ASHLEE
It's supposed to be my dream job.
I mean, it is my dream job. Working in a bridal boutique, adjusting and fitting beautiful gowns while I freelance my own designs online.
It's perfect.
Except I'm getting my face rubbed in it every day.
Always the bridesmaid and never the bride.
I've literally been in a dozen wedding parties as a 'thank you' for my work, but it always just leaves me feeling empty.
Until Brandon enters the store.
Enters my life, changing it forever and only for the better. In the fantasy, he generates inside me anyhow, until I remember where we are, and who I am.
Who he is.
It looks like he's being fitted for a tux.
Just another perfect man snapped up, soon to be married.
The perfect man. Gone forever.
Not that an older guy like him would ever look twice at a younger curvy girl like me, but I can dream can't I?
Then I get a message from a mysterious client, wanting me to design a wedding dress for them.
No instructions other than "Make it something you would wear on your special day," the same size as me, everything. Whatever design I like.
And it pays cash in advance.
It's a welcome distraction and I set to work until a bombshell moment leaves more than just a wedding gown a little wet around the edges.
How one day, one look, and one message can change two lives.
Never the bride?
Something tells me the tables may have just turned.
BRANDON
Best man for an employee's wedding? I'd normally roll my eyes but the employee is also my best friend, so not really a chore.
It's a solid for a lifelong friend, and at least two weeks without my lead foreman while he's on honeymoon.
A pain in the ass when I have a construction company to run, but more power to him for finding love or whatever they call it nowadays.
I've never had time for that. My life is just work, work, and more work.
I'm getting fitted for my monkey suit when I ask the tailor measuring me to stop.
Spotting someone peeking at me from the other side of the store is ruining the measurement of the inside of my leg. by around ten inches.
She thinks I can't see her, but I can see more than her curvy hips and fine, heart shaped ass.
I can see my future.
Her future too.
I do my best to show her I'm interested, but maybe this curvy younger girl just isn't into older men?
Hard to believe, because the chemistry between us is instant.
It's undeniable.
So why the cold shoulder?
I'm in a bridal store getting fitted for a suit. Okay, so I'm an older man but it's boy meets girl, isn't it?
Maybe she's playing hard to get.
But no. That's not it.
Then what could it be?
What could be the one thing that stops her from seeing just what she's doing to me simply by existing?
When I find out I think it's a game I can play.
But it's a game I could lose too if I'm not careful.
And losing her isn't an option.
I won't lose the only thing I've ever really wanted, and I vow to never lose her once I claim her as my own.
Mine, forever.
* Never the Bride is an insta-everything standalone instalove romance with a HEA, no cheating, and no cliffhanger.