Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Autumn
We looked up at the ceiling of the huge ballroom and tried to count the number of lightbulbs in the ornate glass chandelier. It must have been at least three hundred. “Just the name Dorchester sounds fancy,” I said.
I’d never stepped inside a fancy hotel before I came to London, and not only had I stayed in one in Rome that was at least a thousand times bigger than the trailer I’d left behind in Oregon, I was now checking out all the best ones in London. Not to stay in, but for Hollie’s wedding venue.
“This is almost overwhelming,” Hollie said. “It’s just so big.” She sighed as if she was sizing up the prison cell she was going to call home for the next twenty-five to life, rather than her wedding venue.
“We’re just looking though, right? It’s not like anyone is going to force you to have a big wedding,” I said, trying to reassure her.
“Right. Can you do me a favor and take photographs?” she asked. “I’m bound to forget. I can barely think straight. And you have such a good eye for detail.”
“Sure,” I replied, pulling out my phone. I tipped my head back to see if I could get the entire chandelier in one shot. In the end, it took three.
The room was all huge mirrors and silk wallpaper and baby blue drapes that looked so full, they might be able to cover all of London if they were straightened out.
The entire room was like being on the Bridgerton set.
I took a handful of shots, trying to make sure I captured the scale of the room.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, turning a full three hundred and sixty degrees to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.
“So it seats up to five hundred and ten people,” Beatrice, the woman from the hotel who had shown us in, said. She came up behind us out of nowhere, making me jump like I’d been caught stealing candy from Trader Bob’s.
“But the huge advantage is the private entrance from Park Lane.”
I recognized that name from the Monopoly board—it was smack next to Mayfair, the second-most expensive property on the board.
“You said you had smaller rooms as well,” Hollie said. “Can we see those?”
“Absolutely,” Beatrice replied. “If you follow me to the lifts, I can show you our penthouse, which can seat up to thirty-four guests.”
Hollie nodded. “Yes, that sounds like a more manageable number.” The green tinge to her face began to fade and she smiled.
“So where is Dexter?” I asked as we got into the elevator, which had walls covered in green silk. I wasn’t sure if fabric on the walls was a British thing or just a rich-person thing. But I took a picture just in case we needed to remember the elevators. “Shouldn’t he be here today rather than me?”
She sighed. “He had some crisis at the store in New York. A security incident, whatever that means. He said if I narrowed it down, we could come back together and look at the rooms I liked best. But we don’t even know how big to go.
He knows far more people in London than I do.
Although he’s said he’ll charter a plane to bring people over from Oregon. ”
“A plane? But who would you invite from there?”
She shrugged. “Exactly. I just don’t know. Mom and Dad obviously. Anything else feels uncomfortable. Like I’m trying to show off or something.”
It was typical of my sister not to make a fuss, even when she was going to be a bride. “Well, like it or not, you’re going to be the center of attention on the big day.”
Beatrice guided us out of the elevator and through the door of what looked like a bedroom. Hollie froze as soon as she stepped into the room. “Oh wow. That view.”
I followed her eyeline and couldn’t repress a soft gasp. We were high enough up to see the London skyline stretched out in front of us, a jumble of buildings, big and small, with splashes of green breaking up the offices, palaces, shops, and homes. “You can see for miles. I completely love it.”
“If the weather’s nice, we could do pre-wedding breakfast drinks on the terrace,” Beatrice said. “Obviously, it’s difficult to imagine on a day like today. We’ve even held some ceremonies out here, but it’s a little stressful being so weather dependent.”
“Yes, that would be worrying.” Hollie stepped toward the windows, following the view, and I trailed after her, taking pictures of everything that caught my attention.
“But inside you still get the view.” She turned around to take it all in.
“It’s less intimidating than the ballroom but still beautiful. ”
“This room is so much fun,” I said, lowering my phone. “The dramatic red drapes and the cherubs in the fountain—it’s all very baroque,” I said. “Like a glamorous fairytale.”
My sister glanced at me. “Baroque?” she asked as if she couldn’t believe that I would have even heard of the word.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve been to Rome now, didn’t you know?”
Her face lit up with a smile as if moments like these were all she could have wanted for me. Me going to Rome with Gabriel and Bethany wasn’t exactly how she thought I’d get to travel, but I knew she was pleased I was spreading my wings.
“I can show you the Orchid room next if you want to follow me?” Beatrice said. “It’s very pretty for weddings.”
“How’s the view?” I asked. Beatrice winced slightly.
“Sorry, there isn’t a view in that one.”
“Then I don’t think we need to see it,” Hollie said. “I’m feeling a baroque vibe for this wedding.”
I laughed and linked my arm through my sister’s.
She shrugged. “London brought Dexter and me together. It only seems fitting that it should be a guest at our wedding.”
Even though I’d only been in London a couple of months, I understood the pull the city had.
The energy, the vibrancy. It was a hive of possibility, and it was where my sister’s dreams had come true.
This city would be the jumping-off point from where I was going to fulfil my ambitions. “I think that’s a lovely idea.”
We thanked Beatrice before clambering into a cab and heading to the next hotel.
“At least I know I want a room with a view—I think. Show me the pictures from the ballroom again,” she said, peering over to my phone.
I opened my photos and began to scroll backward. “Those red drapes were amazing. And did you notice the windows on the side? You get one hundred and eighty degrees of London in that room.”
“I want to see the ballroom again,” she said. “I don’t know if I’m being ridiculous writing it off so quickly.”
I kept swiping and eventually we came to the ballroom. “It’s really pretty,” I said. “The wallpaper is everything.”
Hollie nodded. “Do you have a wide shot?” She leaned over as if she were trying to swipe to the next photo herself.
“Let me see . . .” I kept swiping until I got to pictures of the chandelier that I’d taken first. “No, sorry, but I bet we can find something online or get Beatrice to send us something.”
“Keep going,” she said, pointing at my screen. “Maybe there was one before the chandelier.”
“There wasn’t,” I said, swiping again to reveal a picture of Gabriel and me in Rome.
I quickly snapped the image back to the pictures of the ballroom, hoping she hadn’t noticed.
“It’s a beautiful chandelier.” My heart clanked against my ribcage.
She hadn’t seen that, had she? I’d only seen a flash of something before I’d changed tack.
Hollie couldn’t possibly have made out what was on that last picture.
It had been Gabriel and me on the balcony of the hotel.
I’d been trying to get a selfie of the two of us with St. Peter’s in the background, but Gabriel was more focused on kissing me than posing for the camera.
“What was that?” she asked.
“That’s the last one,” I said, nodding at the image on my screen. “The chandelier was the first picture I took.”
“No, the one after that. It was a picture of you with a man.”
My heart plummeted to the ground like a skydiver without a parachute.
I started scrolling through to the pictures of the penthouse, pretending I hadn’t heard her and hoping to distract her with thoughts of her wedding. “I really prefer a room with a view,” I said, showing her the screen of my phone.
In a flash, she grabbed my phone out of my hand and tried to scroll through the pictures. “Hollie!” I said, trying to take the phone back, but she turned her back to me. I tried to climb on top of her, but she twisted out of the way. “Give it back.”
“Jiminy Cricket, it locked,” she said, as she turned back to face the front and pushed my phone into my hand.
“You’re insane. What are you doing, stealing my phone?”
“Tell me who that man was.”
“In. Sane,” I snapped, and I shoved my cell into my purse where Hollie couldn’t reach it. I folded my arms, fuming.
We sat in silence as the cab stopped and started along Piccadilly. She was going to have to apologize. How dare she just take my phone like I was a teenager she’d caught doing something wrong.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see her glancing over at me. I turned my head so I was focused on what was going on outside on the street.
More silence.
“I’m sorry,” she said, finally.
“How would you feel if I’d done that to you?” I snapped.
“I don’t have anything private on my phone,” Hollie replied.
She was so annoying. She knew that it was the principle that mattered. “Not the point. If you want to see something, ask me. I’m not a child.”
“I know,” she replied. “I’m losing my mind. Can I blame the wedding planning?”
I shrugged. I didn’t want to ruin her day, but she was way out of line. “Fine. Just don’t do it again.”
“I promise,” she said. I could hear the but before it was even out of her mouth. “But are you going to tell me who it was?”
I sighed. This was it. I was in store for a mammoth lecture. But I couldn’t lie. We didn’t do that to each other. I turned to face her. “I’ll tell you if you promise not to lose your goddamned mind any more than you already have.”