Bad Bridesmaid (Billionaire's Club Book 11) by Elise Faber (important books to read txt) 📕

positive benefit of brushing all those luscious curves against his body and one that made him lose his battle with control.

He dipped his head and kissed her.

And this time, there wasn’t any guard around to make them stop.

At least until they arrived back in the city proper.

And then they got kicked off the ferry.

But seeing Heidi with swollen lips, her hair doubly messed from his fingers and the wind, her cheeks pink, and her eyes warm, and he decided a permanent ban from that ferry line was totally worth being able to kiss her.

Bar none.

Sixteen

Heidi

She kept glancing over at Brad, expecting to see boredom creep into his face, but every time she stopped browsing to check in, his expression wasn’t annoyed or impatient.

Instead, he almost seemed to be studying her, watching and filing away each movement.

He’d disappeared when she’d become engrossed in the historical romance section then had reemerged some quantity of time later—she really wasn’t good at keeping track of the movement of the Earth around the sun when there were books in front of her—his hands holding a few novels.

And then she’d expected the impatience to start and so had quickly shifted her bundle, trying to hurry in her selections, even though there . . . were . . . just . . . so . . . many . . . choices!

But instead of telling her to make a pick, he’d just snagged the books she’d tucked under one arm and told her to, “Explore.”

She’d fallen in love—just a little bit—with that one word.

Explore.

God, the man was a menace.

Now, she was running her pointer finger over the spine of one more book—this one being one she already owned, only she had the UK version at home and was trying to decide if she liked the US version enough to have two copies.

She started to push it back into place.

No. Her bookshelves were already overflowing as it was. She couldn’t justify the second copy, especially with the stack that Brad was already carrying for her.

“Okay,” she said, turning to him. “Your torture is over. Hand me my stack so we can go check out.”

Except, as the last word slipped off her tongue, her cell phone rang.

“Sorry,” she told him, reaching into her purse. “That ringtone is the lab.”

“Go ahead and answer it.” He nodded toward the exit. “I’ll buy these and meet you out there.”

She took a step, stopped, her cell in her hand. “I’ll pay you—”

“Go,” he urged as her phone rang again. “We’ll figure it out later.”

“Thanks,” she said, hustling out onto the street and answering the call. Her weekend lab assistant, Maggie, was on the other end.

“We have a problem . . .” she began.

And that was the moment Heidi realized her day with Brad was over.

Because problem was an understatement. A mere problem would have meant that she might have been able to handle it over the phone, or at worst, email in written instructions to follow. A problem might have meant that she needed to check on the lab tomorrow, just to make sure all was fixed.

This . . . this was a disaster.

This had her immediately barking instructions. It also had Brad—who’d come out of the bookstore with two giant bags—take one look at her face and instantly begin directing her to his car.

“Tell me where to go,” he said when they’d gotten in and she’d paused in her orders.

She rattled off the address.

Ten seconds to put it into his cell, a quick lift in her direction so she could confirm the location was correct, and then a minute later they were on the road, winding through city streets jammed with pedestrians and Saturday traffic and eventually making their way to the freeway and hightailing it south.

“No,” she exclaimed. “Don’t shut it down.” They’d lose everything. She spared a look at Brad’s cell, perched in a cradle connected to the air vent. “We’ll be there in ten minutes. Just keep the computers up and running, I’ll adjust the machinery when we get there.” Maggie said a few more things—mostly listing what she’d do to keep the computers working, but Heidi didn’t hang up or get short. She knew that Maggie was panicked, especially since she hadn’t been able to reach Stef, who was on call for the lab this weekend for just this type of issue.

Maggie was a new grad. She was smart as a whip and funny, but she was also a bit anxious and a definite perfectionist.

This had thrown her for an absolute loop.

Not to mention, if she hadn’t caught the miscalibration, the entire experiment would have been ruined—six months of research would have amounted to absolutely nothing.

“Deep breaths,” she said when Maggie had paused for air. “Everything will be fine.”

She hoped, but that was beside the point.

“I-I hope so, Heidi.”

“It was a good catch,” she told her, “and we’ll figure out the rest. Now, I’m going to hang up and call Stef again.”

“O-okay.”

A moment later she was dialing her lead assistant, the call ringing and ringing and ringing until—

“Hello?”

“Stef,” she said. “It’s Heidi. Why the hell haven’t you picked up your phone? The computer’s malfunctioned, and the readings are writing over one another, and—”

“I’m in the hospital.”

“What?”

“Fred”—her ninety-pound golden retriever—“pulled me over this morning. I didn’t think I’d done more than twist my ankle and got a few bruises, but then my foot swelled up like a balloon, and I couldn’t walk on it.” She released a shaking breath. “I think I’m going to need to have surgery.”

“Shit,” Heidi whispered.

“I know.”

“I’ll get the lab sorted and come straight over.”

Stef inhaled sharply, her normal no-nonsense tone returning. “Absolutely not, this is supposed to be your weekend off. Damage control and then call in Matteo. He can cover the lab for the rest of the time.”

Since she had planned on calling Matteo to take over, she didn’t argue with Stef, just asked her a few questions about her injury and what hospital she was at. Because she sure as hell