The Wedding Pact Box Set - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,142

humid, and it was landlocked besides, so there was no escaping to the beach. Why Neil’s parents had insisted on an August wedding was beyond her, but it wasn’t worth fighting over. She wasn’t one of those girls who made a huge fuss over wedding frills, although that wasn’t to say she wasn’t obsessed over the details. The senior and junior partners at the firm were invited to the wedding, and they and their wives would critique every detail, down to the distance between the tines on the salad forks. Blair wasn’t about to give them a single reason to deny her partnership.

Melissa lowered her voice. “There are rumors going around that they’re about to offer someone a partnership. Maybe the meeting is about that. Just take me with you when you get Rolland’s corner office, and we’ll call it good.”

While Blair hoped it was true, she couldn’t see how. A senior partner would be offering her the position, not a junior partner. “You know I wouldn’t dream of leaving you behind. I can’t function without you. Speaking of the corner office, have you checked with the caterer?”

“Yes, he left a message that they’re substituting shrimp for the crab. I plan to call him and let him know there will be absolutely no substitutions. His contract says they are part of the menu, and the fact that they’ve gone up in price isn’t our concern.”

Blair felt a stab of guilt. Ordinarily, she would have let the crab legs go, but Robert Sr. loved crab legs. She’d heard stories of Robert Sr. walking out of dinners that didn’t provide them, and she needed him to stay for at least half the reception. Rumor had it that he was happy if he stayed until the dancing started. She wasn’t about to push her luck. “Good. Anything else I should be aware of?”

“Um. . .” She hesitated. “I’ll tell you when you get in.”

Blair stopped next to her car and dug her keys out of her purse. “No, tell me now. I can’t take any more surprises.” She liked to be prepared for any outcome, and surprises left her scrambling.

“Dr. Fredrick’s mother called. She has another change.”

“What? What is it this time?” Blair stopped, her car door half-open. His mother had been nothing short of a nightmare with all her changes and substitutions. Debra Fredrick was a tacky, judgmental, small-town, small-minded woman who had already involved herself in every minute decision involving the wedding. Blair had agreed to some of her suggested changes to keep peace, like putting Neil’s brother’s fiancée in charge of the guest book to give her a role in the wedding. Or like agreeing to her tacky rehearsal dinner plans. After all, any negotiation was about picking your battles, and it had been much more important to refuse Debra’s suggestion that the groom’s cake be changed to a clown. Apparently Neil had been one of the only children in the world to love clowns rather than finding them terrifying. Blair shuddered to imagine what the woman wanted, especially since her demands had gotten more and more outrageous the closer they got to the wedding. Just last week she’d nixed Debra’s plan of releasing doves with helium balloons tied to the birds’ feet. Blair had tried to convince her it was unnecessary since the birds were capable of flight. Nothing had swayed her, so Melissa had made an anonymous call, and Debra had found herself facing the very real threat of PETA picketing outside the church and ruining the wedding.

“She says her mother is switching out Neil’s friend Sean for Neil’s cousin from San Diego as one of his groomsmen.”

Blair threw her purse across the driver’s seat. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“I wish I was.” She could practically hear Melissa’s cringe.

Blair groaned as she wrestled her suitcase into the backseat. “Unless he’s five foot two, he’ll never fit in Sean’s tux. They’ll need his measurements, and he probably won’t be here until Friday, and God only knows if they’ll even have a tux in his size—”

“I’m on it, Blair. I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you.” Her voice broke, and embarrassment washed through her. Her encounter with Garrett had affected her more than she liked. She needed to get her shit together. She couldn’t afford to look like one of those emotional brides. Even with Melissa. One of the things the partners at her firm liked most about her was that she rarely showed emotion. She wasn’t about to