Wulf chuckled. “I don’t think there’s any way he could have. This is a purely medical condition.”
“Stress?” Flicka asked. “His shenanigans with kidnapping her or sending Josephine and the others? I chewed them all out while I flew, by the way. They’ll never talk to him again, let alone do anything he says.”
“No. This is anatomical. Rae is calling it, “a thing that happens’ and is very blasé about it.”
“And let me guess,” Flicka said, still sitting on the wooden floor. “You are less chill?”
Wulf raised one blond eyebrow at her. “Not at all. I am the pinnacle of ‘chill.’”
Flicka left her purse and laptop bag lying on the floor and struggled to her feet. “Well, I’m glad I’m here, nevertheless. As far as postponing the wedding goes, my admins are calling and emailing absolutely everyone. I called a bunch of the important people on the way to the airport because that’s a frickin’ hour-long car ride from Montreux to Geneva, and then a bunch more while I was waiting for the airplane people to gas up the plane and whatever else they have to do.”
“File a flight plan?” another man’s voice said. His British accent, so standard in graduates of the Le Rosey boarding school, was underlaid by the slightest Japanese softness.
Flicka looked around the entryway and living room. “Yoshi?”
Wulf flicked his fingers toward the staircase.
Yoshi, who was wearing a proper white shirt and trousers, not pajamas, leaned on the railing at the top of the stairs. He waved and smiled at her. His black hair flopped over his forehead, slightly grown out from when she had seen him at her wedding.
“Hey! Yoshi!” Flicka bolted up the stairs. “I haven’t seen you formonths!”
When she got to the top, she jumped into his arms, hugging him.
He laughed and twirled her around. “Yes, I was glad you saved a dance for me at your wedding, even if it was at two o’clock in the morning and we were both sloppy drunk by that time.”
He set Flicka on her feet, and she smoothed down his shirt collar. “You were not sloppy, Yoshihito. You are never sloppy.”
“You were a perfect princess bride that everyone admired, so serene in your reception dress, but I was more drunk than I have been since my undergraduate days. I stumbled while leaving. My security had to help me out of the street, where I had fallen in a puddle of dog piss.”
“I don’t believe it in the slightest. You are making up stories to assuage my conscience. You were the soul of decorum, while I was a hot mess. I slobbered all over the Duchess of Sussex, telling her that I justlovedher dress,lovedher house,lovedher, and gave her a big, sloppy kiss. She may obtain a restraining order.”
“Not at all,” Yoshi said, brushing imaginary dust off her shoulder. “You were—”
“All right, you two,”Wulf bellowed from the bottom of the stairs as he climbed toward them. “You were both equally pissed at the wedding and embarrassing to be seen with. Now get out of my way. I need to see to my wife.”
Flicka and Yoshi stifled giggles until Wulf had passed by and shut the door to his bedroom on the left side of the balcony.
Then they cracked up.
“You were as blitzed as Brahms and Liszt,” Flicka told him.
Yoshi said, “And I thought you were going to end up snoring under a table at your own wedding.”
“Now tell me really, how’s Rae?”
Yoshi stopped smiling. “Placenta previa is uncommon and dangerous. She could bleed to death in less than an hour if it ruptures.”
Flicka flinched. “And what are the chances of that?”
“It depends on how severe it is, and there’s no way to measure that. If it ruptures, she had a severe case.”
Flicka pressed her hand to her forehead, feeling a headache coming on. “How long have you been here?”
“A few days, and in and out before that. I was planning to fly with them to Montreux before this happened.”
“And how’s he handling it?”
“He’s stoic, calm, and barely blinks, lest that be too demonstrative.”
