Only, Brynn clearly had other ideas. “That doesn’t negate the need for a plan in the event one arises. This building is a cultural landmark. Not to mention the dozens of guests that could be harmed should something serious happen.”
Hallie could feel herself making that face again. The one where she was looking at Brynn like her spaceship had just landed. Mingled with her bafflement was a healthy dose of curiosity. Because how often was she going to have the chance to meet someone like Brynn Fitzpatrick in the wild?
Hallie could already tell Brynn didn’t move through this world like other people.
Still, if Brynn was taking this seriously—which she was, to an insane degree—then so would Hallie. Which meant that instead of brushing Brynn’s concern off, she responded with her own earnest explanation. It was kind of nice to get to flex her chops, as far as information about the inn went. “We have standard safety procedures in the event of a fire regardless of where on the premises it happens. Fire extinguishers. Maps. Staff are trained to help clear the bedrooms.” She pointed toward the ceiling. “Our smoke detectors are hardwired and automatically call the Stoneport Fire Station.”
Brynn was still furiously scribbling. Was that a diagram Hallie spotted? “Got it.”
Again, Hallie was struck by how insane it was that Brynn and Grant had been about to get married. Hallie didn’t think she’d ever seen Grant put effort into anything, unless it was being his father’s lapdog or covering up his affairs.
In contrast, Hallie was staring at one of the most beautiful women she’d ever laid eyes on, who’d just informed her that she’d finished her PhD in analytical philosophy a year early. Which, even though Hallie was no expert, seemed like it was probably pretty hard to do.
Brynn was making it all look effortless, chewing on the end of her pen as she reviewed the notes that she’d just jotted down. It was just so crazy.
“I’m really having a hard time picturing you and Grant together.” Hallie threw her hand over her mouth, the words out before she’d realized it wasn’t an inside thought.
The guilt sluiced through her when Brynn’s lips pouted into a frown. It was an especially tacky thing for Hallie to have said, given that Brynn had already made it clear she wasn’t exactly interested in traveling down that path. At least, not with her.
But, in Hallie’s defense, she was trying to make it make sense! Now that she’d finally met Brynn, Brynn and Grant seemed likesuchstrange bedfellows. Hallie had thought about it more than once since she’d returned to her own apartment last night. She’d thought about it a lot, actually, and the last ten minutes had only reinforced her growing confusion.
Still, that was no excuse. “I’m sorry. We can hopefully forget that I said that,” she added when Brynn didn’t respond.
Sydney and Grant, even if she still thought he was one of the grossest people on the planet, had made sense to her. Grant loved shiny things, and Sydney was the shiniest of them all. Grant had never really appreciated how weird and funny and goofy her best friend could be, and Hallie would never forgive him for that. But aesthetically, Sydney had fit in perfectly withhis stupid pompadour hair and fancy watches. They’d looked like Ken and Barbie dolls together, dressed in the coastal New England collection.
Brynn was beautiful, sure, with her wavy, blonde hair and big eyes and soft features that made her look so innocent, but she was also quiet and understated. The antithesis of flash. And it was clear that she was smart. So how in the hell had Grant gone two-for-two on women who were better than him falling under his spell?
That was the biggest question, even as Hallie tried to accept that she’d probably never get a satisfactory answer beyond the fact that women were far too trusting where men were concerned.
She was met with those big eyes again, and the feeling was back, like she’d kicked a puppy. “Grant was a miscalculation,” Brynn answered softly.
Hallie squinted at Brynn’s explanation. Hitting a curb or using too much salt was a “miscalculation.” But Hallie was no stranger to telling herself what she needed to hear, so she couldn’t exactly blame Brynn for trying to make the situation make sense. Still, she was curious, especially given that bringing up Grant did seem to make Brynn surprisingly sad. Hallie would have been angry if she had been in Brynn’s shoes.
“What exactly did you miscalculate?” Hallie could count off at least a dozen of Grant’s shitty qualities, and she wouldn’t pretend that she didn’t desperately want to know what was on Brynn’s list.
“I didn’t assume there were any other variables except our relationship to consider. I wasn’t approaching meeting Grant as something that needed political finessing, and I miscalculated that he, and his father, weren’t operating under the same structure.” Brynn, again, had started speaking so matter-of-factly about the breakup that it made Hallie actually wonder if they were talking about the same thing.
Hallie had heard the story from Sydney and Reese, though there was no way to corroborate it unless Grant ever truly came clean. It was gleaned from a very shitty conversation that Sydney had had with Grant a week before his anticipated wedding day, when he’d come crawling back to her to try and salvage their relationship. His key impetus in marrying Brynn was that it allowed Grant—and by virtue of their relationship, The Devereux Group—to get closer to Stan Fitzpatrick and his necessary investment money to keep their flimsy Ponzi scheme afloat.
Hallie couldn’t imagine how badly something like that would hurt, especially if it had been driven by the person that she’d been planning to spend the rest of her life with. Hallie had a sinking feeling that Brynn had also put the clues together. “So he used you? As a means to his own gain?”
Brynn nodded, but now, she was making surprisingly intense eye contact with Hallie when she said, “In its simplest distillation, yes.”
Hallie nodded but didn’t answer. Strangely, she was a little bit thrilled with the intensity of that look, which settled somewhere in her stomach.
There was more to Brynn than met the eye. Hallie was sure of that.
Even so, she and Brynn weren’t friends. It wasn’t Hallie’s responsibility—or place, even—to ask how Brynnfeltabout her failed engagement. How she was doing. How she could wake up every morning knowing that Grant still got to breathe in precious air without wanting to find him and throw him off a cliff. Hallie had always been loyal, maybe to a fault, and betraying a woman’s trust—the trust of two women, actually—was unconscionable to her.
But it wasn’t her place to tell Brynn how to go about her life or try to move forward. And it was clear that that was exactly what Brynn was hoping to do over the coming weeks.
So instead of pushing it, like she was wont to do, she tried to focus her attention on what had brought them both together in the first place. “Let’s finish the tour inside,” she said. “Then we can grab our coats, and I can take you on a quick walk around the grounds.”
CHAPTER FOUR
At six thirty a.m. on the dot, Brynn’s phone rang while she was putting the finishing touches on her makeup. Because, of course, that’s when her dad had decided was the best time for them to connect—before Brynn started her shift at the inn, when she’d always be free.
In his humble opinion, which he’d now mentioned at least half a dozen times since she’d come back to New England, he’d put on a very brave face while she’d been in Louisiana. He didn’t seem to realize that commenting on said brave face sort of negated the stoicism he was trying to give himself credit for achieving. It was a truly perfect paradox, though she hadn’t mentioned that to him. But he’d made abundantly clear, along with her mom, that they couldn’t subsist off weekly check-in calls that had ended up with poor reception and “Can you hear me’s?” passed back and forth for the majority of their time spent trying to talk.
