Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Miranda
The bistro smells like brown butter and rosemary. Brooke is already pouring me a glass of something she brought from home, never mind that we’re sitting in a restaurant with a wine list four pages thick.
“I’m not paying restaurant markup on my own birthday.” She tops off her glass, then slides the bottle into her purse, far too pleased with the small crime. “Relax, Miranda. You have guilt all over your face.”
“No, I don’t,” I protest, my hands automatically going to my cheeks.
She laughs. “I’m loving your new wardrobe. I’m surprised Grayson let you come see me.”
“Why would he stop me?” I frown, not liking the idea of Grayson being portrayed as controlling.
“With everything going on, I would be protective too.” My friend shakes her head. “The hospital’s a mess. We’ve had two junior nurses come out and accuse Dr. Hudson of forcing them to sleep with him.”
I raise my brow. I know what Grayson did. He’s been upfront with me ever since the newspapers ran the articles. All he asked me to do was stay out of it and let him handle it. I’m starting to learn to give in to these requests. When he says he has my back, he means it.
“What about Vivian?”
Brooke sneers. “She never liked you. Ever since you checked her on her laziness during a patient follow-up, she’s hated you. I think she’s kind of jealous of how good you were at your job. Like you let nothing affect you, and it bothered her she couldn’t punish you for embarrassing her.”
“That was four years ago.” I stare at her. “Are you saying she’s had it out for me since then?”
“That and she’s desperately trying to get Axel to notice her. She’s been defending him to everyone who’ll listen. I don’t even think she realizes she is tanking her own career.” She lifts her glass. “Cheers. May we never see them again.”
I clink mine against hers. “Happy birthday.”
“We’re twenty-seven and gorgeous.”
“Twenty-six and gorgeous, but I’ll allow the round-up since you bought the wine.”
“My birthday, my rules,” she declares.
I laugh into the glass, and something in my chest loosens for the first time all week.
Grayson dropped me off forty minutes ago with a kiss against my temple and a promise to collect me after his afternoon session.
I’ve given up on ever getting my car back because every time I ask if it’s done, he hands me the keys to one of the seven cars in his garage.
I told him he can chauffeur me around then. I didn’t think he would be so smug about it.
The world out past these windows is full of headlines, trackers, and trees that turn out to have men in them.
In here, there’s just my friend across the table, her ponytail catching the light, and the small cake she’s already announced she’ll be sharing with exactly no one.
She watches me over the rim of her glass for a beat too long.
“He really loves you, doesn’t he?”
I set my wine down. “Yes.” My voice comes out smaller than I planned. “He does.”
“And you love him.”
“Brooke.”
“Don’t Brooke me. I know what you look like when you’re holding a feeling out at arm’s length so it can’t get close enough to hurt you.”
I open my mouth, then close it. “It’s not that,” I tell her finally. “I do love him.”
“Then what?” she presses.
I push a piece of bread around my plate with one finger. “Part of me is scared.”
Brooke reaches across the table and stops my hand, her fingers warm over mine. “Miranda.”
“I know what you’re going to say.”
“You don’t, actually. You only think you do.
” Her voice drops into the register she saves for my hardest patients.
“Life’s been a series of doors slamming on you since your mom got sick.
You learned to flinch at good news because the next thing through the door was always a bill, or a knock from someone with a clipboard, or another loss. ”
“I don’t want a therapy sess—”
“Listen to me. I’ve been in your corner every step of the past three years.
I’ve watched you hold yourself together with hospital tape and pure stubbornness.
” She squeezes my hand once. “But that man dropped you at the curb in a Range Rover, kissed your forehead, and called me by name to ask me to take care of his fiancée while he was at practice. So I’m telling you, as your best friend in the world, that you’re allowed to love him. He adores you. Take the chance.”
I swallow hard. The bread basket has become very interesting.
“It feels like he’s always doing things for me, and I never know what to do back,” I admit.
“He pays off the debt. He puts a ring on my finger. He stands between me and his ex-wife. He fights every fire I walk into before I’ve even asked.
” My throat works. “I don’t have anything to give him he doesn’t already own, Brooke. ”
She lets go of my hand and sits back. “It’s not about matching him. Big gestures aren’t a scoreboard.” Her tone softens. “It’s the small things. As long as it means something, it doesn’t have to compete with a mansion.”
“Such as?”
“Make him dinner.”
I stare at her. “You know I can’t cook.”
“I know you can read.” She grins. “Recipes exist for a reason, Miranda.”
“Brooke.”
“I’m serious. We eat fast, we hit the grocery store on the way out, and I give you a recipe my mother used to make. Four ingredients. Even you can’t ruin it.”
“That’s a deeply insulting bet.”
“And yet you’re not arguing it,” she points out, lifting the menu. “Order something light. We’ve got shopping to do.”
We wrap up dinner, and one recipe turns into three. By the time we leave for the grocery store, she has me convinced I can roll out a five-course meal. We walk to the store, and I know Grayson will be pissed that I went out like this. But nobody recognizes me, so it’s all good.
Brooke takes charge once we get there, the cart filling faster than I expected.
She steers it through the aisles, plucking things off shelves without slowing down, dropping them in before I can object: beef for the stew, a bunch of carrots, a bag of small yellow potatoes, thyme and rosemary in their little clamshells, a loaf of crusty bread from the bakery counter, two cream-colored tapers, and a pack of matches.
“This is too much.”
“This is the bare minimum. Trust the process.”
At the checkout, I send Grayson a message. I’m going home a bit early. Don’t bring Ethan with you tonight, let Linda keep him a little longer. My thumb hovers over the screen before I tap send.
The three dots appear at once. Are you okay?
I’m fine. I just want a little time to myself before you get back.
Okay. I’ll let Linda know.
A second message lands a beat later. You sure you’re okay?
I press my lips together against a smile. Stop fussing. Go play your sport.
Yes ma’am.
Brooke is reading over my shoulder. She chokes on a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “Oh my God. He calls you ma’am. I’m going to be sick.”
“He calls me sweetheart, too. Among other things.”
“Stop. Stop talking immediately. I refuse to hear one more word.”
I’m still grinning when we step out into the parking lot. She hugs me hard at the cab door, the bags piled around our ankles.
“Text me when you survive this,” she orders. “And if anything explodes, blame the recipe, not me.”
“I love you.”
“I know you do.”
The mansion is quieter than I’m used to without Ethan thundering across the foyer or Grayson’s voice drifting out of the study.
Linda’s left a note on the island in her tidy hand.
Casserole in the oven for you if you come home early.
Don’t worry about anything else. L. I read it twice before I tuck it into the cookbook drawer because it’s the exact kind of thing my mother used to leave on the counter for me, and I’m not ready to think about that tonight.
I pull out the printed recipe Brooke shoved into my coat pocket and set it beside the cutting board. “All right.” I roll up my sleeves. “Just follow the instructions, Carver.”
For the next two hours, I don’t let myself rush a single step.
The beef gets cubed, then floured. Carrots come next, sliced into uneven rounds, because my knife skills are nonexistent.
I scrub and quarter the potatoes. The onion makes me cry twice, and at this point, I don’t know if it’s the onions or I’m just frustrated because they don’t look like they’re supposed to.
Herbs go in when the page tells me, then the stock, then the lid at the temperature the page swears by, and I stand back to look at the pot, faintly amazed it hasn’t caught fire.
I check my phone. Grayson’s ninety minutes out, which gives me enough time to pull myself together.
Upstairs, I stand in front of the closet that holds my clothes on one side, his on the other, still not used to the sight of them sharing a rail.
The navy dress he bought me last week comes down off its hanger, the fabric soft against my hands, the neckline dipping low at the front, and it fits me to the inch, because it was more or less made to.
I shower in the bathroom that still smells of his shampoo.
Afterward I towel off, slip the dress over my head, then drag a brush through my hair until it falls in loose waves down my back.
The little velvet box he gave me with the dress is on the dresser, the diamond studs and thin gold chain inside. I put them on with hands that aren’t entirely steady. The woman in the mirror looks startled and gentler than I’m used to seeing her. I apply some light makeup after some hesitation.
Downstairs, I dim the kitchen lights, light the two tapers, and set out two plates. The stew’s been simmering for an hour. I’m reaching for the lid to taste it when tires crunch on the gravel out front.
He’s early.
The spoon slips out of my hand. There’s no time to do anything more, so I cross to the foyer with my heart climbing into my throat, and I reach the doorway just as the front door swings open. Grayson steps through with his keys in one hand and his bag slung over his shoulder.
“Hey. Why’d you tell me not to bring Ethan home just—”
He stops.