Kristen nodded. “He was my everything. I lost my parents in a car accident when I was seven, and he stepped up to raise me. He aways believed in me. He told me ‘if you believe it, you can achieve it.’ That’s been the guiding mantra of my life. He’s the reason I booked my first major gig. I wasn’t even going to audition and he told me to try, just for fun.” She bit her lip as her eyes welled. “He never got to see me in it. He had a stroke and died in his sleep.”
Carter materialized the moment Kristen bowed her head and gave into her tears.
“Babe, are you okay?” He wrapped her in his arms. “You thinking about your gramps?”
“Oh, this isperfect,” Dorian said quietly, but loud enough that everyone heard him.
I moved away to allow them their moment, and Dorian his.
“Poor Kristen,” a voice said from behind me.
I turned to find Drew looking more sympathetic than I would’ve expected. Was it possible that the bosshole hadempathy?
“Yeah,” I replied.
Truth was, I understood what she was feeling on a much deeper level, but I wasn’t about to admit it to Drew. The less he knew about me the better. We were colleagues and nothing more. And barely that, given how standoffish he was.
I watched Carter place his finger under Kristen’s chin, lift it and then give her a gentle kiss. They stared into one another’s eyes anddamnit, I could tell it was going to be amazing TV.
“Gorgeous, love it,” Dorian exclaimed.
Both Carter and Kristen looked dazed for a few seconds, like they’d forgotten they were being observed. Maybe that’s how it was when you spent your life in the public eye? You just lived your life without overthinking everything?
Must be nice.
At the same time, as outlandish as they were both being with the arrangements, they genuinely seemed to love each other and wanted to make it work.
“Emilia?” Kristen called to me. “Would it be weird to use sunflowers in my bouquet? As a tribute to him.”
I walked over to the pair. “Sunflowers would be gorgeous!”
“But I can’t envision it at all. I’ve never seen it done.”
“Hold on a sec,” I said as I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “Check this out.” I navigated to one of my favorite apps that allowed you to create images of bouquets and centerpieces with any types of flowers. “So let’s say you want sunflowers, and what else? Personally,I think hydrangea would be lovely, but I’m partial to them. They’re my favorite.”
“Oh, definitely! And ranunculus. And some greens.”
I added the flowers into the app. I was actually doing the florist’s job, but hey, I was a full-service wedding planner, and until she selected someone to deal with bouquets and centerpieces, I was happy to give advice and help her fill out her ideas.
I turned my phone around to show her the result and noticed that Drew was now hovering closer to us. There was no reason for him to get involved with this step, so I eyed him warily, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Oh my gosh it’sperfect!” Kristen squealed. “Honey, do you love it?”
Carter was either very aware of how it would play on camera, or flowers made him equally excited. “Babe, yes! It’s exactly what you wanted.”
I wasn’t convinced he had a clue about her aesthetic—or much of anything about her at all, honestly. They’d known each other for just a few weeks when they’d gotten engaged. Their fans were swooning over the whirlwind romance, but me? In my experience, “whirlwind romance” was just another way of saying “rushed in too fast.” I believed they sincerely loved each other. At the same time, though, I was less than convinced that that love would last.
But hell, love wasneverguaranteed to last, even when it came with a wedding ring. I’d seen grooms who cheated during their bachelor party, and brides who got into slap fights with their new mother in law. I could make things look pretty on the big day but nothing could fix what had been broken from the start.
Still, I put on a smile because I was pulling for these two. Maybe theyreally had figured it out. Maybe it really was love for them—the kind that would last.
“Okay, fantastic, so now we have a jumping-off point for when the florists show up. Love it.”
My phone went off and I switched off my mic and excused myself to take the call, because it was Winston’s vet and I’d been hiding my stress about what was going on with him all morning.
“Is Winston okay?” I answered in a rush. I’d been trying not to think about him since I’d dropped him off on the way to work. He’d been lethargic since the day before, and when I did an investigation of the yard, I noticed some small bits of PVC piping near his bed left over from some of the construction work. Of course I freaked out that he’d ingested some of it.
I found a spot beneath a banana plant out of view of the cameras but still close, just in case they needed to pull me back in.
