by Ivy Sinclair
That I did know. Since taking over responsibility of the reservation system and responding to email inquiries, I was the one fielding those requests. I hadn’t thought much of it when Patrice told me simply to thank the individual for their interest but letting them know the Willoughby did not host weddings on property. Wrapped up in absorbing all the new things coming at me, I never thought to ask why.
“This place is the perfect wedding venue for catering to small, intimate affairs,” Millie said excitedly. “You have to have the space for plan B if the weather doesn’t cooperate, but you’re already halfway there doing the small cocktail receptions.”
“Perhaps you and Kate can put a proposal together for me, and we’ll discuss it further. I’d like to see cost estimates and revenue projections,” Patrice said.
“Great! Sounds like fun,” Millie nodded. “Patrice said you’d show me around the property this morning and that you’d also take me into town and give me the grand tour.”
My mouth fell open. There was no way that Patrice would be letting me off the hook from work for something so frivolous as to be a tour guide for my best friend for the day.
“I’ll expect you back in time to work the dinner shift with Sam,” Patrice said. “I have an appointment this evening and so I’ll also need you to watch the front desk.”
I sensed another thinly disguised attempt to push me at Sam, but if I got the day off to spend with Millie, I wasn’t going to complain. For a moment, I wondered what kind of appointment would take Patrice away from the Willoughby, but then I remembered it wasn’t any of my business. I just never thought about Patrice having a life outside of it.
“I’ll make sure I’m back by four-thirty,” I said.
Patrice nodded and walked back toward the inn. She paused and looked back over her shoulder. “While you are out and about today, I do hope you’ll remember what your mother told you last night.” Then she continued on her way.
I felt as if I had been hit in the gut. It was a none-to-subtle reminder to stay away from Reed Black. I turned to find Millie watching me with a sad expression on her face.
“Chin up, Spivey. You may have lost the battle, but the war’s not over yet.”
“You’ve met my mother, right? She isn’t going to care about the rhyme or reason. If she catches wind that I even blinked in Reed’s direction from now on, she’ll yank her financial support for next year, and it’ll all be over. It’s too risky.”
“I can’t wait to meet this guy who has your undies all bunched up,” Millie said, slipping her arm through mine. “He must be something else.”
He was something else. Something dangerous to both my heart and my future. I had to stop thinking about him. Millie was supposed to distract me from Reed. So far, she wasn’t doing a great job of it.
“Reed is off limits. End of story. Let’s walk down to the beach. I could use a little sun.”
“We’ll figure something out. Together, we’re invincible,” Millie said, tugging on my sleeve.
I loved Millie’s optimism, but I wasn’t that naïve. Despite what she said, for me, the war in my heart was over before it had even begun. There wouldn’t be anything else between Reed and me this summer. She didn’t understand because she didn’t know Reed’s side of the story yet, and I was too chicken to push finding out what he was thinking could happen now. It was better for both of us this way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It was just before lunchtime when I finished showing off the Willoughby grounds to Millie. After sitting by the lake for over an hour listening to Millie’s summer adventures in avoiding Fredrick Malone III, I hesitantly began to share the story of Jackson and Camilla. Millie had never read Where My Heart Breaks either, and I tried to make sure that I didn’t tell enough of the story to ruin it for her if she ever did decide to read it.
I found myself enjoying the tour, and it occurred to me that maybe the Willoughby was starting to grow on me. Millie raved about how beautiful and peaceful the setting was and how she was glad to have a chance to spend time there. I wasn’t sure if she was being sincere or blowing smoke up my butt. Bleckerville, even with the addition of the Willoughby, couldn’t come close to competing with beach parties and clam bakes in the Hamptons, but I thought it was nice of her to say so nonetheless.
“Do you want to grab lunch in the dining room, or head into town?” I asked as we made our way back to the main house.
“We’ve only got a few hours left before you have to put on your work face, so let’s go into town,” Millie said.
“There aren’t a lot of options. Bleckerville isn’t exactly known for its fine dining,” I said. “I think the coffee shop where…where I went last week has sandwiches.” I caught myself before I said his name.
“So you’ve done an excellent job so far of avoiding any mention of the mystery man,” Millie noted. “Are we going to talk about him or not?”
“Or not,” I quipped. “Why bother? He’s not the guy my mother wants for me.”
“What do you want for you?” Millie asked.
I didn’t have a chance to reply because Sam appeared on the pathway in front of us. His eyes lit up when he saw me, and he waved a hand in a friendly greeting. I was relived to see that my disappearance with Reed the night before didn’t seem to affect his behavior toward me. I enjoyed his company, despite his obvious interest in me. Millie and I stopped as he walked up to us.
“Hey, Kate! I heard you had a friend visiting,” Sam said, nodding to Millie.
There were a lot of things to like about Sam, and I just noticed another one. He didn’t pause for one minute and let his eyes settle on Millie’s drop dead gorgeous physique. His gaze returned to me, and he wore a lopsided grin on his face.
“This is Millie,” I said. “She’s my roommate at school. Millie, this is Sam. He works with me.” I kept the introduction short and sweet.
Millie’s jaw was open. She held out a manicured hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Sam.”
My eyebrows rose at her husky tone. If there was a good looking, unmarried guy within ten feet of Millie, she didn’t pass up the chance to flirt. Usually I ignored it. It appeared to be part of her genetic make-up.
“Back at ya, Millie,”
Sam shook her hand but again I saw that he didn’t focus on her the way that most guys did. I was certain that Sam didn’t run into girls like Millie all the time, but his interest seemed strictly platonic. I had no doubt by Millie’s narrowed eyes that she noticed as well, and didn’t like it one bit. Millie wasn’t used to being brushed off by guys.
“Are you ladies coming in for lunch?” Sam asked.
“We’re headed into town,” Millie interjected before I could answer. “Maybe you should come with us.”
I gaped at her. She knew that I wasn’t interested in Sam the way that he was in me, and inviting him to lunch would do nothing but encourage that interest. She batted her eyelashes and smiled up at him. Millie was tall, but Sam still dwarfed her by a good three inches.
“Sorry, my shift just started,” Sam said.
“Do you know a good place you’d recommend for lunch then?” Millie asked.
Her flirtatious tone made me want to hurl.
“The Good Day Café on Baker St. is simple, but gets the job done,” Sam said. “My younger sister, Trina, is working there this summer. If you tell her you’re friends of mine, I bet she’d even give you a free piece of pie.”
“That sounds perfect,” Millie exclaimed.
I was pretty sure that Sam’s confused expression mirrored my own. Millie’s enthusiasm over a simple restaurant recommendation was a bit over the top.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you later,” Sam said, looking back at me.
I nodded. “Okay then. C’mon, Millie.”
I dragged my friend away before she could make an even bigger fool of herself.
“What the heck was that?” I asked as soon as we were out of earshot. “He isn’t your type at all, Millie.”
&nb
sp; “Does that mean he’s your type?” Millie asked with a slow drawl.
I stopped short. “Is that what you were trying to do? Make me jealous?”
“Not at all. If I’m going to be hanging around for awhile, I wouldn’t mind having someone to hang out with.”
“You’d eat Sam up and spit him out. You’re way out of his league,” I said.
Millie sniffed. “Doesn’t matter anyway. He seems to be infatuated with someone else.”
I sighed. “I like Sam as a friend. He’s funny and smart. I liked his friends. I know that Patrice would love to see us as a couple, and maybe if I had met him first…” I refused to follow that thought to its logical conclusion.
“Don’t you have a date with him this week or something?” Now it was Millie’s turn to arch an eyebrow at me.
I smacked my head against my forehead. “I keep forgetting about that. I have to figure out a way to let him down easy.”
“Or, you allow yourself to consider him as a viable, acceptable alternative to Mr. Bad Boy,” she countered.
I stared at her. “Are you sure my mother didn’t send you?”
Millie rolled her eyes and threw her hands up. “You are nothing but a pile of contradictions these days. Occasionally, I see a glimmer of the strong willed, stubborn girl I met at freshman orientation. But since about a year ago, that girl has been replaced by a peevish, indecisive, weak, self-deprecating shrew.”
Her words stung, which I’m sure was her intention. “You always have a knack of kicking somebody when they’re down,” I said heatedly. “You don’t think I know that my life derailed with Trevor? You should know better than anyone that I’ve been doing everything possible to make it right since then.”
“By being subservient and meek to a woman who will rule the rest of your life if you let her?” Millie asked. “I get it, Kate. You messed up, and your parents were there to help you straighten your life out. I was there too. But I’m not imposing my rules and beliefs on you now.”
It was eerie that I had heard a similar argument not twelve hours before, but I dismissed Reed’s because he didn’t know me. Millie knew me better than I knew myself.
“Can you back off, please?” I finally said. “I have enough people in my life telling me what I am supposed to do. I’ll go out with Sam because he’s a nice guy and I’m not a complete bitch.”
“No, you’ll save that for when you break his heart and dump him after that date,” Millie said.
“I know that given time, he’ll see that we were meant to be friends,” I said quietly.
“Well, you can go ahead and send him in my direction then. I’m very good at helping to pick up the pieces of a broken heart.”
By this time, we were in the car and on our way into town. Millie always insisted on driving, so I let myself sink into the plush leather of her BMW convertible and closed my eyes.
I felt emotionally drained and exhausted. Suddenly, I was not looking forward to working that evening with Sam. I decided Millie’s sudden therapy session was intended to distract me from Sam. I had no idea what Millie saw in Sam in those few minutes that had so quickly piqued her interest in him, but I wasn’t going to pry any further. Once Millie set her mind on something, or someone, it was game over. I almost felt sorry for Sam. He’d have no idea what hit him.
I heard the beeping notification of my phone. Since the only person who regularly texted me was in the seat next to me, I had a sinking suspicion that I knew who it was. I slowly pulled the phone out of my pocket.
Are you avoiding me?
Hell, yes, I was avoiding him. It was immature, but the only line of defense I had at the moment.
“Is that the mysterious Mr. Black inquiring about scheduling your next orgasm?” Millie asked without taking her eyes off the road.
“You are so crude,” I said, but my heart wasn’t in it. I deleted the message and returned my phone to my pocket.
“Playing hard to get, I see.”
“Shut up,” I growled.
“Well, you should probably say something to the guy at some point. I mean, what if he decided to show up at the Willoughby to try talking to you? Wouldn’t your aunt have a heart attack?”
That thought made me sit straighter in the seat. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I figured that if I didn’t respond, Reed would take the hint that there wasn’t anything to discuss, and he would move on.
I groaned. “I’m going to have to talk to him.”
“Of course you are, silly,” Millie said. “Order the orgasm to go.”
“I doubt he’s going to have any further interest in my orgasms,” I said. “He’s being nice. Patrice looked like she was going to murder both of us when he dropped me of last night. He’s not a complete jerk.”
“So you still think he’s going to do the wham-bam-thank you ma’am with you?”
I hated hearing what happened the night before belittled down into a typical cliché. I had one-night stands before. Not a lot of them, but enough to understand the emptiness of an act that had nothing more than the mutual goal of scratching an itch that refused to be satisfied any other way. One of them had been decent, but the other two were awful. There was an awkwardness going in that only grew progressively worse through the act itself. Then you had to deal with the lies that you tell each other to make the quickest escape possible. After that, all eye contact is avoided, and if you do happen to bump into each other again, excuses are made to keep the exchange short.
None of that felt like what happened with Reed. I felt like he opened up to me and pulled me into his world. It killed me to wonder if he did that with all of the women that he seduced. Or who seduced him. His vulnerable side made him all the more attractive.
By this time, we had entered Bleckerville proper, but I didn’t have the energy to point all out of the sights to Millie. Of course, in a town the size of Bleckerville, all the sights were pretty much on display on Main Street anyway.
“We didn’t have a chance to discuss it,” I said stiffly. “Reed made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t date. Sexual attraction does not a relationship make. But it doesn’t matter because I can’t have a relationship with him anyway.” I was still waiting for that knowledge to sink in to my brain and become real.
“We need a little diversion, so you two to can have a little reunion and work out all your issues,” Millie said. It was exactly what I had thought earlier that day.
“If Patrice finds out, I’m dead,” I said.
I pointed at Baker Street. It turned out that the Good Day Café was just around the corner. Millie slid her car into one of the empty spots and threw the car into park. She turned to me with serious eyes.
“Get your phone out. Here’s what we’re going to do. Try and keep up, sweetie.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I put myself in Millie’s hands and waited on the sidelines as Millie did what Millie did best: plot, plan, and organize.
Somehow she talked me into giving her Reed’s phone number. Then she shoved me inside the café and pointed at a booth next to the window before flouncing back outside. I nervously watched her talk on her phone for the next five minutes. She smiled and laughed several times, which bothered me a hundred times worse than when I watched her flirt with Sam. Millie was exactly Reed’s type. With her looks and extroverted personality, I didn’t stand a chance if he decided she was the one he wanted.
As I waited for Millie’s return, a young woman with shoulder length dishwater blond hair approached with a pleasant smile. Her face was familiar, and I remembered then that Sam mentioned his sister worked at the café. Her name tag confirmed it.
“Can I get you something to drink?” She looked at me with obvious curiosity, and I wondered if she knew who I was.
“Two diet cokes, please,” I said. I tried not to glance back out the window at Millie. “And menus.”
“No problem,” she said. She pulled two small skinny menus out of her apron and set them on the table in front of m
e. “Are you Kate by chance?”
“Guilty,” I said. “You must be Trina. Sam mentioned you.”
Trina chuckled. “Probably with a promise of pie.”
I couldn’t resist chuckling back. I liked her. She seemed to have her brother’s easygoing, casual personality, which helped me relax. “He might have said something about that,” I confessed.
“If you’re still hungry for dessert, I’ll hook you up,” she said with a wink. She started back toward the counter when Millie came through the door.
I looked at her expectantly as she sat down across from me. She opened her menu and started to look through it. I let the silence stretch on for another ten seconds before I couldn’t stand it anymore. “What did you do? What did he say? Tell me everything!”
Millie looked at me with a warning look as Trina appeared next to the booth setting down two glasses of Diet Coke. I realized that saying anything about Reed in front of Sam’s little sister would probably be poor form.
“Do you have any questions about the menu?” Trina asked.
“What’s good here?” Millie asked.
“The cook makes a mean tuna melt,” Trina said.
“Done. We’ll have two of those,” Millie said, handing the menus back to Trina with a brilliant smile. “Your brother seems like quite a gentleman.”
I had that vomiting sensation in the back of my throat again.
Trina cocked her head at Millie and looked a bit shocked. I knew what was running through her head. Somebody like Millie wouldn’t normally give a guy like Sam the time of day. Something wasn’t adding up.
“Thanks,” Trina said. She shuffled away quickly, probably because she didn’t know what else to say.
I was thinking that I didn’t even like tuna melts, but my stomach was doing flip flops at the moment and I didn’t think I’d be able to eat anything anyway. As soon as I saw Trina disappear through the saloon style doors to the back, I reached across the table and grabbed Millie’s hand.