I then took several minutes to explain everything to Willem. He was silent for a moment after I finished. “I think my aunt knows the count,” he said.
“She does?” I said, surprised, but then not.
“Yeah. I think they’ve even had dinner together once or twice. My great-grandmother was Danish, and if memory serves me, Grams would be a distant cousin of Aaron’s through her mother’s family.”
“Wow,” I said. Even Gilley seemed impressed.
“Have you called her yet?” Willem said next.
“No,” I admitted. “I’m hesitant to get her involved. She seemed so frail the last time we saw her.”
“What’s it been? Like, a year?” Willem asked.
“A year and a half,” I said.
“Well, you should see her now, Catherine. She’s a whole new woman. She started the RBG workout routine right after my curse was broken, and she’s found herself a personal trainer, who comes to the house four days a week, and she’s even ditched the wheelchair and walks three miles a day on a treadmill.”
“You’re kidding,” Gilley said.
“No, I’m serious. She’s a new woman.”
“That’s amazing! I’m so relieved to hear she’s doing so well,” I said.
“You should call her and tell her what you’re up to,” Willem insisted. “She’d want to help. And throwing a party in her honor would really make her happy. Every time we talk, she keeps complaining about how bored she is.”
“You really think she’d come?” I asked.
“I do,” he said. “And you could even throw it in honor of her eighty-fourth birthday, which is at the end of this month. Chanel and I never would’ve skipped out on her birthday, but Gram bought the trip for us as a surprise and she insisted we go, so we couldn’t say no.”
“Ooh, I would love to put together a birthday celebration for your grandmother!” Gilley said, clapping his hands rapidly together.
“You’d actually be doing me a favor,” Willem said. “I was starting to feel guilty about being separated from her on the thirtieth, and the only thing I could think of to do was to send her a personal chef to cook her favorite meal, but if you two want to throw the party, I’d like to insist on paying for it.”
“Done,” Gilley said before I could politely decline. “What’s the budget?”
I stared at him in disbelief. Was he crazy? We would be using Julia as a means to an end, and because of that, we owed it to her to pay for her party.
“Start at fifty, but if you have to go up, do it. And save the receipts. I’ll reimburse you as soon as I’m home.”
My eyes were blinking so fast while my mind tried to take in the quick exchange between Gilley and Willem that I forgot to even protest. And before I knew it, Gilley was saying, “Perfect. I’ll keep you apprised of our progress. Shoot me your grandmama’s deets and we’ll reach out ASAP!”
“Great. Bye, Gilley! Bye, Catherine!”
“Will—” I began, but Gilley cut me off.
“Bye, Willem! Give Chanel a kiss from us!” And with that, Gilley hit the END button and swiveled in his chair to look at me with glee.
“Why would you agree to that?” I demanded.
“What? Allow him pay for the party?”
“Yes!”
“Because I know how it feels to be away from your mom on her special day, and how you wish someone close by could make her feel special, because you can’t.”
I softened immediately. “When was your mom’s birthday?”
“The first of April. We didn’t get our second dose of vaccine until April fifth, so I couldn’t go to Savannah, and I felt guilty and sad about it all day.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because that was the day Shepherd surprised you with flowers and a candlelight dinner, and you were so happy. I didn’t want to bring you down.”
I rubbed his arm. “Oh, Gil. I’m so sorry. We’ll fly to Savannah next year to surprise her on her birthday, okay?”
“Yeah?” he said hopefully.
“Absolutely,” I vowed. “Now, let’s call Julia and see if we can’t arrange to make her birthday memorable.”
We called the number Willem had sent Gilley in a text, but Julia didn’t pick up, so Gilley left her a sweet voice mail. “She’s probably gone to bed,” Gil said, eyeing the clock. “It’s just about nine o’clock.”
I got up and stretched. “Okay, then,” I said. “I’m headed home. I’m exhausted too.”
“Lightweight,” Gilley giggled.
I stuck my tongue out at him but couldn’t keep down a little chuckle myself. “Good night, Gilley,” I sang.
“Good night, Cat.”
Spooks got up when I opened the door, and came trotting over to me. I bent to hug him and nearly asked Gilley if I could take him to Chez Cat for the night, but I knew Gilley needed Spooks’s company more than I did.
“Take care of him, okay?” I whispered to the pup.
He gave me a kiss on the cheek, and I left to head to bed.
* * *
The next morning, when I entered Chez Kitty, Gilley was saying goodbye to someone on the phone. I waited for him to hang up before I asked who it was, although I was secretly hoping it was Michel and they’d worked things out.
“Perfect,” he said, sounding happy. “Okay, love, I’ll give you a call in the next couple of days, okay? Wonderful. Bye now.” Gilley blew a kiss into the phone before hanging up, and my heart lifted with hope.
“Michel?” I asked, pointing to the phone.
Gilley let out a mirthless laugh. “No, that was Julia. She called me twenty minutes ago, and I told her all about our super sleuthing, and she is totally on board!”
“She is?” I asked, blinking in surprise.
“She is!” Gilley sang, his voice going up a few octaves. “And she’s thrilled to attend a birthday celebration in her honor!”
“Ah, now I know why you’re so giddy. You get to plan a party with a giant budget and no one to tell you no.”
“Exactly,” Gilley said, grinning ear to ear. “We should get started on the guest list right away,” he said, hurrying to the kitchen to retrieve a pad of paper and a pen. After sitting down at the table, he began to scribble. “We’ll invite all the suspects, of course, and Marcus and Shepherd and—”
I sucked in a sharp breath and clamped my hand onto Gilley’s arm.
“Ow!” he said, tugging on his arm. “You know I bruise like a peach! What gives?”
“Shepherd,” I said softly, letting go of him. “Gilley, what am I going to do about Shepherd?”
“Why is this a problem?”
“I can’t invite Shepherd and all the men who’d dated Yelena and were featured in her show. He’s bound to catch on when I start asking these men all the same questions about their relationship with Yelena.”
“Just point him toward the guests and tell him to mingle. What’s the big deal?”
I stared at him for a long moment before I said, “Gilley. It’s Shepherd. The man who hates people, especially chatty people in fancy clothes whom he’s never met before.”
“Oh, yeah,” Gilley said, but then he eyed me like he took me for a simpleton. “Sugar,” he said next, “you have to invite him. He’ll be ten times as suspicious if you don’t. But here’s the trick. If you ask him to come, he’ll want to get out of it, because snobby parties, fancy clothes, and people in general aren’t his gig, and then you’ll pick a fight with him that he’s not supportive enough, and if he tries to apologize, you just continue to make a big deal out of it until he tells you in a huff he’s not coming.”
“You know,” I said, tapping the table, “that is actually a terrific plan.” Shepherd would definitely react the way Gilley had described, and picking a fight with him was easy.
It was the making-up part that might prove problematic, but I could worry about that later.
“Okay, Gilley,” I said, with new resolve. “Let’s plan this thing!”
/> * * *
The rest of the week went by in a whirl of details, emails, phone calls, texts, mad dashes to various boutiques and restaurants, and always another thing to do. Luckily, Shepherd was so busy working his case against Aaron that he wasn’t available for much time with me. I missed him, but I didn’t relish the impending fight I was supposed to instigate.
“Can we stop at the mailbox on Chestnut?” Gilley asked as we got in the car, ready to knock out the final errands for the party. “I have a card for Mama to mail out, and their last pickup is at four.”
“Of course,” I told him, making a right at the stop sign, instead of the left that typically took us to town. The mailbox was almost directly across the street from Sunny’s house, and I felt a pang when I thought of her. I missed her and wished that she’d be released from the hospital. Shepherd had visited her a couple of times, and each time he had come away unsettled, telling me only that Sunny remained in an agitated state, but nobody could pinpoint why.
We pulled up in front of the mailbox, and Gilley fished around in his messenger bag, hunting for the envelope he needed to mail out, and I looked across the street at Sunny’s beautiful home. Gilley got out of the car and headed to the mailbox while I waited. After mailing his letter, he trotted back to me and opened the car door and got in just as a big Range Rover pulled past us and turned abruptly into Sunny’s driveway.
I didn’t know why, but Gilley and I continued to watch from the car as Darius emerged from the driver’s side of the Range Rover and walked around to the rear passenger seat, where he got Finley out of his car seat. Then he balanced the little tyke on his chest as he also opened the front passenger’s door.
Gil and I both sucked in a breath when Sunny stepped out onto the pavement, looking frail and unsteady. Darius was quick to close the door and wrap an arm around her waist to steady her, before the two of them moved slowly along the drive to the walkway, then up the steps and into the house.
“She’s home,” Gilley said softly. “She’s finally home.”
I nodded, wondering if Shepherd knew. I wanted to call him, but I was still working up the nerve to have a fight with him later and didn’t want to jinx it.
“I wonder when we can go visit her,” I said.
“Let’s bring them some lasagna in the next couple of days,” Gilley suggested.
Gilley made the best lasagna I’d ever tasted. “That’s a great idea,” I said, putting the car into drive and heading for town, with thoughts of Sunny heavy on my mind.
“Did Shepherd get his tux cleaned?” Gilley asked me after a while.
Our party was black tie and formal wear, because a party featuring the reappearance of Julia Entwistle after a decade of withdrawal from public life would demand nothing less.
“I haven’t told him about the party yet,” I said.
“You what?” Gilley said. “Cat, the party is tomorrow! You can’t have that man showing up in a wrinkled tuxedo. Wait, does he even own a tuxedo? Ohmigod, what if he shows up in a plaid shirt and Dockers?”
I looked at Gilley incredulously. “What has gotten into you?” He was breathing heavily and gripping the seat belt tightly.
Gilley merely shook his head, and I thought maybe he was having a panic attack.
“Gil,” I said, thinking about pulling over to tend to him and unable to see a space anywhere to do that in the crowded downtown streets. “Remember? Shepherd isn’t going to come. I’m going to pick that fight with him, and he’ll stomp off and not show up.”
Gilley’s breathing slowed almost immediately. “Ohmigod,” he said, fanning himself. “I forgot that particular detail.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, eyeing him again. “This will all be fine by the end of the day, okay? And then we’ll have all of tomorrow to pamper ourselves and get ready. Which reminds me, I have to pick my dress up from the dry cleaner’s on North Main. We can hit that after we’re done picking up the extra bottles of champagne.”
“There, Cat!” Gilley suddenly yelled.
I hit the brakes, thinking he was pointing to something I was about to hit. “What? What!” I looked all around and didn’t see anything.
Gilley continued to point. “That spot right there!”
I realized he was pointing to an open parking space in front of a high-end boutique. “That’s two blocks from our next stop,” I said testily. Man, he was getting on my last nerve.
“No, pull in there!” Gilley insisted.
Frustrated that he was being so irrational, I pulled into the spot and put the car in park. I was getting ready to lecture him about toning it down a notch when Gilley jumped out of the car, looked back at me, and said, “I’ll be right back.”
With that, he slammed the door and ran into the boutique, for what I couldn’t imagine. He already had his tuxedo pressed and hanging on the door to his bedroom.
I waited for several minutes and was about to head in to look for him when he popped back into sight, holding a garment bag. “What in the . . . ?” I muttered.
Gilley came around to my side and opened up the rear door, where he hung the garment bag on the hook behind my seat. Then he grinned at me like he had a secret and came bounding back to the front passenger side.
“What’s in the bag, Gilley?”
“Your gown, Cinderella,” he said.
I furrowed my brow. “My gown? What’re you talking about? Did you pick it up at the dry cleaner’s and bring it down here? I hope you didn’t alter it. You know it fits me like a glove.”
“Yes, I know that gown, which you’ve worn three times since you bought it and have been seen everywhere in, fits you like a glove.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Sugar, you’re the host of the best party in town this weekend. No way should you show up in last year’s fashion.”
I glanced over my shoulder suspiciously. “How much is that setting me back?”
Gilley’s grin widened. “Zero dollars and zero cents.”
“Come on, stop playing,” I said with a sigh.
“I’m not playing. I told Willem about it, and he said that he definitely wanted to pick up the tab for the gown.”
I had been about to pull out of the space with the car in reverse, but the minute Gilley said that, I put the car back into park and pointed to the boutique. “Take it back,” I said firmly.
“What? Why?”
“Because I doubt it’ll fit—”
“Oh, please! Like I don’t have your exact measurements by now,” Gilley said, with a roll of his eyes.
“And because you’re taking advantage of Willem, and I’m not having it! We’re already over budget as it is.”
“By five hundred dollars,” he said, crossing his arms and offering me a petulant pout.
“That’s still fifty thousand five hundred dollars you’ve spent so far, Gil! That’s outrageous!”
“Oh, please, Catherine. That’s the price of a modest wedding. Willem gets it.”
I glared at him. “Take the gown back.”
“No.”
“Fine. Then I’ll take it back. Is the receipt in the bag?” I unbuckled myself and was on my way out of the car when Gilley stopped me by grabbing my arm.
“Cat, it’s one of a kind. There are no returns.”
My eyes widened. “How much did you spend on this one-ofa-kind creation?”
“I’m not telling,” he said stubbornly.
“Then I’m not wearing it,” I replied angrily, moving out of the parking spot to carry on down the street. I was furious with him for taking advantage of Willem’s generosity. The gown I had waiting at the dry cleaner’s was perfectly acceptable for tomorrow’s festivities.
“Okay, fine. Don’t wear it,” Gilley said and began to whistle.
I had a bad feeling, and it was made worse by the fact that when I pulled into the lot of the dry cleaner’s, Gilley began to inspect his nails. I pulled down the shade and flipped up the lid on the vanity mirror, expecting to s
ee the ticket for my dress, but it wasn’t there. “Where’s my ticket?”
“Probably in a stack of other tickets in there,” Gilley said, waving his hand casually toward the dry cleaners.
And then I knew. “What did you do with my gown, Gilley?”
“I put it someplace safe.”
I let my head fall forward onto the steering wheel. “I will kill you before this day is through, you realize that, right?”
Gilley grinned wickedly at me. “Don’t do that. Then you’ll have to throw another party.”
We didn’t speak for the rest of the afternoon. Gilley tried to make small talk, but I would only glare at him. Finally, we got home, and I left the gown in the car, determined to find something else in my closet that I could wear.
A half hour later Gilley found me in my closet, sorting frantically through my formal wear for a dress or a gown even half as good as the one that he had hidden. “I’m not wearing it,” I said when he entered with the garment bag dangling from his arm.
“Come on, Cat. Just look at it, will you?”
I pressed my lips together in frustration. I did in fact want to see the gown, and I hated my curiosity. But I couldn’t let Gilley know that, so I simply crossed my arms and glared at him.
He dropped the lower half of the garment bag and unzipped the gown.
My breath caught at the sight of it. The garment was made almost entirely of black velvet. It had a full, floor-length skirt, a cinched waist, and a sleeveless halter top. The neckline was a deep V, and it flared wide at the top, with a collar that turned up and was made of white silk sewn onto a black silk background, and that ensemble lined the entire length of the V, with small black buttons completing the vertical trim. There were also two cuffs made of white silk that were made to be worn like bracelets.
“Oh, my,” I said, breathless at the sight of such a spectacular gown.
“See?” Gilley said, moving forward to drape the gown in front of me and pivot me toward the full-length mirror. Even still on the hanger, the thing looked gorgeous next to my skin.
“Damn you, Gilley,” I said, shaking my head.
“What? Cat, you’ll be magnificent in this!”
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