Bossy Bride: Emma & Jesse
J.A. Huss
(Bossy Brothers, #4)
Publication date: December 18th 2019
Genres: Adult, Comedy, Romance
Bossy Bride features Jesse and Emma getting almost-hitched on a roller coaster, tricked into being the stars of a pirate show, jumping out of an airplane, and saying their vows in front of two huge Italian families who don’t speak English. It’s a rompy, whirlwind trip down a rabbit hole of “Fantasy” Vegas weddings planned by a man called “Fingers” and just when you think nothing else could go wrong—a mermaid descends from the ceiling.
Jesse Boston is the man of my dreams. He’s super sexy, super rich, and super funny. He gets all my jokes, he treats me like a princess, and our love life is smokin’ hot.
So I’m gonna marry him. I’m not real picky about how that happens and if my mother wants to have her say, fine. That’s fine. She gave birth to three boys and just one girl. So I get it. She NEEDS a wedding.
But when she invites my childhood nemesis, KAREN, to plan our wedding AND be one of my bride’s maids? Uh—no. It’s not happening. Karen Krakken-Channing will not plan my wedding, will not be at my wedding, and she’s certainly not going to be IN my wedding.
Luckily, my jet-butler, Miles, and my almost-husband get this great idea!
We’re going to elope to Vegas on Christmas Eve eve, get hitched in the most ridiculous way possible, and then fly home in time for Christmas Eve dinner.
We’ve got it all figured out.
Nothing can go wrong.
We will have one simple wedding in like… a drive-through chapel, and call it good.
Take that, KAREN!
—
EXCERPT:
And no, the man whose arm she’s holding onto as she walks isn’t her father. And none of these people here are our people—but in this moment I do not care.
Emma.
Emma is the only thing on my mind.
I want this woman by my side right now. I want her next to me for the rest of my life. I want her in sickness and in health. I’ll take all the bad with the good. I want to love and cherish her so hard, she will forget the thirteen years we spent apart and only think of the ones we spent together.
Her veil only covers her eyes. It’s a very tasteful, very understated veil. But the best thing about that veil is that as I watch her walk towards me—as I see her suddenly realize that this is it, we really are gonna make it all the way through this ceremony—I catch her checking me out. I catch her eyes wandering down my body, then back up to meet my gaze again.
She smiles and bites her lip.
And man, that little lip-biting thing? Yeah. I’m gonna picture that every time I make love to her for the rest of my life.
My stomach flips with excitement once they reach the steps and all I want to do is rush down those steps and pull her into my arms.
But I wait.
I force myself to stand still and wait as her fake father pauses to look lovingly at her—nice touch, fake father-in-law—and then she ascends towards me.
Emma’s eyes find mine as she slowly approaches the altar. And then she shrugs up her shoulders as if a tingle went up her body.
God, I love her. I love her so much. And even though I still have regrets about missing out on all those years when we were apart, I know—I just feel it in my heart—that this is just the beginning for us. We have so much to look forward to. And pretty soon none of those missing years will matter anymore. We’ll be too busy making new memories to even think about the ones we never had.
When they reach the top her fake father stops just a step away from me, turns to Emma, and lifts her small veil up and says something low and soft in Italian.
Emma nods her head at him and murmurs, “Thank you.”
Then she turns to me. I reach for her and she takes my hand, stepping forward to stand next to me as we both face each other in front of this chapel filled with people.
It’s only then that we realize… the priest is speaking in Italian.
Both of us giggle. Fuck it, right?
What did we really expect? And surely, this day could not get any weirder.
We hold hands as he speaks, probably saying all the usual things. Marriage is serious. Marriage is a lifelong commitment. Marriage is sacred.
Yes. I agree to all those things.
I hold Emma’s hands in mine as the ceremony proceeds. And I even hear a sniffle or two from our audience. Nice touch, Fingers. Nice touch.
And even though everything here started out fake, suddenly everything feels very, very real.
I am marrying this woman.
The priest pauses, and when we look at him we realize we’re up.
We didn’t discuss this. We have no vows! And even though everyone else is working off a script, we’re just winging it.
Emma looks a little frightened. Her eyes are wide and her pouty lips are making a perfect, round, o shape.
I squeeze her hand. “I got you, babe.” Then I clear my throat and begin.
“Emma Dumas. I first met you thirteen years ago. We were young, and one of us was very stupid.” She smiles wide and sucks in a breath of air. “Me,” I say, looking out at the crowd. And hey, they get it. Because they chuckle a little at my joke. “But I don’t think I ever told you how you grabbed my attention that day. I saw you from across Mallory Square. You were wearing little Daisy Duke cut-offs and a white tank top. And, of course, those now infamous pigtails.”
She squeezes my hands as she shakes her head and looks down for a moment. But she quickly raises her eyes back up to meet mine. Like she refuses to miss a single moment of our big minute.
“And Emma, I thought to myself… ‘Jesse Boston—’” A slight murmur from the crowd makes me pause for a moment. I guess they didn’t know who I was and now they do. Jesse Boston is the same no matter what language you say it in. “I said, ‘Jesse Boston, how in the heck have you been on this island for a week and are just now seeing this girl?’ You see,” I say to the crowd, “I missed her. And I hated that. I really hated that. Because up until that moment when I first saw this vision of a girl, I was doing nothing. I was nothing. I was wasting time, and taking up space, and couldn’t even begin to imagine what the next thirteen minutes would bring, let alone the next thirteen years. So I took my chance.” I turn back to Emma. “I went up to your shaved ice stand and asked you out. It was probably not my best pick-up. But Emma, I just want you to know… it was my most honest one.”
She lowers her eyes again. And when they rise up to meet mine just a moment later, I see the shine of a tear in them.
“It was… honest. Every moment with you that night was honest. And when we reconnected thirteen years later, every moment that came after was honest too. You not only make me want to be a better man, I am a better man with you by my side.” I bring her hand up to my lips and I gently kiss her fingers. “Thank you. Thank you for seeing the better me. Thank you for buying me from a bachelor auction with grand delusions of revenge. Thank you for the one-up dream date. Thank you for sharing your family with me. Thank you for being my knight in shining armor… just…” I shake my head. “Babe? I can’t do this without you.”
She inhales deeply, lets go of one of my hands to swipe a tear off her cheek, and then says, “Jesse Boston. You were my fantasy man when we first met. You were the man who made all the promises. You were a boy so golden I could barely stand to look at you.”
I sigh. Because I didn’t feel good enough for her back then. I was so afraid she’d see through me. So afraid she’d realize what a fraud I was. So afraid that she’d figure me out and sneak away, thankful that she dodged a bullet with a boy called Jesse.
“And when you disappeared, I was lost. I was someone else when you left. Some other girl who no longer understood her place in this world. And for the next thirteen years I would think about you at least once a day. I would think… what could we have been? What life would we have lived if we had stayed together from the start? If we had never gone out and did our thing, by ourselves, on our own?” She squeezes my hands. “And you know what?”
“What?” I whisper, dying to know what she thinks about this.
“We might’ve been that couple.”
I laugh a little. That couple.
“We might have been that couple you described on our second-chance first date last summer. The one who fights hard, and lives fast, and loves each other ferociously.”
“Love is a battlefield, babe. And we’re both just generals.”
Author Bio:
JA Huss is the New York Times Bestselling author of 321 and has been on the USA Today Bestseller's list 21 times in the past five years. She writes characters with heart, plots with twists, and perfect endings.
Her new sexy sci-fi romance and paranormal romance pen name is KC Cross and she writes novels and teleplays collaboratively with actor and screenwriter, Johnathan McClain.
Her books have sold millions of copies all over the world, the audio version of her semi-autobiographical book, Eighteen, was nominated for a Voice Arts Award and an Audie Award in 2016 and 2017 respectively. Her audiobook, Mr. Perfect, was nominated for a Voice Arts Award in 2017. Her audiobook, Taking Turns, was nominated for an Audie Award in 2018. Five of her book were optioned for a TV series by MGM television in 2018. And her book, Total Exposure, was nominated for a RITA Award in 2019.
She lives on a ranch in Central Colorado with her family.
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