Chapter 40
BILLIE
I had become a master at urban setting camouflage, hiding in plain sight, and tonight, my advanced skills in being neither seen nor heard were in put into action.
The Vow Something Borrowed Something Blue edition launch party cocktail hour was in full swing and I’d stationed myself behind a hulking blue floral arrangement and an eight-foot ice sculpture of a swan wearing a blue garter.
Of course, my cloak-of-invisibility was imperviable to waitstaff. Nothing got past them. They saw all and heard all.
“Trying to get a head start on hide and seek?” a waiter asked, sliding a fresh flute of champagne onto the ledge beside me.
His nametag read “Gianni,” and he looked barely old enough to be legal, but he had that effortless, SoMa-barista charisma that made me instinctively distrust him as a romantic partner, but not dislike him as a person.
“Strategizing my emergency exit.” I pulled the glass closer to me, tipped it towards him in cheers but didn’t take a drink.
He leaned in, towel folded with military precision over his forearm. “A pretty thing like you can’t hide here all night.”
“You’d be amazed,” I deadpanned.
But then Gianni’s voice dropped, conspiratorial. “Are you sure? Drunk guy. Pinstripe suit. Incoming.”
I whipped around. Sure enough, a man had me in his sights and was headed my direction.
I blinked and in the time it took for my eyelids to shut and open again, my brain recognized him.
It was Ronan, one of the shortlisted names I’d given the cops who’d I’d suspected might be responsible for the notes.
He was approaching, double fisting champagne with predatory intent.
He was precisely the kind of man who believed ego equaled charm, and my brief, disastrous date with him had involved being invited to “see his yacht” (which, spoiler: was a heavily water-stained tandem kayak wedged in the back of his Prius), and a failed pre-cheese plate kiss.
He’d spent the second half of the evening making borderline lewd jokes and staring at my tits.
Once he made it to his target, me, there was no flicker of recognition as he leaned down and whispered with breath that would set the place on fire if a match was lit, “Hey, beautiful, you wanna play carnival, you can sit on my face, and I’ll guess how much you weigh.”
“No, thanks, Ronan. I’ll pass.”
As soon as I said his name, his entire demeanor changed.
“I’m not…no…” Ronan stumbled back, staring at me like I’d verbally slapped him. “You have the wrong guy.”
He swayed forward and I pushed his chest, guiding him in a different direction and he walked away from me.
Gianni, who witnessed the strange interaction, winked. “I’m here all night if you need me.”
“Thanks, but I’m good,” I told him sincerely.
Gianni disappeared into the throng, and I wondered what the fuck Ronan was doing at this event and why he’d been so strange. How had he gotten an invite? Who did he know?
I scanned the guests looking for clues, but not exactly sure what those might be.
The venue was one of those “industrial chic” warehouse spaces perched on the edge of the marina, all exposed ductwork and Edison bulbs.
The air buzzed with the sound of new money and old rivalry, everywhere you looked, someone was either schmoozing, being schmoozed, or plotting a hostile takeover of the passed appetizer trays.
Out on the outdoor deck, people clustered along the railing to take selfies with the Bay Bridge glowing in the distance, but I hung back in the shadows, now with a new mission, find out why Ronan the Creep was here.
When Bailey joined me in my corner ten minutes later, I saw the judgmental look on her face and I knew what she was thinking before she opened her mouth: I found you exactly where you are during most weddings we work, perpendicular to the action, hovering near an emergency exit, and looking mildly pained.
“There you are,” she said, accusatorially. “I knew I’d find you hiding.”
Yep, nailed it.
“We’ve talked about this. I’m observing.”
She eyed my untouched champagne. “You’re observing the carbonation.”
“Do you remember the guy that I told you about with the yacht—”
“You mean the kayak?” Her forehead creased.
“Yes.”
Her face scrunched. “Cheese plate?”
“Yep.” I nodded.
“Lady lumps looky-loo?”
“Lady lumps looky-loo?” I repeated.
“That’s what you said,” she defended herself.
“I told you he stared at my tits.”
“Exactly. Lady lumps looky-loo.”
I’d laugh about that later, right now I had more important things to deal with. “Okay, right, well, he’s here.”
She gasped. “No!”
“Yes!” I turned my sister around and pointed her body in the direction where he was, which is when I noticed he was standing with…Jeremiah’s mom, Stacy. “Holy shit, he’s talking to Stacy, Jeremiah’s mom.”
“The only person with Stacy is Jeremiah’s dad, Tanner.” Bailey sounded confused.
My stomach dropped. “Pinstripe suit?”
“Yeah.” Bailey nodded.
“Holding champagne?” I double-confirmed.
She turned back to me. “Yes, that’s Tanner, Jeremiah’s dad.”
“No, that’s Ronan. I mean, I’m sure it is Tanner, but when I met him, he said his name was Ronan.”
Bailey’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure it’s him? Maybe this guy Ronan just looks like him. They’ve been working so hard on their marriage.”
“It’s him. I just talked to him. He asked if I wanted to play carnival and sit on his face so he could guess my weight.”
Her face scrunched in an appropriately horrified expression. “Ew, gross.”
“I know. I don’t think he recognized me, and when I said, no Ronan I’ll pass, he got all weird and said I had the wrong guy.”
Her eyes widened. “Seriously?”
“Yes.” I got out my phone and pulled up my app. I scrolled through to get to the messages he’d left me and clicked on his profile, then turned it around to show her. “He’s one of those married sleazeballs that goes on dating apps.”
She gasped again. “Oh no. Are you going to tell Stacy?”
Before I could respond, my internal Adam Knight Early Detection System went DEFCON 1.
I didn’t need to look, I could feel him somewhere, his presence was like a gravitational force, a tectonic shift in the room’s emotional air pressure.
My Adam senses were not wrong. My eyes lifted, and the entire party seemed to snap into sharper focus.
He was easy to spot, he always had been, even twenty years ago when he was just a kid with too-short jeans and a shy, lopsided smile.
Now he looked as if he belonged in a cologne ad: tall, wide-shouldered, with that same unshowy confidence that made him seem both approachable and untouchable.
His suit was perfectly tailored, but he wore it as if he’d just thrown it on like regular clothes, and his hair was artfully mussed in a way that suggested he’d barely run his hands through it once before walking in.
And he was alone. At least for now. No Genesis in sight.
I hadn’t seen him since I moved out, and I felt my entire body go rigid. I’d spent the past week and a half missing him so badly it reminded me of the time I had walking pneumonia. I felt physically ill.
Now, watching him cross the room, I was acutely aware of every single person, including me, in our vicinity—who was looking, who wasn’t, whether my hair was still in place after my blowout this afternoon.
I tried to steel myself, but it was like my body had its own muscle memory and was already reacting to his presence, every nerve ending sparking to life as if I’d just eaten an entire pack of Pop Rocks.
He didn’t see me at first, he’d been intercepted by Trevor, who gave him a gentle nod in my direction.
Adam said something in return, nodded, and then he was walking toward me, threading the crowd with the casual confidence of someone who’d spent a decade navigating rooms just like this one, except probably in uniform.
He looked at me, directly, eyes crinkling at the corners, mouth pulled in a half-grin like he was about to say something clever.
He made it hard to pretend I was the cool, slightly bored observer I’d tried to be all night.
He slid into our little huddle, standing so close I could count the flecks of gold in his eyes.
I felt at once exposed and tethered, like he was the only real thing in a room full of holograms.
“What’s going on over here?” He sounded amused, but there was that familiar edge of protectiveness that made my insides do something resembling a triple axel.
“Billie is debating whether to drop a bombshell on Stacy,” Bailey said, never one to let sleeping scandals lie. “Apparently Jeremiah’s dad has been living a double life as—” she paused for dramatic effect—“a Ronan.”
Adam raised an eyebrow, glanced at me for confirmation. “A Ronan?”
Bailey, unfortunately, felt the need to fill Adam in on my date.
I was sure she thought he would find it amusing.
Spoiler alert: he did not. In fact, the look in his eyes by the time she was finished talking about what a creep he was made me wonder if “Ronan” was going to leave this venue with all his teeth.
Just as she wrapped up by sharing Ronan’s circus comment, an urgent voice called Bailey’s name from across the room. She squeezed my arm and, in her best impression of a CIA handler, hissed, “This isn’t over!” before melting away into the crowd.
That left Adam and me in a bubble of happily accidental seclusion, surrounded by three hundred people and yet suddenly alone.
He didn’t move to fill the silence, he just stood there, presence heavy, hands in his pockets, eyes doing that patient, searching thing that made me want to run away and cling to him in the same moment.
I concentrated on not visibly trembling, which was only semi-successful.
“Ten days,” he said quietly. Just that. A simple reminder of time elapsed, and the fact that he’d been counting, too.
I loved when he did that, said what everyone was thinking.