The Wedding Affair (The Affair Series Book 2) by Suzanne Halliday Page B

She’s just like everyone else. Don’t judge a book by the man candy cover.”
    He barely managed to curtail a grimace. He wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with the concept.
    It was going to take more than that for bridezilla to calm down—a one-man job his cousin was well cut out to deal with, so he acted on sheer impulse, grabbed Samantha’s hand, and said, “Come on. Let’s go check out the waves.”
    Ten minutes after that they squished along the sandy beach down to the water, and that was when his life changed forever.
    “I love the ocean,” she murmured wistfully.
    “Living in L.A. is a good thing then, hmm?”
    Giving him her shoes to hold, she pressed them into his hands and then stooped to crouch near the water’s edge. Her fingers traced swirled designs in the wet sand, and she half shrugged and half grunted.
    “You’d think that, I suppose. But Burbank might just as well be on the moon for all the opportunity life gives me to haunt the beaches.”
    “How come?”
    Standing up, she clapped her hands together and wiped off what she could of the damp sand.
    “I find Los Angeles to be. . .unforgiving. Especially when it comes to regular people. The real cost of living there is a never-ending work schedule—just to pay the rent.”
    He considered her representation of life in the celebrity-obsessed town and nodded his understanding.
    “Is that why Andi called your living there the result of having pushed the first button on the bad relationship elevator to a new life?”
    She snickered. “Oh, just ignore her. She’s still pissed that I didn’t hang my star on her design career and join the firm.”
    Ryan knew quite a lot about Andrea Frank’s business and not for the best of reasons. His reply wasn’t supposed to sound annoyed, but it did. “Maybe that would have been better. For both of you,” he quietly muttered at the end.
    She stared at him quizzically for a moment and then shook off the whole topic. “Whatever. I’m there. For now.”
    They walked along the water’s edge in silence. He studied the twinkling stars and found he was committing details to memory so he could draw them later.
    With no preamble, she quietly asked in an expressive but low-key way, “If you’re a graphics guy, how come we aren’t sporting custom t-shirts for this big occasion?”
    Realizing she was completely serious, his instant bark of laughter rumbled in the air along with the sound of a crashing wave.
    “For fuck’s sake,” he grumbled with mocking self-affront. “I don’t just design t-shirts.”
    She giggled and shoved against his side. “My bad.”
    “Uh-huh.” He growled. “You heard graphics designer and pictured a dweeb running a bullshit business in his mom’s basement with graffiti spray painted on the walls.”
    “Well, that,” she teased with a cheeky smirk, “and a coffee table littered with weed. You smoke pot, right?”
    For the first time in his entire life, Ryan explored the real possibility of having to spank a grown woman.
    And then he saw the twinkle of merriment in her eyes.
    “All the damn time,” he assured her with perfect sincerity. “Blazed up a big fattie before meeting Kyle earlier. It’s pretty much an open thing here, y’know.”
    The look of absolute incredulity on her face was the highlight of his life so far.
    Wagging his brows like he imagined a villainous lothario would, he leaned down and silkily suggested, “You wanna bug out and head to my room? Picked up a killer bong shaped like R2-D2 at a smoke shop in town. You can help me christen it.”
    How long would it take her? One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . .
    “Ryan Sommerfield! Are you yanking my chain?”
    Nothing was calculated about what he did next. He reacted on sheer instinct. Slinging an arm over her shoulders, he pulled her in and proceeded to initiate a playful noogie.
    Samantha yelped and tried to slap him off her, finally dissolving into a fit of hiccupping giggles after wriggling