Pepper took her time reaching the tent. She wasn’t acting the coward, or not entirely anyway.

The slow steps allowed her a moment to breathe, to shore up those empty holes inside her.

Laughter trickled across the sand, blurring with the crash of the waves.

It was a soothing sort of sound, laughter and the ocean, and entirely deceptive of what awaited her inside.

Barbed comments, disdain. Andy as best man.

The shark on shore, one who would certainly take a limb given half a chance. He’d always liked to “tease” her about her ineptitudes, laugh at her ill-grace.

Oh Pep, what would we do if we didn’t have you to laugh at?

Hit another Oscar-winner, Pep? You’re father needs the tax deduction.

Why hadn’t she realized how much of an asshole he was?

Because she’d been weak and cowed and pathetic. But the good thing about being a grown up was that she could be self-aware. That meant she’d been able to change. She wasn’t the same person anymore, wouldn’t allow herself to be harassed.

Bring it, Andy the asshole.

The thing about taking slow, small steps was that even though she wasn’t in a hurry to join the festivities, those steps meant she was still moving forward.

The inside of the tent was as gorgeous as the outside view and exactly as she’d pictured it when she’d ordered the decorations. Round tables lushly covered in floral arrangements, hundreds of candles scattered throughout. Crisp linens and glittering flatware.

A band was set up behind a dance floor occupying one corner of the covering, large round tables filled the rest of the space.

The wait staff wore precisely ironed white shirts and pink ties. It was the same shade as the flowers, as the dress hanging in Pepper’s suite, and the single thing Summer had changed. Pepper loved the ocean and all its blues. Summer, on the other hand, preferred pink. Well, preferred wasn’t the right word. The bride was obsessed with it, and her wedding would be an explosion of it.

A marginally tasteful, but very expensive explosion.

Pepto-Bismol all the same.

“Pepper!!” The harsh squeal rent the air and told her several things all at once.

One. Summer was drinking.

Two. A lot.

Three. She was drinking because things weren’t going well.

And time for Pepper’s maid of honor duties.

With a sigh, she plastered on a smile and hurried over to Summer.

“It’s so good to see you!”

They hugged, and the stench of tequila hit her in the face. Good God, did it always have to be tequila?

Their college days were over, and the sheer number of tequila-induced hangovers they’d experienced together should have turned Summer—as it had Pepper—off the stuff forever.

Apparently, the bride didn’t have the same qualms that she did.

Or, perhaps more likely, Summer was desperate.

It took two point two seconds to figure out why her friend was drinking battery acid.

Mother.

Rather, mothers.

As in the two plastic-surgery-enhanced, look-thirty-five-but-are-actually-fifty blond (and only blond, because all those gray hairs had been dyed into submission), plucked, tightened, tucked mothers were glaring angrily at one another.

“What happened?” she murmured softly to Summer.

Apparently not softly enough because Summer’s mom—who was unfortunately named Candy—pointed one pink-painted fingernail at Pepper’s mom and shrieked, “Poppy said I’m fat.”

Oh boy.

If there was something in their circle even more unforgiveable than insulting someone behind their back, it was insulting someone to their front.

Paul kissed Summer on the cheek. “The boys and I are off then.” He sped out of the tent, pathetic pansy that he was, with the rest of the men, including—glarey eyes—Andy, on their heels. Derek followed as well, but paused, sending her a look that was both distant and unreadable before heading out onto the beach.

Cowards. The lot of them.

“I didn’t—” Poppy began.

“You most certainly—” Candy interrupted.

“Where’s the wedding planner?” she asked Summer. She knew the resort provided one.

“Sick,” Summer wailed. “They sent her assistant, but my mother yelled at her and—”

Candy bristled. “I did not—”

“Oh yes, you did.”

Voices rose, fingers pointed, cheeks heated and—

Pepper didn’t think, she reacted.

She gripped the arm of the girl next to her and ordered, “Go into that room”—she indicated the nearest suite—“and grab as many rolls of toilet paper as you can.”

When the girl didn’t move, only turned and stared at Pepper down her perfectly sculpted nose, Pepper gave her a shove. “Now!” she growled.

The girl paled and took off.

“You.” She pointed at the nearest waiter. “Get a bag. Any bag and fill it with random things.”

“Ran—”

Pepper interrupted the question. “Like gum and a comb, a fork, lipstick, random everyday objects. About ten of them, put them in a bag, and bring it to me. Now!”

The next waiter was dispatched for pens and paper.

When they’d gone, she turned toward the quibbling mothers and girded her loins.

“Games!” She shouted over the din, grabbing Summer’s arm and tugging her toward the dance floor. “It’s time for games!”

The crowd, which had been tennis-match-style spectating, or more plainly, had been swiveling glances between the two woman turned to face her.

Pepper gulped, but she wasn’t a coward, dammit. Plus, she’d seen this online and had always wanted to play it. Her shower had been too posh for games, might as well take some enjoyment in this train wreck of a gathering.

“Come on! Come on!” The women slowly made their way to the dance floor. “Now we need to break up into teams of three. Where’s—Oh! Good,” she said when the girl she’d sent off for toilet paper returned, arms laden.

“What are you doing?”

Shivers down her spine. Derek’s voice always gave her shivers. She supposed it always would, even when he was hissing angrily at her.

“I’m fixing this,” she snapped back. The ire in her tone made her proud. He was the one acting like an ass. Hot, cold, distant, not.

“With toilet paper?” he asked sarcastically.

“Yes.” She turned her back on him and counted, “One, two, three.” Sectioning off a group while being careful to separate Poppy and Candy.

“Pepper—” He grabbed her arm.

She ripped it free. “Stop pretending to care, Derek.” Her finger jabbed into his chest. “You got me here safe and sound. Your job is done. Now leave me alone.”

Derek’s mouth fell open and he stammered out a few syllables, but Pepper was done.

She wanted him to stop ingraining himself deeper within her, to stop making her care, stop—

She turned her back on him.

“Pepper,” Derek said softly.

Hope filled her. Maybe . . .

“Am I reading this wrong?” she asked, rotating around. “Acting crazy and overreacting because this was supposed to be my wedding?” She reached for his hand, but he backed up a step.

She tried not to flinch. “Do you want to be with me? Out in the open so everyone knows?”

Silence. Then two words that iced over her blood. “I can’t.”

Pepper forced a smile, and it felt grotesque on her face. “That’s what I thought.”

“I—”

This time when she turned away, she stayed that way. The space between her shoulder blades burned until Derek left.

But left he did, and alongside him all of her hope that she’d been imaging things.

Chin up, she reminded herself and carefully compartmentalized her hurt to deal with later.

For now she had a shower to save.

For no other reason than she wasn’t going to let this wedding go down without a fight. It might not be hers any longer, but it was going to be a success, dammit.

“Two rolls per team,” she instructed the girl after the groups had been formed. She pulled out her phone. “You have five minutes to make one wedding dress. Any style, but the only material you can use is toilet paper. Okay?”

The women looked at her as though she’d grown two extra heads.

This would require a little coaxing . . . or perhaps, a little healthy competition.

“Winning team gets drinks on me!” She pulled out her phone, opened the timer and said, “Three. Two. One. Go!”

That “Go!” was enough to get the women moving.

Or maybe it was the free booze.

Either way, it had already been a long week and they were T-minus three hours into wedding festivities.

Pepper had the feeling that she wasn’t the only one looking for an escape from the drama.

Those ladies could move. Purses hit the ground, toilet paper rolls were ripped open, and “brides” were selected.

Pepper stayed out of the mix, snapping some pictures as the women worked, but mostly just watching the timer and keeping her brand of disaster far, far away from drinking women on heels and glassware.

One of the servers she’d sent returned to her side, a bag in hand. She checked the objects inside, just to be sure he hadn’t stuck a knife or Great White Shark inside—because really, her luck—and thanked him.

No weapons.

Just Chapstick, a comb, a toothbrush—hopefully unused, but she wasn’t going to quibble at this point—

“Two minutes!” she called to the women.

A fork, a drink umbrella, a seashell, and a quarter rounded out the items. Seven wasn’t ten, but it would do on short notice.

She set the bag on a table and started dragging chairs over. The wait staff caught on quickly and helped her make a circle.

“Thirty seconds!”

A trill of voices greeted her in response—laughter and dismay and cheers all mixed together. This was actually working. They were actually having fun.

And the dresses were pretty good. Especially Summer’s. Her teammates had managed to make a large bow out of the paper, tucking it hilariously above her derriere and creating a large train out of strips from the rolls.

It wasn’t the neatest construction but the most creative.

And also Pepper figured that Summer was the one most likely to need more alcohol.

While the bartender was making the winning team their drinks, she herded Summer and company to the chairs.

“Sit,” she ordered, holding the sack, paper, and pens. “Next game, everyone!”

As she explained the rules—basically trying to figure out the objects within the bag without peeking inside—she glanced up and saw Derek hadn’t left.

Or not completely anyway.

He was skulking in the shadows outside the dance floor, staring at her with something akin to wonderment.

Because she’d managed to play a few games without setting fire to the tent? Because she hadn’t broken any ankles—hers or otherwise?

Or because she’d stepped up when Summer had needed her?

Deliberately, she turned her back and called over her trusty waiter friend. His name was Clark, she’d discovered, and he was happy to go along with whatever Pepper came up with so as not to have a tent full of angry women.

“So what exactly happened to the wedding planner?” she asked.

“Stomach flu.”

Pepper shuddered, still too close to her own bout of the stuff to not sympathize.

“Can you send appetizers out?” she asked. “Then help me bring the gifts over?” she asked. “Then make sure dinner is ready to serve?”

He nodded. “Food. Gifts. Food.”

One half of her mouth turned up. “Food to soak up the booze. Gifts to distract. More food to calm the beasts.”

Clark smiled. “Makes sense.”

Pepper began making trips with the presents, setting them behind Summer’s chair as the bag made its way around the circle.

“I can’t figure out the last one—”

“How many did you feel?”

“Seven? I only got six.”

“But what about the other—”

By the time the gifts were over to Summer, the bag had made it’s circle and Pepper revealed the objects.

There were groans as she did so, but they were good-natured, and mixed with laughter. The last made her relax because both moms—seated on opposite sides of the circle—were laughing again. Appetizers were served, a winner was chosen, and gifts were opened as Pepper dutifully recorded their contents and giver.

Only when the group had sat down to their respective tables and were eating, soft music playing in the background, did the men reappear.

Derek wasn’t with them.

Not that it mattered.

Because Andy was.

And that mattered. Unfortunately.