CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
On the edge of Port Camden, stationed on its very own platform above the water, Oyster & Oak shone in the night like a luxury lighthouse.
Georgie and I climbed from the rental car Serena left us to make the drive.
I handed the valet the keys, ironing the front of my trusty little black dress with my palms. The attire was strictly cocktail—I wasn’t even sure if it was Serena’s request, or the restaurant’s—so I threw on my best nylons, a pair of Louboutins, and pulled my hair into a slicked-back ponytail.
I’d been perfectly fine until we crossed into the city and drew closer to the rehearsal dinner.
Now, as I gripped my clutch and hovered in the porte-cochère, the only thing on my mind was a solid excuse and a swift trip home.
“You’ve been acting weird since last night,” Georgie hissed, voice low as she eyed a couple sashaying through the restaurant doors.
She’d tamed her curls into ringlets and pulled half of them from her face.
Her olive-green, tea length silky dress looked far more designer than it did thrift-store.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong? Or are we back to not talking about real things? ”
I rubbed my temples. No amount of ibuprofen could rid me of the headache I was nursing since the evening prior.
Another particularly elegant couple brushed by, leaving us to choke on a cloud of cologne and perfume. I groaned and grabbed Georgie’s wrist, pulling her to the side, partially hidden between two large boxwood plants.
“Teddy and I kissed the other day.”
She threw her hands up and nearly fell backwards, wobbling on her heels. “I’ll be mad about you not telling me until right this second, later. Now, I want to know why exactly this is a bad thing.”
“Because,” I replied, lowering my voice, “I found out why he’s really in Bluebell Cove. And it’s not some tourist puff piece—he’s been assigned to expose us. As if we’re a quaint, downtrodden, image-obsessed town.”
Okay, so I embellished a little. Some would’ve called it artistic license.
Georgie gasped, eyes wide. “Are you sure? That doesn’t sound like Teddy at all.”
My nod felt mechanical and disjointed.
“Wow,” she breathed, “What did he say?”
I pinched my eyebrows, waiting for a passing family to disappear through the doors. We caught several narrowed gazes as they did. Two women huddling in the bushes outside a high-end restaurant didn’t seem to be an everyday occurrence.
“I haven’t had the time,” I said. Only half a lie. “Between Serena yesterday, and now the rehearsal dinner—”
“Which he’ll be at,” Georgie interjected.
My heart fluttered despite the circumstance. Unfortunately, an entire pesky half of me was elated at the idea of being forced together with Teddy again.
She squeezed my arm, her palm warm against my frigid skin. “You should just talk to him, okay?” Her searching eyes screamed with subtext: don’t run away from your problems again, Margot.
I dragged my fingers through my ponytail and pulled at the hem of my dress one more time. “Let’s go inside,” I concluded, drawing my shoulders back.
Georgie’s smile barely lifted her lips. Neither of us were particularly thrilled about the prospect of telling our friend that she shouldn’t walk down the aisle in twenty-four hours.
Thankfully, Serena had always been the most gracious of the bunch—that didn’t mean we had much of a clue how she’d react.
We linked arms and stepped through the doors.
The first thing I noticed was the string quartet playing a Franz Liszt piece in the far corner.
A memory dislodged in the back of my mind—one of the rare times Serena ever asserted her opinion—when I tried to play classical music while driving to a store at the edge of town. She said it made her sad.
I scowled and surveyed the restaurant.
Linen-draped cocktail tables scattered throughout, spilling out the wide-open glass accordion doors and to the behemoth of a balcony.
No one greeted us or even glanced our way, each woman dripping in jewels and each man dressed in a flawlessly tailored suit.
I plucked a glass of champagne from a passing server.
Georgie followed me, mouth slightly parted, as I ventured outside.
The swell of ocean lapping against wooden pilings beneath us mingled with the warmth of the string quartet.
An ivy-wrapped pergola built into the deck twinkled with lights.
Two long tables—positively drenched in rows of burning taper candles—were flanked by tufted linen chairs and stretched from one end to the other.
It all finished in a rather foreboding microphone stand.
“Are we supposed to make a speech?” I hissed through my teeth.
Georgie looked like she might cry. “Are we terrible bridesmaids?”
Serena swished through the doors behind us, signaled by the clink of her heels against wood and a waft of floral perfume. We turned with identical smiles, although I was aware that mine might’ve appeared eerily similar to a grimace.
“I’m so happy you’re here,” she murmured, pulling us into gentle hugs.
Her hair, swept flawlessly into old-Hollywood-style curls, cascaded around a strapless, cream-colored lace dress. I would have believed it if she said she’d stepped straight out of a fashion shoot for couture brides.
“Where’s the lucky guy?” I asked, scanning the restaurant with obvious trepidation.
“At the bar with his groomsmen,” Serena replied without missing a beat. “But I wanted you to meet my mother and father-in-law.”
Georgie and I shared a silent plea for help while Serena put her back to us, reaching for the couple behind her that appeared otherwise disinterested in anything other than the glasses of wine and whiskey in their hands.
The woman was a picture of elegance in a taupe blazer and matching slip dress, and the man, to my dismay, might as well have been a version of Jesse with a few extra wrinkles and salt-and-pepper hair.
“These are my bridesmaids,” Serena explained proudly, motioning to us each. “Georgie Wheeler and Margot Wade.”
A moment of hesitation passed, beyond what would be considered polite, before the woman extended a limp hand to me. “Genevieve Newhouse,” she purred through barely-moving lips.
I gripped her fingers and shook them.
“Warren Newhouse, the second,” he muttered, ball of ice clinking as he knocked back a swig of his whiskey.
“Nice to meet you,” Georgie said. “This is a beautiful rehearsal dinner.”
Serena beamed.
“If by beautiful, you mean disturbingly quaint, then you would be correct.” Genevieve let out a tight-mouthed, squawk of a laugh, which earned her a narrowed sidelong glance from her husband.
“We offered about a hundred far superior options, but Serena insisted on holding the wedding in this… town. What is it called, darling? Bluebell Canyon?”
“Bluebell Cove,” Serena corrected, her smile never wavering.
So, evidently, the compromise for her own wedding was the city she had it in.
A tiny piece of my heart broke as I watched her, calm and grinning, accepting whatever fraction of a morsel was offered.
It reminded me of Jeremiah, her older brother that reluctantly became her guardian when their parents passed.
He vanished from her life the second she turned eighteen.
I cleared my throat. “Well, I lived in Manhattan for seven years, and this far surpasses any restaurant in the city,” I said.
“That’s right, Mom—” Serena began.
“Genevieve,” she snapped, then quickly recovered with a thin smile. “Have you two had a chance to sample the hors d'oeuvres yet?”
Georgie’s stare bored holes in my profile, as if begging me to say something, or maybe not say anything at all.
I couldn’t tell, because I openly glared at the odious creature claiming to be Serena’s future mother-in-law.
She didn’t seem to notice—I wondered how many glasses of wine she’d knocked back already—as she plucked an invisible piece of lint from her husband’s suit and palmed a nonexistent flyaway into her updo.
“When’s dinner?” I asked Serena, turning my body fully to her until it was obvious I had cut her in-laws out.
Genevieve guffawed, muttering something to Warren and dragging him away by the elbow.
“A half-hour,” she replied as her eyebrows drew together. “Why did you do that?”
I took an exaggerated sip of champagne, hoping it might help me gather my senses. It didn’t work. “Because, they were possibly the most detestable people I’ve ever come into contact with,” I hissed. Harsher than I intended, but at least I avoided adding, “Tied for first place with their son.”
Serena placed a hand over her heart.
“Genevieve was kind of rude to you, don’t you think?” Georgie added softly, before I could manage to make it worse.
She waved a set of pearlescent nails at us. “That’s just Gigi’s special brand of humor. She’s like you, in that way, Margot.”
I choked on sea air.
“I don’t think she meant it that way,” Georgie murmured.
Serena cocked her head. “What way?”
“Well, just that…”
“You just called me the spawn of Satan drenched in a hive-inducing amount of Chanel No. 5.”
Serena’s eyes narrowed for a split-second. Georgie’s mouth fell open.
“I will give you the benefit of the doubt, Margot, because I believe you’re under a lot of stress,” she replied, slowly, as if measuring each syllable. “But I would appreciate it if you leave any further judgements to yourself.”
My lips parted with a reply, but she whirled around without anything further, weaving through the nearby crowd and disappearing toward the bar platform.
There, in the dim pendant lighting, Jesse cavorted with a small gaggle of young men busy quaffing a series of shots.
I realized with a shudder that one of them would be walking me down the aisle the next day.
“What was that?” Georgie whispered, warily eyeing them over the rim of her champagne flute.
I bristled. “If Serena won’t defend herself, then I will.”
“Hey,” she said, placing a hand on my shoulder until I broke away and looked at her. “That’s not what I meant—you were right to say all that. Are you feeling okay?”
The answer was no—the drink was a mistake, it only made me more jittery—and I caught myself scanning my surroundings every spare second and gap in conversation, pulse somehow spiking each time I couldn’t find Teddy.
Every minute he remained a mystery, drifting through the partygoers beyond my eyeline, my chest continued to tighten until the air felt thick.
“Perfectly fine,” I lied pathetically, to which Georgie raised a skeptical brow.
When the words left my lips, a wall of people shifted, and Teddy appeared like the honeyed streaks of sunlight through parted clouds.
He wore a black suit and matching shirt with no tie.
His hair was unusually tame, but the strap of his camera across his shoulder, embroidered in turquoise and orange, betrayed his otherwise polished appearance.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” I blurted out as his gaze fell on me.
Georgie crossed her arms. “No, you don’t.”
“Georgette Wheeler—”
He was already a few feet away, maneuvering through the crowd, a head above most.
“Teddy!” Georgie called, mouth twitching as she fought back a laugh. “How convenient,” she whispered to me, “Now you two can have that conversation.”
“What does that mean—”
“Hey.” Teddy appeared out of breath as he arrived, straightening the front of his suit.
Time paused when our eyes met, an inevitable blush surfacing on my cheeks as the memories of the last time we saw each other flashed in my mind.
Then I remembered Priscilla’s words. He didn’t come back to Bluebell Cove for me, or for Georgie, or for anyone else.
Exposing our secrets was just another adventure to him.
I ripped my gaze away, jaw tense.
Georgie suddenly knocked back the rest of her champagne, then held the glass out, feigning surprise.
“Welp, I’m going to go hunt down a drink, okay?
You two have fun,” she said, and I watched with latent horror as she hurried straight past a server carrying a tray of sparkling flutes, disappearing behind a group of women who could’ve been supermodels. Judas.
My poor heart fluttered erratically at the idea of being alone with Teddy. I had to stay strong.
He reached for my hand, and I took a step backward. His shoulders drooped as his arm fell to his side. “What did I do, Margot?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, swallowing the obnoxious urge to reassure him. The string quartet swelled beside us, all tragic and comically well-timed.
By the end of the night, any future with Teddy Bowman would be extinguished, and I could finally move on.
Right?