There was a plethora of dark wood, antiques and tchotchkes everywhere. A replica of the Eiffel Tower was perched on an end table next to a merlot-colored wingback chair. On the front desk, a porcelain figurine of a woman in a Southern belle’s ball gown held court amid a garden of brochures and pamphlets about things to do in Savannah. Behind that, a collection of teacups and teapots perched on a shelf. There were several arrangements of artificial flowers—some had seen better days. Several paintings created by Elle adorned the dark, paneled walls; some depicted floral landscapes, and others were of local scenes such as the famous fountain in Forsyth Park and a streetscape of the historic downtown area.
“Hello, do you work here?” The voice came from behind her.
No, I don’t work here, but—
The words were on the tip of her tongue and she turned around to see a man holding a huge arrangement of pink and white flowers, mostly roses, with some peonies and ranunculus rounding out the gorgeous work of art.
Flowers.
She loved flowers.
She had often thought that if money were no object, she would have vases of fresh flowers in every room of her house. It was a nice thing to do for yourself.
But she had to admit they were even sweeter coming from someone else. From a man.
Flowers were such a romantic gesture. They were totally impractical. A grand arrangement of cut flowers like these easily set back the sender a couple of hundred bucks.
They were beautiful and expensive and they usually faded within a week. But flowers like these could transform an otherwise ordinary week into something splendid.
Wait—what if they are from Aidan?
Kate’s hand fluttered to her chest as her heart skipped a beat. Hope bloomed at the thought of Aidan making such a wonderful, romantic gesture.
Just as fast, her kicking heart clinched in her chest. Flowers—even if they were simply stunning—did not make a marriage work.
“I sort of work here,” she said to the delivery guy. “I mean, my family owns the inn. How can I help you?”
The delivery guy turned the arrangement and glanced at the card, which was secured on a plastic holder.
“These are for Zelda Clark. Is she here?”
These flowers are for my mother? From whom?
Who was sending her mother flowers like these?
They were a bit too over the top to be from a vendor who might be courting her for business, or from a guest thanking her for a special getaway at the inn.
Kate cleared her throat, swallowing the disappointment that Aidan hadn’t sent them to her, but then again, how would he have known she was here right now? He would have had them delivered to the salon.
“Yes, Zelda works here. I’ll see that she gets them.”
The man pulled a receipt and pen out of his pocket and held it out for Kate to sign. Then he transferred the flowers to her.
The heavenly aroma of roses and fresh-cut greenery tantalized her senses and enticed her to take deep breaths all the way to the kitchen.
She pushed through the double doors ready to begin the inquisition. Her mother and her sister Elle were seated at the wooden trestle table, sipping hot tea out of porcelain cups and giggling about something. Kate wondered if they were talking about the mysterious sender of the flowers. Their heads swiveled toward Kate as she entered the room.
“Aww, you shouldn’t have,” Elle joked.
“What in the world?” Zelda asked.
“I was wondering the same thing, Mom.” Kate set the flowers in front of Zelda. “These came for you.”
Elle’s mouth formed a perfect O, and then her jaw dropped. “Who is sending you flowers, Mom? They’re beautiful.”
Zelda’s eyes were wide, and she looked bemused as she took the card off the pick and opened the envelope. As she read, a pretty smile spread over her lips.
Judging from her mother’s dreamy expression, they were definitely not from a prospective vendor.
Then she returned the card to the envelope, set it on the table in front of her, laced her fingers and placed her hands over the card as if that rendered it invisible.
“Where were we?” she said.
Elle and Kate looked at each other and then back at their mother.
“Um, hello?” Kate said. “You can’t just jump back into the conversation like nothing happened. Who sent you flowers, Mom?”
“Just a friend,” Zelda said, the secret smile still tugging up the corners of her lips. The wistful, faraway look in her eyes made it clear that her mind was somewhere else.
“None of my friends ever send me flowers like that,” Elle said. “Do yours, Kate?”
“I know, right?” Kate said. “And I can’t recall a single friend of mine who ever made me look the way you look right now.”
That seemed to snap Zelda out of her reverie. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about. The flowers are gorgeous. I was simply admiring them.”
Her Southern accident was a little thicker than usual. It was one of Zelda’s tells that signaled that she might be stretching the truth just a little.
With her long, curly copper hair, perfect smile and apple cheekbones, Zelda resembled a slightly older Debra Messing. As Kate watched a range of emotions play over her mother’s attractive face, it dawned on her that this was the way love should make you feel. This was why it had been a bad idea to marry Aidan the way she had.
It wasn’t the flowers or the promise of heady romance. It was that undefinable something that was written all over her mother’s face. It was the buoyancy that seemed to lift Zelda each time she glanced at the card and smelled the flowers sent by her mystery suitor. It was that palpable chemistry that zinged between Gigi and Charles as they had exchanged their wedding vows after waiting all these years. It was the je ne sais quoi between her sisters and their soul mate husbands.
It was something that Kate couldn’t quite define, but she couldn’t ignore it, either. Because when two people shared that kind of bond, the love between them radiated as naturally as the scent of roses filling the kitchen with romantic promise.
It was something that she and Aidan had always aspired to with each other but couldn’t seem to find.
While she and Aidan were perfectly fine together and had mad chemistry in the bedroom, there was no magic between them in everyday life. Or at least not this kind of magic. Kate knew relationships didn’t produce fireworks all the time. They were usually there in the beginning and settled down as they grew into something deeper. But if the fireworks and chemistry weren’t even there in the beginning, what chance did that relationship stand when the honeymoon was over?
It seemed pretty clear that they needed to annul their sham of a marriage, and the sooner the better.
She would tell Aidan she had made up her mind tonight when he came over to talk about things.
“I know you two have full days,” Zelda said. “Why don’t we get down to business and start planning Gigi and Charles’s party. Let’s figure out what needs to be done and then think about how we should divide up the work. Sound good?”
“Works for me,” Kate said.
Elle put pen to paper. “The way I see it, we need to come up with a guest list, decorations and food and drink.”
“Oh! And we need to figure out how we’re going to keep this party a surprise,” Zelda said. “Someone will have to pick up Gigi and Charles from the airport and bring them here.”
“I think it will be easy to keep it a surprise since they’re out of town until the party starts,” said Elle. “I’ll volunteer Daniel to pick them up.”
She jotted his name down on the list.
“It is a given that Jane and Liam should be in charge of food,” she said as she wrote. “Do you and Aidan want to do the decorations?”
It would be a miracle if she and Aidan wer
e still speaking by the night of the party. Annulments tended to have that effect on relationships.
“I think Aidan is pretty busy with work right now,” Kate said. “Why don’t you and I take on decorations together?”
Kate was relieved when Elle chirped, “That works for me. Now we just have the guest list and invitations. Mom? That sounds like a perfect job for you. Are you up for it?”
“Sure. Gigi keeps her address book in the office. I’ll look through it and pick out her closest friends. We want to keep the party relatively small and intimate, don’t we?”
As Elle and their mom chatted about the optimum number of guests, all Kate could think about was what would transpire when she met with Aidan tonight.
Regardless of what the two of them decided, they needed to hold it together so as to not cast a shadow over Gigi and Charles’s homecoming. Then again, if they did this the right way, no one need ever know of their big Vegas mistake.
Chapter Three
“Are you ready to go?” Aidan asked after Kate pulled out of the stiff hello hug she had offered him in greeting. In his gut, he had known that things would be tense tonight. After all, they were meeting to discuss the fate of their marriage.
God, they were married. Kate was his wife.
But part of him had hoped that now that Kate had had a chance to process things, she might have had a change of heart.
Judging by her reaction, she hadn’t. The reality made him tense up, too. He took a deep breath. He would make sure things were as normal as possible tonight. If he had to, he would hold it together for both of them.
She was worth it.
“I thought we’d go to The Hitch and get some dinner. How does that sound?”
He knew how much Kate loved the kitschy restaurant on Drayton Street. Over the year that the two of them had been back together, it had become their place. Tonight it would be neutral territory, where they could talk this out, but at the same time it would be a place that was special to them as a couple, a place that had history for both of them.
Maybe it would remind her that despite their ups and downs, the two of them were so good together. Their relationship may have been on and off over the years, but they always seemed to come back to each other. Wasn’t that all that counted? That in the end, they couldn’t stand to be apart?
Wasn’t that what mattered?
“I’m not hungry, Aidan,” she said. Her red curls hung loose around her slight shoulders. Her ivory skin looked a shade paler than usual. For a moment he thought it might be because of the stark black sweater she was wearing, but her beautiful sea green eyes lacked their usual sparkle. That had nothing to do with the contrast of ivory and black.
“Actually, if you don’t mind,” she said, “I’d prefer to not go anywhere tonight.”
When he arrived, he had been starving, but his appetite suddenly went south. “Are you still feeling bad?” he asked as he followed her into the living room of her bungalow.
Unsmiling, she turned to him and crossed her arms over the front of herself. “It is not that,” she said. “There’s no easy way to say this. So I’m not going to make small talk. I’m just going to cut to the chase and come out and say it. I’ve thought about our situation all day today—in fact, I couldn’t think of much else, and the only solution I keep coming back to is that we need to have the marriage annulled.”
His heart dropped into the vicinity of his ankles, but he managed to keep his stoic poker face firmly in place.
“Can we talk about this, Kate?” he asked. “I know you think you’ve made up your mind, but, I mean, don’t I at least get a say in this? It is my future, too.”
“Of course, you do, Aidan, but I don’t think there’s much more to talk about. Is there? The last time you and I talked about marriage, we both agreed it wasn’t for us.”
Her words packed a punch that hit him hard in the gut. That wasn’t exactly an accurate version of the story. She’d talked about how marriage wasn’t right for her. She had told him the thought of a lifelong commitment to one person scared her to death. He’d listened, but he hadn’t agreed. Because even though his first marriage had been a mistake, he wasn’t about to let that misstep rob him of finding his soul mate and spending the rest of his life with her.
Despite everything, now, more than ever, he believed Kate was his soul mate.
“No, the last time we talked about marriage, we ended up married,” he said. “Even if you don’t remember it, you’re the one who proposed to me.”
“You said to me that after you watched your grandmother marry Charles, the love of her life, you had decided that we just needed to rip off the bandage and go for it. We needed to stop overthinking and just do it because you told me I was the love of your life and you didn’t want to wait until you were eighty-five, like Charles and Gigi, before we could have a life together.”
It was true. She’d said it.
“Here’s another thing that I’m not sure if you remember, but when you first proposed your crazy plan, I said no. I wasn’t up for it. Not at first. When I objected, you basically hit me with an ultimatum. You told me it was now or never. You don’t remember that, either, do you?”
She dropped down on the sofa and buried her face in her hands, shaking her head. “I don’t remember it. I don’t remember any of it, Aidan.”
He sat in the chair across from her. They sat there without saying a single word for what seemed an eternity.
Finally she asked, “What are you thinking?”
Aidan shrugged. “I don’t know. Would it even matter if I told you my thoughts, Kate? It seems like you’ve made up your mind for both of us. It doesn’t appear as if you’re going to give me a say.”
“Of course, you get a say. I want to hear what you have to say.” Then her face crumpled, and the tears fell and the hardline resolve Aidan had mustered quietly disintegrated. He closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms. This time the stiff resolve was gone and she melted into him and sobbed.
“Hey, come on,” he whispered. “I certainly don’t want you to stay in a situation that makes you this miserable.”
She looked up at him. Tears glistened in her eyes, making them look like sea glass. “Then you agree?”
No. He didn’t agree, but he knew he needed to choose his words carefully.
“Aidan, don’t you agree that this is no way to start a marriage?”
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying, Kate. Is it the fact that you’re married to me that has you so freaked out? Or is it the way it happened? A spur-of-the-moment Vegas wedding?”
She pulled away from him and stared at a spot somewhere in the distance. He let her have her space.
“Because you’re the one who wanted to get married Saturday night,” he said. “I don’t know if you were just caught up in the moment or maybe you had too much to drink, but getting married in Vegas was your brainchild.”
He knew he should have stopped and left it at that but holding his tongue when he should have spoken out was partially what had landed them in this predicament. Then she blinked and looked him in the eyes for the first time since he had arrived.
“I wasn’t drunk,” she said. “I had a couple of sips of one drink. That Love Potion Number Nine. You know me. I’m not a big drinker, but I’ve never blacked out. Aidan, it scares me that I can’t remember much of what happened that night. I remember dancing with you at Gigi and Charles’s reception. I vaguely remember us looking at rings, and that’s all. I know that Elvis figured in there somewhere. The next thing I know, we were waking up in our hotel room married. You have to agree with me that that’s no way to start a life together.”
Or was it? “Sure, the way it happened wasn’t ideal, but does a wedding ceremony really make the marriage?” Whether she wanted to admit it or not, they were good together.
As s
oon as he said the words, he knew he shouldn’t have said them. The ceremony did matter to some women.
Maybe it wasn’t the marriage that she objected to, but the way that it happened. Of course, he would have proposed to her. Sooner or later.
There had been a lot going on in both of their lives.
Two of her sisters and her grandmother had gotten engaged and married. Elle and Daniel had a baby.
Aidan had simply wanted to put some space between the happy family events and their own. He had been doing it for Kate. He had wanted her to have the engagement and wedding spotlight all to herself.
Maybe he hadn’t realized that until now, but that was his reason for waiting to propose. Now it was crystal clear. He knew what he needed to do. He was going to give her the proper down-on-one-knee proposal with the traditional engagement ring and they could have another wedding.
If they weren’t already married, he would ask her family for her hand, but that seemed like a moot point now. But she would get a more traditional wedding if that was what she wanted. The Vegas elopement would just be a precursor that could remain their secret if that was the way she preferred it. Or a funny story they could laugh about with their kids in the years to come.
“If we got the annulment, couldn’t we just go on as before?” Kate said, jarring him from his thoughts. “Really, why does this have to change anything?”
Aidan looked at her like she had two heads. “Because an annulment would change everything, Kate. If we get this marriage annulled, what’s the point in going on like before? I guess it is my turn to issue an ultimatum. We are married. As far as I’m concerned, we either need to live like we’re married or we need to end things now. Permanently.”
Kate flinched. Her reaction was visible and soul crushing. Aidan knew his words must’ve hit her like a slap in the face.
He didn’t like being in this situation any more than she did. It wasn’t the marriage he minded, because he wanted to make it work. It was her reaction to being married to him. Seemingly not even wanting to try to make things work. That cut.
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