Planning for Love (4 page)

“I, Ben Westcott, do solemnly vow that I believe today is the
happiest day of Tracy’s life.” He took a quick swig, straight from the
bottle.

“Aha!” She knew he’d see the light. No one could resist the
magic of a wedding. Love became tangible, frothing the air as effervescent as
the bubbles he’d just swallowed.

“So far,” he slowly intoned. “To be specific, she’s happy
today. No guarantees about tomorrow, or a month from now, or even a year.”

No camera in sight, and yet still he baited her? Didn’t he get
that she was quite simply classier, not to mention far more tactful, than the
wedding coordinators usually profiled on
WWS
? He
could keep trying to push her buttons, but she refused to give him any more
fodder for the show. There’d be no getting a rise out of her tonight.

“How about we meet in the middle, and agree the bride and groom
had a wonderful day?”

“I can stipulate to that condition.” Ben took another drink,
then set the bottle down right next to her hand. “Thanks to you. It’s really
impressive, the knack you have for being in three places at once. Ollie and I
could barely frame you in a shot before you’d dart off again. Never broke a
sweat, and your smile never wavered. I know, because I watched for it.”

“You smile stalked me?” Ivy didn’t know how to feel about that.
She tugged at the idea from all sides, like trying on a new dress in front of
the mirror. A few reactions popped right up; a little intrigued, a little
embarrassed—and a lot flirty.

“Catalogued you,” Ben corrected. With one blunt-tipped finger,
he traced slowly from her ear to her chin, electrifying every pore he passed
over.

“The beaming, full-of-pride smile you shared with all the
parents. The joyful smile you used with Tracy and Seth. The indulgent yet
chastising smile you bestowed on the groomsmen when you took tequila shots away
from a couple of teenagers. Oh, and the worn out but satisfied smile you gave
Julianna when you told her to go home.”

Now his finger moved along her lower lip. Ivy couldn’t resist
when he pushed the corners up into a smile. It took all her energy not to let
her mouth fall open and her tongue roll out.

“Why did you send Julianna home? Wedding’s not over. You’re
still here, the DJ’s still rocking out the crowd. You’ve got to be just as worn
out as her.”

So true. No matter how many hundreds of weddings Ivy did, the
exhaustion never lessened. Hardened planners simply learned how to ignore it and
work through it. And sleep in the next day. No client darkened their doors the
day after an event before eleven. “There isn’t much left to do. At this point in
a wedding, I’m just killing time until the bride and groom leave. Present in
body, in case there’s a crisis, but in all honesty, not doing anything. No
reason for two of us to stand around doing nothing.”

Ben lifted his finger to tuck a stray wisp of hair behind her
ear. The resulting goose bumps had absolutely nothing to do with the lake breeze
rustling the nearby branches. “Which is exactly why most planners shove the end
of the night close out onto their assistants.”

“Aisle Bound is my company. I won’t make my employees do a task
solely because I don’t want to.” Hmm. Sounded very holier than thou. Nobody
likes to hang out with a martyr. “We do trade off who gets stuck with it. Might
I point out I don’t see Ollie dogging your footsteps. You cut him loose too,
didn’t you?”

“About two songs ago. Kid’s never been to Chicago before. He
wanted to hit a few bars, and one of the groomsmen steered him toward Rush
Street.”

“Nice of you to give him a chance to live it up a little. He’ll
have a blast. And probably a killer hangover tomorrow morning. Will you be
joining him later?”

Ben snorted out his obvious distaste at the idea. “My clubbing
days are behind me. Besides, Ollie hasn’t yet learned that the best place to
pick up beautiful women is at a wedding. It just so happens that the prettiest
one in the whole place is standing right in front of me.” He kicked her shoes
out of the way and moved in front of her, his hard body lined up flush against
hers. “According to my information, we have two songs left until we can call it
a night. Dance with me.”

It was a command, not a request. Still, Ivy knew she had to
offer at least token resistance. She excelled at brushing off polite and/or
drunken requests to drink, to dance, to sit. Men really did view every woman at
a wedding as an all-you-can-grab buffet. Everyone from the caterers to gangly
teenagers acting on a dare to the ubiquitous groomsmen saw her as fair game.
Even, in one extremely awkward situation, the newly divorced father of the bride
who’d offered a hefty tip with a wink and a corresponding pinch on her ass. Ivy
took random hook-up attempts in stride as just another odd quirk of her job.
Sort of like having to wear cocktail dresses and ball gowns to work.

But this time, with Ben’s rangy build pressed against her from
shoulder to ankle, for the first time, the polite, automatic rebuff didn’t feel
like the right choice. Despite her staunch professional ethics, which she’d
always used as the foundation for turning away male attention (after all, you
wouldn’t ask a surgeon to dance right after he took out your father’s gall
bladder, would you?), Ivy did want to dance with Ben. “We’re both still on the
clock,” she protested weakly.

“The guests are a floor below us. Nobody’s been up here since
the ceremony ended five hours ago.” His right eyebrow streaked up. “Just a
dance, Ms. Rhodes. I promise to leave what I’m sure is your squeaky-clean
reputation intact. For now.”

On the dance floor below, the music changed to something slow
and romantic. After ten years in the business, Ivy knew almost every song in the
standard DJ wedding rotation by heart. And this one was a classic, but for the
life of her, she couldn’t remember the name. Or make out the words. A
saxophone’s sultry wail acted like a magnet. Ivy lifted her head to meet Ben’s
eyes, turned almost black in the shadows. The thrumming beat hovered, vibrating
between their bodies.

Ben didn’t wait for her to make up her mind. He grabbed one
hand, and moved her other to rest on his shoulder. His strong hand rested in the
small of her back. Its weight, its heat commanded the entirety of her attention.
Her whole being focused on the five or so inches of skin beneath his palm. A
minute change of pressure urged her closer still. They began to sway to the
rhythm. The movement brushed the stiff lapels of his tuxedo against her breasts.
The satin of her dress wasn’t nearly thick enough to prevent her from feeling
it—and thereby switching from exhausted and dreamy to wide awake and very turned
on in the blink of an eye.

Clothes on, hands not near any overtly erogenous zones, Ben
somehow managed to tingle her from the inside out. Oh, this guy was dangerous.
Walking-a-tightrope-drunk dangerous. Bomb-squad-technician-with-epilepsy
dangerous. Discussing-religion-with-the-in-laws dangerous.

“We fit well together. Makes it easy to…dance,” said Ben, a
suggestive huskiness in his voice. Was it a line or was he serious? Ivy studied
his face, but he stared back, unflinching and unreadable.

“I love to dance.” Lame, horrible response. Ivy pictured
herself taking a pop quiz in Flirting 101 and getting back a paper topped with a
gigantic red F. Belle talked to the Beast while dancing. Cinderella entranced a
prince in a single dance. Why couldn’t she pull it together and flirt with the
very handsome man whose pecs rippled beneath her touch?

“You’re very good at this. Dancing, I mean. Smooth, not jerky.”
As opposed to her conversation style, which had all the smoothness of a
fifteen-year-old grinding gears in driver’s ed. Ivy never let lust cloud her
brain. Romance was what normally spiraled her into speechlessness. Some candles,
a bouquet of divine-smelling flowers, and a man could have her in one fell
swoop. Ben, with his oddly grating manner, didn’t cause any spikes on her
romance-ometer. His hotness, on the other hand, speared off the charts.

“This?” He moved them a few steps away from the low stone wall,
deeper into the darkness. “I mastered the eighth grade shuffle sway
in…well…eighth grade.”

Emboldened by she didn’t know what, Ivy moved her hand up to
curve around his neck. Her fingers raked through the thick, soft hair she’d
itched to touch all day. Its longer than average shagginess gave her more to
play with. The sun-streaked color brought to mind a lion’s mane, especially
since this dance felt almost as dangerous as tripping the light fantastic with a
wild beast. Ben was slick and moved fast. No question that, out of the two of
them, he was the ringmaster. However, she didn’t intend to blindly follow his
lead like a trained bear.

Ivy tugged out of his grasp to join her hands at the nape of
his neck. Everything lined up so that every interesting part of him rubbed
against the corresponding part on her. “
Now
it’s the
eighth-grade version. The only thing missing is the pervasive smell of old socks
that always lingered in our gym.” Great. Sweaty socks? That was how she stepped
up her game? She closed her eyes in mortification. She really needed to stop
talking. About five sentences ago.

Ben nuzzled the side of her neck. “You smell like springtime
and sunshine.”

Oh, he was good. If she hadn’t been working, that remark
would’ve puddled Ivy at his feet. Made her whip out a marker and write Take Me
Now on her forehead. But professionalism (or the tattered shreds of it she
stubbornly clung to) prevailed. Her tired legs rallied enough to keep her
vertical. “It’s Clinique Happy.”

“Hmm. Must be working. I sure feel happy right now.” He
centered both hands in the small of her back, letting their weight nudge her
even closer.

Ivy scribbled a mental Post-it. Tomorrow she’d hit the Macy’s
in Water Tower Place and stock up on a few bottles. And the bodywash and lotion
in the same scent. Who knew this perfume had such a strong effect on men? Well,
she’d bathe in the stuff from now on.

“What about you?” asked Ben. “Having a good time, or are you
too worn out to follow your own perfume’s advice?”

What to say? Admit he’d charmed his way past her defenses? Gush
about the intrinsic romance of their moonlight dance? Confess her fingers
literally itched to rip open his shirt and feel his skin? No. A combination of
nagging professionalism and her nagging conscience (which sounded eerily similar
to her best friend, Daphne) prevented her from taking the next step. Stick to
cool politeness.

“I’ll give credit where credit is due. Dancing with you is a
very nice way to end the evening.”

If his hands drifted even half an inch lower, they’d cross the
line from seductive to groping. Ben didn’t give off a lecherous vibe.
Interested, sure, but not grabby. What a shame. The last time Ivy had even the
chance of a man’s hands anywhere near her ass was exactly one hundred eighteen
days ago. Her disastrous New Year’s Eve date. Which, to put a point on it, did
not include any actual touching. Hard to get so much as a kiss and a squeeze out
of a man who walked out on her halfway through dinner, leaving her with undrunk
champagne and an unpaid bill.

Ivy had sulked and licked her wounds through January and half
of February. But the pervasive spirit of love swirling around Valentine’s Day
buoyed her spirits. Unfortunately, readiness to date again rarely coincided with
the availability and attention of a decent guy. In a nutshell, Ivy had developed
a powerful itch over the last few months. One that Ben Westcott appeared more
than capable of scratching. She could only hope for a geologically unlikely
earthquake to shift his hands.

“Tell me, Ms. Rhodes, what’s your favorite drink?” Ben pressed
her head into the hollow below his collarbone, gently trailing his fingertips
back and forth across the nape of her neck.

The answer required no thought whatsoever. Good thing, since
her thoughts were centered on the flutters of sensation he raised, like
dandelion seeds floating outward on a warm breeze. Bubbly and romantic, she
named the first cocktail she’d legally ordered eight years ago and could never
resist. “Kir royale.”

“No surprise there. It’s classy, old school and sweet. Just
like you. See, you can tell a lot about a person by their drink.”

“Really? What’s yours?” she countered.

“Scotch. Johnnie Walker Green. I got hooked on their Pure Malt
when I worked in London for a while. When they finally started selling it here
as the Green label, I knew I could safely return to the States.”

Ivy pondered for a minute. “I’m not sure it gives me any great
insight. Maybe that you like to travel?”

“You get a point for trying. What sets this scotch apart is the
flavor. As a blend, it’s the sum of all its parts. The taste is creamy and
complex, just like a woman.”

Her heart thudded a triple time beat. Ben oozed sensuality, his
words spinning a web of desire. “Guess I should be careful before I ask about
your favorite food. Our conversation might need to come with an R rating.”

“Get your mind out of the gutter,” he teased. “I asked what you
like to drink because I’d like to buy you one. The wedding will be wrapped up in
less than half an hour. I’m staying at the Cavendish Grand. Pretty sure I saw a
bar right off the lobby swanky enough to mix up a kir royale for you.”

“It’s late.” Even as she said it, the music switched to the
last song of the night. Ordinarily she hated the ubiquitous Donna Summer song.
Her first year as a wedding planner, she’d heard “Last Dance” close out twenty
weddings before she stopped counting. Familiarity certainly breeds contempt when
it came to repetition of a cheesy song that truly wasn’t so great to begin with.
On the bright side, the despised song did signal the end of her long day. Ivy
thought of it as her own personal recess bell. But tonight she clung a little
tighter to Ben, for once not wanting the song to end.