Wedding Survivor (3 page)

"Well… they don't like to talk a lot," he said, and looked at her meaningfully.

"Really?" Marnie asked with a charming smile, missing his point completely. "That's too bad. I like to talk to people. Don't you? I like meeting new people and hearing about them and what they do. I guess that's why I'm such a good wedding planner. I really
listen
to the bride and groom and try and make their vision of their perfect day come true," she said, and blithely launched into all the ways she did that.

With a small sigh, Eli folded his arms and stared forward.

MARNIE was fully aware of the bad habit she had of talking to fill the space around her, especially when she was nervous. But she really didn't know how to stop, especially not when she was this nervous. She was beginning to think that maybe she'd jumped a little too hastily into what was really a whack job.

That wasn't so far-fetched, seeing as how she'd found out about the job to begin with by eavesdropping on a hushed conversation at a wedding trade show. While Marnie was not in the habit of eavesdropping on other people's conversations (well… unless it was something
really
juicy), she'd been a little desperate. She needed this job in a bad way—if she had to live with Mom and Dad another month, she'd hurl herself into the ocean and let herself be washed out to sea. And besides, a certified wedding planner without an actual solo wedding under her belt couldn't afford to be too choosy.

Oh, who was she kidding?

The very thought of doing Vincent Vittorio and Olivia

Dagwood's wedding sent chills up her spine! They were the two biggest stars in the universe and Marnie couldn't
wait
to meet them—she could imagine her and Olivia becoming best friends as they planned everything, and then, when Marnie had pulled off the wedding of the century without a hitch, Olivia would hook her up with some of her A-list stud friends and refer tons of fabulous clients to her so that Marnie could become
the
wedding planner to the stars.

Hey, a girl could dream, couldn't she? And that dream alone prompted her to put on the red hat and purchase the fruit, per the bizarre instructions of Thrillseekers Anonymous.

Then the Lincoln had appeared.

When she'd seen Eli leaning against the Lincoln in a black Astros hat, with dark glasses resting on a straight nose, and a sexy shadow of a beard dusting a strong chin and some killer lips, not to mention the long, lean look of him in general, Marnie had been pleasantly surprised. Bonus! The job had a really good-looking guy involved!

Unfortunately, good-looking did not mean particularly friendly. He reminded her of a cowboy in one of the old westerns, the strong silent type. A Clint Eastwood with steely eyes—well, she
presumed
there were steely eyes behind those shades.

And what was all that about an audition?

The Lincoln turned, and Marnie caught a glimpse of towering iron fences through the front window that could only be surrounding huge monolithic houses, and she felt a tingle of excitement.
Wedding planner to the stars
, here she was!

Actually, telling Clint Eastwood that she'd wanted to pursue a career in wedding planning was a big fat lie. When the dot-com she'd been working for went belly up, she'd tried to get another job in the tech industry, along with everyone else and all their mothers—it felt like hundreds were competing for the same few openings.

Weeks went by without a nibble, and her unemployment status at last led to her greatest humiliation yet—having to move home with Mom and Dad. But she hadn't had a choice—she couldn't pay her rent and she couldn't pay her credit card bills, which were, she was embarrassed to note, pretty damn high. Honestly, she'd not realized how large she'd been living on her humongous dot-com salary before the company tanked.

So after about three weeks with Mom and Dad, when Marnie was contemplating living under a bridge on the Santa Monica Freeway, she'd seen the ad for the wedding planner certification class.

Wedding planner
. The term had sort of circled around and tickled her thoughts for a while. It actually sounded fun. Who didn't like a wedding?

So she'd taken the class. At the very least, it got her out of the house and away from the TV, and Mom and Dad, and Mom's book club. And though she'd never really envisioned herself a wedding planner, once she got into it, she was sucked in by all the beautiful white dresses and lovely cakes and flowers and fancy china—not to mention all the fabulous high-heeled shoes.

And she suppressed a shudder of delight just thinking about the sparkly wedding shoes Olivia Dagwood would wear on
her
third walk down the aisle. Or was it her fourth? She'd have to check E! Online.

The Lincoln turned again, and she had the sensation they were traveling up and around. Then the car slowed and made a sharp left. Eli lowered his window. They were at a security box. He punched in a code, then raised the window as the driver eased the car forward, through the gate, coasting down a hill and stopping in a small parking lot.

Eli lowered the back windows; the driver stopped the Lincoln and got out. "Wait here," he said to Marnie as the driver opened his door. "I'll be back for you in a minute or two."

"Where are we?" Marnie asked.

He got out, stuck his head back inside, and said, with a sexy, lopsided grin, "We're here," and shut the door.

"Thanks for the info, Chuckles," Marnie muttered as he walked in front of the Lincoln in a pair of faded Levi's—which looked damn good on his butt—and disappeared into what looked like a garden path or something.

Marnie sighed, looked down at her hat, her melon, and the straw bag full of giant oranges, then leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and mentally reviewed her best selling points.

WHILE Marnie was mentally preparing herself, Eli walked around the six-car garage of the Vittorio Bel Air estate, past the service entrance to the house, and down the garden path to a little pavilion where the guys were waiting for him.

"You get one this time?" Jack asked with a chuckle. He'd thought it was hysterical that the last candidate had refused to get in the Lincoln with Eli.

"Yeah, I got her all right," Eli said, and perched against the railing of the pavilion. "I was right—this one's a talker. I already know half her life story."

"Good," Cooper said as he pushed away from the post he was holding up. "Maybe that will save us some time. So come on, let's get this over with. I've got a meeting with DreamWorks later. What do we have on girl number four? And please tell me it's not one of those giant photo books of weddings like the other two brought."

Michael pulled out a PDA and his stylus, punched a couple of buttons, and squinted at the screen. "Marnie Banks. Thirty-four years old. Recently laid off from a six-figure job at a dot-com that developed security portals for other dot-coms."

The guys looked questioningly at one another; when it appeared no one knew what the hell that meant, Michael shrugged and continued. "Up to her eyeballs in debt, living with Mom and Dad, and driving a BMW."

"Figures," Jack muttered with a roll of his eyes.

"Interesting—no actual wedding gigs, according to her resume" Michael added, and flipped the PDA closed, looking at the guys. "But she checks out. No arrests, no mysterious trips to the Middle East. No marital strife on record, no gigs in strip joints. Looks like good, squeaky-clean fun—except that she has no concept of money."

"No wedding gigs?" Jack asked, frowning. "That can't be good. How's she going to pull off a wedding like this if she's never done one?"

"No
solo
wedding gigs," Eli said. "She worked with some big-shot event coordinator."

"We'll check it out," Michael assured them. He was their security guy, because he had more contacts than God. "But let's not forget she's the only one we have left. And we agreed—we
want
an unknown, to keep the press off our trail. If this one doesn't work out, we've got nothing."

"Whose fault is that?" Cooper interjected. "You scared that last one half to death with your scorpion deal."

"What, we're not supposed to mention bugs?" Michael protested. "Dude, have you ever seen a woman with a bug? There can be one bug in the same county as a woman, and the minute she knows it, she is screaming her head off—"

"Okay, but couldn't you have just said there might be some bugs instead of, 'What would you do if you woke up with a scorpion in your sleeping bag?' Come on, dude, that was just gross. Even
I
was thinking of bailing when you said that."

"Guys," Eli said, holding up his hands. "I think we have proven in spades that we have a deplorable lack of interviewing skills and the finesse of a bunch of snails when it comes to talking to wedding planners. So let's be smart about how we're going to do mis."

"Do the physical stuff first," Jack said. "We've wasted too much time talking about weddings only to find out they won't do the physical stuff. Tell me what you think of this." he said, and proceeded to lay out the physical course as he saw it, which was met with immediate argument from Michael, who felt particularly bad for the girl who'd worn a dress.

But Jack countered with the widely held view—at least in this group—that the successful wedding planner had to be able to climb a rope.

At the
very
least, she had to do that.

They were firmly entrenched in their respective and loud opinions on that subject.

THE Lincoln quickly turned into an oven; Marnie could feel perspiration on her forehead. "Ridiculous," she muttered, and flung open the door and stepped out. "I'm not waiting in some oven," she announced to the driver, who was having a smoke under the trees, and bent over, scooped up her hat, her melon, and her bag, then kicked the door shut with her foot. "What am I, a dog?"

He shrugged; she marched to the front of the vehicle, put on her hat, anchored the melon under her arm, flung her bag over her shoulder, and proceeded to march in the direction she'd seen Eli go.

She walked down the garden path to the large garage, and paused for a moment to count the doors. Six in all. Wow. Only someone huge in the movie industry would have a six-car garage.