The Wedding Planner's Christmas Wish, page 1
A Wedding in New York
You are cordially invited to the wedding of the century...
Heiress Ivy Jenkins and CEO Sebastian Davis—Manhattan’s It Couple!—are set to tie the knot at New York’s ultimate wedding venue: Parker & Parker.
With their guest list a Who’s Who of the city’s A-listers, Ivy and Sebastian want a wedding to remember! So they need the best in the business to help plan their perfect day... Cue Alexandra Harris, Hailey Thomas and Autumn Jones! The wedding planner, florist and maid of honor may be there to make Ivy and Sebastian’s day magical...but what if their love lives receive a sprinkle of Christmas magic, too?
Discover Alexandra and Drew’s story in The Wedding Planner’s Christmas Wish by Cara Colter
Available now!
And look out for the next two books in the trilogy
Hailey and Giovanni’s story by Ellie Darkins and Autumn and Jack’s story by Susan Meier
Coming soon!
Dear Reader,
Like so many of you, I have been traveling a hard road. On a personal level, my family has been hit over and over again with tragedy. Two terrible and separate accidents in a very short span of time left us all reeling. There has been a heartbreaking diagnosis. The loyal dog who had lain at my feet, snoring softly through the creation of over thirty books, crossed over to the other side.
Add to this a troubled and strange world, where the rules change daily. Sometimes, it feels as if we may never know normal again.
I do not feel as if I am getting through any of this with courage, or grace. But I am getting through it. What has helped me the most? The story. Always it is the story. I am so profoundly grateful to the authors who continue to weave their magic and invite me to escape into the marvelous worlds of their creation.
As I write, this is my intention: let these words bring a glimmer of hope.
I am deeply grateful to you, the reader, for allowing me the great privilege of serving you with my words, with the story.
Always,
Cara
The Wedding Planner’s Christmas Wish
Cara Colter
www.millsandboon.com.au
Cara Colter shares her home in beautiful British Columbia, Canada, with her husband of more than thirty years, an ancient, crabby cat, and several horses. She has three grown children, and two grandsons.
Books by Cara Colter
Harlequin Romance
A Fairytale Summer!
Cinderella’s New York Fling
Cinderellas in the Palace
His Convenient Royal Bride
One Night with Her Brooding Bodyguard
A Crown by Christmas
Cinderella’s Prince Under the Mistletoe
Tempted by the Single Dad
Cinderella’s New York Fling
Matchmaker and the Manhattan Millionaire
His Cinderella Next Door
To Tessa Avon
With deepest gratitude for the hope you have brought to so many hearts.
Praise for
Cara Colter
“Ms. Colter’s writing style is one you will want to continue to read. Her descriptions place you there.... This story does have a[n] HEA but leaves you wanting more.”
—Harlequin Junkie on His Convenient Royal Bride
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
Excerpt from The Billionaire’s Island Reunion by Susan Meier
CHAPTER ONE
ALEXANDRA HARRIS HAD an excellent imagination, so if there was one thing she loved—but rarely got to experience—it was when things were actually better than she imagined them.
Parker and Parker was just that: better than she’d imagined.
Located at the edge of New York City’s Central Park, the soaring Renaissance-style facade of the building made it look like a gorgeous mansion, almost but not quite castle-like.
“Just like a fairy tale,” she whispered, not unaware of a feeling of homecoming. Fairy tales, professionally if not personally, were, after all, Alexandra’s specialty. There was a reason she and her company, Ever After, were currently New York’s most in-demand wedding planners.
She passed through a black wrought-iron gate that was bordered on both sides by a high, well-manicured hedge that was, this first day of October, just beginning to take on the bold colors of autumn. But as glorious as those colors were, Alexandra imagined how it all would look in two and a half months, when the hedge would be leafless but ten times as magical, decorated and lit with a million tiny white lights, not just for Christmas, but for the wedding of the century.
Two and a half months might seem like a long time to most people, but Alexandra was aware how fast that final lead-up time to the wedding would go.
Ivy Jenkins, heiress to the billion-dollar business Jenkins Inc., and Sebastian Davis, CEO of New York’s most exciting tech start-up, were tying the knot.
And they’d asked her, Alexandra Harris, to be the wedding planner for their unforgettable Christmas-themed wedding.
Christmas, she told herself, something she was also good at professionally, if not personally. That unshakable feeling of dread...
She ordered herself, firmly, to stop it. She had a wedding that would take one hundred percent of her focus, thank goodness.
Because it had to be perfect. Having the rich and famous fight to hire you came with pressures. These people, with their wealth and influence, could make you with a word. And just as easily break you.
A career always hung on that impossible pursuit of absolute perfection. Alexandra was aware she was always one disaster—or even one tiny bridal disappointment—away from being ruined.
And so in her quest to constantly up her game—and particularly for this wedding—Alexandra had set her sights on Parker and Parker. She’d known instantly it was the only venue that would do. She’d been stunned when Gabe Evans, the head of events for the gorgeous old Jacobean-style castle, built in 1831, had told her they didn’t take weddings.
How could they not take weddings when it was so perfect? Parker and Parker was made for weddings!
But no, he’d insisted that the venue in general—and the owner of the venue in particular, Drew Parker—preferred conferences and events and had made them their specialty.
Conferences? Congregations of boring pediatricians or neuroscientists or whatever other professional group could afford the steep fees? Events? Like stuffy charity balls and mind-numbing auctions for good causes? All right, at least events might be noble. But still, they had nothing on the pure charm of a blissful wedding day!
Alexandra hadn’t achieved her success as a dream weaver and fairy-tale provider by taking no for an answer.
Despite time pressures—she had to nail down the venue—she’d kept at Gabe until he’d been persuaded. Now, standing here on the grounds, she knew her persistence had been well worth it. Nothing could be more perfect than this! In an hour or so, Ivy and Sebastian were going to get here and see it for the first time, the extraordinary place that would provide that essential backdrop to build the rest of their day—and the beginning of their life together—around.
Today, she’d meet Gabe in person for the first time, which was a relief. She had the check for the deposit in her purse. Gabe had confirmed for December 14, and the days leading up to it, of course, and they had long since completed the contract using an online signing service.
Even so, Alexandra had experienced a strange sense of him ducking actually meeting her. She wasn’t sure why he made her a bit uneasy. On the phone, and in emails and texts, he always seemed gracious and even enthusiastic about the wedding.
And yet, sometimes, he seemed distracted when they spoke. Scheduled emails arrived late. Phone calls were forgotten. Somehow, her dealings with Gabe had an odd feeling of subterfuge. There were even times when she spoke to him that it actually felt as if he was whispering.
But here, on the grounds, with the check in her purse, she dismissed her anxieties. They were as normal for her as they were for the bride—maybe even more so. It was Alexandra’s job to worry about everything that could go wrong and fix it before it even surfaced as a problem.
But, finally, she was here, and finally, it felt real. She couldn’t wait to explore the property with Gabe, inspect the facilities and kitchens. When Sebastian and Ivy arrived, they could start to narrow down the best locations within the property for the ceremony, the dinner, the dance, the photos.
Later, in the days and weeks ahead, she could collaborate with Gabe on the perfect mix of the venue’s traditional Christmas decor with the white-and-silver theme of the Jenkins-Davis wedding.
Or maybe not poinsettias, as the flowers were not her choice to make, she reminded herself. She was excited that in just three days she would be meeting with Hailey Thomas for the first time. Hailey was just as noted in her specialty of floral design as Alexandra was in hers of wedding planning, and she couldn’t wait to work with her.
By December 14, Alexandra, Hailey and their combined teams would have transformed Parker and Parker from what it so obviously was—a slightly exotic rented venue—into a palace worthy of a fairy-tale beginning, and those magnificent oak doors at the top of the stairs would be thrown open to the invited guests of Ivy and Sebastian.
She glanced at her watch. She was a tiny bit early, and so she veered off the wide cobblestone path into the trees that flanked it. It was like entering a forest grotto in the middle of New York. And already, she could imagine silver and white Christmas trees, in the wedding theme colors, threaded into this little wood, turning it into an absolute enchantment.
She was about to turn and find the pathway again when a sound froze her in her tracks.
It was a child’s giggle.
It was impossible. The wooded copse was empty. For a moment, Alexandra wondered if her mind had fabricated the giggle, just as how, when she slept, a child sometimes danced through her dreams.
She pulled herself together. Today was just not a good day to indulge the thoughts of a child who had almost been. Invariably, that what-if led to sadness, and Alexandra reminded herself sternly she was in the business of selling happiness.
Alexandra scanned the shrubbery and saw nothing. The giggle came again, breathless, muffled. A heap of raked leaves twitched suspiciously, and then she noticed a tiny black patent-leather shoe sticking out from under it.
She was relieved the bell-like laughter had not been a figment of her imagination, but still, something registered deep within her as being distinctly wrong.
It could be that she was interrupting a game of hide-and-seek, but where were the other players? And where was the adult supervisor?
There was no one else in this shaded area that she could discern. In fact, the silence was deep, given that all of New York hummed only a stone’s throw away.
There was another muffled giggle and another tremble from under the pile of leaves.
Alexandra looked at her watch again. She was cutting it close. Still, she didn’t feel right about leaving the child to her own devices in the Parker and Parker gardens. Despite the fact it felt like a private estate in the middle of the British countryside, the truth of the matter was they were practically at the center of New York City!
She edged closer to the pile of leaves. She had a wealth of experience with children, because her sister and brother had provided her with a half dozen rambunctious, lovable, energetic nieces and nephews.
That was her family. It was good enough. More than enough! It didn’t fill her with longing for what might have been. It didn’t!
“I haven’t seen a pile of leaves like this in forever,” Alexandra announced theatrically. “So, even though I am much too old, I’m going to jump in it. Here I go! One. Two—”
Before she counted to three, a small figure erupted from under the pile, squealing.
“No, no! Don’t jump! You’ll squish me!”
“My goodness!” Alexandra said, pretending to be startled. She took a step back. “A fairy!”
That was, indeed, what the small girl looked like. Leaves clung to a pink angora beret and a white cable-knit sweater, and a pink plaid skirt was stuck to bright pink tights.
But Alexandra realized it did not look like a fairy’s face gazing at her—more like an angel’s. The child’s hair sprang in luxurious black curls out from under the beret. She had thick lashes, emerald-green eyes, plump cheeks and the most adorable bow of a mouth.
Alexandra had not done this for a long time: her baby would have been... She felt a shocking ache of longing, a stage she had thought she was long past. She quickly squashed it.
Not today.
The girl looked no more than four, and there was still no adult in sight.
“I’m not a fairy!” the child declared. “And you’re not that old. I thought you might be a witch.”
“Thanks,” Alexandra said dryly. “But if you’re not a fairy, who are you? It seems to me only a fairy, not a small girl, would be out in the woods all by herself.”
“I’m hiding from my nan,” the girl said with mischievous glee. “And I’m good at it, too.”
Alexandra tried not to let the alarm show in her face. “But how long have you been hiding? Your grandmother must be very worried about you.”
The girl looked puzzled. “I’m not with my grandmother.”
“Your nan?”
The child was silent.
“Your mother, then? Honestly, someone must be looking for you?”
The little girl blew out her lower lip and cast her gaze down at her feet. “I don’t have a mother,” she said sadly. “She died.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!”
The sad tone dissolved, and she lifted her chin to look at Alexandra appraisingly. “Would you like to be my mommy?”
There was a tricky question, loaded with all kinds of potential to cause both hurt and false hope.
“Well,” Alexandra offered carefully, “of course, I’d love to be your mother. You look perfectly adorable. But you can’t just pick up mothers in the woods on a whim.”
“I don’t know what a whim is, but I’d like a mother who would jump in leaves,” the girl said. “My daddy says I’m not ’dorable. I’m a perfect little monster.”
“I’m sure he’s teasing when he says that.”
“Or maybe it’s true,” she offered carelessly, then tilted her head and smiled a small, charming smile. “Would you love to be my mommy if I was ’dorable and a monster?”
She was unusually articulate for her size. Precocious. It seemed there was going to be no correct answer for that question, so Alexandra felt it might be best to ignore it and address the more urgent matter at hand. Someone was looking for this mite, and probably desperately, too.
Alexandra firmly held out her hand. “Come on, we have to find your nan.”
The tiny minx actually looked like she was considering darting the other way, but then, with a sigh of surrender, she took the proffered hand.
There was that feeling again, as Alexandra’s hand closed around the warmth and sturdiness of the little girl’s smaller one. She felt almost dizzy with longing.
This was ridiculous! She spent all kinds of time with her nieces and nephews and didn’t feel as if she was being freshly immersed in grief, as she did now.
The child obviously knew her way around this tiny wood very well. She led Alexandra straight out and to the path.
A man’s deep voice, edged in desperation, penetrated the silence of the woods. “Genevieve!”
The child giggled.
“That’s you, isn’t it?” Alexandra asked.
She nodded.
“It’s not nice to frighten people,” Alexandra said firmly. “It’s quite naughty.” They stepped out of the shade of the trees and onto the cobblestones.
A man was standing just outside the double oak doors at the top of the sweeping staircase that led into Parker and Parker, his gaze anxiously scanning the grounds. Even from a distance, and even though he was obviously agitated, it was apparent he was an attractive man.
A very attractive man.
He looked to be about midthirties and was dressed with the casual and utter sophistication that those comfortable with wealth were able to pull off: a dark gray sweater over a crisp white shirt and narrow-legged dark denims over boots.
He was tall, probably an inch or two over six feet, and beautifully proportioned, with wide shoulders, a broad chest and the flat stomach of the very fit. His legs, encased in those denims, were long and powerful-looking.
