Bridesmaid Undercover

The second book in the Bridesmaid for Hire series, the story opens with a prologue in which Hardy Hopper wakes up in Everly Plum's studio apartment after a night together that he considers the best sexual experience of his life. His euphoria is cut short by a text from his older brother, Hudson, who warns Hardy that their sister Haisley has a strict rule against her brothers dating anyone connected to her business. Since Everly works under the cooperative that includes Haisley's company, a relationship is off-limits. Reluctantly, Hardy dresses and tries to leave. When Everly wakes and asks if she did something wrong, he reassures her the night was great but claims he must go to work. She offers to keep helping him reconnect with his ex-girlfriend Maple, and Hardy agrees despite wanting the opposite. He leaves, then pauses in the hallway, realizing he needs to go back.

The narrative jumps backward to explain how they arrived at this point. At the engagement party of his college friends Ken and Polly, Hardy feels a sharp loneliness watching the couples around him. He, Hudson, Haisley, and her husband Jude, along with the Cane brothers, formed a business cooperative after severing ties with their manipulative father, Reginald Hopper, CEO of Hopper Industries. Hardy runs the cooperative's almond farming division but is personally adrift. He learns that Maple Baker, his college ex-girlfriend and a flamingo researcher, is moving back to San Francisco. Polly warns him to stay away from Maple, who is uninterested in reconnecting. When Polly mentions she needs help for her maid of honor, Hardy suggests the Bridesmaid for Hire service his company has invested in, which Everly runs under Maggie Mitchell's event planning company, Magical Moments by Maggie.

Hardy meets Everly at a coffee shop to pitch the bridesmaid client. They share an easy, flirtatious conversation, and Everly, who has been quietly crushing on Hardy for months, misreads his nervous lead-up as a prelude to asking her out. Instead, he asks her to help him reconnect with Maple. Having already blurted an enthusiastic "yes" before processing the actual request, Everly is trapped into helping him pursue another woman.

What follows is a dual operation: Everly mentors Maple as a professional bridesmaid while secretly gathering intelligence for Hardy on whether Maple still has feelings for him. Hardy and Everly develop codenames, calling themselves "the Professor" and "Henrietta" after characters from the board game Clue, and their email exchanges grow increasingly playful. Hardy sends Everly a Professor Plum game token, which she carries like a talisman. They visit the San Francisco Zoo in disguises to observe Maple at work, and when one of Hardy's business partners nearly spots them, Everly saves the situation with quick thinking and ketchup packets used to fake a nosebleed. Meanwhile, Everly's attempts to date other men fail spectacularly, reinforcing that her only real connection is with Hardy.

Everly meets Maple and finds her warm, humble, and genuinely likable. Maple confides that she is unsure how serious her college relationship with Hardy ever was and has no interest in rekindling it. When Everly reports this, Hardy remains determined. At a chaotic venue walkthrough where Hardy accidentally face-plants into Maple's chest and his friend Brody collapses from a burst appendix, Hardy and Everly spend hours together at the hospital and then share dinner. Remembering that Everly hates eating alone, Hardy asks about her day. Their bond deepens with each shared meal, each late night making decorations, and each discovery of overlapping tastes, from Whitney Houston to matcha Oreo cronuts. When Hardy arrives at the storefront in a foul mood after his father accuses him of being just like Reginald, Everly lifts his spirits and tells him firmly that he is nothing like his father.

Everly's flawlessly executed bridal shower, themed around tropical flamingos, is a professional triumph. Polly pulls Hardy aside and tells him his connection with Maple was always surface-level, planting real doubt. A foursome dinner Hardy arranges with himself, Maple, Everly, and Timothy, a zookeeper friend of Maple's, backfires when Hardy and Everly monopolize the conversation while Maple and Timothy sit in silence. Timothy privately tells Everly it is obvious she and Hardy belong together. Afterward, Hardy and Everly buy matching shirts, hats, and mugs from a souvenir shop, deepening a bond neither fully acknowledges.

When Hardy finally visits Maple at the zoo to ask her out, she turns him down and tells him his feelings are actually for Everly. She points out the effortless connection they share, how they light up around each other, and how nothing like that ever existed between Hardy and Maple. Hardy is stunned and begins replaying every interaction with Everly, recognizing he has been falling for her all along. Paralyzed by the fear that Everly sees him only as a friend, he goes silent on her for days.

At the joint bachelor and bachelorette party, Maple, Polly, and Ken conspire to push Hardy and Everly together. As the night progresses, Hardy grows bolder, touching the nape of Everly's neck and holding her hand. Outside her apartment, he tells her he wants her. Everly hesitates but then pulls him in for a kiss, and they spend the night together.

The next morning, Hardy wakes to Hudson's warning texts and panics. He fumbles through excuses and agrees when Everly offers to keep helping him with Maple. After he leaves, Everly breaks down crying, believing she was used. Hardy, still in the hallway, returns and confesses his feelings but explains that Haisley's rule prevents them from being together. Everly, whiplashed by repeated reversals, does not believe him and tells him to leave.

Over the following days, Hardy tries to reach Everly through texts, emails, and visits, but she refuses to engage. When forced into professional contact, the physical tension between them overwhelms restraint, and they sleep together again, though Everly insists afterward that nothing has changed. Hardy visits Haisley, who gives her full blessing for him to pursue Everly. He arranges to see Everly at a wedding dress fitting but sleeps with her again before revealing Haisley's approval. Everly is furious that he continued to withhold the truth and tells him she is done.

At the rehearsal dinner, Hardy tells his friends he believes he is in love with Everly but has accepted that he has lost her. On the wedding day, Everly arrives at the bridal suite and breaks down crying. Polly and Maple tell her what Hardy confessed: He has fallen for her and is devastated. Everly admits she had a crush on Hardy since before he asked her to help with Maple and that she is now falling in love with him. The two women convince her that Hardy's mistakes came from panic, not malice, and Polly invokes bridal authority to demand Everly make things right.

During the reception's first dance, Everly approaches Hardy and asks him to dance. She leads him to a quiet corner and asks him on a date. Hardy tells her he wants nothing more. They confess they are falling for each other, share a kiss, and are cheered on by Polly, Ken, and Maple.

In the epilogue, Hardy and Everly are a couple. He makes her dinner and asks about her day, fulfilling her longtime wish for someone to share meals and conversation with. He tells her he loves her, and she says it back. Hardy mentions that his father has officially served him and Hudson with a lawsuit, and he worries about Hudson overworking himself alongside Sloane, Jude's younger sister and Hudson's assistant. Everly playfully suggests something romantic might be developing between Hudson and Sloane, which Hardy dismisses.