CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The country club’s garden could’ve been a slice of Europe.
Towering hedges and a row of Italian cypresses surrounded paths of pavers with intricate patterns, rose bushes, and an impressive fountain centered in a pond. Lily pads and white flowers floated in the water, glittering beneath the idyllic, partly cloudy sky.
Picture perfect.
Unfortunately, Georgie and I were stuck with a pair of half-drunk groomsmen in the glass-encased sunroom. They whooped and hollered each time Jesse dipped Serena or pulled her in for a kiss in front of the fountain. When Ivy opened the French doors for bridal party portraits, all the oxygen in the room had been replaced with a humid cloud of liquor breath.
Chad, the one I’d have to suffer down the aisle with, pulled a flask from his tux pocket at every available moment. His bandaged hand lowered a little too close to my backside as we were forced together for photos. I took great pleasure in twisting his burned pinky until he yelped.
After an hour of close-lipped smiles and glares from my newfound pal Chad, the men dispersed and a veritable army of makeup artists and hair stylists descended on us for touchups.
“Now’s a good time to talk,” Serena murmured through her teeth as one person freshened her blush and the other fixed her lipstick.
I sucked in a sharp breath and held it while my Frenchman spritzed another layer of hairspray. “I was hoping for a private moment,” I replied with a wheeze. “Away from all the—” What felt like a hundred eyes snapped to me. “People,” I finished with an attempt at a smile.
Ivy lingered beside us, Teddy having disappeared to take photos of the pristine reception area and the slow trickle of guests. Getting rid of her might prove to be difficult.
“Maybe we could walk the gardens,” Georgie suggested brightly.
She was met with a cluster of outraged gasps.
“Or sit in the clean, private, bridal suite,” I blurted, “Alone.”
Ivy and Minerva’s assistant trailed us all the way through the gardens, the hallways blocked off from guests, to Serena’s bridal suite. The connected room she’d dressed in could’ve doubled as an apartment. Huge, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the glittering ocean, flanked by a cream colored wraparound couch. A kitchenette and half-bath waited on the other end, finished with a small dining table that held our bouquets in crystal vases. They looked more like white-and-green floral waterfalls.
Georgie smiled and touched the petals.
“White bluebells,” she declared over her shoulder.
Serena beamed. “Those were incredibly difficult to find.”
My chest grew impossibly tighter. I looked to Ivy and Minerva’s assistant, wringing my hands together. “Would you mind waiting in the other room?” I asked.
I clicked the door shut behind them and locked it for good measure.
Serena sat on the couch gazing at the ocean, the skirt of her dress fanned so that not a single wrinkle appeared. Her blonde hair glowed almost ethereally in the amber light of the afternoon sun bouncing off the ocean. For a moment, I wished that I didn’t have to say it.
Then my mother’s face—crumpled and hollow, silently suffering for so many years—flashed in my mind. Serena was just like her—kind, long-suffering, willing to put up with far too much. I couldn’t handle seeing her extinguished in the same way.
Georgie sat on the couch while I chose to stand. Blame it on the hundreds of milligrams of caffeine or the disconcerting lack of sleep. My pulse skittered so fast it made my hands shake. I’d rehearsed a dozen openings all night, and every one of them disappeared now.
“We’re worried about you, S,” I began. My voice trembled, the words burning my tongue on the way out as if to say:no turning back now.“About… all of this,” I murmured.
Her expression was impassive as she replied, “What do you mean?”
Georgie shifted and cleared her throat. “We want to make sure that this wedding is what you really want,” she said.
I raised an eyebrow. I hadn’t anticipated her participation beyond a nod here and there.
Serena smiled. “That’s sweet—but really, I’m perfectly fine with the country club. I have my girls and my bluebells. Besides, it’s just one day.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. Dancing around the issue would get us nowhere—which meant it was a job best left tome.
“Look,” I said, “When the three of us got dinner in New York a couple years ago, I should’ve said something, but I didn’t.That’s my fault. I was too… wrapped up in my own stuff, and I didn’t think my opinion would matter to you.”
Serena frowned gently. “Of course it would’ve mattered.”
