Lily’s heart sprang into a full-on panic. “Oh, no, Mrs. Hannafort. That’s totally not necessary. I’m sure that Noah and I can handle it on our own.”
“But you don’t have my experience. And Noah just told me how busy you are at work. This will save you more time than you can possibly imagine. And you won’t have to worry about making any big mistakes. I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Lily looked at Noah’s handsome face, colored by an expression she could describe only as surrender. He was on board. Lyle and Marcy were on board. Lily needed to concede and figure out the rest later. “Okay. That sounds great.”
Except Lily was sure of one thing—the only thing about this that would be great would be her regret.
CHAPTER NINE
Lily was the first to arrive in the office Monday morning. After being away on Friday, she’d have a ton of email to catch up on, as well as faxes, mail and voice mail messages. She wanted Sawyer and Noah to come in to their usual well-oiled machine. She also wanted to be capable, on-top-of-it Lily when Noah arrived. She wanted to avoid the sense that he was imagining her flat on her back and at his mercy.
One thing she could not avoid today. Sawyer was about to learn that Lily and Noah were now planning a fake wedding. Hopefully, he’d appreciate the business side of what had happened—Marcy Hannafort had backed them into a corner, and they’d done the only thing they could to keep moving forward with the deal. Lily also hoped Sawyer wouldn’t give Noah a hard time about it. Until Lily had been folded more fully into the inner workings of Locke and Locke, she hadn’t been quite so aware of the friction between Sawyer and Noah. Noah clearly looked up to his brother very much, and felt dismissed or ignored at least some of the time.
Sawyer arrived fifteen minutes after Lily. “Sorry we missed you and Noah yesterday. I trust Charlotte told you we had to leave early?”
“She did. Is everything okay with Kendall?” Lily got up from her desk.
“Yes, thankfully,” he answered. “The doctor thinks it was a mild case of food poisoning. A bad shrimp or something. Don’t say anything to the Hannaforts. I’m sure they’d be horrified.”
“Yikes. I didn’t hear anything about the other guests getting sick, so hopefully it was a blip on the map.” The mention of the Hannaforts made Lily jittery.
“Any sign of Noah yet?”
Lily was able to assuage her paranoia over whether or not Sawyer might know about recent developments. It was apparent he didn’t. “No. But I’m guessing he’ll be here soon.”
“Did I miss anything important yesterday?”
“Noah can fill you in on everything.” Lily was torn over her answer, but if she told Sawyer now and Noah walked in on them discussing it, he would once again feel out of the loop.
“Were you happy with the way everything went with you and Noah this weekend?” Sawyer took a seat in reception. “I hope it wasn’t too awkward.”
Lily fumbled for her mug and took a swig of lukewarm coffee. She needed a second to think. A million different answers sat on her lips, none of which she’d ever share with Sawyer. “It was fine. I had a nice time.”
The office door opened and in walked Noah. He stopped dead in his tracks, sights sweeping between Sawyer and Lily. “What’s up?”
“Just chatting about the weekend.”
“Did Lily tell you what happened right before we left?”
She shook her head. “I thought it was better if we were both here for it.”
“Good. I agree.”
“Whoa. That does not sound good. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” The tone of Sawyer’s voice was unmistakable. The Hannafort deal meant too much for there to be any new problems.
Noah took off his coat and Lily had to ignore the memories that flooded her mind. That moment when she first saw him take off his shirt and she was able to have her hands all over him. “Well, the easiest answer is we have news. Mr. and Mrs. Hannafort want to have the wedding at the Grand Legacy. They want to use it for publicity as part of the official deal announcement.”
Sawyer’s eyes narrowed. “What wedding? Is one of their other daughters engaged?”
“Our wedding. Mine and Lily’s.”
The words our wedding made Lily flinch. Any hope that the state of affairs might appear better in the light of a new day was gone. It only looked worse.
“A wedding? You’re actually getting married? How in the hell did this happen? And why didn’t one of you call me last night?”
“It’s my fault,” Lily blurted. She was prepared to do anything to get Sawyer to stop using words like wedding and married.