The Wedding Room Mix-Up (Melting Her Ice Queen #2)

1. Double Booked

DOUBLE BOOKED

Margot Langley arrived at Weeping Willow Winery forty-three minutes ahead of schedule. This was intentional. She'd built the buffer into her travel plans the way she built contingencies into contracts. Not because she expected problems, but because expecting problems was how you avoided them.

Her flight from JFK had landed on time. Her rental car had been waiting. The GPS had routed her through wine country without incident, past rolling hills striped with grapevines that caught the late afternoon light like something from a tourism brochure.

She pulled into the gravel lot and sat for a moment, hands still on the wheel. The venue sprawled before her: a restored farmhouse with white-painted wood and climbing roses, surrounded by smaller cottages that housed the bridal party. Picture-perfect. Sophie had chosen well.

Margot checked her reflection in the rearview mirror. Hair: still in place, the low bun she'd perfected over years of court appearances. Makeup: minimal, professional. Expression: composed.

She grabbed her bag from the passenger seat, a leather tote containing her tablet, her phone charger, and a color-coded binder labeled Sophie & Jamie's Wedding: MOH Duties. The binder had seventeen tabs. She'd started it six months ago and updated it weekly.

Some people might call that excessive. Margot called it prepared.

The venue coordinator met her at the main building, a woman in her fifties with a clipboard and an apologetic smile. "Ms. Langley? We spoke on the phone. I'm Patricia."

"Of course." Margot shook her hand. Firm grip, eye contact. "Everything on track for tonight's welcome dinner?"

"Absolutely. The caterers confirmed this morning, and the florist is setting up as we speak." Patricia consulted her clipboard. "Now, about your accommodation—"

"Vine Cottage, yes? I requested early check-in."

"Right, well." The apologetic smile turned fixed. "There's been a small… situation."

Her shoulders tightened. "What kind of situation?"

"We had a booking conflict. Another member of the bridal party was assigned to Vine Cottage as well. We're completely full otherwise. There's another wedding this weekend, smaller, but it's taken up our overflow rooms."

"So you're saying…"

"You'll be sharing. The cottage has a queen bed, a full bathroom, and a lovely sitting area. It's quite spacious for two."

Margot stared at her. "I specifically requested a private room."

"I know, and I'm so sorry. The bride, Ms. Park, said she'd speak with you about it. She was confident it would be fine."

Of course she had. Of course Sophie had said it would be fine, because Sophie had been trying to manage Margot's social life since they were eleven years old.

Sophie, who believed that Margot's problem was that she didn't let people in, as if letting people in had ever done anything but create complications.

"Who's the other guest?"

Patricia checked her clipboard. "A Ms. Rebecca Navarro. One of the bridesmaids."

Becca. Sophie's college roommate. They'd never met.

Schedules conflicting, events missed, the kind of near-misses that happened when two people occupied different orbits of the same social system.

Sophie had been trying to introduce them for years.

You'll love her, Margot, I promise! She's so warm. So genuine.

Margot did not need warm and genuine. Margot needed a door that locked and eight hours of uninterrupted sleep before she had to perform four days of wedding festivities while pretending she remembered how to be a person outside of work.

She pulled out her phone. "Give me a moment."

Sophie answered on the second ring. "You're there! How was the flight? Is the venue gorgeous? I told you it would be gorgeous."

"Sophie. The cottage situation."

"Oh, right, right. That." Sophie's voice went carefully casual. "It's not a big deal. Becca's great, you'll love her. I've been trying to get you two in the same room for literally years if you'll recall. This must be the universe at work!"

"That's not…" Margot closed her eyes. Counted to three. "I need space, Sophie. You know that. This weekend is going to be a lot, and I was counting on having somewhere to decompress."

"Don't worry, the cottage has a sitting area! You can decompress there. And Becca's super easygoing, she won't be in your way."

"That's not the point," Margot said, consciously loosening her jaw. Her dentist would be proud.

"The point is that my two favorite people are finally going to meet, and maybe if you gave someone a chance, you'd realize that not everyone is going to…" Sophie stopped herself. "Sorry. That was… I'm not trying to push. I just think you'd like her, if you let yourself."

Margot wanted to argue. Wanted to point out that Sophie's definition of letting herself do something and Margot's definition were incompatible. But it was Sophie's wedding weekend, and Sophie sounded hopeful, and Margot had been her best friend for over twenty-five years.

"Fine," she said. "But if she snores, I'm requesting a refund on your friendship."

Sophie laughed. "Deal. Now go unpack. I'll see you at the welcome dinner. Love you!"

The line went dead before Margot could respond.

Vine Cottage was, admittedly, charming.

Stone exterior with some kind of ivy climbing one wall.

A wooden door painted sage green. Inside she found exposed beams, a small kitchen area, the promised sitting room with overstuffed chairs and a view of the vineyard.

The bedroom was through an archway, dominated by a bed with a white duvet and approximately thirteen decorative pillows.

One single queen bed.

Unlucky.

Margot surveyed the space and made her calculations.

The left side of the bed was closer to the outlet for her phone charger, but farther from the bathroom.

She unpacked with precision, claiming the left nightstand, the left half of the closet, and one of the four bathroom shelves.

Her toiletries lined up in order of use: cleanser, toner, serum, moisturizer, with hair products standing tall like soldiers waiting for battle.

Her dress for tonight's welcome dinner hung in its garment bag, steamed and ready.

When she finished, she sat on the edge of the bed and checked her email. Forty-seven new messages since this morning, with three flagged urgent. She started composing replies, falling into the familiar rhythm of work, the comfortable space where everything had rules and she knew exactly how to win.

A text notification slid down from the top of her screen. Amelia: Tell Sophie congrats from me! Sorry I couldn't make it. On call all weekend. Save me some cake?

Margot smiled. Her college roommate had become a fertility specialist in San Francisco, and their schedules had aligned exactly twice in the past five years. She typed back a quick Will do and returned to her emails.

She was halfway through a response to a junior associate when she heard the wheezing gasp of an engine outside.

Margot looked up. Through the cottage window, a battered car pulled up, a compact red sedan that had clearly seen better days. The driver's door opened, and a woman emerged.

She was late. That was the first thing. The second was the suitcase, one of those boring black hard-shell types, except this one was covered in stickers. A cartoon avocado. A rainbow. A clowder of cats. PROBABLY LATE FOR SOMETHING in cheerful block letters.

Charming.

The woman wrestled the suitcase from the trunk, then reached back in for something else: a large cooler, the kind you'd take to a tailgate. She threaded one arm around the handle holding it in place with her elbow, grabbed a tote bag with the other, and started toward the cottage.

Margot watched her navigate the gravel path.

She was wearing a sundress, yellow and splashed with flowers, and her hair was a mass of dark curls that looked like they'd given up on any organizing principle hours ago.

She was muttering something under her breath, probably a commentary on the weight of the cooler, and when she looked up and saw the cottage, her face broke into a smile that involved her entire body.

Then she spotted Margot through the window.

The smile wavered. Not quite dimming, but shifting. Recalibrating. Margot recognized the look: the one people got when they recognized she wasn't going to be easy to read. Or easy to talk to.

She stood and went to open the door.

"Hi!" The woman, Becca, was slightly out of breath.

"You must be Margot. Sophie's told me literally everything about you.

I'm so sorry I'm late, my flight got delayed, and then there was a thing with the rental car…

" She gestured vaguely with the cooler. "Can I just—is there a fridge? This has to stay cold."

Margot stepped aside. "Kitchen's through there."

Becca squeezed past her, trailing the scent of something warm. Vanilla, maybe, or cinnamon. She dropped the tote bag on the nearest chair and made a beeline for the small refrigerator, rearranging its contents to accommodate the cooler.

Margot didn't ask, but she started talking.

"Cake decorations," she said, not looking up. "Sugar flowers. I made them last week, but they're delicate, you know? Couldn't risk checking them. The baggage handlers would've destroyed them."

"Cake decorations." It still wasn't a question.

"For Sophie's cake. I made it… well, I'm making it.

The base layers are already here, the venue pastry kitchen stored them for me.

But the decorations had to travel with me.

" She finally got the cooler situated and turned around, pushing a curl out of her face.

"I'm a baker. Pastry chef. Whatever. I do custom cakes.

Sophie's getting five tiers with hand-piped lace details and sugar peonies. It's going to be incredible."

Margot processed this. "You made the wedding cake."