“Where are we going?” Liam asked, realizing that they weren’t taking the road toward his parents’ mansion.
“We have to make a pit stop,” Lily said.
Liam groaned. “Don’t tell me your family planned some kind of classic Sutton party.”
Lily reached over to squeeze his thigh in answer, and he groaned into a big, Liam smile. When they pulled into the Sutton House, her grandparents’ place, which they now shared with Kade, the Suttons flooded out onto the parking lot to hug Liam and call him their “favorite movie star.” As he always did around big groups, Liam lit up, performing for everyone, kissing Lily’s aunts on the cheek and picking Rebecca and Esme up and whirling them around. The younger kids were overjoyed to have him there. They saw him as their favorite playmate.
Inside, Lily and Liam found Yoko on the sofa, waiting for her son. After a few days of rest, she looked brighter than she had that day she collapsed at the grocery store. Lily studied Liam’s face as he rushed to his mother and sat beside her, speaking in a quiet and focused Japanese. Lily watched her future mother-in-law come alive in a way she hadn’t seen since Liam left. Yoko bowed her head, then allowed her American sensibilities to take over as she hugged her son hello. She spoke rapid, beautiful Japanese. Lily could only guess what they said to one another.
Maybe Liam was telling his mother he wasn’t happy with Lily.
Maybe Yoko was telling her son that Kendall wasn’t happy with her.
But suddenly, the rest of the Suttons filtered back inside, passing around platters of appetizers and filling the newcomers’drinks. Lily accepted a glass of red wine and smiled happily when Liam suggested she sit on the other side of him.
When Grandma Esme handed Yoko a glass of sparkling water, Yoko looked up at her and said, “I want to thank you for your help the other day.”
Grandma Esme knelt in front of Yoko. “We have to be there for each other on this island, especially during these harsh winters. I hope you’ll let me know if you need anything else. I know your husband travels a lot for work.”
Grandpa Victor stepped into the room holding a glass of something and smiling at the scene. “Greetings, Yoko and Liam,” he said, bending to clink his glass to theirs. “It’s wonderful to have the engaged couple back together on our island again. All is right with the world.”
Liam threw his arm around Lily’s shoulders. “I hope you’re ready to make a speech at our wedding, Vic?”
Victor threw his head back with laughter. “I don’t think any of my daughters are keen to hear that.”
“I don’t think it’s possible to stop Victor Sutton from making a speech at an important family function,” Aunt Bethany said, swatting her father happily as she passed.
“A man after my own heart!” Liam said.
Yoko spoke in a tiny voice that forced everyone to bend closer to hear her. “His father is the same way,” she explained. “Always the life of every party. He was so different from anyone I’d ever met. And now, look! Our son is exactly the same.”
A strange greenish hue passed over Liam’s face, one that made Lily question if he knew all about his father’s affair. “Yes, but you never taught Dad the old Japanese, did you?” he said.
“Did he ever want to learn?” Grandpa Victor asked Yoko.
“He tried a few times,” Yoko said, glancing down. “But it’s a complicated language.”
“A completely different alphabet,” Rebecca offered.
“It was like our secret language when Liam was growing up,” Yoko said, turning again to look at her son. “Your father hated being boxed out.”
For a moment, all the Suttons were quiet, save for whoever was chopping something in the kitchen. Lily read this silence as proof that everyone now knew about Kendall’s affair and didn’t know what to say or how to speak about him, certainly not in a light way.
“Nobody likes to be boxed out,” Liam said finally, pulling the rest of them over the cavern of silence. “But I swear, these stuffed mushrooms are the best I’ve ever had. Whose idea were these?”
Rebecca confessed they were hers.
“The chef of the family!” Liam said, winking at Lily. “I should have known.”
About fifteen minutes before dinner was set to begin, Lily wandered back to the kitchen to refill her wine. Liam and his mother had returned to their Japanese conversation on the sofa, and every other Sutton seemed immersed in dialogue, laughing with one another in a way that set the stage for the approaching holiday season. Thanksgiving was around the corner.
Right before she entered the kitchen, Lily stopped short at the mention of Liam’s name. Aunt Valerie was talking about him in a low whisper, as though conscious he could walk in at any time. “Do you really think Liam’s having an affair with his co-star?”
Aunt Bethany responded, “I don’t think so. They have to do all that stuff for promotional material, you know? You can’t believe anything you read anymore.”
“But you saw how chummy they looked in those photographs,” Aunt Valerie breathed back. “If I saw Alex doing something like that? It would break my heart.”
“But Lily seems fine! She must know it’s nothing,” Aunt Bethany said. “I mean, she was out there for a while. Maybe she even met the co-star?”
