by Linda Seed
And if part of him felt relieved that she’d left? Well. He could think about that another day.
That morning, a Saturday, all four of the Russo sisters gathered at the house to address invitations to Sofia’s wedding. They had almost four months until the ceremony, so the invitations wouldn’t be mailed yet, but Sofia wanted to have them done and ready to go. They’d sent out save-the-date cards months before, but the invitations would make things official.
The women sat around the big kitchen table with mimosas for Sofia, Martina, and Benny, and plain orange juice for Bianca. An occasion that involved wedding invitations seemed like it should also involve mimosas.
“Why isn’t Patrick helping us? It’s his wedding, too,” Benny groused as she stuck a stamp on a response envelope.
“He offered.” Sofia plucked a fresh invitation from the pile in the middle of the table. “His handwriting is illegible.”
“I’m supposed to be the one with illegible handwriting,” Bianca commented. “I’m the doctor.”
Martina peered across the table to look at Bianca’s writing. “Jeez. Yours is pretty good. Better than mine.”
“Well, I’m making an extra effort for Sofia’s sake.” Bianca gave Sofia a sweet smile.
“Which I appreciate,” Sofia said. “But can you hurry up? I don’t want to be at this all day.”
They worked for a while, discussing the bridesmaid dresses, the appetizer menu, and the reception venue.
“Speaking of fabulous venues, how did things go at Cooper House yesterday?” Bianca glanced up from what she was writing to look at Martina.
Martina groaned. “It was such an epic disaster that I’m trying not to think about it.”
Everyone stopped working to focus on her.
“What happened? Why didn’t you say anything?” Sofia asked.
Martina shrugged. “I don’t know. I just … I wasn’t ready to talk about it. I think the job’s off.” Damn it, she was starting to get misty-eyed. “I know I shouldn’t get emotional—it’s just a job. There’ll be others. But this was a really big opportunity, and I just …” She shrugged again.
“Okay, back up,” Benny said. “What happened?”
Martina told the whole story—how she and Noah had arrived to find Margaret waiting for them with Alexis and Chris nowhere in sight. How they’d begun assessing Martina’s plan to turn a spare bedroom into a dressing room for Alexis. How they’d heard the fight in the next room, and how Alexis had stormed off. And finally, she told them about her conversation with Chris over mint tea.
“Oh, shit. You knew this was going to happen,” Benny said. “You predicted things wouldn’t last between those two.”
“Yeah, but I thought I’d at least get more than an hour into the job before it all went to hell,” Martina said miserably.
“So, that’s it, then?” Sofia asked. “I mean, they’re broken up?”
“Who knows?” Martina threw her hands into the air. “He says she’ll be back. Like this happens all the time. Maybe it does! Who knows what kind of dysfunctional freak show of a relationship they’ve got going on?”
“So, what are you going to do?” Bianca asked.
“I’m going to wait until Monday, then call Margaret, Alexis’s assistant. She seems to be pretty efficient. She’ll know what I should do. In the meantime, somebody give me another mimosa.”
Benny got up, took Martina’s glass into the kitchen, and came back with a fresh mimosa. “Drink up. Sounds like you need it.”
By the time Martina made the call to Margaret on Monday morning, she had more or less come to terms with the idea that the job was going to be canceled. No money had changed hands, and no contracts had yet been signed. Either side could have called things off based on something as simple as a hunch or a rumor, let alone the complete collapse of Chris and Alexis’s relationship.
As she entered the number on her cell phone, she told herself to stay professional, leave emotion out of it. There would be other jobs. There would be other opportunities.
When Margaret picked up the phone, she sounded as crisp and efficient as ever. “Good morning, Martina. How may I help you?”
“Well, I … I was just wondering … I haven’t heard from Chris or Alexis since Friday, and I thought …” So much for being professional. She was babbling.
“Whatever it is, I’ll see if I can help.” Margaret’s reply sounded so much better than what she probably wanted to say, which was, Oh, for God’s sake, spit it out already.
Martina took a steadying breath and said what she’d called to say. “I’d like to know whether the Cooper House job is still happening. If not, I need to focus on my other clients.” She closed her eyes and waited for the bad news.
“Why wouldn’t it be happening?”
Whatever Martina had expected to hear, it wasn’t that. “Well … it’s just … on Friday, when I was at Cooper House, Chris and Alexis had a big fight, and … Not that I’m trying to stick my nose in where it doesn’t belong, but … she left, and I …” She was babbling again. Martina willed herself to stop it.
Margaret was silent for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was composed, professional—and the slightest bit sympathetic. “Martina, I’m not sure what you overheard on Friday or what you might have assumed. But Alexis merely went to the Bay Area for the weekend to visit friends. It was a trip she’d had planned for days.”
“Really? But—”
“I’m so sorry things were cut short on Friday after I was called away. When can you come to the house and resume your work?”
Martina scowled, opened her mouth, then closed it again. “Are you sure?” Margaret was talking as though what happened hadn’t happened at all.
“Of course. Let me get my book so we can reschedule. Now, what time works best for you?”
When she got off the phone, Martina called Noah to consult.
“Apparently, we’re in some kind of upside-down world where Chris and Alexis never had that fight, their relationship is one hundred percent solid, and the part where she broke things and threw the F-word around was just a product of our overactive imaginations,” she told him.
“Interesting. What about the part where our livelihoods depend on the two of them keeping their shit together?” Noah asked.
“We didn’t discuss that part.”
“Ah.”
“In any event,” Martina went on, “Margaret wants to know when we’ll be there. So, what do you think? Do we go ahead with it?”
Noah made a scoffing noise. “Of course we go ahead with it. It’s Cooper House. The chance to work on that place is worth putting up with a considerable amount of bullshit.”
“Right.” That was pretty much what Martina had concluded, too. She just wondered how much bullshit, exactly, they were in for.
6
Martina made an appointment for herself and Noah to return to Cooper House that Wednesday morning to resume their work. Her plan was to follow Margaret’s lead and pretend nothing untoward had happened.
Clearly something had happened, though, because Alexis still wasn’t back. Margaret said Alexis had been “detained” in the Bay Area by “unforeseen circumstances.” Martina and Noah exchanged looks when she said it, but they let it go without comment.
“This thing’s a clusterfuck waiting to happen,” Noah remarked as soon as Margaret left the room.
Martina couldn’t say she disagreed.
Because the house was so big and Alexis had expressed a desire to change a large part of it, Martina’s plan was to separate the work into four phases, each with its own budget and timeline.
For now, she was focused on Phase One: the master suite and several other areas Alexis had indicated were high priority, including the kitchen, the library, the formal dining room, and the foyer.
“Oh, and Chris’s study. The room with the action figures,” Margaret said, looking over Martina’s shoulder at her notes.
“What?” Martina looked at the woman in al
arm. “Chris said that was off-limits.”
“Did he?” Margaret’s brow furrowed. “I wasn’t aware. Alexis specifically instructed me to prioritize it.” She lowered her voice slightly. “Have you seen it?” She shuddered. “The décor is mid-century college dorm.”
“I’ve seen it.”
“Then you know.” Margaret jotted something down in her leather-bound agenda, then closed the book and adjusted her glasses. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.”
When she was gone, Noah let out a low laugh. “This ought to be good.”
Martina was in no hurry to talk to Chris about his study and whether it was, or was not, off-limits. Part of her was certain the ensuing conflict between Chris and Alexis would destroy her beautiful little fantasy in which she finished the Cooper House job, found fame and fortune, and lived happily ever after.
She worked on her plan for the rest of Phase One instead, reasoning that she could have that conversation with him later.
Martina and Noah took photos and measurements. She jotted sketches and notes into her notebook, and he gave his input on load-bearing and non-load-bearing walls, the necessity and practicality of moving electrical wires and plumbing, the possible complications that might come with such relocations, and the need for various permits and inspections.
By lunchtime, Martina thought she had enough information from Noah for him to go and attend to other projects he had in the works.
“What about you? You knocking off?” Noah asked.
“I’d better stay and talk to Chris. I can’t avoid the question of the action-figure room forever.” Just saying it caused a pit of dread to form in her stomach.
“You want me to stay around for moral support?”
“No, you go. I’ll be fine. If this thing is going to blow sky high, it’s better if it happens sooner rather than later.”
“Good point.” Noah smacked her companionably on the back. “Good luck, slugger. Let me know how it goes.”
Martina found Chris sitting behind his desk in his study, tapping something into his computer keyboard. He looked more relaxed than he had when she’d seen him before, and somehow younger, too. He was wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt, his sock-clad feet up on the desk as he worked.
As Martina poked her head into the room, the action figures stared at her accusingly from their glass shelves.
She knocked softly on the open door. “Chris?”
He looked up as though he were emerging from underwater. Clearly, whatever he’d been working on had fully absorbed his attention. “Oh. Martina. Hi. Come on in.” He sat up self-consciously, removing his feet from the desktop. “What can I do for you?”
She walked into the room, her messenger bag containing her phone, laptop, and notebook slung over her shoulder. “Ah … there’s something I have to ask you about.”
He motioned to the chair across from his desk. “Sure. Have a seat.”
She sat down, put the bag on the floor next to her chair, and folded her hands in her lap. She wasn’t sure how to bring up the subject, so she just launched into it. “Margaret says I am to redesign this room during the first phase of the project. She said it’s a high priority. I need to know how to proceed.”
He blinked a couple of times. “She said that?”
“She did.”
“Is that what Alexis told her?”
Martina didn’t see any advantage to jumping into this particular dogfight. “You’ll have to ask Margaret that.”
He let out a harsh laugh. “Oh, I will. You bet your ass I will. But, Martina? The room stays the way it is.”
Chris had been trying to put the whole Alexis mess aside. She’d had one of her outbursts and had left him, for the moment. Fine. She was still instructing Margaret to move forward with the work on Cooper House, proving she intended to come back.
He was handling it. He was calmly waiting her out, which he was certain was the best approach. He wasn’t going to chase her, but he’d be here when she decided to return. The whole thing was manageable.
But, by God, when had his house stopped being his house? When had he lost any claim to even the most private spaces in his own home?
And, perhaps a more important question: how many more pieces of himself was he willing to give up just to have a woman in his life?
None of that even touched on the way the dysfunction of his relationship had been put on full display in front of Martina. Part of him thought he shouldn’t care about that, but what he shouldn’t care about had very little bearing on what he did care about.
From the moment he’d met her, he’d cared very much about what Martina thought. Simple male vanity, probably, but there it was.
And now here she was, sitting in a chair across from his desk, looking at him with concern and sympathy. He didn’t want her looking at him with concern or with sympathy. He wanted her looking at him with an entirely different set of feelings—but that didn’t bear thinking about, not when he was already in a relationship.
Not that he’d be in one for much longer.
The expression on his face while he seethed about Alexis must have been unsettling, because Martina was scrambling to get up from her chair, gather her things, and get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.
“I’d better … I’ll just go.” She hefted her bag and headed for the door.
He had to say something—anything so she wouldn’t go home with an image of him as an enraged, egomaniacal asshole.
He went for an apology—he couldn’t go too far wrong with that.
“I’m sorry about the confusion.” He ran a hand through his hair. “We’ll get things worked out, and I’ll be in touch.”
“All right.” She paused with her hand on the doorknob and looked back at him. “May I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“You and Alexis don’t seem to be …” She hesitated. “You’re not on the same page regarding the remodel. So, why are you doing it? It’s your house. It should be the way you want it.”
He considered answering her honestly—telling her he was doing it to pacify a woman who required constant pacifying. That spending tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars changing a house that didn’t need changing had seemed preferable to being alone.
But he wasn’t quite ready to acknowledge the absurdity of his situation—namely, the fact that a man who’d made a fortune inventing a dating app couldn’t find a healthy relationship to save his life.
“I’ll call you,” he said instead, and gave her a thin smile.
When Martina was gone, Chris’s first instinct was to get in his car, drive to San Jose, storm into the condo he and Alexis shared, and tell her they were finished.
He couldn’t keep doing this—couldn’t keep working so hard to make her happy when he knew she’d never be happy. At least, not with him.
But he’d already resolved not to chase her, so he wouldn’t.
He sat down at his desk, picked up the landline—his cell phone didn’t get reliable service here—and called her.
Margaret, who was here in the house somewhere, answered.
“Margaret? I was calling Alexis,” Chris said.
“She’s had all of her calls forwarded to me.” She said it as though that were a perfectly reasonable thing to be telling him.
“I need to speak to Alexis.”
She hesitated. “Oh. This is awkward.”
“What is?” He was beginning to get angry, but he didn’t want to take it out on Margaret, who was just doing her job.
“Well … Alexis very specifically told me not to put your calls through.”
He let out a laugh at the pure gall of the woman. Of both of them, really.
“Margaret, I pay your salary.”
“Yes, but I report to Alexis, so … As I said, this is awkward.”
He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes with his free hand. “Margaret, since you’re Alexis’s assistant, I suggest that you … go wherever she is. As soon as p
ossible.”
“But she specifically instructed me—”
“And now I’m specifically instructing you to get out of my house.”
“But—”
“And when you see her,” he said, trying to keep his voice neutral, “tell her it’s over between us. She’s welcome to contact me about getting her things from Cooper House. I’ll expect her to move out of the condo, though she can take her time with that, as I don’t plan to return anytime soon. Will you relay all of that, please?”
He hung up the phone feeling lighter than he had in a long time.
7
With the Cooper House job in limbo, Martina decided to focus on other things. She’d called Noah to tell him they were on hold until they heard from Chris. Now, there was nothing to do but turn her attention toward her other clients, Sofia’s wedding, and her dream of buying a home of her own.
When Sofia had handed out wedding tasks nearly a year ago, Martina had been assigned to handle the bachelorette party, which was to be held the night before the wedding. That would be March 20, a Friday. Easy enough; they’d be gathering at a local bar, which didn’t require much planning.
She was feeling smug about that when Bianca called her one evening after work to try to unload her own assignment.
“Please?” Bianca’s voice held a whining tone that was rare for her. She usually was the most together, the most stoic, of the four of them. “Can you take the bridal shower? I’ll owe you. I’ll name my baby after you.”
“Your baby’s a boy.”
“Please! I’ll never ask you for anything again.”
She’d heard that one before. All of the sisters regularly promised to never ask each other for anything again—and yet, here they were.
“But why? Isn’t it all planned? At the last wedding prep meeting, you said it was under control.”
Bianca was silent.