Chapter 10 Gracie
Six Weeks Before the Wedding
In a surprise turn of events, I make it through the meeting without quietly slipping off my chair to lie down and hoist a white flag.
Even more surprising, I’m almost sure it’s because of Jude.
While no one except maybe a boulder would describe him as chatty, his quiet, intimidating presence kept the meeting from venturing back into personal territory, for which I am both begrudgingly and eternally grateful.
Calvin even refrained from hugging me goodbye, but that may have had more to do with Jude looming close beside me as they left.
“Thanks for coming today,” I say a bit awkwardly when he comes back from having my giant sandwich wrapped in paper. “And for lunch,” I add, taking it from him.
“Anything to hear you say the words ‘five-dollar-foot-long,’ ” he says, surprising a laugh out of me.
“Oh yeah?” I ask, untucking my hair from my blazer. “That’s what does it for you? Vaguely inappropriate sandwich slogans?”
His eyes track my hand as I adjust my necklace. “Are you trying to kink-shame me, Gracie Holland?”
Despite his deadpan delivery, my cheeks heat like he just whispered it in my ear. Trying to recover, I say, “That depends. Are you admitting to a kink involving deli meats and their adjacent marketing strategies?”
He snorts but then hesitates. “If I were divulging any kinks, it wouldn’t be in a café.”
Okay, not where I expected this conversation to go, but I surprise myself by replying, “So I guess that scratches exhibitionism off the list.”
Jude’s eyebrows shoot up. “I didn’t realize you were making those kinds of lists about me.”
The flush that’s been building since our left turn into this bizarre conversation intensifies, and I try pulling back into a realm I’m more comfortable with: antagonizing him. “Anything to figure out an opponent’s weaknesses.”
His lips quirk. “I’m beginning to think we may be more alike than I’d originally thought.”
“We are nothing alike,” I say, shouldering my bag with the freshly signed contracts and, most importantly, my payday. “I’m a wedding planner. You’re a divorce lawyer. We’re like… like a butterfly and a murder hornet.”
“Huh. I’ve never thought of myself as a butterfly,” Jude says, absently rubbing the annoying cleft in his chin as we head toward the café door.
My mouth drops open with indignation before I point a thumb to my chest. “No, I’m the butterfly. You’re the murder hornet.”
He tilts his head, studying me as he buttons his charcoal suit jacket. “I don’t see why I’m the de facto murder hornet here,” he says. “You’re the one giving me psycho-killer eyes.”
Against my will, my gaze flicks to the mirrored wall behind him. And fine, maybe my eyes are a little murdery. But whose wouldn’t be, talking to this misery monger? This prenup peddler? This—
“Gracie.”
My name in his soft baritone yanks my gaze back to his.
“What,” I snap.
He stares at me, a look of almost angelic innocence in his wide, honey-colored eyes. “If you’re a murder hornet, I’m a murder hornet.”
At his blasphemous misquotation from The Notebook, I groan.
I will not let this man be the death of me.
I take a breath and try to remind myself that he just helped me through a meeting I gave myself 60/40 odds on surviving.
He bought me a sandwich. And even if it’s a dubious kink sandwich, now I won’t have to eat boxed mac ’n’ cheese for dinner.
“Anyway, I’m headed back to Larkwood,” I say. “I’ll text you about meeting the band I usually work with. I want to ask them in person to do the wedding, and they have a gig this weekend.”
“So that’s the next task you’ve got in store for me? Enduring a wedding singer?”
“Only if you’re not too busy doing unforgivable things to a Subway sandwich. Otherwise, you can look forward to meeting some of the kindest, most talented people I know.”
He holds the café door open for me, grimacing as we step outside under the overcast sky. “Transmission of guilt received.” He looks up toward the clouds. “It’s going to storm. You’re not planning on going back right now, are you?”
I begin walking toward my car, and he falls into step next to me. “Well, considering I still live there, yes.”
“Does your car have four-wheel drive?”
“It’s a little rain, not a monsoon.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
I think of my dinged-up 2005 Toyota Camry with its rusted bumper and Can’t-Stop-Won’t-Stop engine. “Yes. It has four wheels and drives great.”
He mutters something I don’t catch because his head is too far above mine.
I’m about to argue that rain wasn’t even in the forecast when there’s a crack of thunder.
Great. I honestly hate driving in the rain, or the snow, or the dark (yes, thank you, my eightieth birthday is coming up), but there’s no way I’m admitting this to Jude.
“Isn’t there someplace you can stay in the city?” he asks.
I think of Sofia. She’d definitely let me crash at her place, but I happen to know her on-again off-again situationship is currently on, and I have no desire to intrude.
I bite my lip as I consider asking my parents, but quickly decide I’d rather drive in torrential rain and lightning.
“I’ll be fine,” I say. “I need to get back and work on this wedding.”
Jude looks over at me. A single fat raindrop lands on one of his high cheekbones like Mother Earth herself is weeping over them, and I’m unprepared for the abrupt subject change he makes.
“So you and Calvin, huh? That sounds… complicated.”
He says this last word carefully, like he’s trying to say horrific in a different language. I cross my arms over my chest, hugging myself tight. “It’s the least complicated thing in the world, actually.”
“Because he has the personality of a Styrofoam peanut?”
An indignant sound squeaks out of me. “How could you say that? You have no idea who he is.”
“No?” he asks, squinting at the darkening clouds ahead. “So, if I guessed that he went to Brown after a well-timed alumni donation, began his career with a nepo-baby internship, and works for Daddy with the plan of taking over the firm within the next fifteen years, you’d tell me I’m wrong?”
When the disturbing accuracy of his assumptions prevents me from responding, Jude sighs. “I work with men like him all the time, Gracie. They glide through life expecting things they don’t deserve and feel validated as supreme rulers of the universe when they push people over to get their way.”
“That’s rich coming from you,” I huff. “Seeing as you’re about to inherit an estate and plan to—how did you phrase it? ‘Push people over to get your way’?”
It’s Jude’s turn to look indignant as he says, “It’s different. I take no pleasure in disrupting your life, or any of the wedding vendors you’ve mentioned. It’s why I’m here, attempting to make amends with you instead of keeping the lunch meeting I had planned with one of my clients.”
“And here I was thinking it was because you want to get your hands on my cottage.”
“Can’t it be both?”
I glance up at him, but his gaze is still focused forward, giving me an entirely too-convenient view of his structured jawline, which could probably work as a rain shelter in a pinch.
His words give me pause, but my questionable compulsion to defend my ex is still yanking at me.
“Either way, I don’t see why you feel the need to attack Calvin.
I wouldn’t have taken on his wedding if he were an awful person or if there was anything lingering between us. ”
Jude shoots me a shrewd look. “Considering how your scheme to save Larkwood hinges on planning a wedding,” he drawls, “I think it’s safe to assume you would’ve been willing to plan Cruella de Vil’s nuptials, dalmatian puppy dress and all.”
“That’s not true,” I sputter, but he keeps going.
“If I were a betting man, I’d wager Calvin called you out of the blue for this massively insensitive favor because he knew he could take advantage of your kindness.
” He looks over at me, and I endure the sensation of being x-rayed.
“Did you go to RISD and fall for him doing Jell-O shots at a Brown frat party or something? You know—the whole quirky art student falls for WASPy golden boy thing?”
And that, I decide, is enough. I stop in my tracks, and people on the rain-flecked sidewalk are forced to swerve around us. “It wasn’t at a frat party.”
“Let the record reflect that there were, in fact, Jell-O shots involved,” he murmurs.
There’s another flash of lightning, but I’m pretty sure my temper is hotter.
“Let the record reflect that it’s none of your business,” I parrot back at him.
“You made it my business when you roped me into helping with this wedding,” he retorts, and I note with annoyance that the wind has loosened his neatly combed hair so that glossy dark waves are falling into his face. Ugh.
“I asked you to help me with wedding tasks, not psychoanalyze me.”
He shrugs. “Old habits die hard.”
“Because invasive insights into relationship dynamics are a favorite pastime of yours?”
“No, but they’re a pretty critical part of my day job.”
“Must be nice to spread love and joy wherever you go.”
“If you’d like to count the forty-something holiday cards I received this year as proof of character, just let me know.”
“No thanks; unlike you and your vampire brethren, we humans are sensitive to anthrax.”
He laughs, and an unwilling thrill shoots up my spine at the sight of his wide smile and the vertical lines on either side—like his face has to make special accommodations for it. I quickly look away and start walking.
“You know, we vampires aren’t as heartless as you’d like to think.”
“Right. So, you just think the institution of marriage is pointless, romance is dead, and kittens should be drowned on principle.”
“On the contrary, marriage has excellent tax benefits for those willing to risk it, I think romance is entirely possible and maybe even inevitable with the right person, and I happen to be the indentured servant of my feline overlord, Taco.”
I can’t help the laugh that skips out of me. “You have a cat named Taco?”
“She looks appealing but gives me heartburn. It’s the perfect name for her.”
“I’m more shocked that you have a cat, period.”
“Do I not strike you as a cat person?”
I frown, considering. “Actually, you’re sort of the quintessential cat person. Moody, unaffectionate, snobby…”
“Intelligent, good-looking, independent,” he continues to list, pushing his disheveled hair back from his forehead. We round a corner, and I spot my car at last. But despite the rain, I find myself wanting to stay.
“This is me,” I say, pointing at my Camry with the sandwich I’m still carrying.
Jude frowns at the maroon eyesore parked in front of us. “Your tires are bald,” he notes.
I sigh. “Yeah, well, he’s still got great stamina.”
Jude shakes his head and glances at the sky again. “You really don’t have a place to stay for the night in Providence?”
“I do have a few people I could call, but you’re missing the point. I want to go home and sleep in my own bed.”
He bites down on his bottom lip and glances at the small park ahead of us. “Would you be willing to wait out the rain with me? If it gets worse, you stay and call a friend. If it dies out, you go?”
I look down at my heels and then up at the ominous clouds. I should just get on the road, but for reasons that have nothing to do with the bite marks in his lip, I say, “Fine. But I don’t want to get soaked.”
The smile he gives me is wolfish as he opens a compact black umbrella I didn’t notice he was carrying. “And here I thought wedding planners were supposed to be prepared for anything.”
“Anything but you,” I shoot back, but somehow, it feels less like a retort and more like a confession. And based on his smug smile as he tugs me beneath the umbrella, he knows it.