Beautiful Beginning(15)

            There was no way I wasn’t going to hell.

            I watched as Judith and Mary cut a line straight for Will. Hanna, Chloe, and Sara had dispersed, leaving him alone.

            Alone and vulnerable.

            I realized the only way this would work was if I had buy-in from the most important person in the restaurant. I scanned the room, my eyes stopping on Hanna as she emerged from the back, smoothing her sapphire-blue dress down over her sides.

            I practically sprinted over to her.

            “How are you?” I blurted out too loudly and far too enthusiastically to someone who had just stepped out of the restroom.

            She let out a small gasp and stopped dead in her tracks. “Bennett,” she said, pressing her hand to her chest. “You scared the shit out of me.”

            “God, sorry. I just wanted a chance to talk to you before you got swallowed up by the girls again.”

            “Um, okay . . .” she said, looking around us and clearly confused by my laser-focus attention.

            “How was your flight?” I asked.

            Her posture relaxed and she smiled, attempting to look over my shoulder to where Will was sitting, probably chin-deep in cougars if my guess was correct. I shifted to block her view.

            “It was—” she started.

            “Good, good,” I said, realizing too late that I hadn’t let her answer. “Look, I wanted to mention something to you,” I said. Play it off as casual. Play it off as no big deal. Be cool.

            Her lips curled up in an amused smile. “Okay?”

            “You know what a horrible prankster Will can be.” She nodded and I continued: “I may have just done something to get back at him and I swear,” I said, resting a hand on her shoulder, “I swear, Hanna, you’ll think it’s hilarious . . . eventually.”

            “‘Eventually’?”

            “Absolutely. Eventually.”

            She considered me through narrowed eyes. “This is just a prank, right? No shaved heads or scars?”

            I pulled back to study her. “That was a very specific question. Scars?” I shook my head, clearing it. “And no, no, no, no. Just a silly little prank.” I gave Hanna my best smile, the one Chloe said made panties drop. But apparently it only made Hanna more suspicious.

            Her eyes narrowed further. “What would I need to do?”

            “Nothing,” I said. “You’ll probably see some weird stuff but just . . . go along with it.”

            “So, basically be oblivious.”

            “Exactly,” I said.

            “And this will be funny?”

            “Hilarious.”

            She thought about it for a full ten seconds before reaching out to shake my hand. “You’re on.”



            Hotel Del Coronado was built in 1888, and stretched across the fine-sand beaches of Coronado Island. With its striking red turrets and blindingly white buildings, visiting here felt a lot like being dropped in the middle of a Victorian postcard. Chloe and I had stayed a few months ago while scouting out possible wedding sites. One glance at the ocean from the balcony of our hotel room and Chloe was sold; this was where we would get married.

            As we drove back from dinner that night, my nerves prickled to the surface again, but for an entirely new reason. Chloe was smart—smarter than I was, if I was being honest with myself—and she’d watched me carefully all night, studying. Now, as we neared the hotel, she might have been sitting quietly in the passenger seat at my side, but there was no way she was merely taking in the passing scenery. If I knew her as well as I thought I did, she was planning, silently plotting how to take me down.