Unable to help myself, I kissed her again—then rang the doorbell. We did our best to break apart when we heard footsteps approaching.
“Hold on, you’reearly?” my brother said as he opened the door. “How is this possible?”
I smirked at him as we walked into the foyer. “Coming for me already, huh? I’ll have you know that my beautiful fiancée is Google Maps in human form. She took me on back roads that I didn’t know existed. Cut off a good twenty minutes of drive time.”
Harrison held out his hand. “Harrison Ashford, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Maps.”
“Emilia.” She smiled at him. “Your home is lovely. Thank you for having me.”
“Where’s the best dog in the world?” I asked, craning my neck to try to spot their dog Monty.
“He takes his hosting duties way too seriously and would’ve insisted on kissing every guest on the mouth, so he’s with his dog walker for the night.”
A loud, distressed female voice echoed from another room.
Harrison grimaced in sympathy. “Sorry, you kind of walked into a crisis control center. We’ve got a disaster on our hands. The plan was for us to do a cake reveal—a double-layer cake with the frosting between the layers colored either blue or pink—and it turns out our baker misunderstood the very clear instructions. We have one small cake we’re going to cut into to reveal the icing color, and then we have a big sheet cake that everyone will get to eat. The staff wasgetting it cut up and ready so they could serve the slices immediately after the reveal, and it turns out the baker didn’t put the reveal color in the big cake—the icing is white on the inside too. Gwen is beside herself.”
“Oh no,” Emilia frowned. “That’s a pretty huge mistake. Can I help?”
“Are you a magician?” Harrison asked with a sad smile. “Because I’m not sure what can be done. The baker who made it is delivering a wedding cake and isn’t available today. Gwen is a wonderful chef and baker but she doesn’t have the supplies or the bandwidth to doctor her own cake right before the party starts.”
“I might have an idea,” Emilia said. “Is Gwen okay to chat with me for a minute?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Harrison replied. “This way.”
I followed my brother though his beautiful home and marveled about how much had changed in his life. The darkness that had hovered over him for so many years was gone, and he seemed freer. Happier. But then again, how could he not be with a beautiful wife and baby on the way?
When we walked into the kitchen I spotted an adorably pregnant Gwen holding onto the counter with her head bowed. Three servers huddled behind her anxiously.
“How hard was it to—” she paused when she saw she had a full audience. “Oh my gosh,hi, guys. Sorry I’m a mess; I need to figure out a cake emergency.”
She walked over to us, doing her best to smile.
“Gwen, this is Emilia Marino,” I explained, “and she’s got a solution for you.”
The women embraced like the shared cake trauma had bonded them before a word was spoken.
When they pulled apart Gwen clasped Emilia’s shoulders. “So nice to meet you! Do you happen to have a pound of buttercream frosting and food coloring in your purse?”
“Not quite,” Emilia laughed. “But I know someone who does. I’m not sure if Drew told you that I’m a wedding planner? Anyway, I work with a bunch of bakers but there’s one in particular who owes me a favor, and her shop is only about fifteen minutes away from here. We can drive the cake over, have them spilt the layers apart, scrape off the white frosting, throw the right color frosting in, then close it up and re-frost it. Easy peasy. What do you think?”
Gwen’s bottom lip trembled. “It’s so stupid to be emotional aboutcake, but I am. I wanted today to be perfect.”
“It will be, I promise,” Emilia reassured her. I could tell she’d engaged her nervous bride protocol, which also seemed to work on distraught, pregnant party hosts. “So what do you think?”
Harrison walked over. “I think it’s a fantastic solution if you two don’t mind missing a little bit of the party.”
I shook my head. “Of course we don’t. You two focus on your guests, we’ll take care of dessert.”
After Emilia made a quick call to confirm that the baker was at her shop and had time to squeeze us in, Gwen handed Emilia an envelope with a note containing the baby’s sex and made us promise not to spoil it, so we could all share the big reveal together. We worked with the staff to get the cake boxed up and ready for the trip. Emilia and I tag-teamed it out to my car and loaded it in the tiny back seat.
“I’m driving,” she said, holding her hand out.
“Excuseme?”
“Trying to navigate there is a pain in the ass, and we’re on a time crunch. It’s easier for me to just drive rather than trying to explain the directions.”
I paused. Allowing her behind the wheel of my custom Bugatti La Voiture Noire was a next level request.
