Free Hot Finish by Erin McCarthy

“Have a wonderful day.”
    His response was to lift his hand in a backward wave, but he didn’t look back at her.
    Jerk.
    Suzanne tried not to be hurt, because really, what was different about this than any other day she encountered Ryder?
    But she was, in a way that irritated her. Two years, and she was still hurting. Two years, and they still couldn’t manage to have a conversation without misunderstanding each other.
    And yet, the night before she had seriously considered having sex with him.
    Which made her a complete masochist. Or an idiot. Or both.
    “If he was really a girl, you’d know, right?” Nikki asked.
    Suzanne felt reassured that she wasn’t such an idiot after all. Nikki had the market on stupid cornered.
    “I would know,” she reassured her, reminding herself that she had to stop at the bank to deposit that check from Jonas. “Now are you ready to go? I really think you’re going to like the Hilton. It has everything you’re looking for and it will be easy to give it that faux middle eastern feel the Aladdin had.”
    “But it is classy?”
    Classier than the bride. But Suzanne gave her a bright smile. Honestly, it wasn’t Nikki’s fault she had breasts ten times the size of her brain. “Of course.”
    Nor was it Nikki’s fault that Ryder Jefferson still managed to get under Suzanne’s skin, festering like a splinter she couldn’t extract.
    She should have a little more sympathy and compassion and patience for Nikki, and she vowed to do just that.

    EIGHT hours later, she was only thinking it was a good thing Nikki’s neck was so scrawny because it would be much easier to wrap her hands around it and choke the life out of her.
    “None of these appealed to you at all?” she asked Nikki again, just to confirm that out of six very elegant ballrooms, Nikki hadn’t found one that she liked. They had crisscrossed town, shaken hands with six different fawning catering managers, and Suzanne had been forced to use two public restrooms. Her feet hurt, her head hurt, her nerves were shot, and her thoughts had never so frequently strayed to homicide. Not even when she was with Ryder.
    “No. They’re just . . . wrong. That one was too big, the other too small, the one had those gross pillars, and one had blue carpet. I mean, eew.” Nikki shuddered, like blue carpet was a personal affront to her.
    The wind was cutting through Suzanne’s peacoat as they stood in the waning darkness of the hotel parking lot. This was unreal. Every one of those rooms had been perfectly acceptable. “Virtually anything in a ballroom can be obscured or altered with the right decorations,” she told Nikki, praying for patience, something she’d never had a hell of a lot of.
    “You can’t change blue carpet.” Nikki pulled a hair off that had gotten stuck to the lip gloss on her plump lip.
    “You want to bet? I can change anything,” Suzanne said, feeling a rise of defiance. She wasn’t going to lose this wedding, and she wasn’t going to be forced to jump through any more hoops. They were going to pick a venue today if it killed her, or hopefully, if it killed Nikki. “I can lay down a series of rugs that match the theme in a pattern, and stitch them together. Or put a circular rug under each table. I can do whatever you want, but we can cover the carpet.” She really wasn’t sure she could, but once she’d spoken the words, she knew she’d find a way or die trying.
    “I can change anything,” she repeated, wishing that were the case in her personal life. If she could just cover her shitty feelings with a carpet, she could sell that secret for more than a dollar.
    Nikki tilted her head, clearly contemplating this. “Okay. Let’s go with the blue carpet place then. I liked the entrance. Can we go back there tonight? I’ll call Jonas and he can meet us there.”
    “Sure.” The sooner she had Nikki and Jonas sign on the dotted line with the hotel, the better.
    Because then she could take a swan dive