Accidental Mistake Read online

  Copyright © 2019 by R.S. Lively

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Accidental Mistake

  R.S. Lively

  Description

  “No way we got married last night… RIGHT?”

  My new neighbor is hot, arrogant, and a complete jerk.

  From trimming my rose bushes to not understanding personal boundaries.

  Liam Addair is doing his best to drive me insane.

  But it turns out the Scottish stud might actually have a heart of gold.

  When my ex and his new fiancée walked into the bar,

  He pretended to be my boyfriend and saved me.

  Now we’ll have to fake it 'til the end of summer.

  That's when Liam and my ex will leave Magnolia Falls.

  And my life will go back to being very uncomplicated.

  But what happens when faking it gets a little too real?

  And I end up accidentally married and pregnant by mistake!

  He’s a movie star from a family worth billions.

  Could he even settle down with someone as ordinary as me?

  The marriage certificate is signed, and this baby is very real.

  But who knows what will happen to us when summer ends…

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  Marriage Mistake (Sample)

  About the Author

  Also by R.S. Lively

  Keeping Up With R.S. Lively

  Chapter One

  Quinn

  Before I even think about what I’m doing, my hand wraps around the front of Liam’s shirt and yanks him toward me. Our mouths meet, and I taste the warmth of his lips and the dark richness of his beer. A gasp somewhere in the space around us tells me my friends are reacting to the kiss exactly as I would expect them to react to seeing me locking lips with someone who, not even two hours ago, I swore I wasn’t dating.

  Their reaction isn’t what I’m thinking about, though. This is all for show.

  Liam’s hands touch my hips. I’m expecting him to push me away. Instead, his fingertips guide me closer so our bodies touch and I can feel the warmth of him through his shirt. My grip lessens so my hands can slide up his chest and over his shoulders as his mouth opens just slightly. Our tongues brush against each other, and a shiver rolls through me. Liam’s teeth lightly scrape along my bottom lip before he captures my mouth again. I hope the whimper I just heard didn’t come from me.

  It did. Damn.

  Our mouths part, and I have just enough time to catch the mix of intrigue and confusion against the blue of his eyes before I turn around to confront the familiar face behind me.

  Two weeks earlier…

  I'm waiting for it as I hand the single perfect rose to the woman in front of me. Her fingertips touch the velvety petals, delicately tracing their edges. It's coming. It always does.

  “This rose is from a bush that grows in my yard,” I tell her. “It was planted there by my great-grandparents when they first built the house. They were the first people to build on that street, and before their furniture was even in the home, they planted the roses.”

  “It's so beautiful,” Alyssa whispers. “I've never seen one quite like it.”

  “It grew this way for a special reason. Before my great-grandparents were even a couple, their families had pieces of land right next to each other. They each grew roses, too. My great-grandfather's family grew white roses, and my great-grandmother's family had pink ones. They tended the roses carefully every single day, and that's how they met. Of course, at that time, they couldn't just start dating, so they watched each other through the flowers. They slowly fell in love over whispers of ‘good morning’ and lingering gazes over the flowers. Even during the coldest part of the winter when the bushes went dormant, they would come out to trim them or brush away the dead leaves, just so they could see each other.”

  “Just so they could see each other,” she repeats softly.

  I nod.

  “That's right. When the days got cold and dark, and snow kept them from being able to go outside entirely, they longed for each other. Both wished for the springtime so they could go back to their roses. When the warm weather returned, they went back to their bushes and waited patiently for the tiny buds to blossom. When they did, the two of them discovered the bushes closest together had blended. Where there had once been white roses on one property and pink on the other, there were now pink and white flowers blooming unlike anything they had ever seen before. My great-grandparents knew in their hearts that it happened because of their love for each other. The roses were their sign that they were meant to be together. They were married by the end of the summer, and when they built this house, they used cuttings from those original bushes to plant bushes of their own. They loved each other for their whole lives, and every generation of my family has held one of those roses on their wedding day.”

  There it is. The tear. It's not a wedding day until I make that one perfect tear trickle down the bride's cheek when I present the pink-and-white marbled rose from my bush.

  The sniffling behind me makes me turn. Judy dabs her cheeks from where she stands near the wall.

  And not until I make my assistant, Judy, cry, too, apparently.

  Knowing she's caught in a tear fest, Judy busies herself by preparing the gifts that Alyssa will give her bridesmaids and flower girls when they come in for the big reveal of her gown. I brush the tear away from her cheek and pull the veil down over her face.

  I turn back to Alyssa. “You look beautiful,” I tell her. “Rodney is a very lucky man.”

  “I am a lucky woman,” she says with a slightly trembling smile. She takes a breath. “I'm ready.”

  With that, Judy flings open the doors to the bridal suite, and a deluge of gushing women descends on Alyssa. She's a fairly sturdy woman, which is good, because if she was one of the feathery lightweights like the confusing double wedding for identical twins earlier this year, she might not have survived the first wave of hugs.

  “Let's not wrinkle the bride,” I say cheerfully.

  It's my professional voice. What I really want to say is it took me three hours to remove the salsa stain from the unfortunate sister-of-the-bride snacking incident and steam that damn dress, so back off. But that would be unbecoming of a wedding planner.

  They keep fussing and nuzzling, and a pair of red lips heads for Alyssa's cheek, despite the veil.

  “Everybody! Step away from the bride!”

  Sometimes, though, becoming doesn't work. Sometimes, Miss
Wedding Hard-Ass is the only way to get a woman down the aisle intact and successfully turn all those doodles from her middle school journal into real-life memories. You've got to know the difference, and that's why people hire me.

  Alyssa's female friends and relatives peel themselves reluctantly away from Alyssa, who steps back looking a bit flustered, but still presentable, for the most part. We fluff her back up, and I check the clock. Time for gifts and giggles, followed by getting Alyssa's ass to the end of the aisle. Alyssa takes her place beside the small table where Judy arranged the gifts and hands them out to the clickety-clickety of the photographers catching every single movement.

  Ten minutes later, Alyssa is successfully at the altar, and the officiant's voice takes over for the constant repetition of my to-do list in my head. Judy is still sniffling as we creep out of the ceremony venue to oversee the cocktail hour and reception preparations. I offer her another tissue from my bag.

  “Judy, you have heard me tell that story to every single bride since you started working with me,” I remind her. “Why are you crying?”

  “It's just so beautiful,” she says. “Thinking about your cute little great-grandparents falling in love over their rose bushes… I have heard so many of the brides say they just knew they would live happily ever after because you gave them one of those special roses.”

  “Because it's worked out so well for me,” I say. “My yard has four of those bushes just full of roses, and I haven't found my happily ever after.”

  “Not yet,” Judy points out, “but you haven't quite gotten to the ‘ever after’ portion of your life yet. You’ve got some time.”

  “Hopefully a lot of time because I'm not looking. My one disastrous relationship was plenty to last me a good long time.”

  I scoff as I adjust the poster-sized portrait of Alyssa and Rodney to the perfect angle so that it'll be clearly visible when all the guests stream in for cocktail hour.

  Judy has already moved past worrying about my current romantic state. She's flitting around the space, touching centerpieces and smiling in every mirror she passes.

  “I just love weddings,” she says dreamily. “Maybe Jeremy and I should start planning a vow renewal.”

  “That usually isn't something you start thinking about until you've been married for many years,” I tell her gently.

  “Oh,” she says with a slight pout, and then her round, dark eyes widen. “Do you think I could divorce him just to have another wedding?”

  I laugh.

  “I don't think he would like that plan very much, Judy. But, if you can get him on board with it, I would be happy to plan your re-wedding to the man who is already your husband.”

  “That's so sweet,” she says, her bottom lip sticking out slightly as her eyes get round and puppy-like.

  We put the finishing touches on the cocktail hour just in time for the first guests to trickle into the room. Immediately on cue, uniformed waiters appear seemingly out of nowhere and begin passing out hors d'oeuvres. When the transitional event is underway, Judy and I make our way to the third space of the venue to prepare for the main reception.

  I can understand Judy's reaction. As the owner of Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Bloom, weddings are my life. There isn't a time when I wasn't thinking about weddings. Even in kindergarten, when the teacher asked what we wanted to be when we grew up, I stood out. Amid the future firefighters, veterinarians, marine biologists, and rock stars, my aspiration of becoming a wedding planner didn't seem to have the same dream-big zip. That didn't matter to me. My great-grandparents' love story was in my veins, and I knew my entire life that I wanted to be a part of people getting their ‘happily ever after,’ as Judy says.

  It didn't occur to me that somewhere along the line I'd miss out on finding my own.

  Not that I'm pounding on Cupid's door or anything. After the disaster that was the relationship I truly thought was going to be my fairytale ending, that chubby little baby with angel wings can keep his arrows far away from my ass, thank you very much. For now, I am perfectly content finding other couples headed for marital bliss and going along for the ride.

  At least if there's a divorce, I don't have to divide up my china or go to the DMV for a new ID. Priorities.

  Judy, on the other hand, looks like she would gleefully take up polyandry if it meant getting to be a bride every other weekend or so. They would, however, either have to be gay or comfortable with being shipped off to live without any interaction with their wife. I've seen her with her husband, Jeremy, a few times since she started working part-time as my assistant, and she puts the goo in googly-eyed.

  I'm still not entirely clear on why Judy decided she needed to become a part-time wedding planning assistant. She is well-known for her teaching prowess at the high school, and Jeremy brings in a hefty income of his own. When she approached me to ask for the position, she told me planning was a great passion of hers and impressed me with a glittery resume stuffed to the gills with events she threw for the prestigious Laurence family. Emma Laurence, wife of the eldest of the ‘“Laurence Boys’,” Grant, is her best friend, and that friendship gave her an ‘“in’” for those events. That said, it seemed she carried them off well.

  Truth be told, I think she just wants to be able to attend every wedding that happens in Magnolia Falls and get first crack at sniffing the flowers and twirling around on the dance floor before any of the guests show up. That works for me. She's a delight to have around, if somewhat unpredictable, and she has given me a few good ideas for a couple weddings, too. Until she hijacks a ceremony in a stolen gown with flowers she ripped right out of the ground, I'll hang on to her.

  My train of thought brings a question to mind, and I join Judy on the dance floor.

  “Did you find out anything else about whoever bought the house next door to me?” I ask. She just keeps on dancing, and I give her until what I assume is the end of the chorus of whatever song is playing in her mind. “Judy?”

  “Hmmm?” she says, opening her eyes as she comes back to reality.

  “The house next door to me?” I repeat.

  “It's cute,” she says. “What about it?”

  “It is cute,” I confirm with a slow, encouraging nod. “Which is, I assume, what encouraged the new owner to buy it. Did you find out anything else?”

  “Oh! I did, actually. Emma says Grant handled the sale, but he assured her he's a really nice guy and will make a great neighbor.”

  Judy grins like she just gave me a scrapbook of the new owner and a rundown of all his personal information, including his shoe size and cat's name. What she told me is that he exists, he is a man, and he is unlikely to kill me in my sleep.

  “Great,” I say with a sigh. “At least there's that. I just wish she hadn't sold it. It was nice having an empty house next door ever since she and Grant got married.”

  “How kind and neighborly of you,” Judy says cautiously.

  “That came out wrong,” I say. “It's just… nope. There's really no way to come back from that. Emma was a great neighbor while she lived there, but I've just gotten used to not having anyone on that side most of the time. I'm worried he's going to be one of those neighbors.”

  Judy's eyes flick back and forth like she's looking for the rest of my thought.

  “One of those neighbors?” she asks. “Like who?”

  “You know… like the kind who's going to show up at my house asking to borrow a cup of sugar or wanting to drink coffee and talk about life while I'm trying to vacuum.”

  “How do you do that?” she asks.

  “You just plug it in and run it back and forth over the carpet. It's a fairly mainstream activity,” I tell her.

  “No, the other thing. Borrowing sugar. How do you lend a neighbor a cup of sugar? Unless said neighbor returns with that sugar in chewy caramel or fudge form, you're really just giving them the sugar with the unspoken understanding that sometime, in the future, if you are facing a sugar d
eficit, that person will return the favor with sugar of their own,” she says.

  “Valid point. Okay, revision. Maybe he's going to be the kind who will show up at my house asking me to just give him a cup of sugar.”

  “There's a clear solution to this,” Judy tells me.

  “What's that?” I ask.

  “Stop having sugar in your house. After a couple times of going home with an empty Pyrex, he'll learn his lesson and stop asking you.”

  “But what if I need the sugar? I could make chewy caramel or fudge,” I tell her.

  “Do you ever make either one of those?’’ she asks.

  “I could. You know, for the holidays.” She looks at me with pursed lips and unconvinced eyes. I shake my head. “That's not the point. I was just hoping to be prepared when this person moves in. Get a feel for how this is all going to play out.”

  “It's just a new neighbor, Quinn,” Judy says soothingly. “It's nothing to get worked up over.”

  Chapter Two

  Liam

  Grant told me about the ferry connecting the mainland to the island of Magnolia Falls, but somehow, I’ve been imagining something different. The vessel in front of me is essentially a floating oval with only a small cabin for the captain. There’s no roof or anything to block my view of the bay beyond as I drive slowly onto the deck. My car leaves space for perhaps three more behind me, but the spaces remain empty.