WHEN SHE GOT back to her office later that afternoon, Cameron spent a couple hours returning phone calls and kidding herself that she’d somehow squeeze in the time to work on an appellate brief she had due the following week. At six thirty, she gave in and wrapped things up. Never enough hours in the day, particularly not this one.
After clearing it with Officers Phelps and Kamin, she was set that night for her date with Max-the-investment-banker-I-met-on-the-Bloomingdale’s-escalator. They’d seemed to get a kick out of the story—a few weeks ago she’d been doing some shoe shopping on her lunch break and was on her way back to the office, on the down escalator, when her phone vibrated, indicating she had a new message. She saw it was a notification from the court on a ruling she’d been waiting for, so she’d gotten off at the landing to read the decision. When she’d finished, she forgot where she was and stepped right into the path of a man getting off the escalator. They’d collided, and her purse and shopping bag went flying.
“Oh my gosh, I am so sorry,” Cameron said as she stumbled, then righted herself. “I wasn’t looking.”
She caught sight of the tall drink of water standing before her. Not just tall, but also blond, bronzed, and gorgeous. She was looking now, all right.
She smiled demurely. “Oh. Hello.”
He spoke. “I think you dropped some things.”
He bent down to scoop up her purse and shopping bag and Cameron practically felt the breeze coming off her eyelashes as they fluttered. Such a gentleman. And he looked great in his navy suit—an expensive one, judging from the cut.
The shoe box had spilled open and one of her new four-inch silver strappy Miu Miu heels peeked out.
“Nice shoes,” the bronzed god said approvingly, handing over the bag and her purse. He raised an eyebrow. “For a special occasion?”
“My best friend’s wedding,” Cameron said. “I’m the maid of honor. She said we could wear any silver shoes we want, but now I’m not so sure. I hope she approves.”
The bronzed god grinned. “Well, I don’t know about the bride, but I think your date will definitely approve of them.”
“My date, right . . . I’m still working on that part,” Cameron said.
The bronzed god stuck out his hand. “In that case, my name’s Max.”
Five minutes later, he walked away with her cell phone number.
“And what would his name have been if you’d already had a date to the wedding?” Collin teased when she called him later that evening.
She hung up and called Amy.
“Four-inch heels? Are you sure you’re going to be able to walk down the aisle in those?” she wanted to know.
“You guys are missing the point of this story,” Cameron told her.
“Are you bringing him to the wedding?”
“You know, in the all of six minutes we spoke, I somehow forgot to ask.”
“Right, of course.” There was a pause on Amy’s end of the line. “But hypothetically speaking, in case you do bring him to the wedding, do you think he looked like a steak or a salmon kind of guy? Because I’m kind of supposed to give the caterer a count by Friday.”
As if Cameron already hadn’t been feeling enough pressure to find a date, now her single-hood threatened to throw the finely tuned inner workings of The Most Perfect Wedding Ever into utter chaos.
“Can I get back to you on that, Ame?” she’d asked.
But nearly three weeks later, she still hadn’t given Amy an answer. And not just on the steak vs. salmon issue. Despite the fact that they’d been on a few dates, she hadn’t even made a decision on whether she wanted to ask Max to go with her to the wedding. If it had been in Chicago it would be a no-brainer. But she was on the fence about whether she wanted to spend the entire weekend with him in Michigan, sharing a hotel room. Sure, he would look oh-so-fine on her arm at the wedding—a factor not to be entirely discounted—but personality-wise, he was turning out to be not what she had expected from their initial meeting.
At first she’d thought Max had gotten her phone number so quickly because he was confident. Now she realized he moved that fast because he had to. The man was a workaholic—he ate, slept, and breathed his job. Cameron understood