I crossed my fingers that Drew could manufacture some builder-speak.
“Hi, this is Drew. Can you explain what’s going on?” He listened for a minute but thenhisphone rang. “Arlo, can you hold on for a minute? I’ve got another call.”
Drew handed my phone back to me. “Mute it.”
I chuckled softly since he was staying true to his anti-tech roots. Figuring out how to mute a call wasn’t rocket science.
“Hey, Carter, I’ll be there at one thirty, like we discussed,” he answered. “Oh. Okay. And they’re herenow?”
I watched as his face shifted into a furrow. What was going on?
“Yup. See you in a few.” Drew slipped his phone back in his breast pocket and pushed back from the table. “He wants to add a roller skating track to the ballroom for the after-party. The company that does it is waiting in the lobby to discuss schematics.”
I could tell that the absurdity of what Carter wanted was lost to the logistics of how Drew could realize his client’s dream. He was already in problem solving mode, but I had my own problem to face.
“Oh, okay. But …” I held up my phone.
He grimaced in response. “Yeah, sorry. I need to handle this now before Carter signs off on it.”
“It’ll only take two seconds,” I practically pleaded. “Just do some builder-speak so he doesn’t think that I’m some solo clueless woman he can rob.”
Drew was backing away. “Emilia, I really can’t right now.”
I understood that he was stretched thin, but I needed his support. The last time something like this happened I wound up with a pricey new wall to fix a problem I later learned could have been solved with a single beam. I was doing my best to be my own general contractor and I had a feeling that I’d been taken advantage of more than a few times.
I was self-sufficient, sure, but it was nice having back-up now and then. And he’doffered,just a minute ago. He’d been supportive right up until he wasn’t.
I watched Drew walk away and felt my heart sinking.
There were reasons why, of course. Drew was putting out fires and making sure that the resort could move past the negative press. That required all of his focus.
The big question remained; where did that leave me?
23
DREW
If a shitty real life made for incredible reality TV, then Dorian was about to break records. What was going on during the wedding rehearsal had me ready to give up. On this wedding. On the resort. On life itself.
Chaos. That was the only way to describe the scene unfolding in the staging area.
Kristen had explained that Carter’s mom and stepmom didn’t get along. It wasn’t surprising, given that his dad had started the affair with wife number two while still married to wife number one. Then wife number one proceeded to take him absolutely to thecleanersin the divorce settlement, meaning wife number two never got the lifestyle to which she’d planned to become accustomed. I’d hoped the discomfort would be limited to fake smiles and silence.
But no, the sniping between them was next level, with Dorian capturing every second of it with that same maniacal expression on his face. Then there were the groomsmen, who had spent the day at a distillery while the ladies were at the spa. The guys had clearly drainedbarrelsof whiskey and were now practicing wrestling movesin front of the cameras with Carter looking on like he was loving every second of it.
Our tightly mapped out schedule didn’t seem to matter to anyone else. I tried to lock eyes with Emilia, to telegraph that we needed to harness the madness, but she was too busy being a human shield between the two escalating moms.
My phone rang and when I looked at the screen I saw that it was my father. It was the absolute worst time to pick up, but after his health scare, there was no way I’d decline one of his calls. I stepped into the blissfully quiet anteroom, just outside the circus.
“Hey, what’s up?” I answered.
“Well, hello to you too,” he joked. “How’s it going, son?”
I closed my eyes and sighed wearily. “Been better. You okay?”
“I’mfantastic!” I could hear the smile in his voice, which chipped a little of my tension away. I liked hearing him in a good mood. At least one of us was enjoying life. “I have news.”
My stomach clenched and I wished I hadn’t left my bottle of Tums in my office. News, even happy news, meant change. Right now, all I craved was consistency.
