Chapter Five

Tori marched into the office a second time that morning, her head high and shoulders back, her competitive fire still burning hot within her. There was nothing like a good matchup to showcase her talents, and she was more than ready to let Georgina Bedland and this town see what she could really do.

She set her bag down on the floor by her desk before settling into her chair. She caught her reflection in the black computer screen, and only then did she allow that fire to calm.

Wyatt, the man she’d talked to for hours, was a wedding planner.

How had he seriously not thought to tell her he was the owner of Narrative Weddings? Okay, yes, she was technically the one who said no work talk. But that was when she thought he was a photographer. Not the one who’d orchestrated the wedding she was there to stake out.

Some wedding planner he was. Leaving before the event even ended, showing up late to the meeting with Mrs. Bedland, and dressed like that no less. Tori was a true professional. She’d been dominating this industry for the last ten years. This pitch war with Wyatt was going to be a piece of cake.

Still, she did have to give him some credit. The decorations last night were beautiful. The flowers, the colors, the way he’d taken the stereotypical beach wedding that had no doubt been done to death in this small coastal town and elevated it to something she would almost have been proud to create for her own high-society clients in Atlanta.

Her determination wavered, flickering as it grew weaker. The same thing had happened outside the Bedlands’ massive estate. His shoulders had lifted and the creases on his forehead smoothed when she told him she’d added her number to his phone. Like a weight he didn’t even know he was carrying had lifted off of him. It took the fire right out of her in only a second, and she’d had to force it back up again. This was her career, her business. Her reputation, not to mention her mother’s, rested on this event.

Her teeth gritted as she prodded the computer mouse, pulling up a bright blue screen. She’d told Wyatt everything. Shared all her deepest insecurities about moving to a new town and taking over her mom’s firm, and with her new business rival, no less. It didn’t get more personal than that, not to mention embarrassing. All the more reason to keep things as professional as possible in the future, and it all started with winning this gig.

Tori leaned forward to rest her elbows on the desk, then placed her hands over her face. She’d spent the last fifteen minutes in the car riding this same rollercoaster of emotions. Up. Down. Up again.

“So…”

Her hands fell away. Lettie was sitting at her desk next to Tori’s and staring at her. Deb blinked her wide eyes from her desk across the room.

“How’d it go?” Lettie finally asked.

Tori sat up straight, her embarrassment at the whole situation morphing into a defensive wall. “I don’t really want to talk about it.” Tori frowned at her computer, clicking randomly at icons on her desktop. “I mean, is it really too much to ask that our first potential gig in a new town come without any kind of strings or caveats?”

“I take it the meeting didn’t go all that well.”

Tori leaned back in her seat. Her head fell back onto the chair, and she stared up at the ceiling. “I have to audition. It’s between us and Narrative Weddings.”

There was a short pause, and Tori could almost feel Lettie’s uncertainty. “Well, that’s not entirely new, is it? You have to outbid other firms all the time.”

“Yes.” But those other firms weren’t stupid Wyatt and his beautiful beach wedding and that lopsided smile that had won her over so quickly. “I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay…” Lettie watched her warily for an extra minute before going back to whatever she’d been working on.

Tori sat up straight, determined to focus on her work as she pulled up her web browser to check in on a few emails. She opened a new one from the small business bureau, but as her eyes scanned over the words, her mind stayed stubbornly elsewhere. She groaned, abandoning the email and falling back in her chair again. “Why did he have to be so nice and funny?”

“Who?” Lettie asked.

“Wyatt.”

“Who’s Wyatt?”

“The guy from last night.”

“Hold on a second.” Deb perked up in her seat. “The guy from the wedding last night was Wyatt Rhoades?”

She nodded silently, and Deb’s face fell. “Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry.”

Lettie glanced between the two of them. “Am I missing something? I thought we were just talking about the meeting.”

“We are.”

“And the other wedding planner?”

Tori’s head fell forward. “Exactly.”

Lettie blinked once. Twice. “I am so confused.”

Deb shook her head. “Wyatt Rhoades, the guy Tori met last night, is the other planner.”

Lettie gasped. “Are you serious?”

“And now we’re competing for the same gig. I have two weeks to find a venue and come up with a plan for this wedding that’s better than anything else I’ve ever done before. There’s too much riding on this for me to drop the ball.”

“What do you mean?”

She dropped her head in her hands again. “The wedding is going to be featured in Bridal Belle.”

“That’s incredible!” Lettie screeched. “Do you think we can really get it?”

That was exactly what Tori had been wondering since she left Wyatt standing there at the Bedland house. She’d known getting this wedding would be tough, but this magazine spread was all the more reason to fight for it.

As well as her mom’s business was already doing, this was exactly what she needed to make a name for herself. To show that she wasn’t just riding on her mother’s coattails. That she wasn’t just handed this amazing gift on a platter—she’d earned it through her own merit and skill.

She turned in her chair, eyeing her mother’s wall of framed thank-you cards. She could win this wedding. But in order to do so, she’d have to present the best wedding of her career. It would have to be absolutely perfect. “Lettie.”

“Yeah?”

Tori spun her chair back around. “It’s time to get out the playbook.”

Lettie’s eyes widened. “Really?”

She nodded.

“What’s the playbook?” Deb asked, looking back and forth between them.

“The wedding notebook Tori’s been compiling since she started in the business.” Lettie rose from her seat and hurried to the back room. “It’s got pages on literally every wedding she’s ever done,” she shouted from the other room. “All her best ideas, decorations, color palettes, everything. Plus a list of all Tori’s top vendor contacts from when she worked in Atlanta, and special notes on which ones still owe her favors.”

Lettie emerged from the storage room with a thick pink binder in her hands. She placed it reverentially on Tori’s desk.

Tori ran a hand over the binder’s smooth surface. She only turned to the playbook—Lettie’s naming, of course—for her most important events, and none of those had even come close to this one. “If we want to beat Wyatt and land this gig, we’re going to have to go into full-blown wedding mode. Deb, can you get me a list of all the venues in a fifty-mile radius? Anywhere that can host a wedding of at least two hundred guests.”

She nodded. “I’m on it.”

“Also, call Georgina to set the meeting up with her daughter.”

“Sure, no problem.”

Tori set the binder aside before turning back to the email she was reading with renewed focus, but she stopped halfway through at the sound of wheels rolling across the floor. When she looked up, Lettie sat on the other side of her desk, her shoulders hunched. “What about the guy?” she whispered for only Tori to hear.

She pulled her shoulders back. “There is no guy.”

“Tori—”

“No, Lettie. I’m sorry, but this is too important to me…to us, to screw it all up over a guy.” She needed to put Wyatt and last night in a box and put it away in a closet somewhere.

“The whole point of you going to that wedding was for you to take your mind off of work.”

“I know it was, and I did. But now it’s time for full-blown wedding mode, remember?” She started tapping out a reply e-mail on her keyboard, ignoring the itching sensation her best friend’s stare left on her skin.

In the corner of Tori’s eye, she saw Lettie shake her head. “I just don’t want you to get so wrapped up in work you can’t think about anything else.”

Funny, that was exactly what Tori was hoping for.