Chapter 2 Mila
Chapter 2
Mila
Am I having a stroke?
But if I were having a stroke, we wouldn’t all be in a catatonic state. It feels like the universe has hit the Pause button, because no one seems to be moving as the suggestion in Fin’s drawling tone echoes through the air.
Fin from all those months ago. Four, to be exact.
You’re such a good girl for me.
I push away the sudden echo of his velvety words. If they were made of actual velvet, the pile would be threadbare through overuse. Again, during my special alone times.
That night, my own words were much less smooth than his, though he seemed to enjoy the litany of expletives that accompanied my climax. Like I said, there’s a time and a place. And not only did he call me a good girl, but I liked it. Inexplicably. But what I don’t appreciate is the possibility of being outed.
I am a professional. I do not get caught in closets with members of the bridal party.
Except I did. And now I’m looking at the man who has been the basis of my fantasies since. Well, not all my fantasies. He doesn’t appear in the ones where Adam loses all his hair and gets adult acne. But he does star in the one where we run into that cheating piece of shit in Chinatown. In my mind, it’s usually a crisp autumn evening, and Fin is all adoring looks and stolen kisses, when we just happen to bump into my ex. After a few exchanged words (where a fierce Fin scowls and doesn’t let go of my hand), Adam watches us leave, all sad looks and pining as he collects his sesame chicken for one. Meanwhile, Fin and I walk off into a sunset of bursting love hearts.
So I might have thought about him in several contexts. Hot and demanding. Loving and protective. But more than that, imaginary Fin has worshipped at the altar of Mila way more times than I’d like to admit. And now he’s here, looking all sexy in the daylight.
What on earth ... Is the universe bored? Did she decide I haven’t suffered enough this year? She has no business sending him—
Oh, God, I think with a lurch. Maybe I’ve manifested him.
Ronny is always yammering about manifestation. She says the key is to visualize your goals, and visualization sounds like another word for fantasizing to me. Maybe my daily (nightly) imaginings—while using the memory of his touch and his voice, and his ... other things to get myself off—have brought him here.
Am I to blame for this?
As if I don’t have enough to worry about. A bride and groom who turn up late, telling me their lack of guests is “another story.” Well, I don’t want a story. I can’t afford for this wedding not to go ahead. I need it to be a success, and I need Trousseau, my company, to be responsible for that success. After watching my business inexplicably circle the drain of failure for months, this wedding is my final chance to save the thing I’ve put my heart and soul into.
I’ve had hundreds of satisfied clients over the years, and such joy and satisfaction knowing I played my part in their love stories. It’s been hard to understand how I went from a calendar booked out years in advance to clients suddenly unwilling to take my calls. But this wedding is my chance to put it all behind me. There’s just too much at stake for them to cancel!
My livelihood, my home, the means to improve my grandmother’s health.
Then, just like that, the universe presses Play, animation and action flooding the space.
“So you two have met?” Evie’s attention flicks between Fin and me.
“No.” I shake my head vigorously. This is the stuff of nightmares. Despite my denials, Fin answers otherwise.
“Yeah.” His gray eyes sparkle almost silver with amusement. “It’s Mila, right?”
My name on his lips sounds the way my orgasm felt.
No. No. Stop that, brain! And stop looking at him as though he still has his hand in your underwear.
Making a grasp for my necklace, I scissor the blue pendant back and forth. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember.” I drop the pendant like it’s hot because that sounds as though I make out with strangers in cupboards all the time!
“Huh.” His mouth curls provocatively, and I swear his taunting tone reverberates right through to the marrow of my bones. “Not even a little?”
There is nothing little about this man. Not even his pinkie fingers qualify. And he’s clearly not buying my response as my embarrassment suffers a case of secondhand cringe. Maybe I should just say I suffer from face blindness.
“I suppose you do look a bit familiar,” I admit, my shoulders hovering just under my ears.
“Could she mean generic ?” Oliver unhelpfully puts in as he gestures Evie closer to show her something on his phone.
“Which part?” Fin asks, his voice pitched low.
“Pardon?”
“Which part of me is familiar?”
Seeing your fantasy in the flesh again is so disconcerting. Hearing him use that low and gravelly closet tone of his, even more so. As for which part of him I remember most, I’m not going to say, even if months later I’m still obsessed with his mouth. His pillowy, kissable mouth and the dirty things he whispered that lit up my insides like Christmas lights.
Except, I realize his mouth doesn’t look exactly the same.
“Were you, by any chance, at the Singh-Arthur wedding?” I ask overly loud. This is a red herring. I have no desire to evoke the actual event.
“Were you?”
“My eyes are up here,” I hiss, making a V with my fingers and pointing them at my face.
“Yeah, but you have a stain,” he says as his eyes dip again.
I die a little inside, then slap my hand to my chest like I’m about to swear allegiance to my own mortification. How awkward! How embarrassing! How about a sudden sinkhole swallow me!
“Sorry,” I say loudly again. “I just didn’t recognize you because of your ...” I tap the side of my mouth as though I can’t find the word before spitting it out as though it tastes bad. “Mustache.”
“Some would call it a mustache and others an affront to womankind ,” Evie says.
What she said.
If he’d had a mustache when he stepped into the coat closet four months ago, things might’ve ended very differently. But they would’ve begun the same way, my mind whispers. With his comfort and his kind words at a time I really needed them.
“You don’t like it?” He gives an easy smile, the kind that brings out the hint of a dimple. “I’ve grown quite attached to it myself.”
“Much like a parasite clings to a host,” Oliver mutters.
“It’s awful,” Evie adds. “And stop flirting with Mila. She’s onto you.”
“I’m not flirting. I’m reestablishing a connection.”
Oh, I don’t think so.
“She’s far too sensible for you,” Evie retorts, turning my way. “I expect you’ve crossed paths with Fin more than once in your professional life. I sometimes think he’s London’s most popular groomsman.”
“Always a groomsman, never a groom,” he says in a low, purring tone.
A hot shiver pulses through me.
“He’s popular, all right,” Oliver adds with a meaningful glance.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Fin frowns. Something tells me he doesn’t do that often.
“Just that we were going to ask Mila to make sure all the coat closets were locked, given we know how fond you are of those kinds of spaces,” Evie puts in.
Panic blooms like an inkblot in my chest. Does that mean they know about—
“But then I remembered how hot it is here. No need for coats. Or coat closets. You’ll have to take your trysts elsewhere.”
The feeling in my chest takes on a different tone. From panic to ... oh .
Fin DeWitt is one of those. A wedding fuckboy? One I got off with. One who got me off?
“And could you just try to stop making women fall in love with you?” Evie folds her arms. “Turn off the charm. Just for five minutes.”
“It’s not necessary on my account,” I put in pertly.
“Oh, no, Mila. I was talking about the young girl.”
I’m not sure whether that makes me feel better or worse.
“Sarai?” Fin’s expression twists as he dumps his jacket over the back of one of the chairs. “She’s just a kid.”
Feeling a little better.
Evie glances my way and gives her head a tiny admonishing shake. “Women eight to eighty just can’t help themselves around him.”
And . . . worse again.
“Not all women,” Oliver corrects, his hand sliding around his fiancée’s waist.
“That’s because I like my men growly and grumpy. I wonder why that is?”
“You must be perverse.” Oliver pulls his fiancée closer.
Evie tips onto her toes, pressing a kiss to her groom’s cheek. The pair begins to whisper and laugh in a sweet-looking PDA.
“Not in front of the kids,” Fin says, but he’s smiling—a full-out dimple smile—like he’s truly happy for his friends. “Love,” he says with a shrug.
“Yes,” I answer simply. Life has been such a roller coaster lately, and it’s been hard to remember why I do what I do while trying to keep my head above water. But seeing Evie and Oliver so obviously in love is a reminder that I have one of the best jobs in the world.
I just need to get it to a place where it pays my bills again.
“What about you? Mila.” Fin seems to almost taste my name. “How do you like your men?” Slipping his hands into his pockets, he saunters closer.
I like my men the same way I like my coffee. Ground to dust and kept in my freezer.
“Marrying other women,” I say instead. “And in fabulous locations like this!” I tack on, sounding more like an old-fashioned game show hostess and less like a woman scorned. I mean, I’m not a woman scorned. Just a woman disappointed. I suppose I imagined our closet encounter as something special for him too.
“It’s good that you’ve met,” Evie says as she untangles herself from Oliver’s embrace. “Especially as Oliver and I have a favor to ask you both.”
“Both?” I glance Fin’s way. He seems just as bemused as me.
“Yeah, you see, the thing is, we’re not getting married.”
“Oh ... dear.” Oh, fuck , more like. I reach for the back of the nearest chair, feeling like I’ve been punched in the gut. This is a catastrophe. I’m going to end up homeless—sleeping rough on a bench in Victoria Station!
“I’m so sorry. Especially after all the wonderful work you’ve put in.”
“This isn’t about me,” I answer, lying through my teeth. “I’m just so sad to hear you’re not getting married.”
At least I’ve been paid, though the money is long gone. But this wedding was meant to be Trousseau’s relaunch. Also ... how come they don’t look like a couple on the verge of a breakup?
“Today.” Evie gives her head a tiny shake. “We’re not getting married today. I should’ve said,” she adds, painting on a bright smile. “Things really aren’t as dire as all that.”
Maybe not for you, I think as she reaches for Oliver’s hand.
“We’re not staying on the island,” he says. “We’re moving the wedding elsewhere thanks to a breach of confidentiality and the press learning of our plans.”
“It wasn’t me,” I answer reflexively, which probably makes it sound like it was. But I signed the NDA and I had plans, dammit!
“No, of course,” Evie says with a frown. “It was probably my stepsister. It seems she’s recently given up on finding a husband and become an influencer. She’s super pissed she didn’t get an invite.”
“As we understand it, the City Chronicle already have boots on the ground.”
Oliver makes it sound like a military campaign. Maybe it is to him.
“When did you hear that?” Fin asks.
“Before we left.”
“And you didn’t think to say anything?” he demands, his expression hardening.
“I’m doing so now,” Oliver deadpans. “You were already in Jakarta.”
“I could’ve stayed there.” Fin opens his hands, clearly confused as to why he’s here.
“They’ve chartered a boat, Fin,” Evie entreats. “They’re probably already out there, sitting in the bay. They might even be filming us right now! All I want to do is marry the man I love without those vultures watching on, just waiting for me to run again.”
The viral Pulse Tok. Seeing her distress makes me feel dirty once more for watching it.
“I’m so sorry this has happened to you both,” I offer, meaning every word. “It’s so awful.” Awful that they’re being forced to run. Awful that, on the board game of my life, I’m about to be sent back to square one.
“There must be something we can do,” Fin says, his gaze seeking mine. “Privacy screens or something?”
“Perhaps we could—”
“You know how they are, Fin.” Evie pivots my way. “There’s this awful gossip column that hounds me. It’s called A Little Bird Told Us, and since that stupid Pulse Tok video, they’ve barely left me alone. They seem to know where I’m going to be and when, hiding in bushes and climbing lampposts. I can’t even catch the Tube anymore! It’s like living in a fishbowl, people staring at me and wondering Is that her—is that the girl from Pulse Tok? The one who had a mental breakdown in the church. I’ve become notorious—I just can’t be all over the internet in my wedding dress again!”
“It’s all right, darling.” Oliver pulls her to his chest. “It’s decided,” he adds, his tone determined.
“We have to leave,” Evie says, struggling to maintain her composure. “But we can’t do it without your help.”
“Whatever you need,” Fin answers, her distress pulling at both our heartstrings.
“You’re a good friend.” Still in Oliver’s embrace, Evie reaches out to squeeze Fin’s hand. “We need you two to get married in our place.”