Chapter Six
Spicy Mandarin Margaritas
I step out of the Uber and a feeling of excitement sweeps through me. Wisteria House is before me, and London’s elite are queuing to enter. I smooth my hands over my dress to straighten it—I have to say, I do love the way this shimmery rose-coloured dress looks with my pale skin and red hair—and stand on the pavement. Aimee is supposed to meet me outside, as she’s coming as my guest. The usual paparazzi are here, and when flashes start hitting my face, I put my hand up to shield my eyes. I’m always baffled when they take my picture. Not that I show up that much in the tabloids—only if they are short of truly famous people and figure I can substitute because they can call me “Lady Violet.”
I smirk. Now that’s a slow day in the gossip world.
“Vi!”
I turn in the direction of the sound and spot Aimee hurrying over to me, a huge smile lighting up her beautiful face. I can’t explain the happiness that comes over me. Aimee is as beautiful as ever, with her long, wavy, champagne-coloured hair and sparkling blue eyes. I move towards her, and soon we give each other the biggest hug.
“I have so missed you!” she says.
I smile. I’ve always loved her Australian accent, and now it’s a sound that is warm and familiar, belonging to someone who was such an important part of my life just a couple of years ago.
I step back from her and smile. “I have missed you so much, Aimes.”
“I still can’t believe it’s been so long. Years,” she says, frowning. “How did we let that happen?”
“I don’t know,” I say, wishing I had worked harder to stay in touch with her. Made a point to seek her out on my trips to London. How could I have let such a good friend merely become a social media scroll?
“I feel so much guilt,” Aimee confesses. “I look at you now, and I remember how you were the friend I had so many laughs with. All the times you consoled me over a stupid man and told me he wasn’t worth breaking my heart over. I see us at uni, walking to our favourite pubs, or grabbing a cup of coffee. And now I feel sad that this is the first time I’ve seen you in nearly two years.”
“Aimee, I was just thinking the exact same thing,” I say. “I told you everything back then. We talked daily. Our text messages never ended … until one day they did. How did something so meaningful slip away from us?”
She shakes her head. “I would like to say life got in the way, but we both know we each just let it fade. That’s the brutal truth. But another truth? We both missed each other and regretted what happened. We’re excited to be here now, and I’m so happy about that.”
“Me, too,” I say happily. “Come on. Let’s get some drinks and begin catching up. It’s way overdue.”
We get in the queue and wait our turn to enter. I check in with Aimee as my guest, and soon we’re going to the bar on the first floor. As we step across the threshold, I marvel at how stunning the space is. It’s designed to replicate a garden with wisteria in bloom. The palette is green and purple, and there are vivid paintings of rambling wisteria on the walls.
It’s like stepping right inside a garden. And the last time I stepped in here, I met Noah.
No. No. No. I’m not going there.
But despite the order from my brain, my gaze drifts back to the very spot where Noah was standing when I was introduced to him. He was taken from that first introduction, where I was not.
I’m so stupid. On so many levels.
“Vi?”
I blink, realising that Aimee has been talking to me and I have no idea what she said.
“Sorry. What did you say?”
“I asked if you’d like to sit at that table.” She inclines her head to a green velvet booth.
“Yes, that’s fine.”
We slide into the booth, and a waitress quickly appears to welcome us and give us the wine list and the cocktail menus, and then she gives us a few minutes to make our selections.
“Okay. Let’s pick our drinks and get that sorted before you start talking, or we won’t be ordering cocktails for another hour,” Aimee says.
I laugh as I flip open the black leather-bound menu. “Are you assuming I still talk a lot, Aimee?”
“I assume nothing. I know it.”
We both laugh, and it feels like coming home. Coming home to a friendship that always felt comforting and right. And I can’t explain it, but I think Aimee is going to be in my life to stay this time.
I peruse the options on the menu. Wisteria House always has clever cocktails, and I love when they do seasonal ones, like a pineapple whisky sour and a rosé negroni. I decide to go with a spicy mandarin margarita and close the book.
Aimee is still looking over the menu, her lower lip drawn between her teeth. I smile. She always bites her lower lip when she’s considering something.
“I think I just want a Pimm’s cup,” she says. “But I feel like I should get something more elaborate because, you know, Wisteria House.”
“Aimee. I’m vowing right now this will not be the only time we get drinks at Wisteria House, so get the Pimm’s cup now, and the next time I’m in London, we’ll come back, and you can order some fancy, over-the-top cocktail.”
She looks up at me. “I’m going to hold you to that.”
With her decision made, she closes her menu, and we begin talking. Just nonstop talking, only pausing for the waitress to take our orders. As soon as she leaves, Aimee looks at me.
“Okay, I don’t want the Connectivity Story Share version of your life,” she says, her eyes sparkling. “I already know that. Tell me how you really are and what you’ve been up to.”
I hesitate.
“What’s the look for?” she asks instantly.
I blink. “What look?” I wasn’t aware I had any kind of look on my face.
“Like something is painful for you to talk about.”
As I stare back at Aimee, the woman who knew me so well during our time at St. Andrews, I decide it might be time to admit some truths.
“You’re right. I hesitate because I’ve seen what a success you’ve made of your career. You’re an editorial assistant for one of the top publishers in London.”
Aimee began as an intern for Moore/Leeds Publishing and has moved up to editorial assistant in the romance division.
She furrows her brow. “What does that have to do with what’s going on in your life?”
I gather up my courage to speak. “I’m floundering, that’s why.”
A shocked look passes over Aimee’s beautiful face. I feel my cheeks burn hot in shame.
“I work at the family gift shop at Wintersmith Hall,” I confess. “Oh sure, I have input on what sells in the shop and help Mum select items to keep in stock, but that’s all I do. You have an amazing career. So do our other old friends from St. Andrews. But I’m at home, doing what I did during the summers since I was sixteen.”
“But Violet,” Aimee says, surprise laced in her voice, “I just assumed you did that because you wanted to. I thought you were pitching in on the family business.”
Now I feel the flush of shame creep down my neck. “I’m doing it because I’m afraid to fail,” I say quietly.
The waitress returns with our cocktails, setting them down in front of us, and as soon as she retreats, I pick mine up and take a sip. After all, I need liquid courage if I’m going to share any more truths about myself.
“Violet. Everyone fails. Everyone.”
I play with the aubergine napkin my cocktail glass is sitting on top of. No, not everyone fails. Nicholas is successful. He’s bright and ambitious, and because I’m his twin, everyone thinks I’ll be just like him.
And when they discover I’m not? I will disappoint them.
“I think you are putting way too much on yourself,” Aimee continues after I remain silent. “Failing is normal. Screwing up is normal.”
I snort. “Then I have a master’s in that.”
“What?”
I shake my head. Nobody will ever know how badly I screwed up with Noah.
“Violet. You can’t expect to do everything perfectly. I can’t imagine the pressure you’ve been living with, keeping that in mind. You’re asking for something impossible. I mess up all the time at work.”
I quirk my brow at her. “Doubtful.”
Aimee quirks a brow back at me. “Oh, is it? How about this: I thought I was communicating with an author about her sweet Christmas meet-cute rom-com, and I sent her a blurb and promo copy to approve, except it was for a completely different, super-sexy, erotic Christmas romance.”
“That is an error that would be easy enough to make,” I counter.
Aimee takes a sip of her drink. “Just like an error you might make. You need to let go of this fear. It’s holding you in place, Violet. And I suspect it’s a place you don’t really want to be, or you wouldn’t be talking about it with me.”
She’s right. Aimee is absolutely right. I don’t want to be working in the family gift shop in Dorset. Dad won’t allow me to do much of anything with the art in the estate—he keeps all of that under his control. Nicholas will let me take that over in the future, but he has no say in what goes on at Wintersmith Hall right now.
Even then, I’d still feel the same pressure. What if I messed something up? What if I let my twin down?
Then I’d really be compared to him, wouldn’t I?
But I don’t want to fold tea towels for the next thirty years. I asked for the beehive project, but Nicholas told me I’d flake out on it, like everything else I’ve ever tried to do.
If I get a serious job, will I want to flake out on them, too? Disappoint a whole new round of people?
Or do I get brave enough to take a chance not only on a serious career, but myself as well?
“Maybe it’s time to be brave,” I muse, taking a sip of my margarita.
“It’s not like you wouldn’t know anybody if you came to London,” Aimee says, her eyes lighting up at the prospect. “I live here, you know. Oh, did you know I share a flat with Jules now?”
Jules was another one of our friends from St. Andrews. She was a sweet girl, but I could tell my talking overwhelmed her and she would kind of shut down around me.
“Really?”
Aimee nods as she takes a sip of her drink. “Yes. She’s an extremely reliable and quiet roommate.”
I laugh at that. “I know I drove her crazy with all my talking.”
Aimee grins. “You did, but I love that you are rarely quiet. I’ve missed that about you. It’s a completely different experience living with Jules. You thought she was quiet because you talked so much? I think she’s just quiet in general unless she’s around people she’s super comfortable with. Even then she’s a listener first, talker later.”
Like Noah,I think. Noah is like that.
“Why are you frowning?”
“I’m not.”
Aimee laughs. “Yes, you are.”
I shake my head. I refuse to talk about Noah.
“There’s a story there you’re not telling me.”
I flash her a cheeky grin. “There is.”
“Vi!”
“Aimes!”
Then we both laugh.
We begin chatting in earnest now, catching up on our lives beyond the grid of pictures on a Connectivity Story Share page. Aimee tells me about one ex-boyfriend—I knew something had gone horribly wrong when the guy she always posted on her account mysteriously disappeared—David, that was his name. I remember her posting some lovely things about him in her captions. Then poof! One day I saw her page and David had been completely deleted from her life.
“I was so in love with him,” Aimee says, sighing heavily. “I thought I was living in a fairy tale, you know?”
“What went wrong?” I ask. “I noticed he was wiped from your account about two months ago.”
Aimee runs her index finger around the rim of her cocktail glass. “For three months, everything was perfect. David was so romantic in the beginning, so attentive. We did everything together. The sex was phenomenal, too. Like mind-blowing, Violet.”
Hmm. Have I ever had mind-blowing sex? I’ve had good sex, I know that. Or sex that was just fun. A few times, hot sex. And even awful sex.
But have I experienced mind-blowing sex that I want to have again and again?
I nearly laugh out loud. If I have to ask myself if I’ve had mind-blowing sex, I obviously haven’t.
I refocus on Aimee. “Okay. David was romantic, attentive, and good at sex. So why did you two break up?”
She shakes her head. “You won’t believe it.”
Ooh, this must be good.
“You have to tell me after that comment.”
Aimee sighs. “Well, David started getting busy, you know? He had to work late. Play football with the guys. Less time with me, you know?”
I cringe. I already don’t like where this is going.
“Well, I was out with some friends one night—we were at some bar—and one of the girls was complaining that there were no good men on the dating app she was on.”
Oh no. No, no, no.
“I can tell by the look on your face you can see where I’m going. David’s profile came up. Created after we started dating. I thought I was going to be sick. Like vomit all over the floor right there. I called him up straightaway and he didn’t even ask to meet in person. He said yes, it was up there, because our relationship was going too fast, and he was feeling suffocated. But you know what the reality is? He was playing a game. David could have quit seeing me if he felt that way. But no. He put up a profile on a dating site and cheated on me behind my back!”
“Aimee, I’m so sorry,” I say, thinking back to how happy she looked in all those pictures with him just a couple of months back.
“It’s okay, I’m getting over it,” she says, pausing to take a drink. “But it was pretty bloody awful when it happened. David was playing me, and I had no idea.”
I swallow hard. Noah would never play a game with my heart like that. I know I barely know him, but I can tell he’s genuine.
And he was serious about getting to know me.
I have to put him behind me now, I will myself. I have to.
“I told myself if I was approached by a decent man tonight, I was going to talk to him. Perhaps you should join me in this endeavour,” I challenge.
Aimee laughs. “I love that you used the word endeavour.”
“It’s a good word. It should be used more often.”
“Okay. I’ll agree to use endeavour more often in conversation. But maybe we should do more than wait for some men to hit on us. Maybe we should approach them.”
I cringe. I was talking a great game about flirting with some guys, but as soon as Aimee makes this suggestion, I feel a bit sick.
I hate myself for the reason. I feel ill because none of these men are Noah.
“Ooh, okay, I have a target,” Aimee says excitedly as she looks over my shoulder. “Don’t turn around, but some fantastically fit men just walked into the bar. We need to make a move.”
Even though she said don’t turn around, it’s the first thing I do, and I hear her chastise me the second I look.
“Stop! You’re being obvious!” she says as my eyes scan the front of the bar.
Then I gasp in shock.
Because standing in the entrance to the bar is Noah Darby.