Love and Other Champagne Problems

Chapter 24

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I woke the next morning slowly, my blackout curtains preventing the sunlight from rousing me. The first thing that broke into my awareness was the heavy warmth that draped over my side, curved along my stomach. My mind traced the warmth, realizing that it wasn’t just on my side, but pressing all along my back as well.

And I found I very much so enjoyed the feeling of someone’s body pressed against mine.

I opened my eyes, looking down and finding the tanned arm tucked around me, and the hand that rested off my hip.

No, I didn’t enjoy the feeling of just anyone’s body pressed against mine. Only Sumner’s.

The second thing that broke into my awareness: how painfully hard the thin-carpeted floor was.

We lay in my bedroom, but on the ground, and my duvet we’d dragged from my bed did nothing to cushion the makeshift sleeping pad. Despite accepting my request for him to stay the previous night, Sumner refused to even sit on my bed, let alone sleep on it. You’re being ridiculous , I’d told him as I laid on the mattress, comfortable under my eight-hundred thread count covers.

His reply had wafted up from the floor. No, I’m being respectful .

After my failed attempts to entice him to join me on the mattress, I accompanied him on the floor. My hip would thank me for it later.

With the gentlest touch now, I traced the outline of his long fingers as they curled against my stomach, more of a whisper beneath my fingertip than actual contact. I wanted nothing more than to roll over, to see his sleeping face, but was too afraid the movement would wake him. I settled for gazing at his hand, remembering the first time it’d wrapped so easily around mine.

Of course, though, along with wakefulness, the events of the previous night also washed back in like a rising tide. Sumner’s mouth against mine, his confession winding around us and tying us together. My choice, and what impending consequences that choice meant. Aaron’s words. Last night, what he’d said had felt overwhelming, damning, but now in the light of the morning, I could see the spew for what it was worth.

Aaron wasn’t looking out for Sumner’s wellbeing, of course. Instead, he was banking on the hope that I would be selfless enough to walk away before I ruined Sumner. That, once pointed out to me, I wouldn’t dream of being selfish enough to continue down the path I set on.

I traced the lines on Sumner’s knuckles. I couldn’t remember when the last time I’d been selfless was, though. Aaron was putting his faith in the wrong place.

Sumner’s arm loosened around my waist as he shifted, making a low sound in his throat as he woke up. I lay still, trying to keep my breathing even, trying not to give away my own wakefulness, feeling him stretch and stir behind me.

A part of me just wanted to stay in this moment forever—albeit I would’ve preferred to be comfortable on the bed in this moment forever instead—and never move from the safety and contentment of Sumner’s arms. I didn’t want the rosy haze of lips on mine from last night to wear off, didn’t want the coldness of reality to sink in. In this moment, there was nothing to fear. There was no Aaron Astor and no impending proposal and looming disownment. There was just Sumner and me, slowly waking up with cricks in our necks.

Not now . I settled firmer against him. Later. We’ll think about it all later .

It was a childish move, sinking my head into the sand, but I did it anyway.

Sumner’s hand curled into a loose fist against my stomach before flattening once more, tracing the fabric of my shirt. “Good morning,” he murmured in the world’s most beautiful voice, breathy and rough and still laced with the lingering sleep.

I sighed at his unknowing refusal to stick his head in the sand with me. I reached down and covered his hand with my palm, fingers slipping in between his.

Sumner brought his body even closer to mine, the back of my legs connecting with the front of his. “How long have you been awake?”

“Not long.” I felt so small pressed against his chest, and this hadn’t been how we fell asleep last night. We’d been facing each other, and Sumner had traced his fingers through my hair until my eyes slipped closed. It hadn’t taken that long; I truly had been wiped out. “I think the pain in my hip woke me up.”

He gave a ghostly laugh behind me, one that disappeared into my hair as he ducked his head closer. “You could’ve stayed in your bed.”

“You should’ve joined me.” I scowled at the far wall. “What is the difference, anyway? We’re laying exactly like we would’ve up there, except we’re laying on dust bunnies instead of a memory foam mattress.”

“It’s different,” he said, but followed it up with no supporting evidence. Instead, his arm just tightened around me, pressing me closer to him. “What are you doing today?”

Staying here all day . “I should…” I drew in a short breath, something in my stomach turning. “I should probably go see Nancy.”

“Probably,” he agreed. “You haven’t seen her since Sunday, right?”

Not since we’d parted ways at the hospital on awful terms. I knew it was a terrible way to leave things, especially given her precarious health, but more than anger, a different emotion kept me away now. I ran my fingertips over his knuckles. “I’m… scared.”

Sumner’s voice was soft as his nose brushed my ear. “Of what?”

“I’m afraid I’ll go, and I’ll find her doing worse.” I once more scowled at the wall, because a burning sensation had crept into my eyes. “Which I know is stupid—if I thought she was going to be worse, I should’ve gone to see her as soon as I could, but…”

“It is scary,” Sumner agreed, and he pulled his hand out from underneath mine to trace his hand down my arm, starting where my short-sleeve shirt ended all the way to my wrist. it was a different sort of comforting touch, one that distracted me at the same time. “But it’d be worse to regret it later.”

The burning in my eyes intensified, and I squeezed them shut. Later. We’ll think about it all later . “When did you go to Spain?”

“What?”

“I heard your coworkers you’d been to England and Spain.” I settled back firmer against his chest, trying to feel his heartbeat. “I want to know more about you. I feel like… there’s more I have to learn.”

“And I have more to learn about you. We have all the time in the world to work through it.” Sumner’s fingertips traced their way back up my arm, a lulling, pacing path. “Those were both trips I took after high school, before college. It was the same trip, really—a long one. Fun, but I learned I’m not really a travel bug.”

I hummed a little as I took in his words. The ache in my hip was getting too painful to ignore, but I still didn’t move. Because there , finally—I held still long enough that I could feel the steady thump-thump of his heart through his chest. It was enough to ease the worries I’d woken up with from my mind, or at least ease them enough that they didn’t seem so heavy.

“I was thinking about what Aaron said,” I told Sumner suddenly, changing the subject. “Before you woke up.”

Sumner laid his hand on my arm, trying to roll me over. “Look at me,” he said at once.

“No.” My voice was resolute. “I haven’t brushed my teeth and I refuse to let you smell my morning breath. I wasn’t thinking anything bad. I was just… I think it’s funny.”

“What’s funny?”

“How convinced Aaron was that I’d do the right thing. He thought for sure if the choice was having you and ruining you, that I’d go without.” I let out a little breath, one that could’ve sounded like a laugh in different circumstances. “I just find it funny.”

Sumner propped himself up, his elbow digging into the pillows. “Why is that funny?”

“Not funny ha-ha. He just called me selfish, told me all those things about resenting you, and expected me to do the selfless thing.” I brought Sumner’s hand up to my lips, allowing his skin to absorb my words. “Do you think he knows what irony is?”

Sumner didn’t reply at first, most likely struggling to gauge my tone without being able to doublecheck my expression.

“I don’t know why he expected that to work,” I said ultimately. “He claims he knows me so well, but he doesn’t know me at all.”

Sumner still didn’t speak. I let myself roll just a little bit, just enough to look at him over my shoulder. Sleep left Sumner’s golden hair mussed, his blue eyes puffy, everything about him just chest- achingly breathtaking. How many more times? The words were a whisper in my mind. How many more times will I get to wake up to this? “So, you’re going to be selfish, then?” he asked with a hopeful tone. Like me selfishly , Sumner had said last night. I’ll let you.

“No.” I watched his eyes. “I don’t like you just because of the way you make me feel. If that were the case, I would’ve fired you the moment you called me out for being whiny. Or when you said you enjoyed the beans on toast.”

A corner of his mouth peeked up.

“I like you because you’re kind and funny and have the cutest puppy eyes. And, sure, maybe we still have a lot to learn about each other, but… that’s just another reason to keep going, right?”

The way Sumner propped up had him hovering over me, peering down as if I, too, was the most breathtaking thing he’d seen in a while. I couldn’t imagine that being the case; my hair had to be a knotted, rumpled mess. “I think we balance each other out well.”

“Meaning you balance me out well.”

“I meant what I said.” He withdrew his hand from mine and reached up to tuck my hair behind my ear, fingers lingering near the pulse point on my neck. “We’ve both spent our whole lives doing what other people wanted us to do. You’re showing me it’s okay to stand up for what you want.”

I rolled over flat on my back now, raising an eyebrow. “What are you talking about? You were the one that showed me it’s okay to stand up for what you want. Your whole ‘happiness is better’ mission, remember? ”

“I never let myself do it before,” he confessed, gaze tracing my face. “I never practiced what I preached. You’ve shown me that I can be my own person and the world won’t fall apart.”

“Even though my attempts to be my own person have my world falling apart.”

“We’re talking about me here.”

A startled laugh burst from me, and I pressed a hand over my mouth, far too self-conscious about my unbrushed teeth.

Sumner pulled my fingers away. “I love that I get your real smiles,” Sumner said, and he moved his hand from my neck to trace his finger along my lips. His fingertip caressed the bow of my top lip, tracing all the way down to the bottom. It was pure electricity, his touch, waking up my insides and causing my blood to sing. “They’re mine.”

“I’m yours,” I murmured, his finger bumping along my mouth as I spoke. His gaze dipped down to my mouth, the blue darkening like the sky as a storm rolled in. Watching the hue shift, morphing into a new color of desire, caused heat to flush through me, warming any of the frost that’d sunk its teeth into me the night before. I lifted my hand to cover my mouth again. “Don’t kiss me; I’ve got morning?—”

“Then keep your mouth shut,” he said with affection, grabbing my hand once more, but this time, he didn’t let go.

So, despite the bedhead and unscrubbed teeth, with his hand holding mine, Sumner kissed me, and I let him.

And yes, indeed, I very much so liked Sumner’s body against mine.

Later that morning, I walked from the hotel to the country club, enjoying the sunlight that gazed down. It seemed horribly cliché, and I’d never admit it aloud, but the air seemed fresher today, the sun brighter. For the first time in the longest time, a smile felt like it was constantly resting just underneath the surface of my mouth—the same mouth that’d kissed Sumner Pennington yesterday.

I was a girl smitten. My pessimistic side said ew , but I let myself be cheery. Just this once. And I made sure no one was looking.

With Annalise’s wedding happening on Saturday, the country club was a flurry of activity as everyone scrambled to prepare for the wedding of the century. It was all hands-on deck, which meant Sumner had a shift this morning. While I technically still had the power to whisk him away, since his babysitter role was more important than his Alderton-Du Ponte role, I continued to talk myself out of seeing Nancy, pushing it off. We could go later tonight. Maybe we could go out to eat together after we left. Our first official date.

My parents were also in peak stress over the fact that Vivienne Astor would be returning, along with her infamous husband. Some of their stress poured over onto me, of course, because the arrival of the Astors also meant that this weekend was D-Day—to decide which route to take my life.

Not that I even considered the alternative, but it was a lot easier to dream about abandoning everything I’d ever known versus actually doing it.

So, of course, there was only one person I could call who had experience with making her own decisions.

“I’m missing so much ,” Destelle groaned on the other end of the phone.

“That’s what you get for following your boyfriend around the country.” I walked heel to toe around the east pool, where no one was present on a Wednesday afternoon. The sun was bright, and I’d discarded my suit jacket over one of the lounge chairs. It was getting too hot to wear them, but it felt disconcerting walking out of my room without one, as if I was leaving half-dressed. “It’s only just become eventful.”

“It wasn’t that exciting when I visited in February.”

“I do bring the party with me wherever I go.”

Destelle’s comforting, musical laugh traveled through the phone. “So, let me get this straight—there’s a boy.”

I scrunched my nose. “A man , but yes.”

“And it’s not Aaron Astor?”

“It is not.”

“But you like him.”

I thought about Sumner’s warm arms around me this morning in bed, the effortless way he held himself above me as his lips touched mine. “Yes.”

“And not Aaron Astor?”

“Correct. Your listening and retention skills have improved.”

She made an offended noise on the other end of the line. “You have my full focus, babe,” she returned with a playful drawl. Her voice became serious. “It’s a pickle you’ve found yourself in.”

“You did it.” I came to a halt at the poolside, staring at my reflection that rippled in the pearly blue water. “You said to hell with what your family wanted and chose your own path.”

“I was a teenager. The stakes were a lot lower then.” She hesitated. “And my parents… they’re not like yours.”

“They’re not the worst?”

“I was going to say they’re not as cutthroat.”

Even though Destelle’s parents were influential in their own way, it was clear they’d had children because they wanted to start a family, wanted to grow their love for each other. My parents had me for purely transactional reasons, thinking of what I could’ve provided them in the future. Destelle was right; it wasn’t a fair comparison.

“My parents might’ve threatened to disown me, but they never would’ve,” Destelle went on. “But yours… they would.”

They would, and they’d do so swiftly. They’d cancel credit cards, disable my hotel key, have me removed from the premises. My Gilfman filled closet, revoked. It wouldn’t have even surprised me if they’d try to take the suit on my back, even.

The problem was that I’d become too accustomed to that Margot. The one who lived in the lap of luxury. I had no idea if I could even exist without everything my parents provided. It was purposeful on their part, of course. To create a life so lavish that I’d never feel comfortable leaving it.

“You told me not to choose Aaron,” I pointed out.

“I know, but—and I mean this in the most loving way—I never thought you’d listen to me. Not that I regret telling you to do it, though. If he’s just after your inheritance, screw him. But, like, not literally.”

“What do you think I should do, then?” I asked, both her and the reflection in the pool water.

The reflection didn’t respond, but Destelle did, though it was equally unhelpful. “I can’t tell you what to do, Margot. I’m in your corner regardless, of course, you know that, but this… this is too big for me to decide for you.”

Of course, I understood her reasoning—I wouldn’t have wanted to be in the position either—but it didn’t keep me from frowning. “I thought you grew a spine, Stella.”

Destelle, from nearly a decade of knowing me, could recognize my tone. A smile was in her voice. “Not with you. You know you’ve always been the decision-maker between us.”

“I do have a more straightforward personality.”

“More like a bulldozer personality.”

Now it was my turn to smirk a little, a twinge prickling behind my ribcage. I missed teasing with her. “I’m disappointed you won’t be home for the wedding.” It was a selfish thing to say, but it slipped out.

“I’m still coming home,” she assured me. “Just after the concert.”

“But I have to suffer through the wedding all alone.”

“It sounds like you have a cutie guy to keep you company, though.”

Not really . It wasn’t as if Sumner got to sit by me for the ceremony, for the reception. He’d be catering it, his hands busy all night, his attention forced to focus elsewhere. Even if he hadn’t been on the waitstaff for the event, it would’ve been a hard thing to explain away, why I was so interested in my babysitter.

After suffering in the heat for as long as I could, I collected my jacket and headed into the comfort of the air-conditioned country club interior. I chatted with Destelle as I headed to the lobby, and I passed by the double doors that led into the grand ballroom. They were open, which wasn’t common when there wasn’t an event, but when I glanced in, I saw why.

And the reason, unfortunately, saw me.

“Oh, Margot!” a crystalline voice called. In the room’s corner, surrounded by what looked like a camera crew, a young woman waved at me. “I was hoping I’d run into you!”

I groaned into the phone. “I’ll have to call you later.”

“You’d better,” Destelle replied, and I pulled my phone away from my ear as the newcomer approached.

Annalise Conan was known around the country club as the most beautiful woman in Addison, at least when she’d lived here. Her blonde hair was icy and long, natural ringlets that never frizzed a day in their life. She was tall, slender, fair, pleasant. She had a beautiful laugh and inspired the best warm and fuzzy feelings in everyone she interacted with. In a way, she was almost my antithesis, because everything she was, I was the opposite.

I debated on continuing walking down the hallway, but when the people around her turned, I realized it was a camera crew, and they pointed the lens at me. It stunned me enough that I didn’t move.

“Oh, it’s so good to see you!” Annalise said as she hurried to cross the room to me, her high heels snapping across the marbled floor. The four-man camera crew chased after her, attempting to get in front to capture the most ideal angle. “You’ve grown into yourself, truly!”

The words felt a little like a dig, but I ignored them. “I could say the same for you,” I said, as if she hadn’t always been so annoyingly perfect.

When Annalise came close enough, she grabbed my hands that’d been hanging at my sides and leaned in, pressing her cheek against mine and making a kissing sound. I jolted at the sudden closeness, but she was already pulling back by the time I attempted to. “How have you been? We’re doing last-minute finalizing of the details for the reception. It’s going to be just magical, Margot, you have no idea.”

The ballroom itself was in the process of being set up, with fabrics draping from the ceiling and string lights halfway lining the room. I eyed the man who held the camera in his hand, feeling my lips twist into a scowl as I stared directly into the lens. “You’re making a documentary of your wedding?”

“ Radiant She Magazine is doing a special feature on it all,” Annalise gushed, biting down on her giddy smile. “Have you seen the engagement photos? They paid for the dresses and gowns, and they rented a mansion in Napa for the shoot. It was stunning . Would you like to see? I have pictures on my phone?—”

“I’m sure I’ll see it all in your little video,” I muttered. Not that I planned to watch it, of course. I withdrew my hands from hers and slipped them into my pockets so she couldn’t grab at them again. “I’ll let you get back to it. ”

“You can take five,” Annalise told the crew. “I want to catch up with an old friend, if that’s okay.”

Friend. I had to keep myself from making a face, at least until the man lowered his camera. Even with the cameras off, though, Annalise’s smile didn’t change. Even though she was everything I wasn’t, she wasn’t unbearable . Not like the rest of the people at the country club. Annalise would’ve been the picture-perfect candidate for marrying Aaron, if a different heir to another company hadn’t put a rock the size of Jupiter on her finger first.

“It’s a little over the top,” Annalise said, and without the fish-eyed lens of a camera on her, she seemed to relax a bit more. She didn’t lose her poise entirely, but allowed herself to slouch just a little. “The cameras, the gold. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you it’s all my mom’s doing.”

“Mm.”

“I’d honestly rather just elope,” she went on, shaking her head. “Or have a small wedding. But, no, my mother has to do everything to the nines.”

I studied her closely. “What a hard life you live.”

Annalise snorted a little. “I know, I know. She’s paying for it all, so I should be grateful.”

I hadn’t realized Yvette had also accompanied her daughter until she stepped into the ballroom with another woman in tow. A wedding planner, I assumed, at least from the conversation. “… and make sure the lighting is grand and golden,” Yvette was saying to the woman as they approached. “I want her to look like an angel from heaven, all warm and ethereal.”

Annalise straightened upon her mother’s presence, once more donning an excited expression over all the final wedding planning.

“Margot,” Yvette greeted in a less-than-friendly voice. “Getting ideas for your own wedding?”

I didn’t even blink. “No.”

“That’s right, that has to be coming up,” Annalise said, laying her hand on my arm. “Have you met him yet? Aaron? He’s handsome, isn’t he?”

Good God, he was all anyone ever wanted to talk about. “Where’s your fiancé?” I asked, glancing around the empty room. “He isn’t helping with the setup?”

“Oh, he doesn’t care about the way anything looks,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Just as long as I’m happy.”

“Which is just how it’s supposed to be,” the wedding planner said with a wink, causing all three women to laugh.

I didn’t. “So, he’s got no say in any of the wedding planning?”

“He got to pick where we honeymoon.” Annalise squeezed my arm with a waggle of her eyebrows. “I’m sure he’s more excited about that, anyway.”

Mrs. Holland gave a scandalized gasp and swatted at her daughter’s arm, but her words had already sunk in my stomach. Our paths were glaringly different; Annalise was blessed enough that her wedding wasn’t an arranged one—she’d managed to find love as naturally as a rom-com. She could enjoy and even tease about her honeymoon. It wasn’t the first time I’d thought about a honeymoon of my own, of course, but it was the first time I actually paused and thought about what would happen during it.

If I married Aaron, would he be expecting an actual marriage? Surely. Who would agree to a sexless marriage?

Not that I would marry Aaron. I wouldn’t. I didn’t even know why I was thinking about it.

When I finally extracted myself from the conversation and walked out of the ballroom, I ran straight into Sumner.

“Woah.” His hands came up, latching onto my arms and steadying me. He peered down, a surprised smile on his face. “I was just thinking about you.”

And I was just thinking about my nonexistent honeymoon with Aaron . “Here I am,” I said awkwardly. Aside from my thoughts about Aaron, I felt shy to look in Sumner’s eyes after this morning, waking up in his arms and kissing the morning away. I never was shy; I didn’t know I had it in me.

Sumner must’ve thought my awkwardness was cute and endearing, because his smile broadened. He dropped my arms, though, severing our connection. “When did you want to go to Nancy’s?”

“This is about the time she takes her midday nap,” I lied, starting down the hallway, letting him follow. I fluffed my suit jacket over my arm, shaking off the strangeness. “So maybe later.”

He saw through me. “Margot?—”

“I was thinking,” I said as we approached the lobby. “We should go on an official first date, shouldn’t we? I never got a chance to take you to Pierre’s to eat—you’ll love it. ”

“You just want your avocado toast.”

I cracked a smile. “You do know me.”

I reached for him, but Sumner slid just out of reach, eyes shifting around. “Not here.”

“Here” meant down the hallway from the elevator, just in front of one of the staff rooms. If we continued down the hallway, we’d get to the lobby. Right here, though, no one was around.

In that moment, a voice floated from the direction of the lobby, just loud enough for the owner to register. “It’s great that you flew in early,” Aaron Astor said, sounding as if he were walking closer. “We can get a round of golf in before?—”

Sumner’s reaction was far quicker than mine. He gripped my wrist and tugged me toward him, simultaneously slapping his ID card on the staff only door. He rushed us inside, sealing it quickly and shutting us inside the narrow darkness.

I blinked, but my view didn’t change. “So, you can recognize Aaron Astor by his voice now, can you?” I mused as I stared at him in the black. Or, really, stared in his general direction. “I take it back. My parents won’t be pissed if you run off into the sunset with him, but I will be.”

“I was waiting for him to appear, actually.” Sumner flicked the light switch on the wall, and then the small closet brightened with light. It was a storage closet for linen and towels, most likely an area where someone folded them, because there was a long countertop stretching against the back wall. “The bridal party has been helping set up for the wedding all morning. I figured he’d turn up sooner or later, and it had to be the moment I found you.”

I hummed a little as I glanced around the space. Sumner stood just in front of the door, blocking any escape, but also blocking anyone from being able to come in. Aaron, even if he had seen us, wouldn’t have been able to follow without a key card, so we were safe in here. Most likely, Aaron was already gone, disappeared into the main ballroom. I almost told Sumner this, that we could probably step out now, but in the small space, my thoughts began to tip-toe down a different path. A path that chased away those negative thoughts and feelings of the previous conversation, at least for a moment.

A small smile tipped my lips.

Sumner watched my mouth as it smiled. “What?”

“I’m leaving the hotel today,” I said, taking a slight step closer.

“To someplace other than Nancy’s?”

With a slight touch, I rested one hand on Sumner’s side, feeling the firmness through his polo. “I’m leaving the hotel,” I repeated, watching as his breath hitched. “Which means you’re going to tell Mr. Roberts you had to come with me. Which means you’re mine now.”

I loved that Sumner wasn’t too much taller than me, so I didn’t have to fight to draw his mouth to mine. All I had to do was tip onto my toes and lean in, and that was what I did. With my hand curving around his side, I leaned into him, kissing him without a trace of delicacy in the small space of the closet.

Even if his words had been ever true to his positivity, I hoped this moment could chase away any shadow of a doubt, if it lingered with him. I didn’t care about Aaron and my parents and what they wanted. I just wanted Sumner.

“Margot,” he murmured against my mouth, but his lips were yielding against mine. “We should?—”

“Kiss. We should kiss.”

Sumner melted into me, responding to my touch, my lips. And for a moment, the power balance weighed heavily in my favor, the kiss mine , under my full control. He let it go on for a few more moments before shifting.

His mouth became a firmer pressure on mine, the confidence building from my encouragement. One of his hands came up to cup just under my jaw, the other falling to the flare of my hip. The two points of contact were the grounding points of electricity, and it hummed through me, sparking each time his lips parted from mine and returned with urgency. With his grip on me firm, he pushed closer.

Sumner walked me backward, backward, until my spine collided with the housekeeping cart that was parked in the corner of the closet. Sumner pressed me firmer against it, the plastic digging into my back, but I could barely feel anything other than his hands as they roamed over my body. The thin linen cloth was a cruel barrier. My own hands were aching to run underneath the polo, to feel the smooth skin of his stomach, but for some reason, wouldn’t go any further than pressing against his cloth-covered chest. My mind was brave, but my fingers were shy.

He clasped my waist, and without breaking his mouth from mine, he lifted me up onto the housekeeping cart. At this angle, he had to tip his head back to kiss me, but I was at the perfect angle to taste him deeper. He stepped between my knees, his hands tightening on my hips in a way that caused my heart to race faster and faster.

“Okay, okay,” Sumner gasped, pulled back from me, chest heaving. “Let’s—let’s stop here.”

I watched him attempt to recover from the moment, his swollen lips parted as he tried to catch his breath. Something about the sight of him undone lit a warmth inside me, a flame licking along my insides. I locked my legs around his waist, holding him to me. “Not yet,” I murmured, reaching my hand around the back of his neck to twine my hands into the ends of his hair. “Not that easily.”

“You…” Sumner let out a small breath, and he laid his palm on the surface of the housekeeping cart beside my hip to brace himself. “You’re a bad influence.”

“Why bad?” I slipped my fingers further into his hair, pressing into his scalp. “You don’t like it?”

Sumner’s eyelashes fluttered, the blue in his eyes growing stormy. “A bad influence,” he repeated, though this time far, far breathier. “Listen, I wanted to tell you before you found out from anyone else—your parents told me I’m not working the wedding.”

“Like, not being my babysitter during it?” It made sense he wouldn’t be needed, since I’d be either on Aaron’s arm all night or with my parents. “Or not catering?”

Sumner sighed. “They asked me to not attend altogether. ”

My fingers hung limply off his belt loops, my arms suddenly becoming heavy. “Did they say why?”

“Aaron asked for me not to attend. They said… they said that they no longer needed my services with you.”

His words broke apart the haze his kiss had settled over me, but I still didn’t let him go. He didn’t step back either. Of course Aaron asked my parents to not let Sumner attend the wedding; he probably asked them to fire Sumner, too. Anything to separate us. Aaron no doubt thought that was his best chance.

But them firing Sumner as my secretary also meant I was also running out of time before I had to make the big decision. “It doesn’t mean we have to stop spending time together,” I told him. “Just because you’re not my secretary anymore doesn’t mean anything.”

“There’s something else.” Nervousness tightened his gaze. “You know… You know how you said it’s okay that we don’t know everything about each other, that we can get to know each other as we go? Well, there’s something I want to tell you. Later tonight. It’s nothing bad, but something that will probably be a long conversation.”

My frown deepened. “Pass.”

Sumner chuckled a little, but it was a tense sound, one that did nothing to ease me. “I’ll get you an avocado toast for it.”

“That’s a brunch food. I can’t have it for dinner.”

“You’re saying no to avocado toast?”

No, I was saying no to whatever serious conversation Sumner wanted to have. It was a bad sign, probably, that we were not even one day into our relationship and I wanted to dodge the important conversations. I was back to sticking my head in the sand, it seemed. “Tonight,” I said, readjusting my legs in how they were wrapped around his waist. “But not now.”

“Not now,” he repeated, eyes falling back once more to my lips.

With my grip on his hair, I angled his head back once more and reclaimed his mouth with mine.

“Oh!”

We’d been so absorbed in each other that we hadn’t even heard the whirring click of the locked door unlocking and then opening. At the exclamation, Sumner broke away from me, and this time, I allowed him to untangle himself with ease. A middle-aged woman in the country club’s teal polo stood there with her jaw dropped open fully, scandalized—but not looking away.

I hopped off the counter with as much grace as I could muster, thanking my lucky stars that my jelly legs held me up. “Hope we didn’t startle you too much,” I said to the woman in an unaffected tone, willing my pulse to slow down. Channeling my ice queen self was a lot harder when my blood burned. “We were just making sure everything was… well-stocked.”

I looked at Sumner for him to say something in support of my lie, but he was absolutely terrible at lying—he choked on his breath, his neck beet red in embarrassment.

“Happy cleaning,” I said with false cheer, grabbing Sumner’s wrist and tugging him past the woman and out of the closet. He stumbled out after me as I headed toward the lobby. “We really need to work on your poker face, Sumner.”

“Sumner Pennington!”

Sumner and I both turned sharply toward the new voice, finding a man in a green sweater with ankle-length pants striding over to us from the direction of the lobby. Thankfully, not Aaron, who we seemed to dodge. The man looked about Sumner’s age—maybe a few years older—with a speckling of well-groomed facial hair along his jaw. I stared openly at him, because I knew for a fact I’d never seen him before in my life. He wasn’t a member at the country club.

Sumner, though, recognized him; that much was clear by the way he drew in a breath. Not quite a gasp, but more of a bracing sound, one filled with surprise.

“It’s so good to see you,” the man said as he came closer, his grin broadening with each step. He loomed tall, but his smile was too boyish to be imposing. “It’s been way too long.”

“Too long,” Sumner echoed as the man pulled him in for a hug, clasping Sumner hard on the back. I studied the differences in their posture. The man, who looked effortlessly happy about seeing Sumner again, was a stark contrast to Sumner’s visible discomfort. Sumner’s blue eyes cut to me, a look of almost panic in them.

I decided to cut in. “And who might you be?” I asked in a dull voice, maintaining an icy cold shoulder to whoever this was who was making Sumner so nervous.

“Michael Huntsly,” he replied, pulling off Sumner and offering me a hand. The Rolex on his wrist snuck out from underneath the sleeve of his sweater, a peek-a-boo of expensiveness. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Huntsly,” I echoed, returning the firm grip. I couldn’t figure out why it sounded so familiar. The situation, the longer it continued, only left me more and more confused. I tried to sort through the pieces, but I couldn’t figure out how they fit together. “How do you know Sumner?”

Sumner opened his mouth to answer, but Michael replied, “We were friends back in California.”

“Really?” I kept my intrigue to a minimum, at least visibly. Sumner had talked about his friends once before, and I tried to recall what he’d said. One was engaged and one was busy all the time. I thought about asking which one he was, but when I looked at Sumner, he still seemed stiff as a board. He wasn’t looking at either of us, his gaze unfocused on Michael’s shoes. His face was pale.

I laid a hand on his arm, ready to give us an out of this conversation that was making him so uncomfortable. “Well, we were just on our way?—”

“Could you maybe give us a few minutes?” Sumner asked me suddenly, his eyes wide. He attempted a smile, but it was worlds away from his genuine grin that I saw through it immediately. “To catch up?”

“Of course,” I replied without pause, giving his arm an affectionate squeeze. Comfort , I tried to convey, except I wasn’t as good at it as he was. I turned to Michael. “It was nice to meet you.”

He had a smirk on his face as he glanced between the two of us, offering his hand out once more. “Hopefully we can get to know each other before I go back home. It was a true pleasure to meet you…” He trailed off expectantly.

I placed my hand in his grip. “Margot.”

The easygoing grin he’d had on his face the entire time faltered then, subtly enough that if I hadn’t been looking, I wouldn’t have noticed. But I was always looking; I always noticed.

I still gave Sumner the privacy he asked for, though, mind working. If this was the friend who’d introduced him to beans on toast, the one he butted heads with on the phone, maybe Sumner had mentioned me. Maybe Sumner told him more about the selfish rich girl side about Margot Massey in the beginning instead of the version of me now, maybe that was why Michael’s expression had faltered. Maybe?—

I stopped at the mouth of the lobby. In front of the front desk sat a woman in a wheelchair, her head too low to even see over the top of the mahogany. “Nancy?”

She didn’t hear my voice at first, so I called her name again. Nancy seemed to slump back in her wheelchair when she found me, her frail hands reaching for the guards on her wheels. “There you are,” she said, her voice breathy as if she were about to cough. She shot a glare to the receptionist. “Wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Like she had Sunday, she looked rough . Gray. Like keeping her spine upright was taking all her energy. “Why were you looking for me at the country club and not the hotel?”

Nancy did cough this time, a congested sound. “I… thought I was at the hotel.”

“Who brought you here?” I didn’t recognize anyone in the lobby.

“Ally had hot yoga.” Nancy craned her neck, attempting to look around. “I understand why living here isn’t a hardship. There are delicious men everywhere . ”

The urge to give her the cold shoulder was strong, especially because she was acting like the last time we parted had been on good terms. Not her being rushed to the hospital and then yelling at me for being concerned. The urge, too, to scold her for yet again leaving the house tugged at me, but I held back.

Nancy picked up my hand before I could say anything. Her fingers were icy cold, and when I looked closer at them, I could see their color was grayish. “Walk me around the grounds, would you?”

“What? Why?”

“It’s been too long since I’ve seen everything.”

It wasn’t often Nancy asked me for favors, at least not in the direct way as she had. Perhaps this was her way of waving a white flag after the whole hospital incident, attempting to get on my good side so I’d start visiting again. Perhaps she just needed someone to wheel her around and preferred me, who wouldn’t be sappy and dramatic like Ms. Jennings or Yvette would be.

I walked around to the backside of her wheelchair and grabbed the handles. “Annalise’s setting up in the ballroom.”

Nancy coughed, and it morphed into a grumble. “Show me everywhere but the ballroom, then.”

Despite everything, I allowed myself a small smirk.