Stark After Dark by J. Kenner Page B

pleasure in her life unless she’s screwing with me.”
    I stalk around the bedroom, trying to get my head together. I feel cold and angry and out of control. Whatever pleasure I’d felt when Damien and Evan presented me with my wedding dress has been swept away. It’s as if this wedding will never truly be my own. And now I either have to endure a wedding with my mother’s stamp upon it, or I have to spend my wedding day sorting out this mess.
    “Dammit,” I howl.
    “It will be okay,” Damien says, pulling me into his arms.
    “I know it’ll be okay. It’s not like we’re talking about curing cancer. But that’s not the point. She just went and turned the whole thing around on me.”
    “And at the end of the day, we’ll still be married,” he says reasonably.
    I am in too bitchy a mood to listen to reason, but it’s still there. Inescapable and true and hanging in the air between us.
    I stalk around the room a bit more, while Damien eyes me with trepidation, as if I’m a bomb about to go off.
    Smart man.
    Finally, the bubbling anger cools, leaving calm calculation.
    I feel the prickle of an idea, and slowly it grows. After a few more laps around the room, I stop in front of Damien.
    “I can fix this,” I say.
    “What do you mean?”
    “I can howl and complain that she fucked up my wedding. Or I can turn it around on its ear, flip my mother the bird, and say that she didn’t fuck up my wedding, she did me a favor.”
    “Did she?”
    My smile is slow. “Yes. And I’ll tell you why.” I grab the collar of Damien’s shirt, pull him toward me, once again feeling light and free. I kiss him hard. “I can tell you,” I repeat, and then flash a smile full of wicked intentions, “but you’re going to have to make me.”

Chapter 9
    I stand on the third-floor balcony looking out at the calm Pacific. It is a beautiful evening, perfect for an outdoor wedding.
    It is almost sunset. Just about time for the ceremony to begin.
    Damien is beside me, his arm around my waist. The expanse of his property, lush green fading to pale sand, spreads out before us.
    Usually, the beach is empty this time of day. Right now, however, it is dotted with white tents and glowing lanterns. Guests mingle, indistinguishable from this distance, and I hear the soft strains of Frank Sinatra drifting up to us. Beyond the line of tents, the paparazzi are camped out, ready to pounce.
    I can’t help but smile at the thought that we’re pulling something over on those vultures.
    Beyond them, the Pacific glows a warm purple tinged with orange from the swiftly setting sun.
    Soon,
I think.
Soon I will be Mrs. Damien Stark.
    “You’re sure this is what you want?” Damien asks as the air fills with the thrum of his helicopter. It swoops down in front of us to settle gently on the helipad.
    I take one more look at the panorama spread out before me. “I’m sure,” I say, raising my voice to be heard over the rotors.
    Below us, Gregory and Tony are loading suitcases into the bird.
    I rise up on my toes and kiss Damien, hard and fast and deep. I pull away, breathless, and smile at the irony—it took a shove from my mother to drive home something I should have realized all along.
    I press my palm to Damien’s chest, wanting to feel the beat of his heart beneath my hand. “It’s not the walk down the aisle that matters—it’s the man waiting for me when I get there. You said it yourself, it’s the only wedding I’ll ever have, and this is the way I want it.” No stress, no drama, no paparazzi. No polite chitchat, no worries about music or food or flowers or unexpected relatives showing up out of the blue. Just Damien and those two little words—
I do
.
    “And all the work you’ve put into the reception?” he asks, even though we talked about this last night—about how I’d been working so hard for perfection that I lost sight of what Damien already knew—that so long as we end up as man and wife, “perfect” is a