“She did,” I felt forced to point out.
Colton stopped with his hand on the doorknob. “Not really. She went back to him before we had a chance.”
Max touched my arm, and I knew he wanted me to stop talking. It was obvious he didn’t want to upset Colton any more than necessary.
“She has a deadline,” I said.
Colton sneered at my logic. “Weddings can be postponed.”
“There are five hundred guests.”
“It’s the rest of her life.”
The way he said it, something about his expression got me worrying.
I wasn’t worried he’d break his word. Oh, no, I was worried that he was right. We were standing here talking about the rest of Brooklyn’s life.
Letting my mind follow his logic for a minute, I tried to imagine canceling the wedding. I pictured my parents’ reactions. My dad would freak out about the cost. My mom would focus on the social embarrassment.
Then I pictured Brooklyn’s parents. They’d be baffled. I’d had several days to mull the idea, and I was baffled. They thought James was the perfect man for Brooklyn. He was successful, professional, kind and smart, with two feet firmly planted on the ground.
They’d never forgive her for letting him get away.
Brooklyn’s parents knew her well, just like I knew her well. If all of us, including Brooklyn, thought James was the right choice, he must be the right choice. Seeing James had obviously put everything in perspective and solidified her decision.
Colton wasn’t even a fling. She hadn’t even slept with him. How could they possibly understand their feelings for one another when their entire relationship had been platonic?
“She seems sure,” I said, telling myself it was true.
Colton gave a cold, chopped laugh. “Well, as long as she’s sure.”
And then he was gone. The door banged hollowly behind him.
Max and I stared.
I thought I should apologize. Logically, I knew none of this was my fault. I’d done what any reasonable best friend would do. I’d tried to keep Brooklyn from getting swept up in short-term emotions, to make sure she considered all the ramifications of her decision.
“What about you?” Max said.
I didn’t understand the question. Was he thinking the same thing I was thinking? Was he asking for an apology?
He pivoted to face me and took both of my hands in his. His touch was tender, and his gaze softened to azure. “What about us?”
Then I understood. “I can’t stay.” Even though, this exact moment, I was wishing with all my heart that I could.
He searched my expression for a minute. “Do you think this is something?”
I did. So help me, I did.
I’d never felt anything like this before. Max was exciting and funny, smart and thoughtful. Sex with him had been amazing with a capital A.
So I stood there wishing. I wished with all my heart. But I knew my weakness.
From minute one, I looked at men as potential life mates. I did it for myself and for all of my friends. In the presence of an eligible man, I went from logical mathematician to hopeless romantic.
Maybe it was my age. Anthropologically speaking, I was at a prime age to seek out a mate and have children. I took some comfort in having a logical basis for my illogical emotional reaction.
This was nothing more than anthropology.
“It’s something,” I said as disappointment slithered through my aching chest. “It was a wonderful weekend. Honestly, it was the best fling of my life.”
He stared at me while my words hung there between us. I could only imagine he was wondering how many flings I’d had.
None was the answer. But I wasn’t about to admit it. Let him think I flung, or flinged—or whatever the heck you called it—all the time. It was easier that way.
As the silent seconds ticked by, my words felt more and more like a lie.
I doubled down. “Let’s not try to make it what it wasn’t.”
“What wasn’t it?” There was a challenge in his deep, soft tone.
I was dying here. “Something serious. Something real. Something lasting.”
“You’re sure about that?”
I was sure. I had to be sure. I had no choice but to be sure.
I could estimate the mathematical odds of Max’s and my vastly different lives meshing in any long-lasting way. Sadly for me, I could estimate them with extraordinary precision. Technically speaking, those were some very, very long odds.
Lightning hadn’t struck here, even though I could swear I heard a sizzle somewhere in the middle of the night.
He reached out and tenderly stroked my hair. “Ah, Layla.” He sounded sad.
I didn’t exactly know what he meant. But my entire body sighed, and I only just stopped myself from leaning into his palm.
“I should go,” I said.
“How long?” he asked.
My confusion must have been apparent.
“How long do we have before you go?”
“Really?” I had to admit, I was pretty startled by his request. Not unwilling, I’m embarrassed to say, but startled. “You want to hop in bed, sort of, for the road?”
Looking distinctly annoyed, he let his hand fall to his side. “Did I say that?”
“It’s what you meant.” I was positive on that.
He might try to walk it back, but that was exactly what he’d meant.
“I was going to suggest a chocolate soufflé.” He paused. “For the road.”
I tried to interpret his expression. It looked sincere. And if that was a lie, he’d thought it up awfully fast. Still...
“There’s something wrong with you,” he said, a trace of humor in his tone. “So skeptical.”
“Are you denying you want to have sex with me?”
“I’ll always want to have sex with you. But if we’re talking a last memory here, I’d rather it be chocolate soufflé.” He smiled. “Do you have any idea how cute you look eating chocolate soufflé?”
“I do not.” I looked exactly the same eating chocolate soufflé as I did eating anything else.
“It’s like you’re having an orgasm right there in front of me.”
“Shut up.” I wasn’t going to be embarrassed.
He was making this all up.
“Hot chocolate is a close second,” he said. “But there’s nothing like chocolate soufflé to get you going.”
“You’re impossible.”
“You’re beautiful.” He gently touched beneath my chin.
“Now you’re trying to distract me.”
“I’m trying to change your mind. Don’t go.”
“Max.”
“I’m serious. You don’t have to leave.”
“Don’t do this.”
It was bad enough that my brain took off on flights of fantasy about happily-ever-after. The last thing I needed was Max feeding into it.
“You know it’s over,” I said for both of us. “Don’t pretend, not even for a little while.”
I needed to stay strong. This talk of a possible future was making me even sadder than I already was.
“Why?” he asked. “Give me one good reason why we don’t have a shot?”
“There’s a wedding in eleven days. Brooklyn needs me. James needs me. My family is counting on me.”
“This isn’t about the wedding. The wedding is short-term. After—”
“No.” I put my fingertips across his lips to stop him from talking.
I realized my mistake when pulses of energy shot desire into my palm and up my arm, heading for my heart.
“We’re not going to recapture this,” I said, much as I was thinking I would love to do that very thing. “You’ve got hotels to run and I’ve got students to teac
h. Brooklyn is a permanent part of my life, and Colton is a permanent part of yours.”
“We can work around that.”
“Listen to yourself.” I was starting to feel desperate.
I took a step back.
He stared at me for a long minute.
I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t seem to make my feet move.
“If you’re not feeling it,” he finally said.
“I’m not feeling it,” I lied. I was feeling it all too strongly.
“We’re not going to have that soufflé, are we?”
I shook my head. “Goodbye, Max.”
His mouth tightened down to a thin line. “If that’s the way you want it.”
I stood my ground. “It’s the way I want it.”
After a moment, his eyes hardened, his gaze remote, and he took a step back—him and his perfect shaggy-neat hair and his perfect body and his perfect lovemaking.
He was writing me off, and it was physically painful.
I wanted to tell him I’d had a fantastic time, that he was an amazing man, that the reckless emotional side of me I barely knew had wanted to hang on to him and never let go.
But I’d never been one to give in to that side. And I wasn’t about to start now. Right now, I had to get Brooklyn to Seattle and to the church. She’d made a brave and good decision, and I had to support her.
The sooner I turned Max into a memory, the better off I’d be.
* * *
Nat stood next to me in front of the mirrored wall in the bridal shop. It was our final bridesmaid dress fitting before the wedding on Saturday.
The dresses were light and breezy, azure-blue chiffon with knee-length hemlines. Their snug, fitted bodices with strapless sweetheart necklines were feminine and beautiful.
Nat was wearing a pretty pair of silver sandals with a satin band and two-inch heel.
I was feeling bold. I’d gone with a strappy, stylized pair with higher heels and a lot of jeweled flash.
I figured I could make it down the aisle and through the photo session without completely killing my feet. And, after that, there was a sit-down dinner that would give them a rest.
For the dancing, I’d tuck a pair of blue ballet flats into my purse. I’m not masochistic.
“You look great,” I said to Nat.
It was true, but she seemed uncertain as she gazed into the mirror. Feature for feature, she was as pretty as any of us. But she never saw it, and was always doing everything she could to downplay her looks.
“You look tall,” she said and put on a grin.
I was glad to see her mood shift. I knew she’d been fighting depression since Henry had dumped her. Not that Henry was a prize. Still, it was hard on a person’s ego to be the one left behind.
That hadn’t been the case with me and Max.
I’d been the one to make the decision that it was over.
And it was over, and it was the right decision, and I had to stop thinking about him when there were so many other things that needed my attention right now.
I put a foot forward in the reflection and turned my ankle back and forth to make the jewels sparkle. “I couldn’t resist them,” I said to Nat.
“Your funeral,” she answered back.
“I’m not going to dance in them or anything.”
“Even without any dancing, you’re going to have to last at least two hours on your feet.” Nat was practical, as always.
I was practical, too. But I wasn’t obsessive about it. I knew there were times when impracticality was the most practical thing to do.
“I’ll be fine,” I said. It would be well worth sore feet and maybe a blister or two to be immortalized in these babies in the wedding photos.
Sophie came from behind us and stood on the other side of Nat.
“We’re going to knock ’em dead,” Sophie said.
“That’s Brooklyn’s job,” I pointed out, glancing to the closed curtain of the cubical where Brooklyn was slipping into her wedding dress.
She’d seemed happy since we got back from Vegas. There were times when I thought she was a little too happy. I hadn’t spent as much time as I would have liked with her these past days. James was sticking close to her, and he was still giving me the cold shoulder.
I hadn’t brought up his outburst in Vegas. I knew we’d have to talk it through at some point. But I’d decided it wasn’t urgent.
To be fair to him, I’d mulled over the amount of time I spent with Brooklyn, trying to see it from his perspective. I had to admit we did spend a lot of time together. But it had remained steady over the years, and James had never said it was a problem.
He’d gone off about the Fuzzy Lake trips. Sure, Brooklyn and I always shared a room at Fuzzy Lake. But my parents had always been with us on the trip. We’d started going to Fuzzy Lake when we were kids. It wasn’t like Brooklyn was about to sleep with James with our parents along with us.
I mean, maybe once they got into their twenties, or maybe last year when they got engaged. But nobody had suggested it. My mom had booked the rooms the same way she always did—me sharing with Brooklyn, and James sharing with our cousin Neil.
And we’d had a blast. There was no denying everyone had a blast at Fuzzy Lake.
Brooklyn and I had a standing date at a Seattle tennis club. There was that. Friday afternoons, after school was out and she left the store early, we’d play a match, then stop by the lounge for a drink. The drinks often turned into appetizers that substituted for dinner.
It wasn’t like James would leave the office early. And Friday was the one day a week that Brooklyn and I truly got to touch base.
I couldn’t figure out what James meant about last Christmas. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened last Christmas.
The more I thought about it, the more self-righteous I started feeling. Honestly, if James had a problem with me and Brooklyn, he should have spoken up before now. We could have talked it out. I could have given him my perspective instead of having it turn into some big thing.
Keeping it bottled up inside hadn’t helped anyone.
I hadn’t told Brooklyn about James’s outburst, either. The wedding lead-up was running smoothly, and I didn’t want to introduce a problem. Not that it was a real problem. It was just, well, weird.
I hadn’t brought up Colton, either, even though I was dying to know how Brooklyn felt. If ever there was something we should be talking through, this was it. But she hadn’t mentioned him at all. It was like we’d both agreed to pretend Vegas hadn’t happened. It was a strategy... I supposed.
Deep down in my logical soul I knew that if mentioning Colton’s name was going to mess up the wedding, the wedding should probably be messed up. But I couldn’t bring myself to test it.
“Brooklyn will knock them double-dead,” Sophie said, bringing me back to the present.
We all smiled at our reflections, knowing it was true. It didn’t matter how much we dressed up, or what kind of shoes we wore, Brooklyn would be the most dazzling woman in the church, hands down.
Brooklyn’s dressing-room curtain opened, and we all turned to look.
Her bodice was pure white lace with a V-neck and cap sleeves. It was fitted snugly to her impossibly slim waist. The silk underskirt was full and flared out, covered with a wispy sheer net that was dotted with hand-stitched lace appliqués.
Her hair was gathered at the back with a jeweled comb, a few blond wisps framing her face and fanning over the dangling white sapphire earrings that matched her elegant choker. She was upscale enough for a fashion runway.
“You’re a knockout,” Sophie said, stepping to one side. “Come here. Stand with us.”
Nat and I moved, too, making more room for Brooklyn.
“Do you have the shoes?” I asked.
Brooklyn looked tall and elegant.
And the dress looked to be exactly the right length, barely brushing the floor in a circle of lace and fanning out just a few extra inches at the back in a nod to a bridal train.
She stuck out one of her feet to show off her wedding shoe.
“Perfect,” I said.
“Ouch,” Nat said.
“Wimp,” I said to Nat.
“You’ll all be envious of me during the ceremony,” Nat said.
“I don’t think she’ll be worried about her feet while she’s saying her vows,” Sophie put in.
I had to agree with Sophie on that.
If I was the one getting married, the last thing I’d be thinking about was my feet.
Max popped into my mind, fully decked out in a black tux, with a white shirt and a bow tie. He looked sexy and masculine. I could see his great hair, his smile and the crinkle of his blue eyes.
As if he was right there in front of me, he took my hand, and I could feel the wedding ring slide onto my finger, cool and smooth, a circle of gold. I lifted my face for his kiss.
Man, did I miss his kiss.
I gave myself a firm mental shake.
Marrying Max. Talk about letting my imagination run away with me again.
Max was a memory now.
“My feet,” Brooklyn said, and she met my gaze in the mirror, “will be the last thing I’m thinking about.”
For a second, there was something in her eyes, a brittle-edged determination that caught me off guard. But then it was gone, and I wondered if I’d imagined it.
Then I wondered if I should gather up some courage and talk to her, have a heart-to-heart, bring everything out in the open in all its ugly glory before she said her final “I do.” A best friend would do that.
“Still, they’ll look really great,” Brooklyn continued with a grin, giving Nat a one-armed hug. “And that’s what really matters, isn’t it? My feet?”
Brooklyn seemed relaxed again. She seemed genuinely happy.
Again, I felt like I was looking for problems that weren’t there. I did that sometimes. I really did.
“I’ll never understand that attitude,” Nat said to all of us. “Sacrificing comfort for beauty.”
“Beauty’s fun,” Sophie said.
I glanced at myself in the mirror. I was vain enough to like the way I looked, vain enough to hope any eligible men at the wedding would find me attractive.
The Twin Switch (Millionaires Legacy Book 13; Gambling Men) Page 16