9781668082331: The Wedding Menu
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1668082330 ISBN 13: 9781668082331
Verlag: Gallery Books, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

USA TODAY BESTSELLER

For fans of Tessa Bailey and Mia Sosa, highly acclaimed author Letizia Lorini brings a deliciously sexy, poignant, and laugh-out-loud funny rom-com set in the culinary world.

One year ago, Amelie had it all. Nearly engaged to her high school sweetheart, close to her childhood best friend, and cooking at her dad’s restaurant, her life was exactly what she’d ordered. Until Ian, an opinionated wedding-hater, sat beside her at a wedding and proved she might like something off-menu.

Now, Amelie is unemployed, single, and taking a break from her best friend. On top of it all, she’s lost all contact with Ian. When she visits his hometown to teach at a weeklong cooking conference, she hopes for a fateful meet-cute. But their reunion is explosive when Amelie discovers Ian is the son of her father’s business rival.

Even bigger fiasco? He only wants to be her friend. Amelie has one week to change his mind, and if the truth of why her whole life fell apart remains hidden, their love story might even end with a wedding.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Letizia Lorini is the USA TODAY bestselling author of Killer Kind of Romance and The Wedding Menu. She is passionate about heartwarming books with high cackling potential. Currently based in a Scandinavian country, Letizia lives with her partner and their fluffy Japanese Spitz. She also has a degree in sociology and one in criminology, speaks three languages, and drinks the daily recommended dose of coffee before breakfast. Find out more at LetiziaLorini.com.

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Chapter 1: It Starts with a Wedding It Starts with a Wedding — ONE YEAR AGO —
A petal falls off the daisy at the center of the table, bright and yellow as the sun even among the many colorful flowers in the bouquet. Leaning forward, I grab it and rub my finger on the velvety surface. With the loud bass beats pulsing through my body, my bones rattle, my heart matching the daunting pace—though that could be the work of one too many margaritas.

Setting my drink down, I take in the crowd of people in cocktail dresses and tuxedos chatting around me. We’ve danced since dinner, and my social battery is drained. I’m done for the day, and grateful that my table is empty.

Martha hasn’t been around for hours, so she must be somewhere with her fiancé, Trevor. And because I refuse to be the target of the unaccompanied gentlemen at this wedding, I’ve kept my awkward moves to a minimum and my drinking to a maximum.

Someone sits beside me, and I expect it to be Trevor or Martha. As the closest friends of the bride and groom, we share the table next to the one reserved for parents and siblings of the newlyweds. Instead, it’s one of them. The single guys. The ones who scout the room with ever so much interest. Most people stick to their dates or their friends, but not them.

Sleek, smooth jaguars, prowling and stalking their prey.

He looks innocuous enough, but I’m not interested in testing my theory, so I offer him an apologetic smile. “Engaged.”

As he tilts his head, his deep steel-blue eyes lighten up with amusement. “Congratulations, but I’m just looking for a seat. A woman stole mine, and she looks like she might need it more than me.”

He points to the right, to Barbara’s grandma. I see what he means, since Mrs. Wilkow uses a wheeled walker and offers everyone butterscotch candy.

“Oh, sorry,” I say to the stranger, a hot prickle of embarrassment spreading across my cheeks. “Didn’t mean to be presumptuous. Just a long day.”

“We’ll sit in silence, then.” He leans back and smiles down at his drink, barely masking the width of his grin. He looks like a high schooler who’s been sent to detention and can’t take it seriously.

“Friend of the groom?” I ask.

His eyes meet mine, long lashes framing his ocean-blue irises. “I thought you didn’t want to talk.”

I didn’t, but it’d be awkward to sit here in silence. We might as well entertain each other. “I’m Amelie,” I say as I give him a tiny wave.

“Ian.”

“The bride and I work together.”

Lowering his gaze, he unbuttons the sleeves of his white shirt and rolls them over his forearms like he knows what he’s doing. “Isn’t it weird?” he asks as he uncovers thick wrists covered in black tattoos. My eyes follow the hypnotic movement, every other noise fading away for a moment as I force my gaze back to his face. “How, when you meet people at weddings, the icebreaker is: what the hell you’re doing there. Does it establish a certain hierarchy? Like, if you’re a friend and I’m their contractor, does it mean you’re better than me?”

A light chuckle bubbles out of me, and with a shrug I say, “It’s what me, you, and every other person in this room have in common. We know either the bride or the groom, and we’re here to celebrate them.”

The ice cubes in the honey-brown liquid in his glass click as he brings it to his lips. “I’ve never met the newlyweds. I’m sure they deserve to be celebrated, but”—he looks around—“I don’t even know what Bianca looks like.”

“Barbara.”

With a snap of his fingers, he nods. “Right. Barbara.”

My eyebrows shoot up. He doesn’t even know the name of the bride? “Why are you here?”

“Our dads are friends.” He points at an older man chatting with Barbara’s dad and wearing yet another dark tuxedo. He stands with his back to us, only his salt-and-pepper hair visible above shoulders as wide as his son’s. “He dragged me along.”

I nod, noticing the annoyed undertone in his voice. He’s definitely not happy to be here, and I’m reminded of Barbara’s freakout a few months back when she found out her dad had invited a lot of his acquaintances, turning her wedding into a “networking event.” “Well, at least the food was great,” I offer.

“Oh, yes. Worth the long-ass ceremony.”

Chuckling, I hold my glass up. “The margaritas too. Life-changing.”

“Yeah, looks like you loved those.” He gestures to the several empty long-stemmed glasses surrounding my plate, then asks, “What has you in such a foul mood? You’re not up for socializing; you’re drinking your sorrows away…”

My gaze lingers on his high cheekbones for a while before I avert my eyes, my fingers grazing along the white linen covering the table. He’ll regret this question if I answer it. He’s at a wedding seemingly against his will, and he’s sitting here because someone else took his spot. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

“Actually, you’d be doing me a favor. It’s either this,” he says, pointing his long finger between us, “or give into the not-so-subtle interest of the only single bridesmaid, and I’m pretty sure she’s a minor.”

I glance at Barbara’s cousin Alyssa, squeezed into a tiny purple dress barely covering her ass, who turns to Ian every couple of seconds with a coy smile. “She’s twenty-one. You’re fine.”

“Oh.” He snaps his fingers. “Too bad. I have a rule against sleeping with people a decade younger than me.”

“Unreasonable.”

“I know. I’m impossible to please.” He leans forward, the lemony scent of his cologne overpowering my senses for a second. “Come on, entertain me. What’s wrong with your life?”

I let out an unsteady sigh and feel the backs of my knees start to sweat. Truth be told, it’d be easier to discuss nuclear physics than the tangled-up mess my life is. But if he’d like a dose of my problems instead of a young, gorgeous woman wrapped around him, who am I to disappoint?

Leaning against the back of my chair, I resign myself to the truth. “My best friend is the worst.”

“Wonderful.” With a pleased nod, he takes a sip. “Hit me.”

“Martha. She’s here somewhere.”

“I hate her already. What’s wrong with Martha?”

His expression is one of total focus, as if his ultimate goal in life is to hear about my drama. But I want to offer him an out, so I ask, “Are you sure you want me to tell you?”

His head slowly bobs up and down. “I’m deeply invested.”

“All right: your loss.” Straightening, I clear my throat, as if I am about to deliver a lecture on the meaning of life. “Martha and I were born one week apart in the same hospital. Our families were neighbors. We went to the same schools, and—”

“Dated the same guys and practiced the same sports and—wait. Are you engaged to the same man?”

The pulsing lights paint his face pink, and, with a cocked brow, I ask, “Do you want me to dump my problems on you or not?...

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Verlag
Gallery Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2025
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1668082330
ISBN 13 
9781668082331
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
464
Kontakt zum Hersteller
preigu GmbH & Co. KG
mail@preigu.de

Lengericher Landstr. 19
Osnabrück
Niedersachsen
49078
Deutschland

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ISBN 10:  9198853309 ISBN 13:  9789198853308
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Softcover