The Moonlight Wedding Read online

  “I’m fine,” Meg insisted. “If you wouldn’t mind helping me into the dress, I’m pretty sure Seb will be calling for me soon.”

  The dress fit her like a glove. There were actual gloves too, fingerless lace that turned her gown just a little bit rock ’n’ roll.

  Meg sat down at the dressing table to fix her hair and makeup—she’d already told the crew that she would take care of it herself this morning—but after a few minutes of trying to tame her hair into perfect submission, Liz gently brushed her hands away, taking over with the expertise that came from making last-minute adjustments for so many real brides.

  “I heard yesterday’s filming went really well,” Liz said as she worked. She seemed to be unpicking a lot of the careful tidiness Meg had been aiming for.

  “The director certainly seemed happy,” Meg said.

  “Well, I’m not surprised at all. You’re incredibly good at your job.”

  That was always good to hear, especially coming from Liz. “Thank you.”

  “Having said that, I never guessed that you would end up starring in Lucas’s video.” Liz made a final adjustment, then gave a satisfied nod before dropping her hands to her sides.

  The hairstyle was the opposite of anything Meg might have tried, with a windswept, day-at-the-beach feel to it. She couldn’t imagine any bride actually walking down the aisle looking like this …

  And yet it was just right.

  Exactly the way Meg would have wanted to look on her real wedding day.

  “You’ve gone above and beyond with this project,” Liz said.

  “It’s not a problem,” Meg assured her automatically.

  Liz shook her head. “No, I’m serious. You’ve gone a million miles beyond anything we could reasonably expect of you. Your job is to design celebrity weddings, and here we’ve pushed you into a rock video. Rose, RJ, and I all want you to know how much we appreciate everything you’ve been doing. How much we appreciate you. And you shouldn’t feel you have to do this to prove anything to us. If there are any parts of this that you’re uncomfortable with, like the kiss I heard you shot last night in the cove, all you have to do is tell me and I’ll step in.”

  “Lucas hasn’t done anything to make me feel uncomfortable,” Meg assured her. “I’m not saying this hasn’t pushed me out of my comfort zone, because we all know it has. But I can make it through one more day of shooting.”

  “Are you absolutely sure?”

  Saying anything else would tear the whole video apart. They’d already shot the bulk of the scenes, and there wouldn’t be time to shoot them again with another bride. It meant a great deal to Meg to know that Liz was willing to turn the whole thing on its head if her employee wasn’t happy, but Meg couldn’t do it.

  Besides, Lucas Crosby was waiting for her at the altar.

  Which meant she’d get to kiss him one last time.

  Meg looked her boss in the eye. “I’m sure.”

  * * *

  Pausing at the top of the aisle, Meg took in the wedding scene.

  Travis stood by the doors, his eagle eye on the crew, actors, and the entrance to the hall. Nate was running the lighting rig, while Daniel had his camera at the ready. Jenn stood beside her cake, ready to reapply new frosting if necessary beneath the hot lights. Kate was spritzing the blooms. Liz had her tablet in hand and headset on, like always. In addition to the Married in Malibu staff, Meg could see the cameras and the extras in place as wedding guests.

  And yet…it all felt so real.

  Had the extras been told to look at her with awe on their faces, as if a radiant bride had actually appeared?

  And had Seb told Lucas to look a little nervous? As he followed her every move, she could see him swallow hard, his eyes full of wonder.

  A gentle tug on her arm from the extra playing her father reminded Meg that they were waiting for her to walk down the aisle.

  But as she began to glide forward, the dozens of strangers watching her, and the cameras, all ceased to matter. The only person who mattered was Lucas.

  He looked like he was barely holding himself back from running to her. And when his best man tried to stop him, he pulled free with such force that even Meg found herself convinced that he truly was desperate to be close to her.

  The next thing she knew, she was in his arms and he was spinning her in a circle, his hands strong around her waist as her dress fluttered against her legs. When he finally set her down, he held out his arm, and they walked together to the altar, where the officiant was waiting.

  Her heart was pounding hard and fast as they made their way through an abbreviated wedding, as this was only about capturing a few seconds of film while the song played over the scene.

  But even though no one would hear what they said, the actor playing the officiant asked, “Do you, Meg, take Lucas to be your husband?”

  She felt breathless as she looked into Lucas’s eyes. “I do.”

  “Do you, Lucas, take Meg to be your wife?”

  Lucas’s hands tightened over hers. “I do.”

  They exchanged rings next, classic platinum bands. Meg relished his touch, his strength, as she moved the band into place on his ring finger. For his part, he slid her ring onto her finger so delicately that thrill bumps moved over the surface of her skin.

  The officiant said, “If anyone has any reason why these two should not be married…” After a short pause, the words she’d been dreading—and eagerly anticipating—came.

  “I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

  This kiss wasn’t spontaneous, wasn’t unplanned like their kiss on the beach. Meg had known it was coming. And yet…nothing she had imagined could ever have been enough to capture the sweet sensation of Lucas’s hands whispering up her arms, to her shoulders, to drift, feather-light, over her cheek.

  Only then did his lips press against hers.

  His kiss was as gentle as his touch, and as intensely intimate. Meg couldn’t keep herself from melting against him and kissing him back with all the love in her heart.

  “Cut! That’s great!” Seb called out. “Let’s do it again, just like that.”

  Even with the director interrupting their kiss, it took Meg several seconds to draw back from Lucas. He seemed just as lost in the moment, both of them blinking at each other as though they weren’t sure how they’d gone from sharing a sinfully sweet private moment to standing in the middle of a video shoot.

  She came back to reality a beat before Lucas did, forcing herself to step away and make her way back up the aisle to shoot the scene again.

  “Wait,” Seb called. “You forgot the rings.”

  Meg looked down at her hand. It had just seemed so natural to wear Lucas’s ring…and she’d been so stunned by the aftermath of the kiss that it had been hard to think clearly about anything at all.

  Reluctantly, she took off the ring and gave it to the props person to set it back in its box.

  As they ran through the scene again, and again, each time her walk down the aisle and the vows felt like nothing more than a prelude to the moment when Lucas kissed her, soft as a breath of air, washing over her like the tide. With every take, she couldn’t help losing herself in his kiss, wishing she and Lucas could stay like that forever. And every time Seb yelled, “Cut!” it felt like a betrayal—an intrusion of reality into her perfect fantasy.

  “Okay,” Seb said after their fifth take. “I think we have all the shots we need for this scene. Let’s move on to cake cutting and the first dance.”

  But Lucas was shaking his head. “I want to try one small change on a final take.”

  He leaned in toward Meg, so close that she could feel his breath running across her ear. “I’m going to do the other kiss this time.”

  Their post I do kisses had been gentle, slow, sensual, delicate. But the other kiss, the one they’d talked about the day they’d been brainstorming this scene, was intended to be so passionate that it swept her off her feet.

 
Meg struggled to keep her composure as Seb agreed to do one more take. But her hands trembled as she slid the ring onto Lucas’s finger, and by the time he returned the favor, she could barely breathe from the heady anticipation of what was about to happen.

  “If anyone has any reason why these two should not be married…”

  Into the pause came the sound of a commotion. When Meg realized someone was storming into the hall, her first thought was amazement that someone had managed to get past Travis.

  Until she saw who it was…and then it didn’t seem quite so amazing anymore.

  Standing in the aisle, Meg’s mother looked so severe that an army couldn’t have stopped her from barging in.

  “What on earth do you think you are doing with my daughter?” Judith Ashworth looked furious enough to breathe fire as she pointed at Lucas. “Take your hands off her at once!”

  Chapter Eleven

  Meg’s mother was indomitable. The head of a dozen committees and the undisputed doyenne of Bel Air’s high society, she was the kind of woman who would walk into a video shoot and expect it to stop for her.

  But then, Meg had turned out to be very different from the way he’d expected someone from her world to be, hadn’t she? Was there a chance that her mother could be too?

  Lucas stepped forward, his hand outstretched. “Mrs. Ashworth, it’s great to meet you. I’m Lucas Crosby.”

  She ignored his proffered right hand, instead concentrating on the wedding ring on his left.

  Her mouth pinched as she turned to pin her steely gaze on her daughter. “I’ll ask one more time, Margaret. What on earth is going on? Is this why you’ve been ignoring my calls? You’ve married him, and you didn’t even tell me? Your own mother?”

  “It’s nothing like that, Mother.” Meg’s voice sounded smaller than usual. Less confident.

  “Do you think I can’t see what’s going on here, Margaret? Honestly, I knew letting you work in a place like this would give you strange ideas. But getting married without so much as a by-your-leave? I have never been so disappointed in you.”

  Lucas stepped forward to defend her, but Meg put a hand on his arm. “Lucas is a musician.” She gestured to the cameras. “This wedding is simply set up so that we can film a video for his new song.”

  Lucas could understand that it would be a shock to think that your daughter was getting married without telling you. But now that Mrs. Ashworth understood the real situation, surely she could relax enough for her and Meg to work things out between the two of them.

  Wanting to help, he suggested, “Would you like a role in the video too, Mrs. Ashworth? It’s probably a little late for you to give Meg away unless we reshoot the scene, but—”

  “You actually think that I would agree to be involved in this…this video of yours? It’s bad enough that you’ve persuaded my daughter to take part in this debacle.” Her scorn crystal clear, she dismissed him again. “Margaret, I simply cannot believe what I am seeing here. How could you do this?”

  “Mother, as I’ve explained, it’s—”

  “Don’t interrupt,” her mother scolded, even though she was the one interrupting. “You are bringing great shame on our family by pretending to be some tramp in a trashy music video with a man like this!”

  “Don’t talk about Lucas like that.” Meg’s words flashed out with surprising force. “Like he’s somehow less than you are—when the truth is that he’s worth far more than anyone in your world will ever be.”

  “Margaret Ashworth!” her mother snapped. “You are behaving like an ungrateful, spoiled brat!”

  Enough was enough. “You can’t speak to Meg like that,” Lucas told her. “You owe your daughter an apology. Now.”

  The gaze her mother turned on him was so furious, Lucas was surprised lightning didn’t strike him. Clearly, Meg’s mother was not used to people talking back to her—or demanding an apology.

  “I will speak to my daughter in whatever way I wish, without some gutter rat telling me how best to do it.”

  “Too bad, because I’m going to tell you whether you like it or not.” He took a step closer to Meg’s mother, his fury matching hers. “Do you have any idea how much effort your daughter has put into this video? Do you even realize just how great she is at what she does?”

  “I don’t need a lecture from you about the things my daughter chooses to do with her spare time.”

  “Spare time?” Lucas could hardly believe what he was hearing. “This is Meg’s job. It’s what she does for a living, not some hobby.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. She has no need of the money. Being a part of this—” Judith waved her hands dismissively at the hall and gardens. “—does not benefit a good cause. Therefore, it is nothing more than a hobby. And a worthless one at that.”

  Trying to reason with Meg’s mother was like trying to reason with a brick wall. Hating that he hadn’t yet been able to convince her to back down or apologize, he turned back to Meg to find tears glistening in her eyes. Her gloved hands had formed fists and she was shaking.

  Wanting to shield her from further pain, he reached for her. But she stepped back before his hands could cover hers.

  “You don’t have to do this alone,” Lucas said in a low voice. He didn’t care how many people were watching them, or that the cameras, and camera phones, might still be rolling, for all he knew. He needed Meg to know how he felt about her—that he loved her, heart and soul.

  But before he could, she said, “Mother, we should speak in private so that I can better explain the situation,” and headed toward the exit.

  Before she left the room, however, Meg took the ring off her finger and set it on the edge of one of the pews. After a moment’s hesitation, she took off the gloves that went with her dress too, leaving them behind.

  Lucas was desperate to follow them. To be by Meg’s side from this moment forward and support her in any way he could.

  But no matter how much he loved her, no matter how much he wanted to be a part of her life, he couldn’t force himself into it if she didn’t want him there.

  The truth he didn’t like having to face was that he wasn’t her husband anywhere but in the fantasy of his music video.

  Walking over to where she’d set her ring, he settled it on his pinky so that it wouldn’t go missing, then sat down in the empty pew. For once, everyone kept their distance.

  * * *

  Still in her beautiful wedding gown, Meg led her mother up to her office, letting her in among the color charts and fabric samples. Until this week, she would have said it was the place in the world where she felt safest—but then Lucas had held her, and she realized she felt safest in his arms.

  “This tiny little room is where you…work?” her mother said. She made work sound like a dirty word.

  “This is my office, yes.” It wouldn’t have taken much effort for her mother to visit her office before now. And yet, she never had. “I’m surprised to see you here today.”

  “I had no intention of ever setting foot in this place. Bu you haven’t replied to my texts. You haven’t called. You didn’t come to dinner. And you haven’t shown up for the meetings I’ve scheduled.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to call you back sooner, but I told you earlier in the week that I had to work,” Meg reminded her.

  “Gallivanting around with some musician isn’t work.” Her mother’s eagle eye took in everything in Meg’s office that was half finished and messy. “When you told me that you would be working with celebrities, that was bad enough, but this video nonsense is simply too much.”

  “I know you’re disappointed—”

  “Disappointed is hardly the word.” She wouldn’t have used that harsh of a tone even if one of the household staff had dropped a priceless vase on the marble floor. “You’re cavorting with extremely undesirable types who are probably all on drugs.”

  “Lucas isn’t on drugs.”

  “If it isn’t drugs, it will be something. These
are not our kind of people.”

  Meg hated everything about her mother’s statement. “You’re wrong.”

  But it was as if her mother hadn’t heard. “What did you think you were doing, agreeing to take part in this filth?”

  Meg knew how arguments with her mother went, and not a single one had ever ended with her winning. Judith Ashworth didn’t understand the concept of giving in.

  But this time, Meg had to protest, “It’s nothing like that. The video is actually rather sweet. I helped to design it.”

  If she’d been hoping that might spark some hint of parental pride, it was a forlorn hope.

  “Do you think I was born yesterday? Do you think I don’t know that music videos are full of half-naked women and obscene lyrics? It’s disgusting and completely unacceptable for the management to force you into taking part in such a thing.”

  “Nobody forced me into anything.”

  Again, her mother didn’t seem to be listening as she walked behind the desk and sat in Meg’s chair. “It’s obvious that you’re letting these people push you around too much. And just look at the results—you’ve hardly done a thing for my charity dinner all week.”

  Meg wanted to point out that she’d never signed up to do it at all. That she’d only agreed to come up with a few ideas. But her mother was still talking.

  “Surely nothing you’re doing here is as important as the good works the foundation will do. All you’ve done this week is play around in a video that is going to be social death if anyone we know sees it. I wouldn’t be able to live with the shame if anyone mentioned it at a dinner party.”

  “I don’t think anyone you know watches rock videos,” Meg said. If she’d been feeling more confident, she might have been able to make a joke, rather than the words coming out sounding like an excuse.

  “No, they certainly do not,” her mother agreed. “And with good reason. Obviously, your foolish infatuation with that musician has overridden your common sense.”

  “I don’t… I’m not…”

  “Stop dithering, Margaret. I was only in the room for a few minutes, and even I could see the way you looked at him.”