Best Man with Benefits (Wedding Dare, #4, McCade Brothers, #3)(34)

“Here’s the dress.” The woman passed it through and then offered a stack of two shoe boxes. “I brought the shoes in seven and a half, and eight, because you never know with heels. I thought this might also interest you.”

Sophie blinked as the clerk handed her a black satin bra with lace edging. “It works perfectly with the neckline of the dress, and don’t let the prettiness fool you—this little wonder can handle anything. It’ll boost your cleavage so you look like you stepped off the cover of Cosmo.”

Sophie felt her face turn as red as the dress, but she murmured a thanks and took the frilly scrap. In the privacy of the fitting room she wriggled into the bra and paused for a moment to check herself in the mirror.

Wow. The woman was not kidding. While putting her chest front and center went against every deep-seated instinct she’d obeyed since middle school, she remembered how incredibly appreciative Logan had been of those particular assets last night, and deep-seated instinct gave way to a desire to watch his eyes widen and fill with lust—ideally before he ripped the satin-and-lace miracle of engineering right off. She lifted the discreet tag looped around the underwire between her breasts.

Holy crap, $120 for a bra? Maybe he wouldn’t rip it off her after all. Maybe she’d shrug out of it carefully, fold it, and tuck it in the room safe.

“Don’t leave me in suspense,” Kady piped up. “Get out here and show me how the outfit looks.”

“One sec.” Sophie turned around, pulled the dress over her head, zipped it up, and stepped into the shoes. Too anxious to look in the mirror, she held her breath and walked out of the fitting room.

“Oh my God. Sophie, get a load of you.”

“What?” She looked down at herself but she couldn’t force her gaze past the unprecedented amount of cleavage on display. “Do I look like a hooker?” The shock on Kady’s face had her cringing and backing into the fitting room. “I do, don’t I? Like a cheap hooker, which is really funny because I’m wearing a hundred-dollar bra.”

Kady got up and took her arm to stop her retreat. “Get your chicken-butt out here.” She spun Sophie toward the three-way mirror at the opposite end of the room. “Look.”

She looked, and nearly stumbled at the sexy stranger in the glass.

“That dress is made for you,” Kady declared. “It’d be a crime if you didn’t have it.”

In a daze, Sophie reached for the price tag hanging from her right side, and drew in a quick gasp. Au contraire. It would be a crime if she did have it, because the dress cost even more than the bra. She couldn’t even think about the shoes.

Did you not just get a promotion and a raise? Blow the cobwebs off your Visa and buy the outfit.

She turned to the saleswoman hovering nearby. The blonde nodded encouragingly.

“I’ll…um…that is…I’ll take it?” The words came out more like a question than a statement.

“Wonderful. You know, the bra has matching panties. I could have them up front, waiting for you.”

You can’t possibly wear that bra with any of the underwear you own. “Sure,” she mumbled and avoided Kady’s sharp eyes as she ducked back into the fitting room.

By the time she stood outside the shop again, Sophie was two bags heavier and almost five hundred dollars lighter. The panties—and that was a generous word for a triangle of silk and lace dangling from three strategic strips of elastic—set her back another sixty bucks. Certain parts of her actually clenched at the notion of wearing them, but she told herself they couldn’t possibly be as uncomfortable as they looked.

“What are you doing now?” Kady asked.

Calling Visa to assure them there hasn’t been any fraud on my card. “Nothing, why?”

“A good pedicure is mandatory with the shoes you just bought. Come on.” She hooked her arm through Sophie’s. “I know just the place.”

Oh, God, some poor nail technician was going to have her work cut out for her, dealing with a pair of unpampered feet that had been shoved into running shoes all morning. She shuddered at the thought of sharp implements digging into her tender toes.

You survived a bikini wax. You can survive anything.

…

Logan headed downstairs after a grueling afternoon of conference calls with only one objective. Sophie. He stepped out of the elevator and nearly shoved his phone into a potted plant when the damn thing buzzed. A quick look at the screen had him engaging the call.

“Hi, Mom.”

“That’s funny. You don’t sound like you’re in jail, the hospital, or the morgue.”

“Why would I be in any of those places?” He tried to sound confused, but he knew where this was going.

“I left you a message two days ago. Where’s my call back?”

Yep. That’s where it was going. Guilt tried to dig a wormhole through his good mood, but he blocked its path. If she’d really needed to reach him, she would have asked his assistant to track him down. “Sorry. I just now got out of jail. Just this minute.”

“Sure you did. A jail called Defy Gravity. You’re working too hard.”

“Mom—”

“Don’t ‘Mom’ me. You looked terrible at Michael’s wedding. Pale. Exhausted. I can’t believe I’m forced to say this is someone who spent the better part of his formative years listening to me scream, ‘Get the hell down from there!’—but you need to go outside and climb something.”