

“For some reason it always catches me off guard that you’re a vodka-in-the-morning type of girl,” Leah said after the waiter had walked away.

Alexis lifted a slim shoulder. “Let’s just say I get more than enough champagne during the workday. It’s nice to take a break.”

Leah patted her friend’s hand. “It’s a rough life, dear. All that Veuve Clicquot you’re forced to sip with your clients.”

Alexis tilted her head, her long brown ponytail draping over a slim shoulder. “Surely you get the occasional glass of bubbly yourself?”

Leah shrugged. “It’s often offered, but I don’t like the view on the other end of the lens getting blurry.”

Alexis nodded. “Rumor has it you’ve been busy lately.”

Leah cracked her neck and wished she’d had just
one
more cup of coffee before this brunch. “Aren’t we all? I keep thinking that one of these years, the June bride thing will go out of style, but
nope
. I’m already booked three Junes out. What
is
that?”

“Tradition, combined with you being one of the best photographers in the city,” Alexis said as the server placed their drinks in front of them.

“Uh-oh, you’re busting out the trademark Morgan flattery,” Leah teased. “Whatever you called me here for must be big.”

Alexis used her straw to stir her drink before lifting wide brown eyes to Leah’s. “The Kowloski/Shrapner wedding you were working next weekend was called off.”

Leah’s eyes narrowed. “True. Turns out the bride and the best man had a thing. But how do
you
know that? I thought Wedding Belles passed on that one?”

The Wedding Belles was Alexis Morgan’s wedding planning company. Although
company
was perhaps an inadequate term. It was more like an
empire
, and one that Leah was darn grateful to be connected with. She had enough faith in her skills to know she could support herself either way, but it definitely didn’t hurt to be one of Alexis Morgan’s go-to photographers. Not only did it mean more weddings, it meant
big
weddings.

And big money.

“We did turn it down,” Alexis confirmed, taking a sip of her drink. “I didn’t have a good feeling. And it’s a good thing, too, because we ended up booking the Preston wedding for that same weekend.”

Leah shook her head. “Only you could look so perfectly chill about the fact that you’ve been planning the president’s daughter’s wedding.”

“
Former
president.”

“Details, schmetails,” Leah said with a wave of her hand. It was true, the bride wouldn’t
technically
be the First Daughter on her wedding day, but President Preston had ended his second term just within the past year, so in the eyes of the press, Kylie Preston was still very much America’s sweetheart.

“What’s Kylie like, anyway?” Leah asked. “She always seems so sweet and shy on camera.”

“She’s sweet and shy in real life, too, although the shyness fades when she’s around Brent.”

Leah shook her head. “Wouldn’t you just figure that the president’s daughter and the son of the richest man in New York would become college sweethearts?”

An uncharacteristically dreamy look stole over Alexis’s eyes. “It works that way sometimes.”

Leah’s snort slipped out before she could help it. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in true love. She totally did. One didn’t make it to age thirty-one as a wedding photographer without trusting that at least
some
of the couples would make it to happily ever after.

It was just that it never seemed to work that way for
her
. Despite the fact that Leah continued to put herself out there, trying every sort of wretched dating app on the planet and gamely agreeing to every blind date her friends could rummage up, she had yet to feel the
thing
. That elusive combination of wanting to see someone naked
and
wanting to wake up beside him the next morning. For Leah, it was usually one or the other—either she met exactly the type of guy she could laugh with and didn’t feel even a flash of attraction for, or there was a guy who completely revved her lady bits, but with whom she had nothing in common.

Except . . .

That wasn’t
entirely
true. The emotional and physical attraction had overlapped once. But the disastrous consequences of that short-lived fling had been painful enough that she was, well,
skeptical
.

“Do you have any plans for your unexpectedly free weekend?” Alexis asked as she perused the menu.

Leah’s eyes narrowed on her friend. Alexis Morgan might be the queen of poker face, but Leah had known Alexis for close to a decade now. She knew when she was being handled, and right now, Alexis was
definitely
working up to something.

Instead of answering the question, Leah took a sip of her mimosa and waited. When Alexis’s brown eyes flicked up to hers, Leah merely lifted her brows. Waited some more.

With a sigh, Alexis set the menu aside and folded both arms on the table, leaning toward Leah. “I need a favor.”

“Anything,” Leah said automatically, meaning it completely.

Her relationship with Alexis may have started as a business arrangement—they’d both arrived in the city ten years earlier with big plans of pursuing their dream careers. But somewhere along the way, Alexis and Leah had transitioned from
sometimes business associates
to
friends
. Alexis had been there for Leah when she’d needed her, and Leah fully intended to repay the favor any way she could.

“I need you to work the Preston wedding.”

Leah blinked. “The Preston wedding. As in, the wedding of the former First Daughter we were just talking about? The one this weekend?”

Alexis nodded.

Leah sat back, stunned. “Holy
crap
, Lex. That’s not really me doing you a favor, hon. More like the other way around. This would be the opportunity of a lifetime for me. For any photographer.”

“I know, but I still hate asking last minute like this. If it were up to me, I’d have recommended you from the very beginning, but Kylie’s college roommate and her husband are a two-person photographer team, and Kylie wanted to give the opportunity to her friend.”

“So what happened? They had a falling-out?”

Alexis shook her head. “They live in San Francisco and she’s a few months pregnant. There was some complication; she’s been put on bed rest. Nothing serious, just a precaution, but ergo . . . she’s certainly not going to be flying to New York anytime soon, and certainly can’t be photographing a wedding.”

“Ugh. That sucks,” Leah said sympathetically.

Alexis smiled. “This is why I knew you were right for the job. You
get
it. You get people.”

Leah rolled her eyes. “You hardly have to sweet talk me into taking a job that’s likely to be the highest-profile wedding of my career.”

Alexis glanced down at her Bloody Mary, stirring a pickled green bean. “Well there is one tiny thing I haven’t mentioned.”

“Bring it.”

Alexis looked up. “It’s a
huge
wedding. One photographer’s not going to cut it.”

Leah waved her hand. “Oh please. My ego’s not so big I can’t handle a little teamwork. Who else you bringing in?”

Alexis bit her lip, and Leah tensed at the rare unease she saw on her usually confident friend’s face.

Alexis leaned forward and touched her arm. “Leah, you have to know how impossible it is to book one good photographer on short notice in June, much less two, and I’m counting myself lucky because two of the best happened to be available, but . . .”

“But what?” Leah asked, her heart pounding faster as she somehow knew what her friend was trying to say. Knew whose name Alexis was terrified to say.

Alexis’s gaze cut away from hers and fell somewhere over Leah’s shoulder, even as Leah felt the shiver of awareness that someone else had stepped into her personal space.

Alexis glared at the newcomer. “You’re early, Rhodes.”

Leah’s heart stopped, just for a moment. Slowly, she turned around and glanced up into the dark brown eyes of Jason Rhodes.

He pulled a toothpick from his mouth and gave her a slow, sexy once-over. “Hiya, Red. Long time.”

Leah could only shake her head. It
had
been a long time, but not nearly long enough.

Not only was he the one man on the planet she could absolutely, positively
not
work with.

He was the one man who Leah had let in close enough to break her heart.