Once Upon a Bride

by Jenny Holiday

  “Anyway,” Cam went on, pulling Jay from his terrible memories. “You’ve always said you don’t want kids. So what’s happening?”

  “Nothing.”

  It was the truth. Nothing was happening. What was the matter with him? Okay, he had a crush on a woman who was too young for him based on the rules he’d established for himself. But how had he gotten from that to this overwrought stroll down memory lane?

  Even if he allowed something to happen between them—not now, but when she was done with the job—it was still nothing. If he allowed his attraction to Elise to go somewhere, it didn’t mean they were going to have kids.

  He thought of Elise’s tendency to scrape her teeth against her lower lip.

  He had been thinking about that a lot lately.

  Maybe Stacey was right. Maybe he could relax his rule just a little. Just this once.

  “You’ve met a girl!” Cam the mind reader said triumphantly, sounding every bit the annoying younger brother. “What’s her name?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Never mind? Hmm. Jay and Never Mind sitting in a tree… I don’t know, dude, it doesn’t sound too good. Maybe you should keep looking.”

  Shit. Now that he had given the idea a few seconds of airtime in his mind, he couldn’t shake it.

  He couldn’t shake her.

  And suddenly, he didn’t even want to try anymore. He just wanted to…give in.

  But not now. Not while she was still working for him. He was willing to bend one rule, but not that one. He wasn’t the kind of man who exploited his position of power like that. So he would have to wait. Exercise some discipline.

  “Seriously, what’s her name?” Cam asked.

  “I gotta go,” Jay said.

  Because, yep, he needed his phone to text Elise and ask her how long she thought the job was going to take.

  Chapter 3

  Elise was officially crushing on Jay.

  There was no other explanation for why she was standing in her bedroom trying on her seventh outfit of the morning.

  And downing Advils like they were candy when normally, given her current level of pain, she would have called off this afternoon’s meeting.

  Nothing was sitting right on her today. She was always bloated before her period, but this was more than that. This was the fact that the pain, when it was this bad, made her…dull.

  And she so very much did not want to be dull in front of him.

  So, yeah, she could only conclude that she was officially crushing on her client.

  Which was dumb for many reasons, foremost among them that she didn’t want a man in her life right now. She was at a critical stage in getting her business off the ground. She was making a go of it independently—both finically and emotionally—for the first time in her life. Jumping into a relationship would compromise that.

  Her phone buzzed with Gia’s custom ringtone.

  Have fun today with Hottie McHottie Accountants Unlimited.

  The message was followed by a string of eggplant emojis. Gia was onto her. Still, she wasn’t going to cop to it.

  I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  Oh get over yourself. You want him. I can tell.

  Gia’s job took her all over the world. But clearly their frequent FaceTimes had been enough for Gia to read the situation. She’d no doubt seen right through the way Elise kept casually bringing up Jay. But for some reason, Elise still felt compelled to deflect.

  You haven’t even met him. Or seen me in person for like two months. You can’t “tell.”

  Doesn’t matter. I know you. And I am an expert in these matters.

  What matters? Matters of the heart? Because I just met him!

  No, silly. Matters of the LOINS. I am an expert in matters of the loins.

  Elise laughed. That was true. Gia…enjoyed company of the male persuasion. A lot.

  Well, I’m not looking for a relationship right now. Right now, it’s all about Elise Maxwell, independent woman.

  Well you don’t have to MARRY him. Just use him and move on.

  That was certainly Gia’s method. Elise didn’t judge it, but that just hadn’t ever been her thing.

  Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I can barely stand up today.

  Oh, bebe, I’m sorry. How bad is it this month?

  6.5, maybe 7.

  She was lying about that too, though she wasn’t sure why. Maybe because to cop to the pain being a solid eight would dampen what was left of her spirits.

  And what was left of her spirits really, really wanted to see Jay.

  An hour later, poised in the doorway to his office and seeing him bent over his desk, his attention fully absorbed in something as he absently scratched his stubble, those spirits were…stirred. She’d learned that when he focused on things, he focused on them. At her place last week, he had looked at the samples she’d shown him like he was trying to set them on fire with his eyes. Like nothing mattered more than the little square of tile she was proposing.

  “Ms. Maxwell is here,” his assistant announced before she shut the door behind Elise.

  Jay looked up, and for a moment Elise felt herself the object of that intense concentration. It was like he’d transferred it from his work to her. But then his expression changed, lightened, and a smile transformed his whole face, making those absurdly gorgeous eyes dance.

  “Hi,” he said, and it made her shiver.

  God, she was crushing so hard, it was pathetic. “Hi.” She tried to stop herself from grinning like an idiot. She did not succeed.

  Take that, pain.

  Still, as much as she was enjoying this little distraction from the agony in her insides, she needed to clear the air from last week.

  “Before we get started, I wanted to say again how sorry I am you had to witness that unfortunate episode with my father.”

  He stood and gestured her over to the soon-to-no-longer-be-beige sofa. She winced as she sat. Sometimes when she was in an especially bad stretch, the compression of sitting made things worse.

  He’d been aiming for a chair, she thought, but suddenly he was at her side on the sofa. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, yes.” She pinned on a smile she feared looked as fake as it felt, then busied herself by taking out the samples they’d agreed on. Today’s meeting was about looking at them in the space and making final decisions on what to order.

  She could feel his attention, that intense, singular focus she craved from him even as it made her squirm.

  “Listen,” he said. “We’re not responsible for our parents. I mentioned my father the other day. And my brother’s father?” She nodded and watched his nostrils flare. “They were abusive assholes. They probably still are, if they’re still alive. But I’m not responsible for their shitty behavior. All I can do is try not to be like them.”

  “Oh! Do you have kids?” She was shocked by that. But, really, she knew nothing about him.

  “No, no. I just meant in general.” He searched her face. “No kids for me.”

  That last bit was said more like it was a grand philosophical proclamation rather than a statement about his current family status.

  Jay was looking at her like it was her turn to talk. And it was. He’d shared something pretty personal, talking about his childhood.

  “My father wasn’t…abusive,” she said.

  “Maybe not physically…” He trailed off like he was filling in the blanks himself.

  “He just really did not want me to start this company.” But she was filling in those blanks, too, suddenly. She’d always known her father was a bully. But could his behavior be considered abusive?

  “What does he want you to do instead?”

  Jay’s question pulled her from her thoughts, and she huffed a bitter laugh. “Nothing. He wants me to be like my mother, basically. A lady who lunches. A socialite.

  “Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” she added quickly. Her mom wasn’t a bad person.

  “Tha
t’s just so not you,” he said with a certainty that thrilled her.

  She sometimes struggled with becoming a person who was different than the Elise everyone in her family saw. “It’s funny, because if you were going to pick a stereotypically girly, sort of old-money career to have, you’d pick interior design. It’s not like I’m trying to be a brain surgeon or something.

  “What does your brother do?”

  “He teaches at a fancy private boys’ school.”

  “So your brother is allowed to have a career, and you’re not?”

  When he said it like that… “That’s pretty screwed up, isn’t it?”

  “Well, look, I won’t presume to know anything about your life, but I can say with a hundred percent confidence that in this regard at least, your father is an idiot if he doesn’t see the boatload of talent you have. Not to mention drive. I see a lot of intergenerational wealth at my job. What I hardly ever see is someone walking away from it to make their own way.”

  Heat exploded inside her like he’d flipped a switch on a gas fireplace. She was tempted to brush off the compliments, to downplay what she was doing. But you know what? Screw that. He was right. So, as squirmy and unsettled as it made her, she just said, “Thank you.”

  “Can I ask you a question?” Jay’s nostrils were flaring again, like they had when he talked about his father and his brother’s father.

  “Of course.”

  “When we were texting the other day, you said this job was going to take two more months. Any way we can hurry that up?”

  Oh. That wasn’t what she had expected. Was he already tired of working on this project with her?

  “Well, we can try to speed things up. We can put a rush on some of the pieces if you like, but a few of them I don’t think we can get any faster. But if time is of essence, we could make some substitutions.”

  And there was that weird, intense look again. It was like he could raise her temperature just by looking at her.

  “No, that’s okay,” he finally said. “I can wait two months.”

  But he said it with a hint of resignation. Like he was tired of working on this project with her.

  That was…disappointing.

  In the following weeks, Elise continued to be disappointed.

  Which was ridiculous.

  How could she be disappointed by the fact that Jay was a model client? He was interested and engaged. He deferred to her in most cases but argued just enough to keep things interesting—and when he did push back against her ideas, he made thoughtful points that forced her to further refine her point of view.

  He just wasn’t giving her that sexy-intense look anymore. Or holding her cold hands. That spark that had been there between them—the spark she’d thought had been there, but maybe she’d been imagining—had gone out. Well, not on her end. On her end, she pretty much had to walk around with a metaphorical fire extinguisher at all times. But he had stopped giving off the sexy-intense vibes, leaving only the regular-intense vibes. And the dude was intense. A total perfectionist, whether they were talking about the edges of the wallpaper in the bathroom or he was asking Patricia to send something back to someone whose work had not measured up. He was never rude. Quite the opposite, in fact—he was polite. But insistent. He knew what he wanted and he was going to get it.

  It was stupidly sexy.

  So she had an unrequited crush. She had allowed herself to acknowledge that fact, even if she still wouldn’t admit it to Gia. She’d decided it was harmless as long as it stayed unrequited. The last thing she needed right now was to start depending on a man. She’d had a lifetime of that. She could worry about relationships down to the line, after she’d proven herself. But a little one-sided crushing—what could it hurt?

  And with Jay, although the flirty banter had gone, she could honestly say that, in a surprising twist, they had become friends. After she’d confided in him about her father, he’d done the same. It was as if, by sharing those early secrets, they had skipped all the “getting to know you” stuff that usually accompanied new friendships. Now, seven weeks after he’d hired her, they were following sessions to approve the work of tradespeople with lunch around the corner. Or wrapping up a meeting with a quick game of Scrabble. It was awesome—in general and because she’d never had a friend she didn’t have to force to play board games with her.

  “What is your opinion about hockey?” he asked at one of their lunches. They were sitting side by side on stools at the counter of an old-school soda-fountain-turned-hipster restaurant.

  It was weird being friends with a guy. Elise’s close friendships had always been with women.

  “That’s the one they play on ice, right?” She winked to show she was joking and was gratified when he laughed. Jay was so wickedly intelligent, it made her proud to be able to amuse him.

  “Kent has a pair of Leafs tickets for tonight he can’t use.” Kent was the Cohen of Cohen & Smith. “I was going to see if you wanted to come.”

  “I would totally go to a Leafs game, depending on what was happening at halftime.”

  “There’s no halftime in hockey.”

  “Are you going to revoke my Canadian citizenship?” she teased, and she got another chuckle. “So what do they have in hockey?”

  “Three periods.”

  “So that means there’s two halftimes.” She was kidding there. But not about going. “I’ll totally go to the Leafs game with you.” She really could not imagine anything she’d like to do more, suddenly.

  He stared at her for a long time without speaking. For a minute, she thought it was going to turn into one of his sexy-intense stares—oh, how she missed those despite the pep talk she’d just given herself about not relying on a man—but then it dissipated. “Nah. We’d better not.”

  Huh?

  “It’s really cold in hockey arenas,” he added, and she had the distinct sense that he was reaching for an excuse. Why had he brought it up to begin with if he didn’t want to go with her? Her pride prevented her from pushing him on it, but disappointment lodged sharp in her chest and she was a little relieved when the lunch was over.

  They’d taken to texting, too. Later that evening, she got one from him that was simply a picture of an old-school game of Battleship.

  She let out a delighted laugh. See? They clicked. As friends. She typed a reply.

  Now there’s a game I haven’t thought of in years. Is that yours?

  I bought it this evening at an antique/junk store.

  What happened to two-halftimes hockey?

  I told Kent to give the tickets to this junior accountant who’s been pulling tons of overtime this month.

  Even though she truly did not care about hockey, Elise found herself absurdly glad that Jay hadn’t gone without her.

  But you went antiquing instead? That seems sort of random.

  My friend Stacey dragged me out.

  So much for absurd happiness. Jay hadn’t gone to the game without her, but he was spending the evening with his stunning, legal-genius ex-girlfriend.

  Well, hopefully you can get her to play that excellent game with you. I haven’t played Battleship for years. I’m jealous.

  In more ways than one.

  Nah, Stacey’s on a date—aka phase two of her evening. I was just the opening act.

  Elise watched the little dots that indicated he was still typing.

  Platonic opening act.

  She grinned. There were more dots.

  So basically I’m trying to invite myself over to play Battleship. If you’re not busy?

  I’m not, and I would love that.

  This was a bad idea.

  But as Jay climbed the stairs behind Elise—without even trying not to stare at her yoga-pants-encased ass as it swayed—he couldn’t seem to talk any sense into himself.

  After that call with his brother, during which Jay had all but decided to put the moves on Elise after the job was done, he had spent seven long weeks being nothing but benignly friendly to
her. And along the way, they’d become genuine friends. He loved hanging out with her. She was smart and funny. She possessed a vivacity that felt almost like a drug. Like when he was around her and her vibrant clothes and her Operation: Abandon Beige, he was…honed. Better than he usually was. Smarter. More aware. More alive.

  And he was almost there. They were probably a week away from signing off on the whole job. He couldn’t wait one more week?

  It was funny. Most people who had resolved to do something difficult weakened when drunk, or when tired. When their defenses were down.

  He weakened when faced with vintage two-player board games.

  But anyway, it was just Battleship. His self-discipline was legendary. Surely it could hold him in check for a game of Battleship.

  It’s just that he hadn’t been over to her place since that first week. Being alone with her in a private space had seemed unwise.

  Elise led him into the living room. “Wine?”

  “Yes,” he said instantly. Which was also unwise.

  “I almost changed before you got here, but I decided we’ve reached the stage in our relationship where I don’t have to look professional,” she called from the kitchen, where he could hear her uncorking a bottle. She reappeared with the bottle and a pair of glasses. When they’d had lunch, she’d been wearing a black dress and canary-yellow tights. Now she was in those skintight yoga pants that had mesmerized him on the stairs and bright orange tank top covered with a royal blue cardigan sweater.