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From across the room, Chloe’s wide eyes briefly met mine then widened as her mother whispered in her ear. It was enough to pique my interest, enough to get me up and out of my seat for the first time in a while.
I plucked my third glass of red wine off the table and crossed the sea of unfamiliar people as hands grabbed onto my suit jacket, trying to get me to dance with them, talk to them, or interact with them in one way or another. I brushed each one off. The minor haze of alcohol was beginning to wash over me, just enough for me to loosen up and drag myself into something that probably wasn’t meant to involve me.
“What’s going on?” The words left my mouth before I’d thought about them. Arlie, Wade and Chloe’s mother, looked up at me in confusion.
“Hunter?” she asked, the fine line between her brows deepening. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s a long story that I doubt you’d be interested in,” I chuckled, lifting my glass to my lips and taking a sip of the finest red wine Wade and Ray could buy. “Don’t worry. Zane’s not here.”
“That’s the least of our worries right now,” Chloe grumbled, her voice barely audible over the loudness of the music.
“What do you mean?”
“You see that girl over there?” she asked, one finger pointing discreetly toward the doors. I dragged my gaze across the room, my eyes landing on a woman with long, pin-straight black hair, olive skin, and a scowl that could curdle dairy. “I have no idea who she is. She’s not even dressed up.”
After looking a little closer once people had mingled and moved out of the way, she was right. Jeans, a t-shirt, and sneakers were all that covered the mystery woman’s body. Suspicious, but not wildly. Hell, I wished I was in jeans and a t-shirt.
“I only know about five people here. Are you sure she’s not the date of a guest?” I asked.
“I hand-delivered the invites and I’ve met everyone that should be in attendance,” she replied.
Oh.
“So what are you thinking?”
“That she could be the press.”
“Or some kind of weird wedding crasher,” Arlie adds.
The girl’s eyes moved in our direction for a quick glance, but within a second she stared only at me, a direct gaze of ocean blue noticeable from across the room. She was beautiful, all soft angles and flushed cheeks, but the look in her eyes resembled a deer caught in the headlights.
And then she was gone.
“Shit,” Chloe cursed, her hand diving into her little handbag and fishing out her phone. “Should I call hotel security?”
The temptation to tell Chloe how absolutely ridiculous that question was itched at the back of my mind, but not nearly as much as the temptation to follow the unknown woman. “I’ll find her. Don’t worry about it.”
I was already ten feet away before either of them could object.
Humid air hit me like a freight train as I pushed the door to the ballroom open. Barely-there flecks of orange and pink filtered through the darkening clouds, the sunset just moments away from transitioning into night. A flash of black hair bounced along the wall of greenery, each twisting turn of the gardens seeming to confuse and frustrate her.
“Hey!” I shouted. I stepped off the concrete and back onto the too-soft grass, nearly spilling my wine in the process.
Wild eyes met mine from across the foliage, half-angry, half-terrified. The way her lips parted, the way she dragged her tongue along the bottom one in concentration, added fire to the flames I’d only just noticed had started. Of all the faces I’d seen tonight, every single one of them forgotten within seconds, hers was the one I would surely remember.
I was fucking attracted to the potential wedding crasher slash reporter slash whoever the hell she was.
She backed away from me, palms out in front of her as if she was trying to show me they were empty. Every step I took toward the girl felt like a magnet pulling me in, an unexplainable gravitational pull.
“What do you want?” she spat, the words falling flat and sounding more flustered than I was sure she intended.
I shrugged. “I’m curious how you know the bride and groom,” I said, a little smirk pulling my lips up. I snaked between the last row of hedges that separated us, fully expecting her to run again. Instead, she stood up straighter. “And why you’re not dressed to the nines.”
“It was a last-minute thing.” Her voice had gone a little breathy, sounding a little scared.
I nodded, entertaining her lie for just a moment. “It was a last-minute decision to crash a wedding?” I chuckled. I watched as her eyes trailed down my body before slowly, painfully, meeting my gaze once again. “I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here and assuming you’re not the press.”
One sneakered foot stepped back again before her spine hit the brick garden wall, a little squeak escaping from her lips. She steeled her jaw to make up for it.
