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FROM THIS DAY FORWARD
The Wedding Belles #0.5
Lauren Layne
Released June 6th, 2016
Pocket Star
Sex and the City meets The Wedding Planner in this prequel to USA TODAY bestselling author Lauren Layne’s The Wedding Belles series about three high-powered New York City women who can plan any wedding—but their own.
Up-and-coming wedding photographer Leah McHale’s career is on the rise–thanks in no small part to the Wedding Belles, the elite New York wedding planning agency that always throws top-tier business Leah’s way. So when one of the Belles asks Leah to fill in at the former First Daughter's wedding, Leah is overjoyed to say yes–until she finds out who she’ll be working with.
Jason Rhodes is the one man who was able to capture Leah’s heart and, once he had it, promptly stepped all over it and left her broken. Now he’s working side-by-side with her at the biggest wedding of the season and Leah is determined to give him the cold shoulder. Despite his persistence, she is not going to fall for his charming, impish ways again. Not even if he still has that killer, irresistible smile...
“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 dreams 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
any time 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[3] 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.
He was the
one man who Leah had let in close enough to break her heart.
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In 2011, she ditched her corporate career in Seattle to pursue a full-time writing career in Manhattan, and never looked back.
In her ideal world, every stiletto-wearing, Kate Spade wielding woman would carry a Kindle stocked with Lauren Layne books.
For a list of all her works, please be sure to check out her official website!
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