Always a Bridesmaid Read online

  “I…”

  She’d never seen herself as a wedding planner, but it was a good job. She could do it for a few months. Figure out what she really wanted to do.

  But she’d be working for Tori and Sidney. Totally dependent on her friends. It would change things. And so many things were already changing.

  “Take some time to think about it,” Sidney recommended. “We didn’t mean to just spring it on you. We’ve been discussing bringing on extra help for a while.”

  She’d be in the loop again if she worked at Once Upon a Bride. But was it what she wanted? “You know, I appreciate the offer, but I think I’m going to stay at the bakery. At least for now. But I think I know someone who might be just what you’re looking for, if you’re interested. Do you remember Madison? Who used to work at Common Grounds?”

  “I’m sure she’d be great,” Sidney said, quickly moving past any mention of Common Grounds like she was uncomfortable with the reminder of Parv’s failure. “But don’t decide right this second. Just give it some thought.”

  “Sure,” Parv agreed, though she couldn’t imagine changing her mind. If she hadn’t wanted to be Max’s personal baker, she wasn’t likely to decide to be Sidney’s personal slave. Speaking of… “What’s Max up to these days? I never see him anymore since I’m no longer his caffeine source.”

  Sidney grimaced, propping her glass on her stomach where she was stretched out on Tori’s sofa. “I haven’t seen him either. He’s sort of fallen off the grid since all that stuff with our dad. I think he’s even started sleeping at his office.”

  “What stuff with your dad?” Parv asked, feeling completely out of the loop.

  “Didn’t I tell you? He got married. To a woman younger than me who’s currently seven months pregnant which his child.”

  “Whoa.”

  “Yeah.” Sidney lifted her glass in a mocking toast. “My father. Class act. He didn’t even tell us. We found out about it when a tabloid broke the story.”

  “Damn.” Poor Max. He had a strange enough relationship with his father already without this in the mix.

  “I should be offended he didn’t ask me to plan the wedding, but part of me was almost relieved he turned out to be such a cliché. I don’t have to care about what he thinks anymore.”

  She said it, but Parv knew Sidney still cared what her father thought. No one could get rid of that programming so easily.

  “On the plus side, her dress was gorgeous. Sort of Grecian and flowing. So at least he didn’t embarrass us by marrying someone with no style.”

  “Have you thought about what kind of dress you want?” Parv asked, redirecting the conversation toward less turbulent waters.

  “Oh my God, didn’t I tell you?” Sidney gasped—a phrase that seemed to keep echoing around Parv everywhere she went. “Tori and I found the perfect dress last week. We weren’t even looking, really. Not for me, anyway. Just some preliminary scouting of boutiques for the next season of Once Upon a Bride and there it was. Discontinued, but exactly my size, and perfect. Hang on, I have a picture.”

  Parv didn’t move as Sidney scrambled to figure out where she’d left her phone.

  She’d never been the kind of girl who dreamed about wedding dress shopping. She’d hated being dragged along to store after store when her sisters bought their dresses. She’d never wanted to play dress up.

  So it was something of a surprise how disappointed she was that Sidney had bought her dress without her.

  Girls’ Nights may be back, but she was still out of the loop.

  * * * * *

  Parvati kept busy at the bakery as Christmas approached, but the hours were still so much shorter than she was used to that she didn’t know what to do with herself. She spent more time with her family—which was actually less stressful than she’d anticipated—and threw herself into the holidays, as much as her limited budget allowed. She marathoned Sex in the City—and spent hours pondering whether she was a Charlotte or a Carrie and whether it was possible to turn herself into a Samantha by sheer force of will.

  And she missed Max.

  Sex in the City probably hadn’t helped that. He reminded her of Mr. Big—even though she’d never actually dated him and his only physical similarity to Chris Noth was the dark hair.

  She called him once, in a moment of weakness, missing the friendship they’d had before she’d screwed it up by accidentally kissing him. He didn’t pick up—which was probably for the best—and she’d left a rambling message wishing him happy holidays.

  Sidney and Josh were jetting off to the Christmas wedding of one of the other women from Sid’s season of Marrying Mister Perfect and Parv would be heading up to Monterey for the holidays so they had their Girls’ Christmas early—which only served to highlight for Parv how much life had changed in the last year.

  Last year Sid had just gotten back from Marrying Mister Perfect, but the show hadn’t aired yet. They hadn’t yet known that she’d left the show because she’d fallen in love with Josh instead of Mr. Perfect Daniel. Nick hadn’t yet come back into Tori’s life. Once Upon a Bride had been struggling almost as much as Common Grounds, but they’d hung in there together. Just been three single girls, making it work.

  And now everything had changed.

  “Do you have plans for New Year’s yet?” Sidney asked as they passed around presents. “Elena’s throwing a party. You should come if you don’t already have somewhere to be.”

  Elena. Another of the Suitorettes from Sidney’s season of Marrying Mister Perfect. And another woman who’d recently met and married the love of her life. Though in this case the love of her life was one of Max’s bodyguards.

  “Will Max be there?”

  “Probably not. He usually has to work New Year’s. Lots of celebrities going to events and looking for extra security. I’m not sure how Adam managed to get the night off.” Sidney looked up from the silver bow in her hands, frowning. “Why do you ask?”

  “I haven’t seen him in a while,” Parv hedged. “And somehow the idea of being with you and Josh and Tori and Nick and a bunch of other couples as everyone is kissing in the New Year without having anyone to kiss myself lacks appeal.”

  Sidney arched a brow. “You were planning to kiss Max?”

  Parvati realized her mistake as soon as she saw Sidney’s expression. “Of course not. But he has all those hot bodyguards. I figured one of them is bound to be single.”

  “I think half of them are single—but most of them will be working that night. Don’t worry. We’ll find you someone to kiss. What about one of Josh’s frat brothers? They’re going to be in the wedding party. I know at least a couple of them are single.”

  And now she was a charity case. Her friends were officially struggling to find people willing to kiss her.

  “I don’t need you to find someone to kiss me.”

  “What about one of your internet dates?” Tori suggested.

  Parv cringed at the thought. “I don’t do internet dating during the holidays. There’s too much pressure. Everything is too loaded. Everyone’s trying to force a love connection. When you take a first date to your office Christmas party or to a New Year’s Eve bash there’s an expectation. Everyone’s desperate over the holidays. The family pressure, societal pressure, everyone taking stock and realizing that they’re another year older and still haven’t found the person they want to spend the rest of their life with…”

  And for Parvati, it was a time for realizing that in the last year the last two single people in her life had paired off, leaving her more alone than ever.

  She missed Max.

  Which was her only excuse for trolling her online dating profile at three o’clock in the afternoon on New Year’s Eve when she damn well knew better.

  She was tired of another New Year’s with no one to kiss.

  She’d walked by Common Grounds earlier—or what had been Common Grounds and was now a Christmas ornament store for one more week. She hadn’t gone to wallow.
Just to remember. To put it to bed, in a way. To close the door on the last year of Common Grounds.

  New Year. New beginnings.

  This year she was going to be more than her work.

  When she’d arrived home, it had been with new purpose—and even though she knew internet dating over the holidays was a minefield, she still wanted to go into the new year with new hope, so she began browsing.

  She’d only been online for a couple minutes when an invitation to chat icon popped up, pinging cheerfully. She hesitated—remembering with distinct unease the time she’d chatted with the man who’d wanted to fix her up with his dad and himself—but this year she wasn’t going to let the past slow her down, so she tapped the accept button.

  I normally don’t send messages between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, when everyone is so panicked by the holidays, but I just saw your profile today and I didn’t want to miss my chance by waiting.

  She smiled, feeling a sudden sense of connection with Parker299. Even if it was a line he’d used a dozen times before, it was working. I usually avoid dating sites during the holidays too, she typed back. But something made me check my messages today.

  She clicked over to his profile as she waited for his reply. The pictures left almost everything to the imagination—extreme close ups on smiling pale blue eyes behind a pair of black-rimmed glasses and distant, blurry shots of a largish man standing in front of a mountain—but there was something about the humor in his eyes that appealed to her.

  Is it cheesy if I say it’s Fate?

  Parv grinned to herself. Absolutely.

  Oh well. You may as well find out I’m cheesy right off the bat.

  Her smile wouldn’t seem to go away. What if this was her guy? Thirty-three. Wanted kids. Had a dog. With his occupation listed as manager. A regular, stable guy with a regular stable job.

  Cheesy is a plus. She flexed her fingers, deciding it was time to start living for her future. Got any big plans for the New Year?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Max walked into the Beverly Hills bistro his mother had chosen for their lunch, smiling to the hostess as he gave his name and explained he was meeting someone. The girl directed him to the table where his mother waited and hovered as he bent to drop a kiss in the air beside his mother’s cheek.

  “Happy birthday,” his mother said, sliding a neatly wrapped package across the tablecloth.

  Max took the box, shaking it gently as he sank onto his chair. “Cufflinks?”

  “Actually it’s a certificate for a day at my spa. You’ve been working too much.”

  “And you thought a mud bath would help?”

  “My masseuse is an artist. Say thank you, Maximus.”

  “Thank you, Mother.”

  “Enjoy your meal,” the hostess murmured, handing over his menu before retreating to her post.

  His mother sighed. “That poor girl. She was trying so hard and you didn’t even give her a second glance.”

  “Who?” he asked, opening his menu.

  “The hostess, dear.”

  He looked up, frowning. “Was she flirting?”

  “That’s it,” his mother declared. “You’re officially working too hard. I’ve never known you to be so exhausted that you couldn’t notice when a woman was batting her eyes at you.”

  “I thought this was a birthday lunch, not an intervention.”

  “Can’t it be both?”

  Max frowned—and seriously considered getting up and walking out.

  His mother wasn’t in the habit of making a fuss over birthdays, but when she’d called him to invite him to a birthday lunch he’d agreed—in part because she’d chosen a restaurant that was only a mile away from the Elite Protection offices, and in larger part because Candy had overheard the invitation and threatened to lock him out of the EP computer system until he agreed.

  He had been working a lot, but in his defense the holidays were award season in Hollywood and it was always a busy time for those employed by A-list celebrities. Luckily Elia had taken to his training and the Smiling Samoan had been able to join the security teams, though he was still learning on the job. Max had been interviewing additional candidates—he’d need at least two more bodyguards at the rate EP was growing—but he hadn’t found anyone else yet that met his requirements.

  With the Golden Globes last week and the Oscar nominations just revealed, they were approaching the end of awards season, but he’d planned the launch of the new self-defense program for the beginning of March, so now was not the time to be letting up.

  “There’s more to life than work, Max,” his mother said.

  He arched his brows skeptically. “You’re the authority on work-life balance now?”

  “I know your father and I didn’t exactly set a good example on that front, but I don’t want you to make the same mistakes we made.”

  “I wasn’t aware you thought of work as a mistake. I thought that was the marriage.” His mother’s mouth tightened and he immediately regretted the words. “Sorry.”

  “We did love each other, you know.” His mother lifted the glass of wine she must have ordered before he arrived. “I know you didn’t see much of that by the time you were old enough to understand it, but it wasn’t a cold business alliance right from the beginning, no matter what you and Sidney choose to think.”

  “We choose to think it because no one has ever let on that it was anything else. Why did you marry him?”

  At first he didn’t think she would answer, but then her gaze went distant though her mouth remained tight. “He understood me. And he wasn’t intimidated by my ambition or my competence—which was saying something forty years ago. It was heady stuff, being with someone who accepted me and believed in me like that.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Your father might have a different answer, but if you ask me we were too accommodating of each other.”

  The waiter finally arrived then, taking their orders and forcing Max to wait to ask the question pushing against the inside of his brain.

  “How can you be too accommodating?” he asked as soon as they were alone again.

  “We never made any demands on one another, but we also never relied on one another. We were both so completely independent we never really learned how to need each other. We always lived separate lives and now I have to wonder if that was our biggest mistake. We never had to let each other in. It can be intoxicating, being needed. Being relied on.”

  Max didn’t ask if that was what Claudine had gotten out of her relationship with his father. He hadn’t heard from his father beyond an email announcing the birth of his new half-sibling. A boy they’d decided to call Magnus.

  He’d deleted the email, telling himself the news didn’t affect him and focusing on his work. He could control his business, even when he couldn’t control the people in his life. And if he wasn’t happy by the strictest definition of the word, at least he wasn’t miserable either.

  “Did I tell you why I decided to divorce your father?”

  His attention sharpened. “I assumed it had to do with the fact that both of you were sleeping around.”

  She smiled as if his presumption was adorably naïve. “No.” She picked up her fork, idly spinning it on the tip of one tine. “I had a health scare last year.”

  “You what?”

  “It wasn’t cancer or anything like that. It wasn’t anything, as it turns out, but there were a couple of tense days where I didn’t know that. And I realized I didn’t have anyone in my life beyond my stockholders who would care if something happened to me.”

  “Mom. I would care. Sidney would care.” Something thick pressed against the back of his throat even as frustration burned in his chest. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “Like I said. It was nothing.”

  “But you didn’t know that. You went through that alone.”

  “Exactly. And I don’t want that for you. It was an important moment for me. It led me to make so
me changes—be better about spending time with you and Sidney, dissolve my relationship with your father, I’ve even been cutting back on work a bit, though not too much.” She set down her fork, aligning it deliberately beside the other cutlery. “Don’t be like your father and me. You need to let people in, Maximus.”

  “I let people in,” he insisted.

  “Who?”

  Parvati.

  The answer was so instinctive he almost said her name aloud before he caught himself.

  He hadn’t seen Parv in months. Not since Common Grounds closed. But he’d kept the message she left for him over the holidays, accidentally replaying it every time he listened to his voicemail.

  Parv had relied on him. And he’d let himself rely on her.

  She’d burrowed into his life when he wasn’t looking and become his best friend, and now there was a Parv shaped hole where she’d been.

  He missed her. But how did he get her back after all this time? Could he just call her up and pick right up where they’d left off?

  “Max?”

  “I let Sidney in,” he lied to his mother, grateful when their food arrived and he could change the topic, but Parvati stayed in his thoughts all through the afternoon and into the evening when he was shutting down his computer and driving home, earlier than the midnight commute that had become his habit lately.

  Caught in the seven o’clock traffic heading north, his phone chimed a text alert as he was stopped in the gridlock behind an accident on the PCH. Max picked up his cell, his heart thudding hard at the sight of Parv’s name on his screen.

  Happy Birthday, Maximus!

  It wasn’t much, but she’d reopened the window of communication between them and he wasn’t going to let it close again. His thumbs raced over the screen, typing back. Is that all I get? One measly little birthday text?