“What are you doing here?” I ask, giving her a hug. “How are you feeling?”
“Back at work, obviously,” she says, returning my hug listlessly. “And I’m…okay, I guess.” The hitch in her voice says she isn’t okay.
“You weren’t supposed to be back until later.” I should’ve texted her yesterday, no matter how busy I was. She knows about some of the things I wanted to do once I got married—like auditing my finances—and she might’ve felt pressured to come back to help.
“Plans change. Wanna go into your office?”
“Yeah, sure.”
We go inside together. I gesture at the couch by the coffee table and sit down next to her.
She’s paler than usual, her eyes slightly bloodshot. But if you aren’t close to her, you wouldn’t know she’s exhausted, emotionally and physically. She’s done a good job hiding it with makeup and a sunny yellow blouse and blue skirt. But her smile doesn’t have the usual brightness, and her skin’s dull underneath the foundation.
I hug her again, harder this time, and feel her sag into me. I wish I could do more, but there’s nothing I can do to make things better for her. “When did you get back in the States, anyway?”
“Last night.”
Okay, so maybe getting in touch with her yesterday wouldn’t have worked because she would’ve been on a plane. Still… “You should’ve taken today off.”
“I didn’t want to. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Me?” I put a hand over my chest. “I’m not the one who lost her uncle.”
She shrugs helplessly with a forced smile, like she’s at a loss for words to describe how she feels, but she’d hate to impose her grief on others.
Empathy stirs. I couldn’t figure out what to say when my mom passed away, either. All sorts of feelings come forward, impossible to articulate when so many of them contradict each other, or magnify little things that you know shouldn’t matter much anymore.
“I think it’s best if I just keep myself busy. And I was concerned about your marriage to Sebastian. I mean, I knew you were going to marry him, but I just didn’t like the way he was with me.”
“You’ve interacted with him?” He didn’t seem to recognize her name at the Mexican restaurant.
“Well, yeah, of course. When I had to organize things like the lunch or flowers or send him the documents for the Sebastian Peery collaboration. He rarely responded, and when he deigned to bother, he was so abrupt. His assistant wasn’t any better, either.”
The details about the lunch and flowers feel off. I’m the one who texted him about both. But maybe she got in touch about something related to the lunch dates, and he blew her off. It wouldn’t be surprising, because he was so furious with me. But the Sebastian Peery situation doesn’t make any sense. “That’s weird. He told me he never got the documents.”
Bianca’s face twists with disgust. “What the hell? He’s lying or something. He confirmed that he got them to me.”
“He did…?” How odd. Sebastian Jewelry doesn’t have a strong foothold in Asia, and this could be the break he’s looking for. Sebastian doesn’t come across as the type to sabotage his own business project just to spite someone. He could’ve found some other way to torment me if he wanted to make me suffer.
On the other hand, Bianca has no reason to lie about any of this. She wants me to succeed. She’s been my biggest cheerleader all my life.
“There must’ve been some miscommunication,” I say finally. I don’t want to take sides, although it makes me feel like a horrible friend to Bianca. But I can’t blame Sebastian without more facts when I’m ninety-nine percent sure he wouldn’t do something like this.
“We’ll see. But I’m not going to be comfortable until he proves himself.”
“I don’t think you need to worry. It looks like we’ll make a good team.”
“What makes you say that? Did something happen?” Her eyes sparkle as she sits up straight. “Did he tell you how much he loves you?”
I laugh. “Nothing like that. But we worked so well together.” I tell her what happened playing against Preston and Vonnie.
“Yes!Oh my God, that’sawesome!” A huge smile splits her face. “I wish I’d been there. I would’ve never let those two run away before getting on their knees! I would’ve recorded it and put it on every site—Facebook, Instagram, Pulse, you name it, I would’ve put it up! I miss the best things.”
“Well…maybe it wasn’t thebestthing.” I grin.
She gasps, leaning forward eagerly. “I know that look. You got lucky.” She puts her hand on my arm. “Let’s hear it.”
“I’m not doing a blow-by-blow.”
