Kathleen ignored her husband, keeping all of her attention on Audrey as she leaned forward. “And, honey, a little advice from someone who once got into a catfight with a hussy ex of your father’s—”

“Ooh!” Audrey sat up straighter. “I haven’t heard that story.”

“And you won’t,” Richard said, giving his wife a meaningful look over the top of his paper before resuming his reading.

“Later?” Audrey mouthed.

“Later,” her mom mouthed back, nodding in agreement.

“But I’m serious, Audrey,” her mom resumed in her normal voice. “Never underestimate the power of an ex-girlfriend with an agenda, especially when that ex-girlfriend has a shark like Linda West on her side.”

“What do mean?” Audrey asked in trepidation.

“I mean, that Clarke’s brainy-looking ex in the blue dress didn’t take her eyes off of him the entire night. The only time she did was to glare at you. I know when another woman means trouble. And that one had it written all over her.”

Chapter Eight

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23

Clarke had to give his mother credit. The woman did not back down. And when she raised the stakes, she raised them all the way. Hence, why he and Audrey were sitting across the table from an honest-to-God wedding planner.

His mother had called him at work to give him “the good news” and then droned on and on about how she’d booked the crème de la crème of wedding planners as a gift for Clarke and Audrey.

Clarke could have easily named nine hundred things he’d rather do with his Thursday evening.

Lobotomy.

Colonoscopy.

The opera.

But, his mother apparently hadn’t been exaggerating about the wedding planner’s merits because when Clarke had told Audrey, expecting her to be as disgruntled as him, she’d gasped in surprised delight, knowing the name of the wedding planner even before Clarke said it aloud:

Alexis Morgan.

Just like that, Clarke’s plans of backing out of his mother’s prearranged appointment had evaporated. Audrey had been so excited just to meet the damned woman that Clarke had somehow found himself traveling to the West Side in the middle of rush hour to meet a wedding planner for a wedding that would never be happening.

Based on the female reverence and his experience with the general stuffiness of Manhattan weddings, Clarke had been braced for a theatrical diva who’d come at them with suggestions of live butterflies, crustless sandwiches, and hot air balloons.

Instead, upon arriving at the Upper West Side townhome where the Wedding Belles was based, he was pleasantly surprised to find that the wedding planner was reassuringly normal. A slim brunette with a no-nonsense face and a quiet competence, Alexis Morgan seemed the consummate professional, more concerned with getting to know them than pushing her own agenda.