Dream Wedding: Dream Bride | Dream Groom Read Free

There are still tickets available, but they’re going fast. The gems themselves will be on display throughout the month. Mr. Smith, it’s been my pleasure having you here this morning.”
    Chloe’s mouth twisted. The woman was practically cooing. So much for professionalism, she thought, refusing to acknowledge the white heat inside of her that some might call jealousy.
    So her mystery man had a name. Arizona Smith. Which meant he was real. She thought about the nightgown, the Bradley family legend, the dream. Oh, Lord, it couldn’t be true. He was not her destiny. He couldn’t be. She didn’t want a destiny like that. She avoided relationships.
    It doesn’t matter, she told herself fiercely. The man is in town for maybe a week. It’s not as if I’ll ever run into him.
    “I’ve got to get to work early,” she told Cassie.
    “Don’t you want your coffee?”
    Chloe was already heading out the door. “I’ll grab some on the way,” she called over her shoulder, and made her escape to freedom.
    * * *
    A RIZONA S MITH WAS everywhere, Chloe thought with dismay as she sipped her coffee at the small diner across the street from her office. His picture had been plastered on three buses and on four different billboards she’d spotted on her way to work. Even now he was staring at her from the bench directly in front of her building—or at least his picture was. She couldn’t escape the man.
    “Deep breaths,” she told herself. The trick was to keep breathing. And moving. If he couldn’t catch her, she would be safe.
    It was too weird. All of it. Maybe she’d seen his picture over the past couple of days and not really noticed. Somehow it had gotten lodged in her brain and only surfaced last night. A perfectly plausible explanation.
    If only the sex hadn’t been so good.
    “I don’t believe in destiny,” she reminded herself again as she left the diner and made her way to the foyer of her building. The magazine office was on the second floor. She stopped by reception long enough to pick up her messages.
    “Jerry wants to see you,” Paula, the receptionist-gofer called. “Something about a special assignment.”
    “Great.” That was what she needed. Something challenging to take her mind off her temporary insanity.
    She dropped her things at her desk, then headed for her editor’s office.
    Bradley Today was a small but prestigious magazine that came out twice a month. Chloe had gotten a job there when she’d graduated from U.C. Berkeley with a degree in journalism. Eventually she planned to make her way to New York, where the big magazines were published, but for now she was gathering experience and building her clippings.
    “You wanted to see me, boss?” she asked as she stepped through the open glass door.
    “Yeah, sit.” Jerry waved to the seat opposite his desk.
    It was only eight-thirty in the morning, but his long-sleeved shirt was already rumpled and his tie hung crooked. If the clothes hadn’t been different from the ones he’d worn the previous day, Chloe would have sworn he’d slept in them.
    “It’s like this,” he said, then stuck one hand into the pile of folders on his desk. He pulled one out, looked at the label, shoved it back and grabbed another. “Nancy’s pregnant.”
    Chloe nodded. Nancy was one of their most experienced writers. “She’s been that way for about seven months.”
    “Tell me about it. Babies. Who needs ’em? Anyway, she says she’s too far along to be running around for me. She wants to write stuff that lets her stay in the office. Can you believe it?”
    His outrage made Chloe smile. “Wow. How insensitive of her.”
    “Exactly. Does she give me any warning? No-o-o. She calls me at home last night and drops the bomb. So now I pass it along to you. Good luck, kid.” With that, he tossed her the folder.
    When she touched the stiff paper, Chloe felt the same shivery chill she’d experienced the previous night when she’d slipped on the nightgown. The