The Billionaire and the Wedding Planner Page 3

  Jason’s face grew very serious. “I am saying that, though remember I promised to tell Quint…”

  “Albright,” Emily said; something defiant seemed to have risen in her, from some place she couldn’t seem to locate with any certainty.

  Jason sighed. “Fine. I promised to tell your future husband, rather than spanking you. But that’s not the most important thing. The most important thing right now is that I want you to do your best—which I know is a lot—to understand why I’m doing this, given what happened at dinner tonight. Georgia wasn’t wrong, and you know it.”

  “Yes,” Emily said softly, the defiance seeming to depart from her in a wave, leaving her contrite, and leaving salt water in her eyes.

  “Come here, sweetheart,” Jason said, opening his arms. Emily rose from the couch and went to him. He hadn’t called her sweetheart in at least a year, she thought. He enfolded her in his arms, as much of a dad as she had ever known. “We all miss your mom, but I know you miss her the most right now. If you really don’t think your future husband or I should hold you accountable like this, I’ll back down, but I do want you to have a conversation with him in which you talk about the way you’ve been acting. Your wedding is supposed to be your day, but it’s not supposed to make the man you love miserable.”

  Emily found herself giggling at that, against Jason’s strong, lightly cologned chest.

  “Okay,” she said softly.

  “Now go on up to your sister, please, and talk it over. Then we can reheat dinner and watch Love, Actually, okay?”

  Emily smiled up at him. “Okay,” she said again.

  Chapter Four

  Maria didn’t have to spend anywhere near as much of Jason Garrons’ money on securing the reservations as she had thought she would. The couple at the Park Plaza, it turned out, had double-booked, and were persuaded with a free dinner (courtesy of course of Mr. Garrons). The couple at Trinity proved a little harder to shake loose from the prime five p.m. slot, but when Martha heard it was the Allerton-Easton wedding Maria was calling about, she said she thought Mr. Garrons might want to give Mr. Lamont a call and see what could be done.

  Maria called Jason at 7:30.

  “Mr. Garrons? This is Maria Sali, from…”

  “From this afternoon,” Jason said. “Thanks for calling. What’s the word on Emily’s fate?”

  Could Maria hear the TV in the background? Yes, and the unmistakable sound of Bill Nighy singing “If you really love Christmas, come on and let it snow.” Love, Actually was playing at the Easton house. Maria smiled. Brides. Then she wondered whether she had missed the point, as she remembered that one of the film’s key plot points was the early death of a mother.

  “The hotel is all set for the reception,” Maria said.

  The movie faded into silence in the background, as Jason undoubtedly moved away from the TV. Maria pictured the undoubtedly elegant brownstone, with Jason Garrons moving like a big cat through its narrow but high-ceilinged rooms.

  “Excellent, though I hear a but in your voice.”

  “Well, the church might be a bit trickier. Churches tend not to go for the same kind of persuasion.” She kept her voice light, though the knowledge that she could appear to be telling Jason Garrons something he didn’t know about negotiation made her face a little hot.

  “I can see that,” the voice at the other end of the line said dryly.

  “But the couple who have the five p.m. slot right now are people you may know, and a call from you might be able to do something. Martha at Trinity Church says it’s an older bride, and she might…”

  Jason laughed as Maria paused for a moment to try to put the request the right way.

  “She might see reason, in a way that Emily can’t.”

  “Yes,” Maria said gratefully. “If you call Mr. Lamont, it seems likely…”

  “Oh, Bill? Bill Lamont? That’s our competition?”

  “Yes,” Maria said, very relieved at the lightness in Jason’s tone, “and a Mrs. Farnsworth. Second marriage for both.”

  “Of course.” He chuckled. “Bill kept that under his hat, didn’t he? Old dog. These blue-bloods may act like they never have sex, but there have been rumors about Bill and Buffy for years.”

  Maria swallowed hard, unsure of what to say to the comment that threatened to bring them into unprofessional territory. She and Heather had certainly known about Mr. Lamont and Mrs. Farnsworth, and giggled about it at the office. She had an extremely uncharacteristic urge to tell Jason that, and she couldn’t really figure out why.

  “You’re like me, Maria, aren’t you? An outsider here in this bastion of old society?”

  Maria still said nothing, feeling a little paralyzed between the desire to get the job done and the undoubted attraction of sharing some kind of intimacy with Jason Garrons. Thankfully, Jason seemed content to continue on in his own train of thought.

  “Well, I guess I’m less an outsider than I used to be. I can call Bill.”

  “Thanks,” Maria said, happy to have the unprofessional moment finished, but wondering now whether Jason represented more of a hazard on this job than an asset.

  “How much did we have to pay at the Park Plaza?”

  “Only a thousand, for a dinner.”

  “I suppose I should start pinching my pennies like a thrifty Yankee, but I have a feeling that when this is all over that will be more like a rounding error than an expense item. Are you free for coffee Monday afternoon?”

  “What?” Maria’s face went very hot.

  Jason chuckled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to take you by surprise. I think you and I should probably meet once, just the two of us, to go over the budget in what you might call its broadest version. I need to move some money around, to make sure everyone gets paid on time, and although I want Emily to feel like she’s getting everything she wants I also need to impose some limits. It’s probably best if we talk about that outside of her, and Priscilla’s, presence.”

  Of course he meant that. Of course he did. He definitely didn’t mean that he wanted to have coffee with me.

  But why hadn’t he just asked for an appointment at Maria’s office, or asked her to stop by his own office?

  “Of course,” Maria said, pleased with the way she managed to keep her voice level.

  “Two o’clock at the café downstairs from you?”

  “That sounds fine. I’ll bring my laptop so you can look at the spreadsheet.”

  “Perfect,” Jason said. “Thanks. See you then.”

  Maria stared at her phone after the line went dead. He could have just set up an appointment, right?

  * * *

  When Maria came downstairs, Jason was already sitting at a table in the half-full café, dressed in a perfectly tailored navy-blue suit, with no tie, but a white pocket square that seemed paradoxically to bring out the blue in his eyes. He stood to greet her, and shook her hand warmly.

  “What will you have? Your family is Italian, I’m guessing? Cappuccino? Latté?”

  The gratitude for dark skin that hid her blushes returned.

  “I’m being provincial, I guess,” Jason said with a twinkle in his eye that seemed to indicate he had only meant to break the ice a little when in fact he had gone straight to Maria’s heart.

  “No,” she said, smiling. “You’re right. Cappuccino, please?”

  As she sat down at the table with its immaculate white cloth, he called the waiter over to place the order. She saw that he already had a half-full cappuccino in front of him, and his own laptop out.

  “Am I late?” she asked as he sat down.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “I just had a little work to do, and I thought I might as well do it here.”

  So that I’d find him here already. Interesting. Maria tried resolutely not to blush anew at that, and nearly succeeded.

  “We’re all squared away on the church,” Maria said. “Thanks for making that call, Mr. Garrons.”

  “Please call me Jason,” he said with a very
gentle smile. “It was my pleasure, especially since I got to hear all about Bill’s last Bermuda race.”

  For a moment Maria thought he was serious, but then she noticed that his mouth had crooked up rather mischievously. She couldn’t help returning the smile.

  “I think, if I’m remembering correctly, the binnacle blew out the gangway, and the spinnaker caught on fire,” Jason deadpanned. Even without knowing what any of the nautical words meant, Maria could tell now that he meant to make fun—gentle fun—of the yachtsmen who seemed to inhabit a world of their own, in which they felt sure everyone else took a deep interest. She laughed.

  “I suppose I shouldn’t,” Jason said. “My future son-in-law will probably turn into one of them.” He sighed. “Alright, let’s get to it. Show me the spreadsheet.”

  Maria couldn’t figure out, then or later, where the trouble about the photographer started. Jason had already approved the exorbitant sum required to secure one of the best wedding photographers in the city, and Maria only wanted to prevent future problems by telling him what the conditions would be.

  Ordinarily, she would have had this conversation with the bride and the MOB, and she planned to go through the same details with Emily and Priscilla. Since Jason seemed willing to interest himself in such matters, though, and Maria had concluded she could rely on him as a voice of reason, she decided she might as well lay things out for him. She had not the slightest expectation that he would object to anything at all, let alone to something as basic as access to his home on the day of the wedding.

  “I’m sorry, but that’s just not going to be possible. Maybe I can put Emily and her bridesmaids up at the Park Plaza, and the photographer can take pictures of the preparations, or whatever, there?”

  Jason seemed to mean to sound reasonable, so at first Maria attempted to use reason in return. “I don’t think you’re thinking of it the right way, Jason…”

  He lifted his chin, a sudden expression of surprise and the beginnings of annoyance appearing on his face. Maria could see that her persuasion would probably fail, but Jason’s expression, which seemed to belittle her knowledge of her chosen field, only strengthened her resolve to show him his error and her correctness. Before she put her foot down, as it appeared she would have to do, Maria would make it clear that she knew what she was talking about.

  “These are memories that are going to last a lifetime. Pictures in a hotel are just not the same. I’m sorry for the slight inconvenience it will cause, but—”

  “Slight inconvenience? To have my home invaded and everything turned upside down? My wife’s family possesses a great many priceless works of art that I have a responsibility to safeguard and to hand on to the girls.”

  Irritation—Sicilian irritation—rose in Maria’s chest. “It’s hardly an invasion, Mr. Garrons. Weddings are inconvenient in certain ways, but when you’re dealing with a life event as important as marriage…” She tried to shift into her marketing spiel, as a way of calming herself down, because she could see in Jason’s eyes that she might have escalated things unwisely. He was the voice of reason on many things, it seemed, but not on the subject of the sanctity of his home. “A life event for which you want the services of someone like me, you need to put your trust in your wedding planner, which is why…”

  Jason gave an exasperated snort. “Of course I trust you, Miss Sali. But—”

  She couldn’t help it. The belittling tone seemed to her to have gotten worse in that of course. Maria interrupted Jason, and the real trouble began. “You obviously don’t, Mr. Garrons. I’m sorry to have bothered you. Why don’t you speak with Emily and—”

  She started to rise from the table as she spoke. Without realizing it, too, she had started to raise her voice. A head turned at an adjacent table.

  “Miss Sali,” Jason said in a tight, controlled tone. “I think we should go up to your office to continue this conversation.”

  “I don’t see any need to continue it, Mr. Garrons.”

  Another head turned.

  “I do, and I request that you allow me to speak to you about this issue, and about my stepdaughter’s wedding more generally, in private.”

  Maria swallowed hard. Something about the man’s commanding tone, filled with such authority despite being uttered softly and with complete politeness, seemed to make her face tingle and her tummy flutter.

  “Alright,” she said.

  “I’ll join you there,” Jason said softly, “after I’ve paid the check.”

  Maria rode the elevator in a strange daze. Why could she not shake the feeling that Jason Garrons meant to do more than simply discuss the wedding? What had it been, in his voice, that made her say alright?

  Why was she somehow both afraid and excited?

  She closed the door of the very small, though elegantly appointed, office suite. There was a little reception area, with a desk for an assistant, but Maria couldn’t afford one yet. She stood looking at the empty chair, at the sofa for clients who someday would wait to be escorted into Maria’s presence, as the clients had waited for Heather’s attention, when Maria had sat proudly at the assistant’s desk.

  Behind her, she heard the door open, and she turned to face Jason Garrons, who wore a very calm, though also very severe, expression.

  “Miss Sali,” he said, closing the door behind him. “If you wish to continue to plan this wedding, I need to make as clear as I can who is in charge. Please go into your office and bend over your desk. I’m going to spank you.”

  Chapter Five

  Jason watched Maria go through several stages in the process of understanding that he meant what he said. The first blush as she reacted simply to the idea of spanking, without any thought for its meaning in this context gave way to a momentary frown as she decided he must be joking, and then tried desperately to determine if that were the case. Then her close study of his demeanor visibly told her—here, though her Mediterranean coloring made it difficult to discern, Jason thought that the blood drained from her face—that strange as it seemed, he at least meant what he said. Finally, all these gave way to a set around her eyes that betokened scorn and skepticism.

  “Very funny, Mr. Garrons,” she said, though she quite clearly understood that he wasn’t joking.

  “Maria,” he said, speaking her first name slowly and deliberately so that she understood he had chosen to use it as a gesture of authority, “please do as I’ve asked. You have two alternatives: take a spanking for your rudeness and for embarrassing both of us in the café, or lose my business.”

  Jason knew that Maria had very nearly fired them on Saturday—he had seen it in Maria’s eyes as she had to endure Emily’s willfulness. As he came to the decision to apply the same kind of solution with the wedding planner as he had at home with the bride and the maid of honor, he hadn’t been conscious of exactly what sort of test this would be for Maria Sali, but he certainly saw it now: to take this sort of embarrassing punishment from her client would commit her both to the job and, in a very important way, to Jason as well. On Saturday he had clearly brought the wedding back from the brink of disintegration by stepping in and smoothing things over. Now, if Maria proved the sort of woman who could accept this punishment when given the choice of losing a lucrative, prestigious wedding instead, well, interesting things might happen between them.

  “I won’t,” Maria said. She had clearly meant to sound assertive, but the words came out weakly, almost as a plea for Jason to spare her the dilemma.

  He suddenly remembered the first time he had spanked Anne, on their second date, when she had deserted him in the restaurant to go talk, in fact, to her friend Priscilla Allerton. At the dinner table, when she returned, Jason had offered her something very like the choice he now gave Maria: take your punishment over my knee—because he and Anne were dating, of course, and the chemistry seemed good—or we’re through.

  His experience as a dominant hadn’t been extensive at that point, really—nor was it extensive even now, being still
mostly confined to his relationship with his late wife—but his instincts had guided him then as now. Anne had turned bright red—her complexion much fairer, of course, than Maria Sali’s—and said, “Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”

  Anne had moaned over his lap, and spread her knees, from the very beginning of the spanking. Jason had taken down her panties and instructed her to keep her naughty knees closed, but of course that lasted only until he had turned her backside as red as her face had been at dinner. He had told her that they would have sex afterward, but that she needed to learn her lesson first, and she had moaned and struggled and finally lain obediently still. When Jason had raised her from his lap, only to bend her over his bachelor bed and enter her wet pussy with a single, deep thrust, Anne had cried out in a way that still rang in Jason’s ears.

  Their own wedding, a very simple, private affair, had taken place six months later. In the years that followed, their disciplinary dynamic had evolved so that some spankings, specifically the ones given with a hairbrush, had been entirely punishments. Anne might be left wanting erotic fulfillment several minutes later, but Jason had decided—in consultation with Anne herself—that she shouldn’t get that fulfillment until much more time had passed.

  That side of his relationship with his late wife had made it feasible for him to give Georgia the hairbrush on Saturday evening. Another man might have had a physical reaction to the sight of his beautiful stepdaughter’s backside in lacy panties alone, or the sound of her yelps as he punished her, but those aspects of a punishment spanking had nothing to do with the need to impose disciplinary consequences: Jason concentrated on the discipline.

  Nor would the erotic dimension of this lesson he had to give Maria intrude on the affair. He couldn’t deny that he felt a certain attraction to the young woman, and he certainly wouldn’t discount the possibility that spanking her today might lead to something else in the future, but to impose consequences as he intended to do here and now might stiffen his cock in his trousers, but it would result in no attempt to take advantage of the situation.