Free Engaged in Embellishments: Tulle and Tulips, Book 5.5 by Nikki Duncan

Chapter One
    Lori Mullins, the creator and owner of Tulle and Tulips Designer Weddings, knew a thing or two about glamour and elegance. She joked that she’d learned at the hands of a high-profile madame. Only recently, after her friends had gotten her sufficiently loosened up with wine and the finest of homemade chocolates, had she finally shared the truth few people knew.
    She’d been recruited and trained by a secret government agency that had employed her as a spy. She’d fallen in love with weddings and wedding dresses during a mission where she’d worked as a wedding planner for an arms dealer. After her retirement , beginning Tulle and Tulips had been a dream come true.
    Occasionally she had the pleasure of putting a wedding together for a friend. Better than that, she got to work with friends when she did.
    “Glittering Groot.” Tabatha Sampson shook her head to get her hair away from her face. Her chuckle was rich and happy as she wrapped shimmery brown tulle around a strand of tiny white lights that would be strung back and forth across the ceiling of the arch. The ballroom’s two sets of double doors would be opened after the ceremony to unite the ballroom and the tent beyond into one space for the reception. “I would never have thought we could make a comic book wedding glamorous.”
    Lori moved to the next chair to continue the tulle chain that would keep people out of the aisle. “When the Bunny of Bling gets married, elegance is the only way we could go.”
    Instead of trying to recapture a particular comic book story, Darci and Victor had chosen a scene from Guardians of the Galaxy . That scene being the pivotal moment when the characters truly went from being individuals to being a team. When Groot sacrificed himself to protect the others and instead of saying “I am Groot” said “We are Groot”. With Darci’s eye for all that sparkles, the day promised to be everything she and her comic-book-loving husband-to-be could want.
    “Says the woman whose silk slacks remain unwrinkled after a ten-hour day.”
    Lori looked at the deep purple slacks she’d chosen that morning and could only shrug over their smoothness. Being wrinkle free was little more than a smart fabric choice.
    “What will your wedding be like, Lori?” Tabatha asked.
    Nearby, where she was decorating the table that would hold the cake, Gisella Sands snorted. It wasn’t a classy sound, but Gisella was better known for her stark audaciousness. “Lori’s never going to have a wedding. She’s having too much fun with fiancée-on-fiancé friskiness.”
    “You say that like fun is a bad thing,” Lori said. Being with Trevor Masters was fun, but more importantly it was something she hadn’t known until he’d hired her as an escort. It was safe. He was safe. “And by the way, it can only be fiancée-on-fiancé friskiness when there’s been an engagement.”
    Tabatha, glowing with the newness of requited romance, shook her head. “How is it possible Trevor’s let you go so long without accepting him?”
    “He says he’s willing to wait for me.” For all the control Trevor commanded in his business deals, he seemed perfectly content putting the control of their future in Lori’s hands. The longer he stayed patient with her, the more actively she began to question her denial of his daily proposals. Being with him was safe, but she hadn’t convinced herself she’d always be safe with him.
    “Only as long as you’re not making him wait for sex, right?”
    “I’m not ready to be the one walking down the aisle, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stay a virgin until that day comes.”
    Tabatha laughed. “You could abstain from sex as easily as Darci could go a day without wearing a shiny bauble.”
    “That’ll never happen,” Gisella said.
    “I’ve seen the way you and Danny look at each other,” Lori challenged Tabatha. “You can’t deny you’re addicted to him.”
    “He stayed loyal when I tossed him