The Agent (The Consultants #3) - Nancy Herkness Page 0,3

on your honeymoon, Leland is going to put a block on your computer.”

“Oh, I already have,” Leland said, the flickering torchlight reflecting on his lenses. “He’ll have to go old school and use a pencil and a calculator if he needs a spreadsheet fix.”

Derek gave a snort, but there was an amused glint in his eyes. “I’ve got far better things to do on my honeymoon than work.”

“Like stay in bed as much as possible.” Tully grinned.

“I meant sightseeing,” Derek said with a bland look. “For all the places I’ve traveled, I’ve barely seen more than the inside of office buildings and hotels.”

“You’ve earned the right to do whatever you want to . . . as long as it’s not related to your job,” Leland said. “But Alice might have some opinions too.”

Derek smiled in a secret inward way that meant he was thinking about his bride. Sadness twinged in Tully’s chest. Alice was one great lady, and Derek deserved the happiness he had found with her. But his marriage meant a change in the dynamic between the three of them.

Tully loved Derek and Leland like brothers. No, more than his shithead of a brother, because he had gotten to choose them. For all the years between their first meeting in business school through the challenges of founding and growing KRG until today, it had been just the three of them always having one another’s backs.

Now there was Alice in the mix. Not to mention Leland’s fiancée, Dawn, another terrific woman.

For a moment, loneliness wrapped a dark shroud around Tully, but he shook it off. He’d made his life choices for good reasons.

Tully clapped his hand on Derek’s shoulder. “You and Alice are real good together, partner. You’re going to be one of those couples who celebrates their fiftieth anniversary with the same stars in your eyes you have today.”

Alice flopped onto a blue velvet chaise longue in the bride’s room, her feet in their embroidered-satin french heels flexed in front of her. “I don’t really have to go to the bathroom,” she said. “I just wanted us three to have a little time alone.” She gave Natalie a sideways look. “And to say that you and Tully made a great couple on the dance floor.”

Natalie wasn’t going to argue with the bride. “He’s a good dancer,” she said as she perched on a gilded faux-bamboo chair.

Alice looked dissatisfied, but she didn’t push the subject any further. “I can’t believe we’re traveling for three whole weeks for our honeymoon.”

Dawn pulled up a velvet-covered stool, her rose-colored skirt pooling on the floor around it. “I don’t think you and Derek have ever taken off that much time combined.”

“I know.” Alice’s lips curved into a dreamy smile. “I’ll have him all to myself for the entire trip.”

“You mean when you’re drinking the nasty spring water in Bath? And seeing all the skulls in the catacombs of Paris?” Natalie asked.

Alice had chosen some of the destinations because they appeared in her favorite books.

“Yeah, that’s just creepy,” Dawn said. “But safer than that place in France where you drown if you’re walking out to it when the tide comes in.”

“Mont-Saint-Michel, and it has a bridge now,” Alice said. “You make my honeymoon sound like a nightmare. Besides, you’re forgetting the glass bathtub in our villa in the Maldives. I mean, Derek, naked, against a turquoise sea.”

There was a moment of awed silence before they cracked up. “We will never, ever tell him that we were all picturing that,” Natalie said.

“You are the best girlfriends ever,” Alice said, her laughter turning misty eyed.

“Because we’re drooling over your new husband?” Natalie said with a teasing smile. “You have a strange idea of what girlfriends should do.”

Alice sat up and swung her legs off the chaise longue. “Because you’re happy that I have an incredibly handsome new husband, and you don’t think it’s weird that he loves me.”

Alice’s mother had made her daughter believe she was unattractive all her life, so Alice still felt unworthy of the stunningly attractive Derek.

Dawn threw a glance of exasperation at the ceiling. “Did you look at yourself in the mirror today? You’re just as gorgeous as he is.”

“Today doesn’t count. Natalie and my dress designer made me look amazing.” Alice reached out to clasp each of their hands in hers. “Thank you for getting me to this day. I wouldn’t be here without your support and belief in me.”

“Sweetie, you would have gotten here without us,” Natalie said, her heart swelling.