Chapter 5
Meirna
“Ithought we were doing the pistachio sponge with rosewater mousse, alternating with layers of lemon sponge and mascarpone cream. Vicki, what is this?”
Poor Vicki.
Because of Bobby and my cake choice for our wedding cake, she’s about to get an earful for not listening to Catherine rather than me.
The bride.
I’m surprised she hasn’t fired us as clients yet. Vicki is an amazing baker who isn't lacking in clientele or business. The last thing she needs is mom-zilla over here schooling her cake orders and things we’ve—Bobby and I—have chosen.
“Bobby and Meirna decided to go with the almond sponge soaked in champagne syrup,” she replies flatly. “Layered with Tahitian vanilla bean buttercream and gold-dusted raspberries.”
Catherine’s head slowly turns to me, and I can already feel her red-hot anger from across the small table.
Though from the outside glancing in, you wouldn’t exactly notice.
Catherine’s perfectly styled blonde hair is immaculate with her pink dress and matching diamond earrings.
Her back is straight, legs crossed, the elegance of the rich, and the model figure of a socialite that can’t be seen glaring at me like a normal person with emotions.
Except, if you stared for a second longer, you’d notice her French manicured nails turn red around the edges because she’s gripping her fork too tightly.
“Meirna,” she says slowly, her voice this steady coo that’s a facade of fake and aggravated. “Darling, I thought we discussed this.”
We did.
And, for the sake of my sanity, I usually cave and just allow Catherine to have what she wants, how she wants it, because going to battle with this woman requires energy levels I don’t have in groves.
I should’ve done more cardio over the last two years.
“Bobby detests mascarpone,” I remind her. “And he wanted—”
“It doesn’t matter what you both like,” she cuts in a bit tersely.
“But what the guests will enjoy.” She shoves the plate of almond sponge cake away and lifts her chin haughtily.
“We’d like to try the dark chocolate truffle cake with hazelnut praline crunch layers, covered in Valrhona ganache, please. ”
Vicki steals a look at me because there is no way she’d be able to get a brand new wedding cake done by tomorrow, even if she stayed up all night.
The cake is done.
And again, why we’re here, honestly, I have no idea other than to appease Bobby’s mother and be on good terms with her because it’s important to Bobby.
I’d love to ship her off somewhere, however. She’s been almost impossible these last several months, and I’m reaching my wits’ end. I’ve never met a woman like her in my life and one is enough.
Tomorrow’s the wedding.
Then it’s over.
“Yes, Miss Harding.” Vicki finally says, striding away and taking Catherine’s piece of cake with her.
Meanwhile, I’m stuck with another twenty-five minutes of this then we’re on to my dress fitting.
Or, should I say, the new purchase of my wedding dress since Bobby ripped mine last night.
Catherine is going to love that.
“Did you weigh yourself before leaving the house this morning?”
My brows knit at her question. “What?”
“Weight,” she repeats with a bit of a bite. “For your dress fitting. We don’t need any more mishaps.”
“Catherine,” I start, balling my fingers underneath the table. “I don’t understand why we’re here. The cake has already been—”
“Bobby?” Catherine slowly rises from her chair, along with her surprised tone.
The sheer mention of my husband’s name has my heart racing with equal parts relief and warmth that he’s here, and with the recollection of all the vivid things he did to me less than twenty-four hours ago.
A warm blush descends along my cheeks as I follow Catherine beelining toward the door, and there, against the bakery’s pink walls and floofy decor, stands Bobby in a dark gray suit with his gaze already locked on where I’m sitting.
He’s absolutely breathtaking and out of place in this space. It’s girly and cute, while he’s dark and man.
I notice the stubble on his jawline and hate the fact that I conjure up how much his mother is going to hate it.
I love it.
Giving him a weak smile, his mother then wraps her arms around him, properly, of course. “Sweetheart, what are you doing here? Meirna and I are handling everything. You needn’t come to check in.”
How did you escape your father is the question I want to ask, but I’m definitely not objecting. When Bobby is around, his mother’s attention and sole focus are on him, not me.
“I came to see my wife,” Bobby deadpans, not returning her hug, and his tone doesn’t match his mood from earlier in his text messages.
I’m betting that his father, Alan, pissed him off about a dozen times this morning, dampening his mood.
Normally, Bobby is very responsive to her—he should be because Catherine is his mother—but he looks annoyed to even be in here.
Catherine lets out a laugh that’s jumbled between nervousness that he said the word wife before our planned wedding, and that it’s ridiculous to do so. “Not quite yet, sweetheart. But we’re almost there.”
I roll my eyes and sigh, already exhausted mentally from being with Bobby’s mother for as long as I have today.
An hour and thirteen minutes.
“Come,” Catherine coos, gesturing with her hand for Bobby to join us. “Meirna and I were just about to try the dark chocolate truffle with—”
“She doesn’t like dark chocolate.”
Catherine waves a dismissive hand in the air with a tsk and sits back down. “It’s about the guests’ experience. Not personal preference.”
Bobby stares at her blankly as she arranges her pink cloth napkin back onto her lap.
“Did you need something, babe?” I ask softly, receiving his attention within the next second. “I figure you have another busy day.”
He slowly shakes his head as if caught in a daze or a problem. “No, Daydream. I’m here to steal you.”
Catherine’s neck snaps in his direction. “What? We’re on a tight schedule, Bobby. You’ll see your soon-to-be bride tonight at the rehearsal dinner.”
“I want to see her now.”
That bold statement sends swoony butterflies fluttering in my stomach because I knew I loved Bobby before, but after last night, it’s like it’s triple-timed in measure.
I’m not sure how a man could become more attractive than he already was in my eyes, both physically and mentally; however, it’s happened to me.
Call it a post-marriage glow or the exciting future I have pictured in my head, but I could live in this kind of bliss for the rest of my life.
Is it reality?
Not sure.
But I’m really looking to find out where Bobby and I are at in five, ten, or fifteen years.
“Bobby,” Catherine coos gently, just as Vicki comes out with two plates of dark chocolate, whatever kind of cake it was. “We’re wrapping up here, and then we have Meirna’s final dress fitting at two. Then make-up at three—”
“Are you telling me that my prestigious mother, who has organized more than three hundred events, can’t spare my wife for three minutes?”
Catherine bristles at the direct callout when Vicki stays out of it because she quickly retreats the moment the plates hit the table. “Make it quick.”
I don’t wait for Bobby or Catherine to say another word, pushing my seat back and joining him near the front of the bakery.
He steps out first, holds the door open for me, then lets it close with an annoyed thud.
Yep, Alan.
Turning around to face him, Bobby is right there. The coat to his suit is wrapped tightly around my shoulders, already heated from his warmth, when his hands encase my hips underneath it.
“Daydream.”
God, I love that new nickname.
With Bobby, it’s always been babe or baby—which is fine—but daydream makes me feel magical and unearthly.
Like a goddess, Bobby is going to worship for the rest of his life.
“Husband,” I return softly. “What happened?”
“Why are you doing this cake shit with my mother?”
I frown. “I told you this morning…she called me eighty times and sent several text messages about all the things we had to do today. We’ve had this planned before.” Bobby’s green eyes flick over my head, and he glowers. “You didn’t say you didn’t want me to come—”
“You wanted an intimate wedding.” He drops his focus back on me, still giving nothing away to what he’s so upset about. “I have a surprise for you.”
I relax a little and narrow my eyes suspiciously. “Are we finally doing the cookie thing? Because if you’re going to suggest it, it’s too late. There is no way I’m baking over four hundred cookies in less than twenty-four hours.”
I wanted a cookie and milk bar instead of a ginormous wedding cake, but I’ll let you guess who shot that idea down quicker than a star.
Bobby’s hand glides dangerously close to gripping my ass before I prompt warningly, “Careful. I know your mother is watching us through the window.”
“And I would give a fuck because?”
I smile but furrow my brows because he knows why. PDA is not acceptable in the eyes of his mother, and furthermore, so is interrupting her perfectly scheduled plans.
Not that she’d ride him about it, but she’d comment a few times about how I allowed it to happen.
“Bobby, your mother will strangle me with her pearls if she has to wait in there without me another minute. I’d like to still be breathing when I leave with her in the next twenty or so minutes.”
“You trust me?”
“Yes.” He remains silent, but his hands speak volumes about where his head is at. And it’s not on wedding cakes or pissing his mother off, but what kind of trouble we can get in. “Why are you being secretive right now? Are you about to tell me you’re some spy or something?”
“I’m not that interesting.”
He doesn’t smirk.
Doesn’t smile.
Nothing in those green eyes suggests any sort of playfulness that is Bobby.
“Could’ve fooled me,” I lightly tease, resting my palms on his hard chest. “You’re pushing a line with your overbearing mother right now, and, unless you plan on kidnapping me from all this today, I suggest you let me go back inside.”
He says nothing.
“You look miserable.”
“I am miserable,” he returns immediately. “My cock isn’t inside you, and I’m currently fiending for my wife underneath me. It’s a different experience than it was before.”
I love those words and how he’s still thinking about last night as much as I am.
However, he just said them like he was served and had to go to court over a misunderstanding or a debt he owed.
“You couldn’t say that in a more depressing tone,” I deadpan, and I can’t help but look for any signs of…old Bobby.
New Bobby, while I love him as husband Bobby with the way he kisses and fucks me, is more gloomy than before. Bobby can normally shake it off within a few minutes or a drink, but he’s struggling with something.
“I’m not going to say that like my team just scored a winning touchdown, Meirna. It’s that serious.”
“You talk as though we’re never going to have sex again.”
He scoffs under his breath, which is reassuring in a way. “I can guarantee that won’t be the case.”
“Please don’t tell me your father upset you so much that it’s going to ruin—”
“Never.” He pulls me closer and, this time, he does grab a bit of my ass. “He won’t be getting in between us moving forward.”
What did you do or going to do?
Off him?
The absurd thought comes to mind, thanks to all the crime documentaries I watch, but then it sticks.
And stays.
Then festers.
Bobby’s irritability would take a starring role in how his mental state would explain a murder. I’m fully aware he’s had enough of Alan’s overbearing and rude way of teaching him how to run Harding Holdings, but Bobby isn’t a criminal mastermind.
He likes avocado toast with burrata and truffle oil, for God’s sake.
“You haven’t smiled at me yet,” I point out. “So I’m thinking there’s another issue at hand here.”
“Nothing more than my father is a class-A cunt.”
Ah, finally.
There it is.
“What can I do? He keeps this up, your mental health is going to be ruined, and there’s going to be nothing left.”
“There’s always you,” he mutters. “That’s all I’ve worked for. Not him and his bullshit company.”
I touch his forearm, nestling closer because his warm sentiment hints that my old Bobby is still there.
He’s just super stressed out and overloaded.
“I love you, Bobby,” I profess wholeheartedly. “Let’s just get this big wedding over with and on our honeymoon, where you’ll have a few days of no Harding Holdings to deal with. It’ll be great.”
“It’ll be perfect. You trust me?”
That’s the second time he’s asked that, and now I’m more suspicious. “With what?” He only stares at me, and I feel his rebellious streak coming to a head again. “Bobby, are we about to piss your whole family off? Mainly your father?”
For the first time since last night, the corners of his lips hike upward. “Would that be so bad?”
“No,” I drawl. “But, I don’t want you to suffer any of the repercussions of it afterward.”
“I can guarantee that’s not going to be an issue.”
“Really?”
“Most definitely.”
Naturally, I’m already on board. Anything he wants to do, I’m fully in support of.
“Then I’m all in.”