Free The Wedding Kiss by Lucy Kevin

he called RJ a gardener. Because he was so much more than that. The truth was, she couldn’t run the Rose Chalet without him.
    “Besides, you just told me that it wasn’t anything serious, just a contest on Valentine’s Day.”
    “Doesn’t it bother you that it was a contest that involved kissing another man?”
    “Perhaps a little,” he said, “but I can understand it, too. You wanted to see what it would be like to enjoy a brief forbidden moment. Let’s face it, Rose, that’s all it was. Perhaps if it was someone else that you kissed, I might be more upset. But it isn’t like your gardener is actually a threat to us.”
    “RJ isn’t just a gardener,” she finally had to retort. “Not only has he designed and landscaped pretty much the entire Rose Chalet property, he’s also helped with the important details in putting hundreds of weddings together.”
    “Okay, so he’s a useful gardener who is also good with a hammer and nails,” Donovan said. “It still doesn’t mean he’d ever be good enough for you. It was just a silly moment of fun for you, but it was nearly a year ago now, yes? A meaningless kiss from a year ago.”
    “But that’s…Donovan, why are you being so reasonable about this?”
    “I love you, and more importantly, I trust you, Rose. I trust you to make the right decisions, and to know just how good we are together. You obviously feel guilty about the kiss, but you don’t need to. You really don’t.”
    “But — ”
    “You’ve unburdened yourself and I’m not upset. Everything is fine between us. Perfectly fine.”
    It was all so reasonable and neat, so sealed off and free of emotion. In that moment, Rose felt like screaming...and that just made her feel worse.
    Why couldn’t Donovan react ? Why did he have to be so measured about things? Why, for once, couldn’t he just go with what he felt, like so many other men would have?
    Like RJ would have.
    She tried to push the errant thought back, but it was true. If RJ had heard that she’d kissed another man, he would have reacted so passionately, so intensely.
    Beside her, Donovan just kept driving, his expression as calm and even as if she’d never admitted to kissing another man at all.

Chapter Eleven
     
    RJ went to work early on Thursday morning. He wasn’t going to give Rose anything less than her dream wedding, even if it meant he had to put in extra hours before anyone else was on the property. In fact, it was probably better that way, because then she wouldn’t see all the details as he built them. Some surprises, he wanted to keep for her big day.
    He was using a nail gun to get two-by-four beams into position in the main hall, and wanted to get them in place before Rose could see them. It wasn’t exactly an elegant solution, but it would give him a strong core to build the rest of the setup around.
    The same strong core that Rose seemed to be so determined to ignore in herself.
    “Hey, RJ.” He looked up to see his brother approaching.
    “Patrick, I thought you’d be busy working on Rose and Donovan’s new home. Aren’t they planning on moving in after the wedding?” Thinking about the two of them together in the new house had RJ’s gut clenching.
    “We’re actually pretty close to completion,” Patrick told him.
    “I bet it goes even quicker when Donovan is willing to spend the money for additional contractors.”
    “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” his brother told him. “It means that I can come down here to offer my services. Or was Phoebe wrong when she told me you have to re-build the entire wedding setup from scratch?”
    “She wasn’t wrong.”
    “I’m surprised to hear that Rose changed her mind about the whole thing. That isn’t like her.”
    RJ didn’t want to go into the details, even with his brother. “The important thing is that it needs to get done by Saturday.”
    Patrick shrugged and picked up a hammer without asking, starting to nail a crossbeam into position.