"Bunni and Tiffi were getting manicures. They should be here soon." Kiki sat down in a chair directly across from Greer, and Asher sat next to her.
Greer had to work hard to keep the frown off her face. There were only twenty empty chairs, after all. Why not pick the one right next to the hot blonde? "Did you make your guest list?" Her voice came out with more of a snap than she'd anticipated, and she mentally cringed.
"I emailed it to you," Kiki said.
Oh. "Wonderful." She tried to sound enthusiastic, but all she could notice was how like a matched pair Asher and Kiki were sitting across from her. Like Malibu Barbie and Billionaire Ken. Of course Billionaire Ken would nail Barbie's dark, half-Indian little friend in private. In public? He would totally end up with Malibu Barbie. Teeth gritted, she opened her mail app on her phone and flipped through emails until she found Kiki's guest list. Her irritation vanished at the thought and detail Kiki had given her in her list. "You numbered them?"
"Numbers were important, right? So I tried to keep things small and crucial."
She had. Eighty guests was extremely reasonable given her siblings. "And the others?"
"I'm making them do spreadsheets, too, though Tiffi's not very good with hers. Once we get them finalized, I'll have them email them to you."
"Can we have them by this Friday? I need to make reservations for outdoor furniture rentals and then there's the question of how much food we need to cater, and how big the cake will be, and we're already on a tight schedule."
Kiki nodded. "Friday works."
Asher drummed his fingers on the table. "I'll work with Stijn's secretary to make sure his list is to you by Friday, too."
"What happens on Friday?" Bunni trotted into the room, followed by Tiffi, who was slurping on an iced latte. She blew on her hot pink fingernails and sat down right next to Asher. "Hey, you." Her smile grew catlike.
"You need your guest list in," Asher murmured. To give the man credit, he didn't even look over at Bunni's pink-corseted glory. Tiffi sat next to Kiki, and all four of them looked expectantly at Greer.
"That's right," she said, clearing her throat. "Finalized guest lists must be in by Friday morning. I need to get invites printed and we have to start planning for how many people, so there's zero wiggle room if you don't get it in on time."
"It's hard," Tiffi whined, sticking her lower lip out in a pout. "Kiki's making me keep my list under one hundred and fifty people and I don't know who I'm going to take off the list!"
God bless Kiki for having a clue. "One hundred and fifty is still a large number," Greer told her. "Remember, this is your closest friends and family. Everyone else can just send you gifts. Or you can have a separate party with them when you return from your honeymoon." And that would be a party she would not be organizing.
"Ooo, gift registry!" Bunni pulled out her phone and began to type. "I totes need to register at all my favorite places."
Two seconds later, the other triplets had their phones out and were typing.
"Right now we need to talk about theme," Greer said, feeling desperate. "Can you put your phones away so we can focus?"
"What about rainbows?" Asher offered. "Rainbows might be a nice theme."
Rainbows? For a wedding? Unless there was an LGBTQ couple, rainbows would not work. "We need to think romance. Think fairy tales. Think-"
"Unicorns?" Tiffi asked.
Asher's lips twitched.
"Not unicorns," Greer bit out. "When I said fairy tales, I meant that you should think along the lines of happy ever afters. Ball gowns and-"
"We could do unicorns," Asher interrupted. There was a wicked gleam in his eyes that made Greer want to choke him. "You could just rent a bunch of white horses and strap horns on their faces."
Tiffi squealed. "Oh my god, I love it! And I could ride in on a horse!"
No! Horses were such a bad idea. They pooped everywhere, they had to have handlers, and any sort of animal was hard to control in a crowded party environment. "I really don't think unicorns are a good idea."
"What about mermaids?" Bunni asked. "We could make the guests wear fish tails and swimsuits. And they could sit in the pool."
"You can't ask your guests to sit in the pool-"
"I'm not dressing as a mermaid," Kiki protested.
"Just the guests," Bunni assured her. "We're totally going to be rocking out some couture wedding gowns. I want a two-piece one. A halter on top and like, a hot pink skirt on the bottom with lots of layers."
"I thought traditional might be more appropriate," Kiki said uncertainly, casting a worried look at Greer.
"Yes! Traditional! We should focus on that. You can still have a lot of fun with a more traditional theme. And when I mention theme, I was thinking more like how you could use the same sort of symbol on the invites and on the monograms for the tablecloths. Not unicorns-"
"It's my wedding and I want to ride in on a white unicorn," Tiffi said stubbornly.
"It's my wedding too," Bunni said. "And I like the idea of mermaids. You were the one that suggested fairy tales, Greer. I'm just going with your suggestion."
"No, I said you should think of this as your fairy tale. Something magical and romantic. I didn't say that everyone should dress up like they're in a fairy tale."
"Maybe you should be clearer," Asher said, and Greer could have sworn his lips twitched with amusement.
He was doing this to piss her off, wasn't he? Wasn't it bad enough that she was having to put together this farce of a wedding in a month's time? Why was he making this worse for her? She jumped to her feet. "Can we talk in private, Mr. Sutton?"
"Oooo," Tiffi whispered. "Someone's in trouble."
"I'll spank him," Bunni cooed. She gave Asher a lascivious wink as he got to his feet. "You just tell me where you want it."
"In the study, please," Greer barked and pointed at a nearby door. She then pointed at the women. "You three stay here and come up with which theme you want. We'll talk about it more when Mr. Sutton and I get back."
One of the girls gave her a quick salute, as if Greer were a drill sergeant. Greer ignored that and marched into the adjoining study. She held the door open until Asher sauntered in, and then closed it firmly behind him.
They needed to talk. Greer turned, leaning against the doors, her hands still on the handles so she wouldn't inadvertently reach out and choke the man. "What do you think you're doing?" she whispered at him.
He leaned in. "I'm helping." And the bastard grinned at her.
"You're making it worse! You're supposed to be here to help me out, not to turn this into a three-ring circus."
"Are you kidding me?" Asher crossed his arms over his chest and rocked back on his heels. "Your father has turned marrying those poor girls into a game. They're the laughingstock of every tabloid in the nation at the moment, or haven't you been paying attention?"
She glared at him and stepped away from the door. Actually, she'd seen a few articles on the upcoming wedding that were downright unkind, and she'd stopped reading after that. "Don't talk so loud, they'll hear."
"You think they don't know that people are going to make fun of them? You think they're not stressed out over this?" Asher shook his head slightly. "If anything, you should be mad at your father for taking what should be a wedding and making it a pure publicity stunt. He's not going to come out of this any worse for the wear, but those three are going to be labeled as gold diggers for the rest of their lives. I think if they want a few stupid unicorns on the day that they might potentially marry your father-and the odds are one in three at the moment, unless something changes-then they have every right."
Greer glared at him, feeling helpless. He wasn't wrong about the situation, and that made her feel worse. Was her father making this a joke? Yes. Could he be dissuaded? No. "That's why it's so important for the wedding to be classy and beautiful, Asher. It needs to be something that everyone can look at and realize that however it seems on the outside, we took it seriously. They're nice girls. They deserve to have a wedding they can be proud of-"
"No matter who the groom is?" He arched an eyebrow at her.
"I'm not going to discuss my father right now." Though really, he wasn't saying anything she hadn't thought herself. She clasped her hands in front of her. "But this is why it's so important that I have your help to keep things going. We need to think classic and elegant, since we're already in a time crunch. I don't need you filling their ears with ideas about unicorns and flying doves-"