Chapter Three
In the mirror, Layla looked precisely the way she wanted to.
She looked polished.
It had been stressful, choosing an outfit for this unplanned outing—she would need to figure out what to swap in for one of the other wedding events—but for now, she was happy with the navy, a satin midi skirt and matching fitted cotton boatneck top.
It was the sort of outfit she’d admired when she’d been in Paris all those years ago, watching elegant women sit at cafés—granted, very unconcerned about the deleterious effects of cigarette smoke on every major organ of the body, but Layla could overlook that in her honeymoon haze—or strut down uneven streets in heels that spoke of their coordination, their command over themselves.
Layla would need to be careful in her own heels, but at the moment, she was determined.
She’d been determined pretty much since that moment with Griffin Testa in the lobby.
She grabbed her phone from where it rested on the room’s bed—a full size, because while the hotel itself was big, this was still Paris, and the rooms ran small—and opened her camera app.
She was not a particularly skilled selfie-taker, but she saw an opportunity here.
A few awkward, unsuccessful attempts later, when she finally managed a shot in the mirror that did not make her question whether she’d ever managed to stand attractively still in her life, she sent it off to Cara with an accompanying text.
Dinner tonight with the bride! Paris is great so far.
That was a white lie. If Paris was great, she wouldn’t really know yet, because she hadn’t left the hotel, not even for the baguette.
Instead she’d taken a long, hot shower and a not-recommended-for-staving-off-jet-lag nap, then did a very self-indulgent skin care routine.
She’d carefully filled out an elegant little card left on her bed about preferences for her stay, selecting mature and sensible things like having an English-language newspaper delivered outside her door every morning.
But that was not the kind of information that would suggest to Cara that she was thriving, so she left it out, adding a red heart emoji and a French flag before pressing send. On reflection, that probably would seem suspicious to Cara. Layla was not prone to emoji use.
It was still early back in Boston, still well in the realm of Cara’s workday, so Layla was surprised when the little dots bounced on her screen immediately.
STUNNING!!!!!! was the first reply, and Layla smiled. Cara loved an exclamation point. Or several.
More bouncing dots, then, Gotta go deal with a GSW. Text me later!
If Layla was the emoji type, she would’ve sent that face with the crooked grimace and flushed cheeks.
It was very awkward to have texted someone who was going in to treat a gunshot wound with a mirror selfie.
Especially when said mirror selfie was probably more about proving something to Cara than it was about sharing something genuine.
But before she could think of anything to write back, there were the dots again.
Take care of yourself, ok?
No exclamation.
Layla’s smile slipped. She could read a world of concern in that text. She didn’t want to text Stop worrying again, so she slid her phone into her clutch and decided she was ready to go.
In the hall, she waited in front of the elevator doors, surprised by the pulse of optimism that gathered in her middle.
The nap had done her good; the night out would do her good.
In fact, going out was the far better plan for avoiding jet lag, so she could be at her freshest tomorrow, and spending some time with Emily without the rest of the MacKenzies would be its own way of easing into the week.
C’est bon, she thought to herself. She knew enough French on her own for that.
Then the elevator doors opened.
And there was Griffin Testa.
Layla wished she could remember how the French said Fuck.
She stood at the threshold, hesitating. It would be weird not to get on; she knew this.
But you didn’t ride the elevator with a lightning bolt.
Except then—then he stepped slightly to the side, as though to make room for her, and she caught her reflection again in the mirrored interior of the elevator, looking polished and maybe a little Parisian, and he seemed to still be wearing the same clothes from the plane, so actually, who was the lightning bolt here?
She stepped over the threshold.
“Hello,” she said coolly.
He didn’t say anything back, which by now was unsurprising.
Layla tried not to look at him; she really did. But it was impossible with all these mirrors, and once she did look, it was hard to stop, because…
Because there was something wrong with him, she was pretty sure.
For one thing, his breathing was labored, a quick rise and fall she could see in his chest. She couldn’t hear a wheeze, which was good, but when she turned her head to look at him directly, she saw a splotchy redness covering his neck.
A bead of sweat trailing down his temple.
His jaw held so tight, as though he was bracing himself.
She opened her mouth to speak.
“Don’t tell Michael you saw me,” he said.
She blinked at him. “Oh…kay?”
His shoulder jerked slightly. An involuntary spasm. When he reached forward to press impatiently at the button for the lobby, she thought he might’ve done it to cover the movement.
He pressed it again. Forcefully.
“I don’t think that’s going to make it go faster,” Layla said.
He lowered his hand again, blew out a breath. Shoved it back in his pocket.
The elevator started to move—an annoying validation of his frantic button-pressing—and maybe the corner of his mouth ticked up. Maybe.
Foolishly, it felt to her like an opening.
“Listen, are you all ri—”
“Are you the ex?”
Layla stared, stunned.
“The brother’s ex-wife, I mean,” Griffin clarified.
“I’m—” She paused, cleared her throat. God, had she wheezed? “I’m Emily’s friend.”
“Right. But you’re her brother’s ex-wife.”
His voice was different than it had been on the plane, even than it had been in the lobby. Quieter and raspier, but not any less effective. Less of a slice, but definitely a death-by-a-thousand-cuts situation.
Her silence must have served as an answer.
“It must be uncomfortable,” he said, and it felt like an indictment. Like he was saying, Don’t pretend you’re calm, don’t pretend you’re not like me on the inside, panting and splotchy and sweating and twitching to be out of here.
She could not look at him directly anymore. Only in the mirror, where they stood side by side, her in navy, him in black.
We look like a bruise, she thought.
But she said, “It’s not. It was amicable.”
In the mirror, she saw his mouth move enough to make room for the noise of derision—of denial—that he made. He was watching her, too.
He could strip the polish right off her with his gaze.
“What is your problem?”
It was strange saying it this way, to the mirror and not to him. She could see too much of herself in it.
He didn’t answer. He just waited as the elevator slowed to a stop, as it offered up a pleasant, mechanical ding that felt far too light for the moment.
For the two of them.
When the doors slid open, Griffin Testa kept his gaze straight ahead and said, “I’m not afraid of flying.”
Then he stepped out, striding quickly across the lobby. Out of the glass doors.
Into the falling dark of the Paris night, alone.
* * *
“What. An. Asshole!”
Rosie made the proclamation so loudly that Layla had to stifle a groan of embarrassment.
They were in a small restaurant in the Marais, not far from the hotel, crowded and rich with animated conversation.
Still, Rosie—who had maintained her fashion for piercings, including a fresh one on the shell of her ear that was simply too red and puffy for Layla’s professional comfort—had the sort of giddy shriek to her voice that called attention.
Layla did not think this was the sort of restaurant where people yelled the word “asshole.” Plus, since Rosie was speaking in her brash American English, Layla was pretty sure she shouldn’t be yelling anything.
Just to avoid playing so much to type.
But it was hard to hold it against her. The truth was, Rosie was fun. Distracting. Her elfin face full of shiny jewelry and her brain full of shiny thoughts, changing topics so frequently that Layla’s own mind couldn’t land on anything for too long, which was a relief after the elevator.
Beside her, Em laughed but also shushed Rosie mildly. “He’s not, not really!”
Emily’s defense of her future father-in-law was sweet, even if the description she’d provided of him over the last few minutes was really making Rosie’s case for her.
“He’s just like…very military?” Em added.
Layla soaked this up, another detail she was glad to have about all things Michael and Emily. So far, even amid Rosie’s chaos, she’d managed to steer the conversation that way, and she was grateful.
It was good to know more about the man Em would marry: that he and Emily first met in a coffee shop in Beacon Hill, when Michael had been in town for work, a story that involved a spilled latte and a small dog in a purse (the dog was fine), which Rosie had proclaimed in advance “a meet-cute for the ages!”; that he worked for the government, though Layla got the sense that Emily wasn’t allowed to say too much about precisely what he did; that he was warm and sensitive and doting in spite of having a father who seemed the opposite; and that his hands shook with nerves on the night he proposed.
He was, in fact, quite a bit older than Emily—about a decade—but Emily mentioned it only as the most passing, insignificant detail about their relationship.
“Michael used to be in the military,” said Rosie. “And he’s not an asshole.”