Free 7 Brides for 7 Bodies by Stephanie Bond Page B

finger food around two-thousand-dollar tuxes was a good idea?”
    She grinned. “Do you have the order they’re supposed to line up?”
    He nodded toward a sheet of paper taped to the end of a rolling shelf. “That’s the most I have to go on. This isn’t the most organized event.”
    “It’ll be fine,” she soothed. “People just want to be entertained.”
    Edward frowned. “So that’s why that blowhard Jarold Jett is here?”
    She detected a note of testiness in his voice that hinted of familiarity. “Do you know him?”
    “I worked for him years ago in New York. The man is a tyrant.”
    “Really? He seemed a little uppity, but then so do most celebrities.”
    “Jarold Jett is not a celebrity.”
    “Sorry—designer.”
    “ Please . Our tailor at Neiman’s has more talent.”
    Carlotta laughed. “I walked in with him, and his tent is practically next door, so you’re bound to run into him.”
    “I’m safe,” Edward said with a wave of his hand. “Mr. Jett-Setter won’t remember a lowly pattern cutter from twenty years ago.”
    Raucous laughter blasted from the young men carousing in the tent, and a playful shoving match broke out. Edward scowled. “Watch the clothing, please!”
    Carlotta clapped her hands. “Can I have your attention, gentlemen?”
    All eyes swung in her direction. “You can have anything of mine you want!” a handsome, cocky guy crowed.
    More laughter ensued as Carlotta gave them a wry smile. “What I want is for you to line up in the order I call for Edward to make last-minute adjustments.”
    “Where are our brides?” one of the models asked, rubbing his hands together.
    “Next tent over,” she said, then plucked the sheet of paper from the rack. “Now, I need Darren, Lewis, Jeremy, Ben, Luke, Jonathon, Thom, Danny, Sam, and Tony to line up here.” She pointed to an imaginary spot and the men started moving toward it in various degrees of leisureliness. They were all slender and chiseled in that effortless way of young men, handsome and full of themselves, with good skin and straight teeth.
    “Isn’t this bad luck?” one of the men—Jeremy, if they were in the correct order—asked.
    “What do you mean?” she asked.
    He seemed nervous as he pulled at his stiff white collar, and he was working a big wad of chewing gum. He had a pretty-boy, sullen look about him. Carlotta pegged him as a former prep school athlete—entitled and obviously underemployed. “Wearing a tux before your actual wedding day.” He slurred his words a little. He was either hung over or high. “Is it bad luck?”
    “Yeah, it means you’ll have to get married someday,” the guy behind him—Ben?—said with a laugh.
    “I am getting married,” Jeremy said miserably. “Next month.”
    “For real?” Ben asked, horrified. “Why?”
    “Have to...my girlfriend’s pregnant.”
    “Whoa,” Ben said, taking a step back, as if fatherhood might be contagious. “Bummer, dude.”
    “Tell me about it.” Jeremy swung his head back to Carlotta. “So I guess this’ll be my dry run, huh?”
    She tried to smile, but nursed a barb of sympathy for the baby this man-child had fathered, and hoped Jeremy would rise to the occasion. Her mouth watered to tell him that fathers could make or break a child.
    “Next,” Edward said, waving impatiently for Jeremy to step up for his jacket to be pinned.
    Carlotta swallowed the words, chiding herself not to project her personal problems onto other people. Jeremy might turn out to be a world-class dad.
    Or at least a dad who sticks around.
    She spent the next several minutes tying bowties and smoothing creases and giving stiff shoes a quick shine with a tissue while good-naturedly deflecting the young men’s frisky comments. Their youthful enthusiasm was a distraction from her problems.
    She shepherded them outside the tent just as beautiful women emerged from Jarold Jett’s tent wearing stunning creations of white, ivory, and—the newest bridal