Chapter 22
EMILIA
My little plan was coming at the perfect time considering what we’d been dealing with all morning.
We were just a week away from the big day and Kristen was waffling about the flowers she wanted in the floral arches, which had the florist calling me in tears, panicked about trying to source something entirely knew ages after she’d already placed orders for the original blooms. She had just launched her business and struggling to keep up with the smiley yet demanding bride who didn’t seem to have any clue just how unreasonable she was being.
Carter was in full support of whatever his fiancée wanted in terms of flowers. I was pretty sure he didn’t have a clue what the difference was between a hydrangea and an azalea, but he kept telling everyone that whatever she wanted was fine with him.
Granted, he had leveled up as well, deciding that he wanted the band they’d booked plus two DJs who were going to be flown in from Europe.
It didn’t seem like a big deal but it required our AV team to go into warp speed to try to figure out how to accommodate all of the wiring required.
Poor Drew had tried his best to convince Carter that one extra DJ would deliver plenty of club vibes, but he’d insisted he needed both because they had totally different sets.
At first glance the upheaval seemed like nothing more than the typical wedding vision-board resets that happened all the time, but the undercurrent beneath all of the changes hinted that there was trouble in paradise.
Kristen seemed focused on the pageantry and Carter on the party, which led to plenty of sparring, and one full-on argument.
The way they were acting made it seem like they’d never had a real conversation about what was important to either of them.
And honestly, I wouldn’t have been shocked if they hadn’t. They’d been dating for about five minutes before getting engaged. They loved each other, but they didn’t know each other. Not really.
Which made me a little worried about the scaffolding holding up the whole relationship.
But I wasn’t just thinking about their relationship.
I was focusing on my own, as well. Things were amazing with Drew when we were together, but finding time for that was an increasingly tricky proposition, given how insanely busy we both were.
When we did find a second, we were usually too exhausted to actually enjoy it.
So that meant we had to try harder. I’d seen plenty of relationships fracture when the couple was under too much stress, but the ones who made it through were the ones who made an effort to keep the spark alive.
I was willing to put the work in to maintain and grow what we had, and I felt that he was, too.
If there was one thing you could say about Drew Ashford, it was that he wasn’t afraid to work hard.
He’d work hard for this—for us. I was sure of it.
Hence my little plan.
I’d reached out to Drew’s assistant Shelby and Ethan the GM to set up a mini-vacation for us at the resort.
Okay, so that just meant having lunch on a hidden balcony, away from the filming and shouted instructions from the dictator with a camera.
But even if it only lasted for an hour or so, that still sounded like heaven to me.
Drew strode into the bright sunshine where I was waiting for him looking like he was afraid of what was about to happen. When he spotted me standing next to the table for two beneath the giant striped umbrella his entire body relaxed.
“Oh, thank fuck,” he sighed. “I wasn’t sure what I was walking into.”
He strode over to me, took me in his arms and gave me a kiss that stopped time. He cupped my cheek and stared into my eyes.
“You did this for me?”
“For us,” I corrected. “A little break in the day, before the day breaks you.” I’d seen how much he was stressing, even behind his customer service smile.
He chuckled and kissed the top of my head. “You’re amazing.”
“Agreed,” I laughed. “And wait until you see what Chef whipped us for us.”
I stepped aside so that he could see the Insta-worthy spread that included surprises that weren’t on the menu. Drew went quiet as he took it all in, and I watched his handsome face break into a giant smile, the likes of which I hadn’t seen in days.
“Is that Almas caviar?” Drew asked as he pointed to the brimming silver bowl.
“Damn, you’ve got an incredible eye. It is. Chef said it’s your favorite, so he made sure to source it.”
“How did you plan this?” Drew smiled at me.
“It’s what I do,” I insisted. “I make magical memories.”
“I know that for a fact,” he murmured, watching me like he wanted to scoop me up with a mother of pearl spoon, not the caviar. “You amaze me.”
We both went still as we seemed to consider the same question; eat or fuck?
Drew’s phone buzzed and when he pulled it out the answer was clear. “Damn it. Carter is demanding an audience at one thirty.” He glanced at the time. “So much for a lazy lunch.”
So much for fucking.
“What does he want?” I asked as I sat down.
Drew’s expression went tight as he joined me at the table. “All he said is that he has an idea that’s ‘epic,’ and it’s non-negotiable. I’m terrified that it’s something like wanting to hire Cirque de Soleil for the cocktail hour.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” I laughed. “How bad has he been for you? Because it sort of feels like he’s playing both of us, like a kid with his parents. If he doesn’t get the answer he wants from me, he immediately looks for you.”
The waiter appeared with sparkly pink non-alcoholic drinks and we both paused until we were alone again.
“That’s just it; he’s not bad, exactly. Carter is a decent guy who just happens to think that the world revolves around him, which means there’s collateral damage in the form of me bending over backwards to keep him happy.”
We both went quiet as we considered exactly how important this event was for the future of the resort, and the Ashford brand as a whole.
There was no way he could fumble this with so much hanging in the balance.
Even I felt the nervous tremors in my belly when I thought about everything that could go wrong.
I knew Drew was as well but doing his best to hide it.
“How’s Kristen?” he asked me.
Drew looked so strained that I had to manufacture something positive. “She’s happy.”
He squinted at me like he didn’t believe me.
“I heard rumblings about the flower arches?”
I waved my hand at him dismissively. “It’s being handled.”
Half true at best, but I wasn’t about to compound his stress.
“You haven’t weighed in on the happy couple yet,” Drew said. “What sort of odds are you giving them?” He scooped a heaping spoonful of caviar on a toast point.
I actually had been secretly handicapping them as we got closer to the big day. I was a planner of course, but I was also a watcher, which was part of what made me so successful at my job. I could see patterns before they became obvious, and hear things that were unsaid.
“I sense some rough waters in the future.”
“You sound like a fortune cookie.”
Maybe I did. Maybe I wanted them to have a happily ever after.
“I’m not saying it’ll be easy. When the initial excitement is gone and they actually have to figure out the nuts and bolts of building a life together, they will have hurdles to overcome.
But I believe that they love each other.
” I was sure of that. For all the fakeness in their professional lives, there was something beautifully genuine between Carter and Kristen. It made me want to believe in them.
“Huh.” The corners of Drew’s mouth turned down. “I’m not so sure.”
I immediately felt like I needed to go to bat for the couple. “Well, you know firsthand that Kristen is a good person. And sure, Carter is a total bro, but he’s really sweet to her. There’s caring at the heart of their relationship.”
Drew leaned back in his chair and snorted. “Then what’s with all of the theatrics with the wedding? Why does the show seem to matter more than the relationship? That was what you complained about and I get it now.”
“Because it’s what they’re contracted to do,” I insisted. “Their brands depend on them captivating the world. That’s topline stuff. But if you peel back the layers I think there’s something real there.”
“You’re singing a totally different tune than I’d have expected,” he mused.
I shrugged. “Maybe my eyes have been opened to what’s possible?”
I hoped that he understood the implication.
He was the reason.
Our gazes locked and the rest of the world faded away. I could no longer hear the buzzing of distant crowds, or catch the scent of the mock orange tree just beyond us. The breeze seemed to still as well, so that the only thing that existed was the growing heat between us.
I held my breath as I waited for him to respond.
My phone broke the silence instead.
“Shit,” I said when I realized who was calling. “My roofing guy. That can’t be good, they’re literally working on it right now,” I said as I connected the call. “This is Emilia.”
I listened as Arlo explained the scenario. Something about mushy beams, a problem with the underlayment and the potential for mold, which required ripping off half of the roof decking and rebuilding.
“That sounds really expensive,” I replied. “Are you sure you can’t salvage it?”
I watched Drew as Arlo gave an explanation that didn’t make sense to me. I frowned at Drew and shook my head to convey my helpless state.
He held out his hand to me to signal that he could tap into the fight on my behalf.
I nodded gratefully even though what I really wanted to do was hug him. “Hey, Arlo, my, uh, friend who’s a contractor,” I squinted at him as I lied, “would like to talk to you.”
I crossed my fingers that Drew could manufacture some builder-speak.
“Hi, this is Drew. Can you explain what’s going on?” He listened for a minute but then his phone rang. “Arlo, can you hold on for a minute? I’ve got another call.”
Drew handed my phone back to me. “Mute it.”
I chuckled softly since he was staying true to his anti-tech roots. Figuring out how to mute a call wasn’t rocket science.
“Hey, Carter, I’ll be there at one thirty, like we discussed,” he answered. “Oh. Okay. And they’re here now?”
I watched as his face shifted into a furrow. What was going on?
“Yup. See you in a few.” Drew slipped his phone back in his breast pocket and pushed back from the table. “He wants to add a roller skating track to the ballroom for the after-party. The company that does it is waiting in the lobby to discuss schematics.”
I could tell that the absurdity of what Carter wanted was lost to the logistics of how Drew could realize his client’s dream. He was already in problem solving mode, but I had my own problem to face.
“Oh, okay. But …” I held up my phone.
He grimaced in response. “Yeah, sorry. I need to handle this now before Carter signs off on it.”
“It’ll only take two seconds,” I practically pleaded. “Just do some builder-speak so he doesn’t think that I’m some solo clueless woman he can rob.”
Drew was backing away. “Emilia, I really can’t right now.”
I understood that he was stretched thin, but I needed his support.
The last time something like this happened I wound up with a pricey new wall to fix a problem I later learned could have been solved with a single beam.
I was doing my best to be my own general contractor and I had a feeling that I’d been taken advantage of more than a few times.
I was self-sufficient, sure, but it was nice having back-up now and then. And he’d offered, just a minute ago. He’d been supportive right up until he wasn’t.
I watched Drew walk away and felt my heart sinking.
There were reasons why, of course. Drew was putting out fires and making sure that the resort could move past the negative press. That required all of his focus.
The big question remained; where did that leave me?