Chapter Five
Something you said. Something you said. Something you said.
The phrase pounded in Layla’s head as she made her way to the hotel courtyard, the same way it had every second since Griffin Testa walked away from her again, this time leaving her slack-jawed and frozen in the doorway of her room.
She only managed to snap out of it when another door on the hall opened; so startled by the noise, she slammed her own and turned to face the mess she’d left behind last night.
Her shoes tipped to the side on the floor by the room’s narrow, shallow armoire, her skirt draped messily over the lone chair, her white pillow bearing a smudge of last night’s not-fully-washed-off mascara, her phone on the nightstand face up, not plugged in to charge.
That was so unlike her.
Something you said.
She’d washed her face, brushed her teeth, dressed herself in some combination of clothing she was sure wasn’t on her spreadsheet.
Last night’s champagne was a curse, a fizzy cast over every conversation she’d had the night before.
She could remember speaking more about Michael’s family, and a long detour into the sordid, steamy history of Rosie’s on-and-off relationship with a colleague.
She could remember that she was careful to keep any conversation about herself focused on work.
But not according to Griffin.
According to Griffin, it was something she said. Something that made Emily have doubts.
She didn’t want to believe it. She shouldn’t believe it, not from a man who knocked on her door at eight in the morning, scowling and staring and demanding.
But still, she kept thinking: What if it was something I said? A little champagne-bubble-like utterance, rising to Layla’s always-still surface. Something so small she’d already forgotten it, but not so small that it hadn’t somehow popped in Emily’s face with the force of a cork coming off.
And now, doubts.
Layla paused at the threshold of the courtyard. Maybe she shouldn’t have come down here. Maybe she should have waited until her memory was sharper, her mind clearer…
Her phone pinged from the back pocket of her pants, and her heart thumped.
She wanted desperately for it to be Emily, responding to the trying-to-be-casual text Layla sent before leaving her room.
Did that champagne hit you as hard as it hit me?
she’d typed, hoping the reply message bubble would show up immediately.
That Emily would respond with something equally casual like lol yessssss.
Proof that Griffin Testa was mistaken, that Emily was completely fine, not having any doubts at all.
But there hadn’t been any reply, and now, Layla let her hand hover for a moment over her pocket, living in suspended hope that relief was only a swipe away.
She imagined a world where she would get a text from Emily and know everything was okay.
She would breathe easier. She would turn right back around and go up to her room, fix her face and her outfit, and follow her original plan for the day.
Without having to face Griffin.
But when she finally took out her phone and tapped her screen, the notification wasn’t from Emily. It was from Cara, a curt question disguised with an exclamation.
Have you seen him yet!
Jamie, she meant.
Layla’s stomach flipped, the anvil in her brain taking on a new pounding rhythm: her ex-husband’s name. The thought of Jamie arriving here to find out that his little sister was having doubts about her wedding, doubts that Layla had somehow prompted?
It was an awful thought.
She shoved her phone back into her pocket and stepped into the courtyard.
Her eyes went to him immediately: the man in black, again, a piece of carved touchstone in the airy, uncrowded space.
He sat at the opposite end of the courtyard at an ironwork table for two, nothing but a bottle of water and two glasses on its surface.
His head was tipped down, his thumb swiping lazily up the surface of his phone.
No hat today, but pants and a shirt that looked remarkably like what she saw him in yesterday.
Burglar chic, bank robber chic, she thought. Billionaire chic.
Bring-you-terrible-news chic.
He had practically been seething when she opened the door to him.
Layla put her shoulders back, gathering her strength. She crossed the courtyard’s slate-gray pavers, passing more sharp-edged tables like the one Griffin sat at and potted green shrubs shaped into rectangular pillars.
She watched as he raised his eyes, noticing her approach. He stood, tall and lean, the napkin from his lap now in his hand.
Her brain supplied another worthless observation: Jamie never stood up when I came to a table.
“I said fifteen minutes,” were his first words to her when she reached him, which pretty much canceled out any of the points he got for his standing-up manners.
He was an appalling person. Rude and arrogant and needlessly demanding.
“I had to get dressed,” she replied.
A part of her was ashamed of the half lie: Of course, she did have to get dressed, but Layla had been a board-certified hospitalist for nearly five years now, trained in a residency program at one of the busiest hospitals in the country.
When she wanted to, she could get showered and dressed in seven minutes flat.
She was proud of this available efficiency.
Usually, she didn’t mind showing it off a little.
But quickness was beyond her this morning. Everything had taken longer in the face of Griffin’s accusation.
“By all means,” he said to her now, a mocking edge in his voice, “take your time.”
Pop, pop, pop, little bubbles in her brain went, and for a few seconds, all she could do was take her time, her gaze locked with his across the table.
He still hadn’t shaved, the patch of bare, scarred skin along his jaw more noticeable as a result.
Beneath his dark eyes, there were grayish-purple crescent moons.
She let him win this staring contest she’d never agreed to, dropping her eyes and gripping the back of the chair at her side.
As she moved to sit—taking her phone from her pocket and setting it on the table—she couldn’t help but notice the way he waited, not returning to his own seat until she lifted her own folded napkin, placing it across her lap.
Take your time, she wanted to snark back, if only to help her ignore the strange trilling feeling she got in her stomach from having him stand there like that. Above her, same as on the plane.
When he finally sat, though, he wasted no time.
“I need to know what it is you said.”
I need to know what it is I said, she thought. At the very least, she assumed he knew; she assumed if Emily told Michael, Michael told Griffin.
Then again, despite being Michael’s best man, Griffin didn’t seem the type of person it would be easy to open up to. Maybe Michael kept the details vague.
Which was terrible news for Layla and her champagned brain.
“To Emily,” he clarified unnecessarily, that blade of impatience back in his voice. It cut her so completely down to size. Answering his question—I don’t know—would make her feel so small. Messy and out of control.
“Bonjour, madame,” a voice interrupted, the most welcome two words of French Layla had ever heard in her life.
She looked up to find a server by their table, two thin rectangular menus in hand, which she set in front of both Layla and Griffin, who tensed in his seat.
Layla could not follow the rapid French from the server that followed, and at whatever look she saw on Layla’s face, the woman smoothly shifted to English—a word about the day’s quiche, the croissants that would be out soon, a request for Layla’s drink order.
“Coffee,” she said, suddenly so desperate for it that she couldn’t bother attempting even a word as simple as café. Dark, heavy. The anti-champagne, really. Coffee would help.
The server nodded and turned to Griffin, who…who, for the love of God, spoke back to her in French.
Not like, French-person French. But still. French.
“Je prends un déca, s’il vous pla?t,” he said carefully, the blade dulled with his effort.
“Bien s?r,” the server replied, not looking at Layla as she turned and left them alone again.
“You speak French,” Layla blurted.
“Not really,” he said. Then he added, sharp again: “I practiced before I came.”
Each word an indictment: as though practicing the language of the country she would be visiting was the very least she could do.
She thought of her still-unused itinerary, her already-fallen-apart outfit plan.
She thought of clutching her phone in her hand on that plane, typing in her silly affirmations.
She could not even remember how to say I am thriving.
Why hadn’t she practiced French before she came? She could’ve used one of those apps, like she’d done before her first trip here, little badges she would show off to Jamie. She could’ve taken time after work, or in between cases, or—
A clear memory from last night finally bubbled to the surface, and in her frazzled, defensive state, it didn’t matter to Layla that it wasn’t the one she needed most at this moment.
“Some of us have to work,” she snapped back.
Passive-income Griffin, all-day-long-to-practice-his-French Griffin.
Gross.
Oh, he didn’t like that, she could tell. His jaw ticked, his teeth clenching behind the tight, flat set of his lips.
But he would not be distracted. “You don’t know, do you?”
She swallowed, twisted the clasp of her hands back and forth in her lap.
“You don’t know what you said,” he added.
“I didn’t say anything,” she finally answered, overloud, which immediately betrayed her lack of confidence in this answer.
She pressed her lips together long enough to take a breath through her nose, then tried again, keeping her voice down this time.
“Emily was fine when I left her last night.”