This Wedding is Doomed!

by Stephanie Draven

  If she married Graham, was she just going to learn how to settle as the years went by? Tessa thought back to their last almost-argument. She had backed down when Graham assured her she was just imagining that he had a wandering eye. Maybe she was already settling.

  That was what she had felt while waiting for the bridal procession to begin. This was it. And not in a good way.

  “Look, now it’s my turn to be sorry,” Andy said, extending an olive branch. “You’ve had a rough day and I don’t know the first thing about you.”

  She ignored him to stare out over green hills and trees. “It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Come on, don’t sulk.”

  Tessa was sulking, and added a stubborn pout to it for good measure. Unlike the Ottavios, her family was all about letting anger fester if it meant avoiding a confrontation. Andy, who knew nothing more about her than what sort of cake she wanted for her wedding, was calling her out on things she’d fooled herself into thinking for so long.

  Bullshit Tessa, he was saying. Bullshit.

  She had been waiting for that ax to fall from the very moment she’d announced her engagement, yet no one had said anything to her.

  “I’m so happy for you,” Mother had gushed. “Are you happy?”

  “Of course I am,” she’d replied. “What kind of question is that?”

  “Good luck,” Renata had said stiffly after meeting Graham. “To both of you.”

  “We’ll definitely need it,” she had teased to lighten up the mood. It seemed to have worked. Tessa knew her sister had more to say about Graham, but Renata bit her tongue for Tessa’s sake.

  Renata dealt with a lot of slick talkers and alpha types with her job and let nothing get past her. She was the big sister, the go-getter and warrior woman. Tessa was the baby, the peacemaker and bringer of good cheer and sanity. Even though she had run away from her own wedding, some part of her still wanted to uphold that illusion. Everything is fine. Really.

  Andy’s cell phone rang then, cutting through her mope-fest. Immediately she tensed up. Tessa couldn’t read the number on the display and she held her breath as he answered.

  “Hello. Yeah. Fine.” The abruptness of his responses told her exactly what the conversation was about. “I don’t know.”

  At that point he turned to her, a question in his eyes. It’s Julie, he mouthed.

  “Tell her I’m okay,” she said stiffly. “And please let my mom know I’ll call her later. Promise.”

  Andy relayed the information and then ended the call. Only then did Tessa let out a breath, relief flooding through her. She wasn’t ready to return to reality yet.

  “This is going to be a huge black mark on Julie’s perfect record,” Tessa remarked, trying to lighten things back up again.

  “She was just worried about you.”

  “I know. I was just—”

  She took a deep breath. This was why she had come so close to going through with the wedding. After booking Briarwood and sending announcements, they had reached the point of no return. The thought of all the people she was letting down, even the wedding planner, made her want to shrivel up and disappear.

  “I was just trying to be funny and failing,” she finished. “Thank you, by the way.”

  “For what?”

  “For putting up with all this.”

  “Don’t worry about it.

  The catering van was heading off to parts unknown with a stranger at the wheel, yet she would rather be there than surrounded by fifty of her closest friends and family. The truth was she was afraid to face them. Afraid to disappoint so many people who had nothing but hope for her.

  And she hadn’t even figured out how she would face Graham. “Can we all just pretend today never happened?”

  “Probably not. But is there anything else I can do?”

  “I am kind of hungry,” she admitted.

  Andy laughed at that and some of her tension dissipated. “Well, at least I can come to the rescue for that.”

  Chapter Four

  The path curved around toward a lake and Andy pulled the van to a stop beside it. Hopping out, he moved around to the double doors in back while Tessa stood by the side of the vehicle.

  “I didn’t know this was here,” she said looking over the water. The sun was high overhead and scattered over the surface like little gold coins. “I wonder if the guests are still up there?”

  “Well, seeing as we have all the food, they probably won’t hang around Briarwood for long.”

  What she was really wondering was whether Graham was still there. Was he looking for her? Or did he actually know the exact reason why she’d left? Perhaps her actions that day had finally communicated all the emotions she hadn’t been able to put into words.

  She heard Andy rummaging about in the van. There was the shifting of pans and what sounded like the unlatching of metal clasps. Curious, she came around to peek inside.

  The interior was hollow and stacked with coolers and food carts with insulated compartments. Andy searched out a serving plate.

  “I’m starving. I haven’t had anything but water and grapefruit for two days so I could fit into this dress.”

  He stole a glance at her figure, but quickly looked away to search for forks. “Trust me, a muffin wasn’t going to kill you.”

  “You’d be surprised what a few carbs can do to a gal.”

  “Please.” Andy rolled his eyes.

  The inside of the van smelled amazing. She glanced about, impressed with how organized everything was.

  Then she saw it. Three tiers high, it stood in the corner. Her wedding cake.

  A lump formed unexpectedly in her throat.

  Andy followed her gaze. “Do you want to see how it turned out?” he asked after a moment.

  She swallowed. “Why not?”

  In truth, this had been the one detail where Tessa had a specific request. It had to be a tiramisu cake, for sentimental reasons. The best tiramisu ever, she told Julie.

  Andy helped her up into the van, a feat as she was still in her wedding dress. She managed to squeeze in beside him as he crouched before the cake. Why was her pulse racing?

  He made a grand gesture. “What do you think?”

  She could barely breathe. “It’s beautiful.”

  A tingling sensation gathered at the bridge of her nose. She hadn’t cried at all upon leaving Graham at the altar, yet here she was getting choked up over a tower of espresso and cream.

  The cake belonged on the cover of Food & Wine magazine. Each tier was bounded by a circle of perfectly cut lady fingers dusted with powdered sugar. A floral pattern had been sprinkled onto the top in cocoa.

  It was a dream. Exactly like she’d asked for. Better than what she’d asked for. It looked romantic and elegant. The stuff of memories.

  “Tessa?” There was concern in Andy’s voice.

  “The first time I had tiramisu was when I was twelve. It was at a wedding. I don’t even remember who it was who was getting married, but I remember the cake.” Tessa was babbling, but she felt the need to explain herself. “It was heaven. The best thing I’d ever tasted.”

  It wasn’t just the cake. It had been everything; the flowers, the pretty dress her mom had bought just for the wedding. She had been Mom’s date since Dad was no longer living with them. From that moment on, this cake had come to embody the perfect day to her. Tiramisu was what wedded bliss should taste like. She had wanted to recapture that moment, how special it had felt to her to feel pretty and grown-up and content. But now this beautiful creation was stuck inside this van, all dressed up with nowhere to go.

  Just like her.

  A flood of emotion swept through her. It hadn’t been so long ago when she was full of hope. When she was giddy with happiness that she was getting married. That she had found her one.<
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  But that too-bright haze of happiness hadn’t lasted long. Graham’s engagement ring was on her finger, the plans were underway, and then reality had intruded. She had just refused to see the truth.

  She had wanted so much to be happy and had really believed, at least for a little while, that Graham was her chance. During the school year she hardly had time to remember to eat three meals a day let alone have a personal life. All the plants she ever brought home usually withered and died for lack of care.

  Graham had shown up and swept her off her feet. He’d stop by between business trips and take her to fancy places. Curl up with her on the couch. It was so good to finally have someone to just be with. Who made everything easy for her.

  They would stay up half the night on the weekends and by Sunday her mind would be back on her job and Graham would slip away to his. A whirlwind romance was all she had the time for.

  How much had she known about him before saying yes? Enough, was what she used to think. Enough to know it was worth the leap. Because love was being able to take risks, right?

  But now she doubted everything she thought she knew about Graham.

  “I think we should have a piece,” Tessa declared.

  A beat passed before Andy responded. “All right.”

  He moved away and came back with a cake server which he handed to her. “I guess you should do the honors.”

  Tessa held her breath as she positioned the server over the bottom tier. When she cut through the layers of sponge cake and mascarpone, a crushing sense of finality rushed through her. It was really done. There was no going back now. Not with a huge wedge missing from the wedding cake.

  It was silly after everything else that had happened that day, but in her mind and heart, this was it. The gravity of what she’d done came crashing down. At the same time, Tessa felt lighter than she had in months.

  Graham had proposed to her and then jumped on an airplane for yet another business trip. Ever since then, uncertainty and doubt had weighed her down. How would that burden have felt after five, ten, fifteen years of marriage? And all because she refused to speak up for herself, to make things unpleasant between them.

  She eased the slice of cake onto the platter, relieved that it remained in a nice triangular shape. Then she cut a slice for Andy as well and laid it beside hers.

  He took charge of the plate, holding it steady as he rummaged through a storage bin for plastic silverware—an oxymoron she always appreciated. Then Andy led her back outside, offering a hand as she lowered herself back down onto the grass. He landed lightly beside her, the cake balanced perfectly.

  Without a word, they headed over to the picnic tables that overlooked the water. She sat on the bench facing the lake and slipped her heels off while Andy set the platter between them.

  Tessa took a moment to absorb the surroundings. The sunlight glittered over the water while a summer breeze sifted through the grass. It would have been a perfect day to get married and the perfect place to do it, yet here she was, a complete wreck with her insides in pieces. She’d ruined everything and there was no going back, but at least there was cake.

  Andy handed her a fork and they dug in at the same time. Tessa lifted the bite of cake to her lips. The moment she tasted it, every nerve ending in her body fired at once.

  “Oh my God!”

  He grinned. “It’s good?”

  Smooth, rich cream infused with a kick of espresso enveloped between layers of moist cake. It was rich and decadent and made her want to say, “Graham who?” Her toes were practically curling.

  She took another forkful. “This is amazing.”

  “I’m glad you like it.” Andy kept his eyes on her as he finally took his first bite.

  “Seriously, if you don’t eat faster, I’m taking your slice as well.”

  “Be my guest. I’ve been eating test batches all week. There really is too much of a good thing.”

  “Nuh-uh.” Her reply was muffled by a mouthful of mascarpone.

  Between her starvation diet and the travesty that had become of her wedding, she swore this cake was the best thing she’d ever tasted. The best medicine in the world. She took another bite, not wanting this feeling of abject bliss to end.

  “Julie was right. You’re perfect”—she caught a gleam in his eye that she swore hadn’t been there before—“for the job,” she amended.

  He shrugged, kind of humble, but kind of not. “It’s impossible to ruin tiramisu. The secret to this one is the zabaglione.”

  “Mmm . . . I love it when you talk like that,” she purred, another bite disappearing into her mouth. The taste of it did something indecent to her insides. “What’s za-ba-yi . . .”

  “Zabaglione. It’s an Italian custard. Egg yolks, marsala. You cook it up while beating the heck out of it and then fold it in with the mascarpone. I had to bribe the recipe out of my nonna.”

  “Dinners at the Ottavio household must be serious business.”

  “It’s nothing but business, unfortunately. The family business.”

  She slowed down her tiramisu consumption to a more respectable pace. “You mean . . . the mafia?”

  He shot her an evil eye. She batted hers back at him.

  “Dad owns a restaurant and now my older brother does, too,” he explained. “Ottavio’s and Ottavio South.”

  “So you grew up around food?”

  “Lots of restaurant leftovers, all the time.”

  He leaned his elbows back against the table and reclined against it in a devil-may-care pose she found surprisingly sexy. Then she had to mentally smack herself for finding another man sexy just hours after running away from her wedding.

  “Did you work in your father’s restaurant growing up?”

  Andy made a face. “Nights, weekends, most holidays. Child labor laws don’t apply when you’re employed by your own parents.”

  Tessa grinned. “I did not know that.”

  “Yeah. There were no dates in high school either. I had to wait tables every night. Or do dishes if the dishwasher was backed up. Be a line cook if a line cook called in sick. I’d do my homework in the storeroom during break.”

  “It sounds awful.”

  “It was. God, I loved it.”

  She laughed, and not an “I have to laugh or else I’ll cry” laugh, either. She was feeling warm between the tiramisu cake and the conversation that had nothing to do with her own personal angst, weddings, or jilted fiancés.

  Which, she reminded herself once again, she’d deal with tomorrow.

  “Then your brother opened his own restaurant?” she went on.

  “Last year. I worked on the line there for a while, but I felt it was time to branch out and try my own thing. Of course, every time I picked up a job at another restaurant in the city, my father acted like I was betraying the family honor or something. The last place I worked at wasn’t even remotely Italian. It was a Japanese place downtown, and Dad still gave me hell for it every week at Sunday dinner. That’s Italian families for you.”

  “It sounds awful,” she admitted. “I’d love it.”

  Just the thought of Sunday dinner every week seemed so wonderful. A routine that kept a family together, talking—and even fighting—sounded better than spending long stretches apart, each person focusing on jobs and bills and just the endless stuff that didn’t last or create memories.

  Silence descended after that. Tessa took another bite of no-longer-a-wedding cake. So did Andy. Nothing to cover up an awkward pause like dessert.

  There wasn’t much of a dinner ritual at their place growing up. She and her sister had been latchkey kids with their mother raising them as a single parent. Even when her parents were still married, it felt like Mom was a single parent.

  Oh, no. She was not going to do that thing where she went back into her childhood to identify all the lone
ly and traumatizing things that happened to her. At least she wouldn’t do it out loud.

  “So is that why you started catering? So you wouldn’t infringe upon the family honor?”

  His posture stiffened. He uncrossed his ankles, recrossed them again, his laid-back pose no longer so laid-back. “My family thinks it’s a complete waste of time because apparently they know everything there is to know about this business and catering isn’t real cooking.”

  “Well, I think you do a great job of it.”

  “Because this last gig was such a great success,” he said from the corner of his mouth.

  She felt a pang of guilt. “Extenuating circumstances.”

  Andy met her eyes and his look softened. “Hey, like they say when it comes to weddings. All you have to do is please the bride, right?”

  Tessa laughed but it came out thin. “Right.”

  Then why had she been so intent on pleasing everyone else?

  “I figured catering might make me some extra cash. It’s not the same as working in a kitchen,” he went on. “But at least I get to make my own decisions. Plus, you know.” He raised his eyebrows, while his tone remained deadpan. “It’s a great way to pick up women.”

  “Ha. Funny. As in, not.”

  “Too soon?”

  She kicked him in the shin, which likely did more damage to her than Andy given that she had only stockings on. A moment of silence descended. It had been so long since she’d felt this way. Lighthearted, free, bantering about nothing and hanging on every word regardless. Andy had a way of putting her at ease, but now she was bothered by it. She shouldn’t feel so relieved that she was no longer getting married.

  “Hey, blue nail polish,” he remarked, looking down at her toes. He grinned like he’d just been let in on a secret.

  “My sister did them for me last night for ‘something blue.’ We figured with the floor-length gown, no one would ever see them except—”