A Groom For The Taking: The Wedding Date. Элли Блейк

      Someone clearly cleverer than she had once said, ‘Be careful what you wish for or you just might get it.’

      She wished they were there right now, so she could shake their hand. Or ask if they’d mind slapping her across the back of the head as many times as it took to make sure she made it back to her bedroom that night.

      Alone.

      Bradley glanced at his watch to find Hannah had been AWOL for over an hour. That was as long as he’d decided to give her. Because if she was actually off doing maid of honour business he’d shave his head.

      After five solid minutes of frustrated searching, he found her. Back against the wall in a quiet cocktail lounge at the far end of the bar. Stuck between Roger and her mother.

      Even in the half-light he could see that she was struggling. Both hands were clasped tight around a tall glass of iced water as her eyes skimmed brightly from one hostage-taker to the other.

      Something must have alerted her to his presence as he excused himself and made his way through the chatty crowd towards her, because her eyes shifted to lock instantly with his.

      That very moment she went from dazed to delighted. Her whole face lit up as if the sun had risen inside her. It felt … nice.

      ‘Hi,’ she said on an outward breath.

      He nodded.

      Virginia and Roger turned in surprise, and expressed understandably different levels of excitement to see him. He gave Virginia a kiss on the cheek, and patted poor Roger on the shoulder. Poor Roger’s eye began to twitch. But Bradley had more important things to worry about.

      ‘I’ve been searching for you for some time,’ he said.

      Hannah’s eyes widened in a plea for help. ‘I’ve been right here for quite some time.’

      Guilt clenched at him. While he’d been stewing about the way she’d walked away, right when things seemed to have been going so fine, he’d greedily forgotten why he was really there. He’d promised to watch her back. He’d already let her down. Some white knight he was.

      ‘We’ve monopolised her terribly,’ Virginia said, blinking at him coquettishly over a glass of champagne—clearly not her first.

      Through clenched teeth Hannah said, ‘Virginia’s been telling Roger all about my lack of flair for any of the Young Tasmanian pageant sections she aced as a kid.’

      ‘Has she, now?’ Bradley asked, frowning at Virginia. It didn’t make a dent.

      It seemed it would take more than his presence to give Hannah the upper hand. All he could think of for her to do was the same thing he’d done in order to shake off the shackles of his own mother’s disappointment. Prove to her, himself and the world that it didn’t matter.

      ‘On that note,’ he said, ‘did you forget we’re up next?’

      ‘Up?’

      ‘Karaoke.’

      ‘But I thought you couldn’t sing,’ Roger said.

      ‘I can’t,’ Hannah said, hand to her heart, eyes all but popping from her head.

      ‘She’s not kidding. She really can’t.’ That was Virginia.

      Having seen enough, he reached in, took Hannah by the hand and dragged her from the local axis of evil. He shot them a little over-the-shoulder wave before he took their plaything away.

      He skirted his way through the crowd in silence. Hannah kept close, tucking in behind him when things became overly cramped. Her small hand in his felt good. Really good.

      ‘Maid of honour business all finished?’ he asked, his voice gruff.

      ‘It is, thank you,’ she said stiffly. ‘Now where are you taking me?’

      ‘I said we were going to sing, so now we have to sing.’

      Suddenly his arm was almost yanked from its socket. He spun to find she’d dug in her heels and was refusing to budge.

      He glanced towards the cocktail lounge. ‘It we don’t they’ll just think it was a dodgy excuse for you to ditch them.’

      ‘Wasn’t it?’

      ‘Only if you’re happy with them thinking so.’

      Two little frown lines appeared above her nose, and she nibbled at her full lower lip. He found himself staring. Imagining. Planning.

      Finally she shook her head. ‘But I really can’t sing.’

      ‘Can they?’ He motioned to the wannabe boy band who could barely slur out a sentence yet still had a rapt and voluble audience. ‘Now, pick a song. Something you can recite in your sleep.’

      ‘Oh, God. This is really happening, isn’t it? Umm. In my dreams when I audition for random TV talent shows I’m always singing something from Grease.’

      He felt a grin coming at the thought of such innocent dreams, and struggled to bite it back.

      Apparently not well enough. Her face fell. ‘You don’t know Grease, do you? Well, I am not going up there on my own.’

      ‘You’re safe. I had the biggest crush on Olivia Newton-John when I was a kid.’

      The manic tugging relaxed instantly as she gawped at him. He used her moment of distraction to drag her to the edge of the stage.

      ‘I love it!’ she said, grinning from ear to ear. ‘You used to sing her songs into your mum’s hairbrush, didn’t you? You can tell me. I promise I won’t tell a soul. Well, bar Sonja, of course—and you know how discreet she is.’

      She shook her head, her thick dark hair curling over her shoulders—sexy, unbridled, exposing a curve of soft golden skin just below her right ear that was crying out for a set of teeth to sink into it.

      He stared at the spot, finding himself wholly distracted by the imagined taste of her spilling into his mouth. Better that than to brood over the fact that somehow he’d promised to leap onto a spotlit stage and in the act of performing beg a crowd of strangers for their superficial devotion.

      He took solace in Hannah’s luscious creamy shoulder as he pulled her closer—close enough to lose himself in the last subtle trails of her scent as he whispered in her ear, ‘What the lady wants, the lady gets. Grease it is.’

      Then he turned her in his arms and pointed to the stage, looming dark and high in front of them.

      Her smile disappeared and she swallowed hard. ‘So we’re really doing this?’

      ‘One song. Show them that even though you have no flair for pageantry you have pluck to spare.’

      ‘You think I have pluck?’

      He turned away from the stage at the softness in her voice, only to find himself drowning in the heat of her eyes. ‘To spare.’

      She blinked at him. Long dark lashes stroked her cheek, creating flutters as he imagined their light graze caressing his skin as she kissed her way up his—

      She breathed deep and shook out her hands. ‘Let’s do it. Now. Quick. Before I change my mind.’

      He went to move away and she grabbed his hand again. Hers was warm, soft, small—and shaking. Trusting.

      Holding on tight, he had a quick word in the ear of the guy in charge of the karaoke lineup, and slipped him a twenty so that they could get this over and done with as soon as humanly possible.

      ‘Okay,’ she said, bouncing from foot to foot, tipping her head from side to side to ease her neck. Warming up as if she was about to do a triple-jump, not a little show tune. ‘We’ve established that I’m doing this because I’m a cowardly pleaser. But why are you?’

      ‘When