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I Thee Bed...
Jule McBride
Wedding planner Edie Benning is under pressure to pull off the celebrity wedding of the year. The Darden nuptials have been plagued by scandal and intrigue, and now the paparazzi are closing in fast. When her trusty assistant elopes with a groom-to-be, Edie's ready to throw in the towel.Until Jimmy Delaney walks in the door of Big Apple Brides, charming his way into a temporary job and her bed. The sexy bachelor seems to know all about photography…catering…weddings– although he seems keen to avoid one of his own. Is Edie in for heartache now that she's suddenly fantasizing about a walk down the aisle–with Jimmy?
“Come to bed…” Edie murmured
Jimmy paused in the doorway. “I’m enjoying the view.” His gaze was as warm as the candlelight that fluttered on his skin, and it was fixed where she was lying, propped against pillows piled high against the headboard.
She smiled. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you the past week and a half.”
He merely shrugged. He was shirtless, his muscular chest bare. He looked delicious, silhouetted in the semidarkness, a black line of wild curling hair bisecting his pecs and arrowing downward as if pointing to the most intimate part of him.
Just gazing at him made everything inside Edie ache and grow tight. She’d never felt this way about a man before.
Noticing the open bottle of champagne and two long-stemmed glasses dangling from his fingers, she frowned. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think thats meant for the Darden wedding.”
“What did they order?” he asked, grinning. “A hundred cases?” He shrugged. “They won’t miss one bottle.”
She couldn’t help but smile again. “You’re positive about that?”
“Yeah. And this was a premeditated act,” he admitted huskily. “I even chilled the bubbly a couple of hours ago.” He moved into the room. “Somehow I figured we’d wind up in bed….”
Dear Reader,
I do hope you’ll enjoy my last book in the BIG APPLE BRIDES trilogy for the Harlequin Temptation line! It’s been fun writing about the three Benning sisters and the special, sexy men they each have met along the way.
After living in another state for some time, I recently returned to make my home in New York again. As always, I feel embraced by the sights and sounds! As far as I'm concerned, the city itself might as well be a Harlequin Temptation hunk, grabbing me by the waist, whirling me around until I’m breathless, then smacking me on the lips! Not that I wouldn’t trade New York for this last hero, Jimmy Delaney!
I do hope you’ll find him just as breathlessly exciting!
Watch for my next book in Harlequin Blaze, coming in 2006.
Happy reading!
Jule McBride
Books by Jule McBride
HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION
875—THE HOTSHOT* (#litres_trial_promo)
883—THE SEDUCER* (#litres_trial_promo)
891—THE PROTECTOR* (#litres_trial_promo)
978—BEDSPELL
1005—SOMETHING BORROWED† (#litres_trial_promo)
1013—NIGHTS IN WHITE SATIN† (#litres_trial_promo)
HARLEQUIN BLAZE
67—THE SEX FILES
91—ALL TUCKED IN…
I Thee Bed…
Jule McBride
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Chapter 1 (#u25d467f7-eadb-5c70-8eea-83fd69271f6b)
Chapter 2 (#u22a17265-2f7c-53ea-88dd-ae0a021efc20)
Chapter 3 (#u8f92109d-2b5a-5092-b2a9-f24a56045eb4)
Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
1
“ALL RISE!”
“Whatever happens this time,” Ches Edmond whispered, coaching his client, “keep your cool, Jimmy.” As his eyes met those of the man beside him, the shared gaze held countless memories—everything from downing too many cold brewskies on fishing trips, to fighting over the same head cheerleader, to their last year of playing football together at a high school outside Cleveland. A few months after taking the team to the state finals, they’d packed their bags and moved to the Big Apple to share an East Village sublet that Jimmy had found over the Internet.
Ches added, “Judge Diana once wrote a book titled The Wrongdoers.”
Exhaling a long-suffering sigh, Jimmy Delaney whispered, “You’re kidding me, right?”
“Nope. Hit the stands a year ago last spring.”
“And you didn’t tell me before now?”
Ches shrugged, a two-thousand-dollar suit pulling snugly across shoulders so powerful that it looked as if he was wearing the pads from his high-school ball-playing uniform. “Did you really want to know?”
“Guess not,” agreed Jimmy as he rose slowly, fighting the urge to loosen the knot of a suffocating tie, a red, white and blue monstrosity he’d bought for his parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary which, had luckily fallen on July fourth, and which Jimmy now hoped would communicate his sense of patriotism to the judge.
“She’s also thinking about running for public office,” Ches added.
Jimmy considered. “Republican?”
“Having written The Wrongdoers? What do you think?”
“And for our purpose that means?”
“The harsher the sentence, the better.”
“Swell,” muttered Jimmy dryly. From behind him, he could feel the eyes of his other buddies, celebrity photographers who hung around The Suds Bar on Avenue A in the East Village—Benny, Alex and Tim—burning a space between his shoulders. Glancing behind himself, Jimmy rolled his eyes, showing he wasn’t about to be cowed by a judge in a skirt and was pleased when he got supportive grins and a thumbs-up in response.
His spirits lifted further when he glanced at Ches again and remembered their public-speaking class in high school. The teacher, Mrs. Hepplewhite, had always said that, when nervous, you should imagine your audience naked. Easy enough in this case, Jimmy thought. Judge Diana Little might have been nearing fifty, but she took good care of herself. She had beautiful skin, and her tawny blond hair was flattering, cut to shoulder length. Even the square, black-framed glasses perched midway down her nose were kind of sexy, Jimmy decided, as he slowly, mentally removed her black robe.
Her voice, unfortunately, was hardly of the sex-kitten variety. “Mr. Delaney?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Before I sentence you, could you do me a favor?”
“Anything, ma’am. Just ask.”
She sent him a quick, close-mouthed wince that was meant to be a smile. “Wipe the smirk off your face.”
He should have realized Judge Diana would say something such as that. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“I’m sure I’ll live, Mr. Delaney,” she returned curtly.
Ches whispered, “This doesn’t bode well.”
Judge Diana heaved a sigh, her lightly glossed lips pursing in displeasure. “And does counsel have something to say?”
“No, Judge,” Ches assured.
Nodding, she stared at the top of her massive desk, her eyes roving over the contents of a three-inch-thick manila file. Very slowly, she tapped a paper with the long, slender finger of a perfectly manicured hand, causing Jimmy to bite back a sigh. Obviously, Judge Diana was going to draw out his sentencing, just to watch him squirm.
Or maybe she’d realize he’d done nothing wrong and go easy on him. He was half tempted to start speaking in his own defense; maybe if he hadn’t trusted Ches’s advice so much, he’d have done so already. But Ches was one of the best trial lawyers in New York City, so well-known that, if he hadn’t been a friend, Jimmy wouldn’t have gotten any further than a call to his assistant; despite being well employed, himself, Jimmy wouldn’t have been able to afford Ches’s rates, either.
Now he thanked his lucky stars for having such a talented buddy. Not only had they moved from Ohio together and finished college at NYU the same term, but Ches had gone on to law school, then made a name for himself as a defense attorney. On the first day of classes at NYU Law, he’d met a woman who was as sexy as she was brainy, and now Ches and Elsa were in their third year of married life; she’d given him two babies while joining a firm herself. The youngest child, Conner, was only three months old, but just like his older brother, Clay, he was showing signs of becoming a football star, at least as near as Jimmy and Ches could tell, even if Elsa often begged to differ.
Pushing aside the thoughts, Jimmy concentrated on Judge Diana again, wondering what was going to happen next. Ches had said it was unlikely, but Jimmy could wind up doing jail time. Jimmy sure hoped not. He glanced around. The benches in the high-ceilinged courtroom were nearly empty of people, and the place felt cavernous and smelled musty. In the silence, he could hear the ominous crackle of papers, and for the first time, he began to worry that things were about to plummet southward. Even if the sentence was harsh, Ches had said it wouldn’t matter, since they’d win on appeal, but Jimmy didn’t exactly relish the thought of wearing a striped uniform under any circumstances.
Regarding his legal battles, he’d long ago decided to turn his will and his life over to the care of Ches, and so, until now, he’d refused to sweat this case. It wasn’t his first. Jimmy’s talent was for taking pictures. From the earliest age, he’d shown a knack for color and composition, and for discovering photogenic quality in just about any subject. He could take the most seemingly homely girl in the world and make her look intriguing beyond compare. And it wasn’t a trick. He’d simply been given a gift for capturing the souls of even the most elusive people. Time after time, he’d snap the shutter in the split second when a person’s deepest emotions surfaced, and what might have been seen as ugly was infused with new depth. His was a talent that had brought critical acclaim when he’d first started working, and later far more than the average wage usually made by photographers.
As Judge Diana held up a copy of the New York Post, Jimmy braced himself for whatever sentence was to come, but she merely said, “You took this?”
He surveyed a black-and-white zoom shot of hotel heiress, Julia Darden, who’d been on the deck of a yacht sailing off the Chelsea Piers in the West Twenties. She and her fiancé, Lorenzo Santini, were wrapped in a sheet, kissing deeply, in a suggestive enough pose that any viewer would assume they were making love.
He nodded. “Yes, I did.”
“And you sold it to the tabloids?”
Obviously. He tried not to balk. He was a photographer, after all. And that meant he sold his pictures. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Although you knew there was an order of protection against you?”
“I was outside the court-ordered range of distance, Judge.”
“A simple yes or no will do.”
He sighed. “Yes. I knew there was an order.”
“And not the first one Julia Darden has filed against you?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Would you want people taking pictures of you such as this?”
Jimmy should be so lucky to find himself wrapped in a sheet, in the arms of a woman as gorgeous as Julia Darden. “I wouldn’t mind in the least.”
“How many orders of protection have there been?”
Honestly, he wasn’t sure, so he glanced at Ches as he said, “Six or seven over the past few years. Most since she announced her wedding six months ago.”
“Eleven,” corrected the judge.
When she ducked her head once more and continued perusing his file, Jimmy’s annoyance intensified. So maybe there had been eleven orders of protection, but Ches said he really hadn’t done anything illegal, only unconventional, and with Julia Darden’s wedding taking place in a couple of weeks, on April first, Jimmy could hardly afford to be in jail during the event. One picture of Julia and Lorenzo’s kiss at the altar would buy him the West Village Co-op he’d been eyeing for the past year. Besides, only Celebrity Weddings magazine was to have access to the event, which meant getting inside would provide just the kind of challenge that Jimmy lived for.
Just thinking of the wedding, he almost smiled. Leave it to Julia Darden to name April Fools’ Day for her nuptials. She definitely had a sense of humor. It was rumored that she hadn’t even really wanted a ring, but only the pop-can tab with which Lorenzo had proposed, and which she now wore around her neck. She was as beautiful as she was funny, with straight brown hair, brown eyes and a wide smile, and yet, she was more than just beautiful. She had a quality Jimmy had been able to capture repeatedly on film, a projected air of having been completely well loved during all her twenty-seven years. Any hurt she might have experienced seemed to have rolled off her back, which was why she’d become one of Jimmy’s—and all of America’s—favorite tabloid subjects.
Her father, spry, silver-haired widower, Sparky Darden, was a character in his own right. Sixty-seven and diagnosed with cancer that had gone into remission, he was in semiretirement, enjoying an estate in Long Island where Julia’s wedding was to take place. He’d spent his life building the Darden hotel empire, but he’d also spent much time doting on his daughter, giving her the life of a fairy princess, a fact that always shone through the features of her face and that, despite her aversion to cameras and publicity, had made her America’s darling. Her sport star husband-to-be was no slouch, either.
But it was photographs of Julia that commanded the highest pay at the tabloids. Because she always tried to avoid publicity, Jimmy didn’t understand how Emma Goldstein at Celebrity Weddings magazine had gotten exclusive rights to shoot the wedding. It was shocking that Julia would let anyone with a camera, much less a mainstream celebrity magazine, near the wedding, and now, despite the order of protection, Jimmy still wanted to get in the door. He was well-known among paparazzi for the inventive tactics and disguises he used to get close to subjects, but so far, Julia Darden’s wedding was providing new challenges, almost daily.
It had all started last October, almost six months ago, when the wedding was first announced. Ever since, Jimmy had managed to scoop Celebrity Weddings by publishing shots of preparations in the tabloids, something that had brought him into contact, however anonymously, with the Benning family. As it had turned out, Julia Darden’s father, because of a past association with a man named Joe Benning, had hired Joe’s daughter, Edie, as Julia’s wedding planner, and Edie, prompted by Celebrity Weddings, had agreed to appear on a reality television show called Rate the Dates a couple months ago….
Jimmy had gone undercover as a videographer for Rate the Dates, padding his clothes, wearing a beard and calling himself Vinny Marcel. While shooting footage of Edie Benning and her date-mate, and hoping to use the ruse to get closer to Julia, he’d wound up with more of a scoop than he’d expected. As it turned out, the woman on the reality show wasn’t Edie Benning after all, but rather, her twin sister, Marley, and now—assuming he wasn’t going to jail—Jimmy had to come up with another game plan for getting close to Edie.
He wouldn’t mind in the least. When he’d first seen the identical twin sisters together, he’d been able to tell them apart immediately. The women were identical, yes. And yet, there was something so different about their essence. Both were about five foot five. Both had worn their feathered blond hair blown straight, and both had blue eyes the color of robins’ eggs on a foggy morning.
But it was Edie, not Marley, to whom he’d responded. The pull on Jimmy’s body had been strangely magnetic. Unforgettable, visceral, primal. He didn’t want to get to know Edie, to take her on a date, or impress her with his credentials or expertise, or even watch her eyes light up with pleasure. No…he’d awakened from dreams about her and caught himself fantasizing about loving her—quickly undressing her, stripping down her stockings, pulling down her skirt, unbuttoning the delicate blouses she favored. He could see himself pushing silk from her shoulders, exposing a white bra, the lace of which was worrying taut pink nipples that the fabric barely covered…
