Chapter 7 Emilia
EMILIA
It hadn’t been my idea to go to the Longwood Estates greenhouses, but I sort of wished it was, because it was a gorgeous location.
Dorian the producer had insisted that the show needed a variety of settings to keep it visually interesting, which was why we all packed up and headed for the greenhouses.
Kristen and Carter hadn’t picked a florist yet, so this scenario was essentially a tryout for three local florists, all vying for the job.
I breathed a sigh of relief that I hadn’t been forced into a reality-style competition for my job like these poor folks.
“I want to get some b-roll of you guys strolling around looking at flowers, okay?” Dorian coached. “Look at all of your options, be cute with each other, smell the roses, yada yada yada. Once the florists get here we’ll start the Q&A with them.”
I glanced to where Drew was hovering in the background.
Did he have to be here? Because he was downright distracting standing in the corner with his arms crossed, all the better to show off his ridiculous biceps.
He’d arrived in his usual blazer but the heat in the greenhouse had forced him to take it off and reveal the golf shirt underneath.
I swear time downshifted into slow motion as he removed it, so each movement was a little ballet of flexing and posing.
Okay, all he did was take it off and lay it over his arm, but to me it felt very show-off-y.
“This is overwhelming,” Kristen said as she walked around with her eyes wide. “I don’t want to make the wrong choice.”
“Babe,” Carter laughed. “If you’re having a tough time with the flowers then we’re screwed. This part should be simple.”
He walked to her and draped his arm over her shoulder, and I noticed that they were casually color coordinated.
Not in a ‘senior citizens on holiday’ way, though.
They were both in shades of tan and cream that were wedding adjacent while still being the perfect backdrop for the true stars of the day: the flowers.
I guess that’s life as a celebrity—someone bustles around to ensure the world is coordinated to match you.
I joined them, well aware that the camera was recording every moment. “You know, Carter is right. Have you ever seen an ugly wedding bouquet?”
Kristen giggled. “Actually, no. Good point. That makes me feel a little better. But I’m having a hard time visualizing how to make a bouquet come together. Like, would it be weird to include sunflowers? Because they’re my favorite.”
“Hold up!” Dorian’s voice echoed through the greenhouse and everyone froze. “Do we have sunflowers in here? I’d like to get that moment once again, but by actual sunflowers.”
A nervous looking woman in a Longwood logo shirt appeared. “I’m sorry, we don’t have them at the moment. And they’re an outside crop because of their size.”
“Well, shit,” he complained. Dorian turned back to Kristen. “Can you pick a different favorite?”
I watched her face crumple a little. “No? Sunflowers mean a lot to me. They were …” she sniffled.
“They were my grandfather’s favorite, and we used to grow them together in his back yard.
Heirloom seeds, from the prior year’s flowers.
He had it down to a science, and he taught me everything about them.
What kind of soil they needed, the best light for them, which strains grew best in our climate. ”
Her chin started to tremble as she spoke. She looked like she needed a hug, but Carter had drifted off and hadn’t yet noticed that she was upset. I walked over to give her arm a squeeze.
“He sounds like a very special person. What a gift he gave you,” I said.
Kristen nodded. “He was my everything. I lost my parents in a car accident when I was seven, and he stepped up to raise me. He aways believed in me. He told me ‘if you believe it, you can achieve it.’ That’s been the guiding mantra of my life.
He’s the reason I booked my first major gig.
I wasn’t even going to audition and he told me to try, just for fun.
” She bit her lip as her eyes welled. “He never got to see me in it. He had a stroke and died in his sleep.”
Carter materialized the moment Kristen bowed her head and gave into her tears.
“Babe, are you okay?” He wrapped her in his arms. “You thinking about your gramps?”
“Oh, this is perfect,” Dorian said quietly, but loud enough that everyone heard him.
I moved away to allow them their moment, and Dorian his.
“Poor Kristen,” a voice said from behind me.
I turned to find Drew looking more sympathetic than I would’ve expected. Was it possible that the bosshole had empathy?
“Yeah,” I replied.
Truth was, I understood what she was feeling on a much deeper level, but I wasn’t about to admit it to Drew. The less he knew about me the better. We were colleagues and nothing more. And barely that, given how standoffish he was.
I watched Carter place his finger under Kristen’s chin, lift it and then give her a gentle kiss. They stared into one another’s eyes and damn it, I could tell it was going to be amazing TV.
“Gorgeous, love it,” Dorian exclaimed.
Both Carter and Kristen looked dazed for a few seconds, like they’d forgotten they were being observed. Maybe that’s how it was when you spent your life in the public eye? You just lived your life without overthinking everything?
Must be nice.
At the same time, as outlandish as they were both being with the arrangements, they genuinely seemed to love each other and wanted to make it work.
“Emilia?” Kristen called to me. “Would it be weird to use sunflowers in my bouquet? As a tribute to him.”
I walked over to the pair. “Sunflowers would be gorgeous!”
“But I can’t envision it at all. I’ve never seen it done.”
“Hold on a sec,” I said as I pulled my phone out of my pocket.
“Check this out.” I navigated to one of my favorite apps that allowed you to create images of bouquets and centerpieces with any types of flowers.
“So let’s say you want sunflowers, and what else?
Personally, I think hydrangea would be lovely, but I’m partial to them. They’re my favorite.”
“Oh, definitely! And ranunculus. And some greens.”
I added the flowers into the app. I was actually doing the florist’s job, but hey, I was a full-service wedding planner, and until she selected someone to deal with bouquets and centerpieces, I was happy to give advice and help her fill out her ideas.
I turned my phone around to show her the result and noticed that Drew was now hovering closer to us. There was no reason for him to get involved with this step, so I eyed him warily, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Oh my gosh it’s perfect!” Kristen squealed. “Honey, do you love it?”
Carter was either very aware of how it would play on camera, or flowers made him equally excited. “Babe, yes! It’s exactly what you wanted.”
I wasn’t convinced he had a clue about her aesthetic—or much of anything about her at all, honestly.
They’d known each other for just a few weeks when they’d gotten engaged.
Their fans were swooning over the whirlwind romance, but me?
In my experience, “whirlwind romance” was just another way of saying “rushed in too fast.” I believed they sincerely loved each other.
At the same time, though, I was less than convinced that that love would last.
But hell, love was never guaranteed to last, even when it came with a wedding ring.
I’d seen grooms who cheated during their bachelor party, and brides who got into slap fights with their new mother in law.
I could make things look pretty on the big day but nothing could fix what had been broken from the start.
Still, I put on a smile because I was pulling for these two. Maybe they really had figured it out. Maybe it really was love for them—the kind that would last.
“Okay, fantastic, so now we have a jumping-off point for when the florists show up. Love it.”
My phone went off and I switched off my mic and excused myself to take the call, because it was Winston’s vet and I’d been hiding my stress about what was going on with him all morning.
“Is Winston okay?” I answered in a rush.
I’d been trying not to think about him since I’d dropped him off on the way to work.
He’d been lethargic since the day before, and when I did an investigation of the yard, I noticed some small bits of PVC piping near his bed left over from some of the construction work.
Of course I freaked out that he’d ingested some of it.
I found a spot beneath a banana plant out of view of the cameras but still close, just in case they needed to pull me back in.
“We did an x-ray and there is some sort of obstruction in his gut,” the doctor replied. “Unfortunately, there’s no way it’ll pass on its own so we need to do surgery. I wanted to confirm that you’re okay with the costs associated with it.”
I let out a long sigh. “I’ll do whatever he needs. But how much are we talking about? Just so I can figure out my finances.”
I heard typing and crossed my fingers as I waited for the total.
“So we’re looking at surgical prep, anesthesia, foreign body removal, aftercare observation, an overnight stay for further observation, pain management medication, and then a follow-up appointment. Our estimate is four thousand, in addition to fees from the x-ray.”
“Four thousand dollars?” I yelped, louder than I meant to.
“Yes, that’s the estimate.”
“Wait, are you saying it could be more?” I asked.
“Unfortunately, we can’t always predict how long surgery will take, which impacts anesthesia rates. And Winston is an exotic, so things are a little more expensive.”
I paced in a small circle. I had no choice, Winston needed care and I was going to make sure he got it. After all, it felt like my fault for not being more observant about the construction debris.
“Okay. Let’s get it done. Make sure he has whatever he needs. He’s my grandfather’s best friend.”
“I do want to let you know that there are some risks involved,” the doctor said. “It’s not a simple procedure.”
My heart paused mid-beat. “Oh?”
“You have my word that we’ll take the very best care of him.”
“I appreciate that. Please give him a kiss for me, okay?”
The doctor assured me she would, and we hung up. I closed my eyes and took a few seconds to worry about my favorite little guy. If anything happened to him my grandfather would be heartbroken. It didn’t matter how much it cost, I was going to make sure that Winston survived this.
I pictured having to tell my grandfather that something had happened to Win and started to panic when I realized I was dropping into weep-mode. No. There was no time for tears. I sniffled, wiped my eyes, and started back to where the crew was gathered, only to almost run into Drew.
Why was he hovering nearby, and had he heard my conversation?
“Sorry,” he said as he stepped aside so I could pass. “I had to take a call myself.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “It’s a big greenhouse.”
“I didn’t realize that you were right there.”
Was I imagining it, or did his voice sound ten percent kinder than I’d ever heard it before?
“Is everything okay?” Drew studied me intently. I couldn’t help wondering what he was seeing. Could he spot my distress? No, surely not. My poker face was peerless.
At least it usually was. After all, it was my job to stay even keel no matter how crazy things got, so how was it possible that he could tell I wasn’t quite myself?
“I’m fine, don’t worry about me,” I brushed off his concern. “Worry about why all three florists are late.”
He shook his head. “They’re not, they’re all waiting in the lobby. Dorian wants you to introduce them on camera but …”
“But what?” I demanded.
Why did I feel like tears were right on the verge of falling? I needed to look fierce, not like a crybaby, but the call had left me more unbalanced than I wanted to admit.
He held my gaze for a beat longer. “Don’t worry about the introductions. I’ll take care of it.”
The offer was a godsend, because I wasn’t in the right headspace to perform for the cameras—but how weird was that, Drew being a godsend?
“Seriously?” I asked.
“Of course, it’s no problem at all. I already know two of them, plus the resort could use a little more airtime. It’s a selfish offer.”
I knew that wasn’t the case, because the resort was the setting for ninety five percent of the wedding content. But if he felt he needed an excuse to be nice to me, so be it.
Damn it, why was I feeling tickles in the back of my nose? Winston was being taken care of, he was going to be fine. I sniffled hard.
“Okay, I appreciate it.”
My voice sounded wobbly and I wanted to punch myself in the face.
“Here,” Drew said, handing me an actual linen handkerchief as he walked away.
I looked down at the soft square in my hand. Of course it had his initials on it. As much as I wanted to empty my nose in the thing and hand it back to him, I instead used it to delicately dab at my eyes.
I didn’t believe that he had a decent bone in his body, but he’d been surprisingly kind. I chalked it up to a once in a lifetime deviation from usual grumpy temperament.
Don’t get used to the nice version, I told myself. Assholes are forever.