by Alina Jacobs
“Honestly, Jack,” my mother said, removing the glass. She beamed at Brea. “It’s nice that you appreciate the finer things.”
“Where did you find her?” my dad asked as he handed us our drinks.
Shit. Should I tell them she was Liz’s wedding dress maker? Did that sound weird? I didn’t care, but Brea might. I couldn’t afford to lose her.
“Uh—”
“What, did you meet in a club?”
“She’s Liz’s maid of honor.”
“Oh!” my mother said and peered at Brea “You’re the dressmaker! How darling! I do love a wedding.”
“Everyone loves a wedding!” Brea gushed. “We also occasionally do vow renewals too.”
“You hear that, Jack?” my mother said to my father.
“I think we need to get all our kids married off before that happens,” my father replied.
Jack and Nancy looked at me and Brea expectantly.
“I only just met her. What am I going to do, propose to her?” I exclaimed.
Maybe, I thought. Honestly, that doesn’t sound so bad.
“We just want you to be happy,” my mother said to me. “Mark’s always been too serious and a workaholic,” she told Brea. “I’m glad you’re here to liven him up.”
“Full disclosure: I’m a bit of a workaholic myself,” Brea said.
“You’re perfect together then,” Jack said.
“You should have seen Mark after the fire. He was so distraught. We thought we were going to lose him!” Nancy said, hugging me to her chest.
“Mom.”
She patted me on the shoulder. “Come have dinner.”
As we sat out on the terrace and ate the baked fish that had been prepared, I actually started to relax. Beowulf ran through the garden, and Brea was charming my parents with stories of crazy wedding shenanigans.
In the car later, I kissed her. “This actually didn’t turn out so bad.”
Brea ran her fingers through my hair.
I want to be with you forever.
“Come home with me,” I murmured against her mouth.
Brea’s phone buzzed, and she reached to silence it. But then she read the message, and her face fell as if she was going to vomit.
“I um...I have to go home. There’s something I have to deal with.”
42
Brea
I was shaking in the dark as Mark drove us back to Manhattan. Memphis Eve had sent me the DNA paternity test results, but I couldn’t open the message in front of Mark. I needed to be alone. Because I knew if it was bad news, I would start sobbing, and Mark had seemed so happy and relaxed after meeting with his parents. I didn’t want to ruin his evening.
“Beau has to be my dad. He has to be,” I whispered as I climbed up the stairs.
“How were his parents? Did they like the wine?” my dad asked when I returned.
“Yep. Sorry, have to deal with a bride,” I lied. “I’ll give you a full rundown of the evening tomorrow, promise!”
Then I shut and locked my door. Hands trembling, I opened the attachment on the text message Memphis Eve had sent me. Then the tears started. I clapped a hand over my mouth. Beau was not my father. There was no match.
Brea: This can’t be right.
Memphis Eve: The DNA test doesn’t lie.
Memphis Eve: Now pull yourself up. We need to find who our real father is.
Brea: Mom didn’t talk to me when I asked her.
Memphis Eve: You didn’t try hard enough. Just forget about it. I’ll do it myself.
I felt sick. I couldn’t sleep that night, and I couldn’t bear to face my parents.
Beau was happy the next morning as he set a plate of food in front of me. How was I going to tell him? He would be heartbroken. I fretted as I crunched on the dry toast. Even my usual coffee tasted like dust.
Maybe it will be fine? I told myself on the way to the Weddings in the City office.
Maybe they already know. I had to put it out of my mind. There was a wedding to plan.
The smell of Elsie’s catering hit me as soon as I stepped off the elevator and into our office. Food therapy was just what I needed to feel better.
“Since I’m in the wedding party, does that mean I get to eat everything?” I asked in excitement. Usually Elsie let me have leftovers, but that was after the wedding party and bridal entourage had tasted everything first.
Emotional eating was my go-to form of self-care. It was too bad Sophie wasn’t doing cake testing that day, because I could really have used some coffee and wedding cake. Still, sampling Elsie’s cooking was a close second on my list of favorite pastimes. I grabbed a plate.
“Brea, you need to wait for everyone else,” Elsie admonished.
“But I had a hard day!” I whined.
“She had to meet the parents!” Amy joked. “Did they like your shorts suit?”
“You wore a shorts suit?” Elsie wrinkled her nose.
“She looked very nineties high society,” Amy countered.
“I guess you can have one small appetizer for surviving that,” Elsie said, handing me a bite-size fried chicken-and-waffle hors d'oeuvre.
“Yum!” I said around the food. “You get five stars and a dick pic for that!”
Amy barked out a laugh, but Elsie frowned. “No more food for you. Why don’t you go down and wait for our clients? We should be offering them a personal touch.”
I paced around in front of the building, wishing I had coffee and another of those fried chicken-and-waffle bites. I was a stress eater, and nothing was more stressful than finding out my dad wasn’t really my dad…except maybe my evil twin sister showing up outside my office.
A blond man driving what looked like a million-dollar black sports car pulled up in front of the historic hotel where our office was located. Memphis Eve hopped out. “Brea,” she stated. “We need to talk.”
“Not here!” I hissed. Mark and Liz and the rest of the wedding party would be here any minute.
But Memphis Eve ignored my protests. “I have two names from Mom. I’m trying to finagle more out of her. You can take Dave.” My twin handed me a manila envelope.
“Take Dave where?”
“You need to steal his DNA,” she said impatiently. “Wilder is helping me hunt down Thomas.”
“I don’t have time to go hunt down some random middle-aged guy,” I protested.
“Now, Brea.” Memphis Eve crossed her arms. “We need to be a team on this.”
“Do we?”
In the distance, a fancy-looking SUV limo was stopped at a red light. Crap! That was probably the Holbrooks.
“Yes, we do. We need to find out who our father is. What if he has a lot of money? You could move out of that hovel, I could take a nice vacation…”
“All right, all right,” I told her, pushing her back toward the sports car and opening the door. “I’ll try to find him. Try,” I warned. “No promises.”
As the sports car roared away, I hastily took a peek at the contents of the envelope. Dave Pratt was short and squat and wore a confused expression like someone had snuck up on him with a flash. His left eye squinted weirdly. My stomach sank. I made that same expression when someone took my picture with a flash unless I had drunk enough to dull my reflexes. What if Dave is my father?
I really needed some wedding cake.
The SUV pulled up. Wes helped Liz out of the car, and then Mark came around the other side and kissed me. His brother and his cousin Grant piled out of the car.
“We brought everyone,” Liz said.
“If there’s free food, I’m there!” Carter announced.
“Are you okay?” Mark whispered to me as we headed to the elevator.
I nodded.
“My parents weren’t too terrible, were they?”
“No, no,” I said, “they were great.”
Mark rubbed my back. “I have something I want to show you after this. Are you free?” he asked.
I nodded. I wasn’t even going
to worry about Dave. There was no way I was going to be able to find him. And I didn’t think I wanted to. What would that conversation even look like?
Hi. I’m your daughter. You don’t know me. The only reason I know you is because I stole your DNA and tested it. Surprise!
Yeah. I was really needing some wedding cake right then. Elsie’s catering would have to do, though.
The Holbrooks were already gathered around the table laden with various heated serving containers filled with delicious food.
“For appetizers at the cocktail hour,” Elise said, “we have lemongrass-and-sriracha grilled chicken kebabs.”
I took one and barely registered eating it. Gosh, my life was such a disaster! And I still wasn’t finished with Liz’s dress.
“We also have garlic shrimp skewers, bacon cream cheese bites, saucy meatballs, and beet devilled eggs,” Elsie continued.
“Can you just move in with me?” Liz asked, eating two devilled eggs in rapid succession.
“For vegetarians, there are mini wedge salads, stuffed fried squash blossoms, and fig-and-cheese bites.”
I snuck two more mini waffle-and-fried-chicken sliders before Mark’s brother Carter could grab them.
“You need to make like triple the amount of these,” he said.
“We’re going to have various stations for the main reception,” Elsie explained. “There will be a paella station with seafood paella and traditional Valencia with duck, rabbit, and veggies. And then, of course, a mixed paella with seafood and meat.”
I took a large helping of the seafood paella. Elsie had made it just right, with a slightly crusty layer of rice at the bottom.
“The next station is serving salads. We will have Cesar salad, a spinach-strawberry-balsamic-vinegar salad, and a hearty Greek salad.”
I loved Elsie’s Cesar salad. I took a big bite, relaxing as the flavors hit my tongue.
“We have a Parisienne-inspired steak frites station with filet mignon and truffle parmesan fries with garlic aioli. There will be a fresh pasta station, where we will have several of our employees assembling pasta dishes for the guests, including spaghetti carbonara, fettucine alfredo, a classic red sauce with meatballs optional, and cheesy garlic bread with marinara dipping sauce on the side.”
Somehow I had ended up with a huge bowl of pasta and was going to town. I scarfed a piece of bread down. The grease and salt and cheesy goodness hit my tongue, and a feeling of bliss came over me. Maybe things were going to work out. There wasn’t any problem that couldn’t be solved with carbs.
“There will, of course, be a charcuterie and cheese station for those wishing to snack,” Elsie said, “but that’s not pictured here.”
“Sophie will do the cake testing with you all in a few days. However, she will also include a dessert station with macarons, cupcakes, donuts, mini pies, and lemon mousse, chocolate mousse, and other treats. For the after-party, we will have more desserts, along with a French fry station and a grilled cheese station,” Ivy added.
Liz nudged me and whispered, “I told her to keep the nacho station a surprise! I want to see Wes’s face when he sees it!”
Oh lord, the nacho station. The food in my stomach roiled. As long as Liz doesn’t have the baby in the middle of the reception, everything will be fine. This is fine. I took another bite of pasta.
“How are we liking the food?” Elsie asked.
“Ten stars!” Carter announced.
Grant piped up. “What about the alcohol?”
“We have signature cocktails for the reception, along with some mocktails for those who wish to abstain in solidarity with Liz. For Wes’s cocktail, there is a blackberry Moscow mule, and for Liz, there is a ginger grapefruit bourbon sour. During the reception, guests can request any sort of drink at one of the bars that will be scattered around the venue.”
I sipped my cocktails. I had one of each and was juggling them with my various plates.
“Could we serve a special drink for the after-party?” Kate asked. “I’m thinking something more casual, like bourbon hot chocolate.”
“That might be too much bourbon,” Allie said.
“There’s no such thing,” Dana said.
“Can there be plain hot chocolate for the rest of us?” Liz asked.
“Of course,” Elsie said, making notes.
“And a s’mores station,” I piped up. “There are fire pits in the garden of the Holbrook estate. People will want to roast things. In fact, let’s do a full-on hot dog station.”
Elsie raised an eyebrow at me.
“That’s a great idea!” Liz said. “You can roast hot dogs, have freshly made buns, have a live band for dancing. It will be amazing!”
The rest of the tasting went fabulously, and I was stuffed by the time Mark’s family members took to-go boxes with them when they left.
“I’m not even mad,” I told him, lying down on the couch. I yawned. “I’m ready for a nap.”
“Brea,” Elsie reminded me, “we have two weddings this weekend. No sleeping during wedding season.”
“Yes, Mom!”
“Do you have time to come out with me?” Mark asked.
“Don’t you have to work?”
“I’ve been working eighteen-hour days the past year and a half,” Mark said.
“Well, I have to work,” Ivy stated, shooing me off the couch.
“So what’s the surprise?” I asked Mark, sitting upright.
“You’ll see!”
43
Mark
Brea nestled next to me in the car ride over to the first property. Beowulf, who’d had his own fair share of snacks, lay snoring on my lap.
Was this a good idea? Though I did want to move out of my current residence, if only to put some distance between me and my family, I had ulterior motives. I wanted Brea to find a place she adored, and then I would use that to convince her to move in with me. But was it too soon? Was it weird? I didn’t want to lose her.
The first place on the list was a newly renovated tower. It was closer to the Weddings in the City office than to Frost Tower but still on the same train line.
“Is this a bar?” Brea asked as the town car stopped.
“It’s one in the afternoon,” I told her dryly.
“That’s not too early if your life is going to shit,” she muttered.
I laughed. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“I thought you might want to go look at fancy real estate,” I said as the car pulled into the parking deck. “I guess I should have asked you if you had to get work done.”
“I’m still too tipsy to do any sewing. All my lines would be crooked,” Brea said as we walked into the building. “Besides, I was raised at estate sales. There is nothing I like more than expensive real estate!”
“Except coffee,” I joked as I collected the keycard to the penthouse from the concierge. A private elevator took us up to the top floor. “Hopefully that elevator would cut down on the surprise visits from family members,” I remarked.
“You don’t like having your family around?” Brea teased as the elevator let us off at the top floor.
I grimaced. “There can be too much of a good thing.”
“Speaking of,” Brea quipped. “This place seems a bit big.”
“I need more than one story,” I said, picking up the brochure for the penthouse. “And this place has three stories!”
“Three whole stories!” Brea said to Beowulf. “You’re going to have free rein.”
“He had an accident a few days ago,” I said as we explored the open-concept living and kitchen area that looked out onto a spacious terrace. There was also a generous study and storage space. “I don’t know if he’s going to have full free rein, especially with these pristine hardwood floors.”
“You might have to wear a diaper,” Brea cooed to Beowulf.
“I cannot have a dog who wears a diaper,” I countered, crossing my arms.
I flipped through the brochure as Br
ea jumped up onto the counter. “This is literally the biggest kitchen ever.”
“It seems a tad excessive,” I said.
“What if you have to host Thanksgiving?” Brea demanded. “Or an engagement party or a fundraiser?”
“I don’t know if I want all those people over.”
“If you want me over, we are hosting a party,” Brea insisted.
I smiled. Was my plan working?
Brea and I followed Beowulf upstairs.
“So you’re really going to move?”
“Absolutely,” I replied. “This is closer to my office—and the Weddings in the City office.” I watched for her expression, but her face didn’t change.
Upstairs were several large bedrooms, including a master suite. Brea whistled appreciatively while I kept a stern eye on Beowulf, who seemed a little too interested in the carpeting.
“His and hers master closets,” Brea called out from somewhere in the warren of rooms off of the master suite. She was standing in one of the closets with white shelving and marble inset countertops.
“This is literally my ideal space,” she said dreamily. “You could fit so much stuff in here.”
“I don’t think I have enough to fill up even part of this closet,” I said, my voice echoing off the walls.
“I have more than enough for both of us,” Brea said confidently. “Er…uh…well, I mean, no pressure; it’s not like I’m actually going to show up with a moving van or anything!” She giggled nervously.
I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her. She moaned against my mouth, and I kissed her harder.
“This is not your house,” she said, pushing me away.
“Right, probably shouldn’t leave our DNA lying around,” I said.
It might have been my imagination, but it seemed as if Brea stiffened. But then she turned away and headed into the bathroom.
“The only issue with this place is that there should be his and hers bathrooms,” Brea stated.
“You don’t like to share?” I joked.
“I feel like you need to keep some mystery in the relationship,” she said as we walked through the marble-clad bathroom.