Chapter 27
brIGGS
The guest room had become my office after day three when it became clear I would be sleeping in her bed every night.
I wasn’t complaining. She offered to let me use her office, but that felt like raiding her purse.
It was private. Her domain. She had her own filing system.
And not to mention, it was cluttered. Cluttered in her way but too much for me.
I liked a clear desk. No clutter. No knickknacks.
And because I’m anal and prefer to do my big work on a desktop, I had one delivered. I ordered the keyboard I like because I was a creature of habit. I spent my days working in the office while she was out doing meetings, cake testings, and whatever else she did.
When she got home after a long day, we had dinner together. I either cooked on that amazing grill, or we ordered in. I noticed she wasn’t big on cooking. Or she just didn’t have the time. And she lived alone. I didn’t do a lot of my own cooking either when it was just me.
It was nice. That was the word I kept returning to, which was insufficient but accurate.
It was comfortable. Content. There was nothing lacking.
Nice gets a bad reputation for being basic, but there’s something very comforting about not needing more.
We didn’t need to chase a feeling or spice things up.
It was perfect as it was.
I was at my laptop with the financial projections for a proposal I’d been building in the margins of everything else.
After learning more about what Mandy did, it had given me an idea.
Retail locations. Three to start with. One in New York and another in LA, and a third to be determined based on market analysis I was still completing.
It was an idea I’d been turning over for a while, the natural next step if Blackwell wanted to move beyond wholesale and digital into a physical brand experience.
The partnership with Cleo and Callum and Mandy made it more viable than it had been six months ago.
A lifestyle brand needed somewhere to live.
Brides needed to walk into a store and have the total experience.
Mandy told me brides were very tactile. They always touched the fabric swatches even if the fabrics were all the same and it was only the color that was different.
Some of them needed to smell the invitations and flowers.
It wasn’t the kind of experience that can happen behind a screen.
Retail stores were the next thing. We had to make it happen one of these days.
I was working through the LA market numbers, which were interesting. There was enormous consumer appetite and equally enormous commercial real estate costs. The celebrity factor would be a huge draw, but I knew we’d be cutting out the mid-tier market.
My phone vibrated from where it sat on the corner of the desk. I picked it up and saw it was a message from Dash. No message, just a link.
It was to an Instagram post from Mandy’s account.
It was a repost of a photo of us at dinner the night before.
Someone had taken our picture unbeknownst to us.
That wasn’t entirely true. I didn’t know the exact person who took that picture, but one of the reasons we went out to dinner at Nobu was to get seen.
We needed to make sure people didn’t forget us. Free marketing and all that.
I couldn’t help it and had to read a few of the top comments. They made me laugh. People saw a moment in millions of moments and decided they knew us. I set my laptop aside and rubbed my eyes. The numbers were starting to blur together anyway.
The truth I’d been avoiding all week sat heavy in my chest. Whatever this was between Mandy and me, it had an expiration date. Three months, we’d agreed. Less than that now.
I left the guest room and made my way to the kitchen for a snack.
My snacks. The stuff I stocked in my fridge.
I had made myself at home. My clothes were in her closet.
My toothbrush sat next to hers in the bathroom.
We’d fallen into routines like we’d been doing this for years instead of a week.
Morning coffee together. Her telling me about her day over dinner. Falling asleep with her in my arms.
It felt real. It felt like home.
But it wasn’t. Not really.
I had a life in New York. Work that needed my attention. The team was doing their best, but there were things that required my physical presence. Adrian had been patient, but that patience had limits. He was juggling a lot right now. One of us needed to be in the office.
I didn’t want to leave. More like, I wanted to leave, but I didn’t want to leave her.
Mandy had her entire career here. I’d seen her calendar.
She was booked solid for the next two years.
Weddings almost every weekend, consultations during the week, site visits, and tastings, and all the million things that went into making someone’s perfect day happen.
Her business was thriving. She’d built something incredible from nothing.
It was only going to get busier with the recent collaboration.
I couldn’t ask her to leave that. And she couldn’t ask me to abandon my family’s company and my responsibilities. We were on opposite coasts with zero chance of meeting in the middle.
The rational part of my brain knew how this had to end. We’d stick to the original agreement. Three months of playing house, then a quiet divorce. We’d both walk away with what we needed. She’d have her reputation intact and a successful partnership with Blackwell Couture. I’d have… what?
Some more profits for the company. My old life back. My empty penthouse. My solitary dinners. My perfectly controlled existence where nothing unexpected ever happened and no one made me laugh until my sides hurt or convinced me to sing karaoke or challenged me to be better than I was.
The house felt too quiet without her in it. I checked my phone. Nearly ten. The wedding had been scheduled to end at nine, but these things always ran late.
I poured myself a glass of water and stood at the kitchen window. When had this happened? When had I gone from viewing this as a temporary arrangement to something I actively dreaded ending?
My phone buzzed. A text from her.
Mandy: Finally wrapping up. I’m exhausted and starving. Be home in 20.
Me: I’ll order food. What do you want?
Mandy: Surprise me. Just nothing healthy. I need comfort food.
I ordered from the Chinese place she loved, making sure to get extra of her favorite orange chicken.
She came through the door looking absolutely wrecked. Her hair had escaped whatever style she’d put it in that morning. Her makeup was smudged. There was what looked like frosting on her sleeve.
She was beautiful.
“Hi,” she said, dropping her bag by the door and toeing off her heels with a groan of relief.
“Hi.” I held up the takeout bags. “Orange chicken, spring rolls, and that fried rice you like.”
Her face lit up. “You’re perfect. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Not recently.”
She walked over and wrapped her arms around my waist, burying her face in my chest. I held her, breathing in the scent of her shampoo mixed with the faint smell of wedding flowers.
“Long day?” I asked.
“The longest.” Her voice was muffled against my shirt. “But it was beautiful. Everything went perfectly. The bride was so happy she couldn’t stop crying, which made her mother cry, which almost made me cry. There was a lot of crying.”
“Sounds traumatic.”
“It was wonderful.” She pulled back to look up at me. “But I’m so tired I could sleep for a week.”
“Let’s get you fed first.”
We settled on the couch with our food. She told me about the wedding while we ate. I watched her talk. I couldn’t look away. Didn’t want to look away.
This feeling in my chest was something I’d never experienced before. It was terrifying and exhilarating and I had no idea what to do with it.
“You’re staring,” she said, a smile playing at her lips.
“Sorry. You’re just—you get really animated when you talk about your work.”
“It’s my favorite thing.” She set down her mostly empty container. “It never gets old.”
“You’re good at it.”
“I am.” She said it without arrogance, just stating a fact. “I love what I do.”
I should have brought it up then. The conversation we needed to have about what happened when my time in LA ran out. About how this couldn’t last forever, no matter how much we might want it to.
But I looked at her tired smile and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t ruin the perfect moment with reality.
Tomorrow. I would bring it up tomorrow.
“Come on,” I said, standing and offering her my hand. “Bath time.”
“Bath time?”
“You’re exhausted. Let me take care of you.”
Something softened in her expression. “Okay, sure.”
I led her upstairs and ran the bath while she sat on the edge of the bed, literally falling asleep sitting up.
I added the lavender bath salts she kept under the sink, made sure the water temperature was perfect, and lit the candles on the edge of the tub.
There were candles everywhere in the house.
“It’s ready,” I said, coming back into the bedroom.
She’d already changed into her robe, her work clothes in a pile on the floor. I picked them up and tossed them in the hamper while she headed into the bathroom.
“Thank you,” she called out.
“You’re welcome.”
While she soaked, I laid out her favorite pajamas. I pulled back the covers on her side of the bed. Adjusted the pillows the way she liked them. I stripped down to my underwear and propped myself up against the headboard. I scrolled through social media while I waited for her to emerge.
When she came out twenty minutes later, she looked more relaxed but still ready to collapse.
“Pajamas are on the bed,” I said.
“You’re spoiling me.”
“Someone should.”
She put them on and climbed in beside me. She immediately curled into me, her head on my chest.
“That was perfect,” she murmured. “Thank you.”
I kissed the top of her head. “Anytime.”
“Briggs?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m really glad you’re here.”
My throat tightened. “Me too.”
Her breathing evened out within minutes, her body going slack against mine as she fell asleep. I held her, staring at the ceiling in the dark, feeling the weight of everything I wasn’t saying.
I was falling for her. Had probably already fallen, if I was being honest with myself. This wasn’t fake anymore. It hadn’t been fake for a while now.
And I had no idea what to do about it.
I had to go back to New York. Back to my real life. And she’d stay here with hers. And we’d go back to being strangers who happened to be legally married for a few more months before we filed the paperwork and made it all official.
I pulled her closer, breathing in the scent of her lavender bath and the shampoo she used. I committed every detail to memory. The memory would be all I had left in a few months.