He watched as she smiled back, slow and revelatory and satisfied, theI don’t carewritten all over her face. He watched as she realized his answer was the most beautiful, loving lie she’d ever been told.
And he wondered, as he walked back to the hotel with her, how hard it would be—how heavy it would be—to tell someone else he loved exactly what they needed to hear.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Somethinghad happened since she left Griffin.
Layla stood in the large, open-plan living area of the huge ground-floor apartment that the MacKenzies had booked for the weekend, the culminating site of the week’s events. Behind her, a set of wide glass doors opened out onto a gorgeous, private courtyard. Tomorrow afternoon, it would be transformed for Emily and Michael’s ceremony. A flowered arch she’d seen pictures of on that first night at dinner would be arriving tomorrow, set up for them to stand under as they exchanged their vows.
For now, though, all the guests—and now, it was trulyallof the guests, not just those who’d been able to come early for the Paris-tourism part of it all—were mingling indoors, driven inside by gray skies and a chill in the air.
It was, Layla could admit, a gorgeous apartment, if a little cream-and-white sterile, but she figured that was part of its appeal for a weekend like this: more of a staging space than a settling space. When she arrived a half hour ago, Manon and Céline had taken her through the three bedrooms, which they’d taken to calling “the bridal suite,” “the groom’s retreat,” and “the honeymoonsanctuary.” Tomorrow, Michael and Emily would have their separate “getting-ready” quarters, but then after the wedding, they would have this whole apartment to themselves for a few days, moving into the primary, balconied bedroom that overlooked the courtyard.
But once the tour was over, a sense of foreboding slowly crept over Layla as more guests arrived, as the catering servers started making their rounds, as the quartet of musicians set up in the loft above started their muted-sounding performance.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise, that foreboding feeling—not after this morning’s conversation with Emily, not after what had happened between Jamie and Griffin, not even after Layla realized, once she was back in her hotel room post-parfumerie-detour, that she’d run out of time to tell Griffin what Emily had said about the fire.
Somehow, though, it still was: Somehow, Layla had arrived to this open house feelinggenuinelycalmer than she had in ages, no mind-over-matter affirmations necessary. She had chosen the black top again, the one Griffin first kissed her in, no blazer over it; she had dabbed her new fragrance behind her ears like a secret she was keeping from everyone but him; she had made her way across the cobblestone streets between the hotel and here and thought,Who cares if they hate it?even though she couldn’t even have said, in the moment, whotheyor whatitwas.
So when that calmness started to slip from her grip—when she saw Em, hovering nervously around the caterer in the kitchen, checking and rechecking things like a mini-Manon; when she saw Fitz and Paula, tense and unspeaking in a corner, looking suspiciously at the Nantes cousins; when she saw Jamie and Sam, whispering to each other near the bathroom—she was rattled by the shift. She started to think,Where’s Griff?in a way that felt overlyneedy for how not-long she had known him, and then, when she connected the obvious dot and thought,Wait, where’sMichael?she did not feel any better to realize that theybothhadn’t yet shown.
“Vibes are off,” a familiar voice said, interrupting her thoughts. “Am I right?”
Layla turned to look at Rosie, whom she had last seen slapping Emily’s hand away as the bride-to-be reached for a glass of champagne off one of the server’s trays. Tonight, Rosie was not beating anydon’t steal the bride’s limelightallegations, because she was wearing a hot pink tiered tulle skirt with a black bodysuit beneath it, a peek of bright yellow lace sticking out from the neckline, presumably part of her bra. Layla thought she looked simultaneously amazing and ridiculous.
“You’re not wrong,” Layla said, sipping her own champagne. She decided it was no longer off-limits, it being completely clear now that she’d never drank enough of it to say anything to mess up this already-messed-up situation.
“I texted Michael,” Rosie said, “but no reply yet.”
Layla feigned mild interest—a quietHm—when really, the foreboding was pounding through her now. She thought of leaving Griffin in the hotel lobby, how he’d said, with a grim set to his mouth,I’ll see you there. I’m going to try to catch Michael before we go.
Both she and Rosie turned their gazes to Em, who’d stopped haranguing the caterers and was now laughing too loud with one of the new arrivals, an old high school friend Layla recognized from past MacKenzie gatherings but couldn’t quite remember the name of. She’d come with her new husband, who looked like a paper doll cut out of a book calledFinance Guys.
“Five more minutes and I go find him,” Rosie said. “She cannot laugh like that all night. It’s so fake! I mean yes, Michaela—Madison? Miranda! Yes, Miranda the field hockey girl!—brings it out in her, but come on. This is about Michael, right?”
Layla looked over at Rosie, who now had a furrowed-brow expression that was somehow more concerning than her panickyThank god you’re herefrom the first morning, when the initial crack in this week’s facade had shown itself.
“If he has cold feet, I’ll kill him,” Rosie said. “No. I’ll cut the cold feet off. And he can stand up there on his new bloody stumps and sayI do.”
Layla cringed, though she was grudgingly impressed. Rosie had so much fierce heart in her. Slow on the uptake, maybe, given the week’s events, but still, fierce. Like Cara had been—had tried to be—for Layla.
She would need to tell Cara that soon. When she got back from this trip, she would need to tell Cara so many things.
“I don’t think he has cold feet,” Layla said, looking back toward Emily.I think he’s keeping a secret.
In that moment, the foreboding felt almost overwhelming—a weighted cloak settling over her shoulders, one that she’d managed to set down for a while. She had wanted to tell Griffin that she knew about this secret—not what it was butthatit was; she had wanted to warn him that it was getting in the way of Em’s certainty about this wedding. But now, looking at her former sister-in-law—that fake smile, that fake laugh, soamicable—she wondered whether warning him was even the right thing to do.
She wondered whether she should walk right up to Emily—sweet Emily, still family, no matter what—and say,Don’t marry him until you know. Don’t let him lock you out of this.
Everyone would blame her, of course. Manon, Robert, Jamie. The Placketts, probably, who looked like they’d blame a napkin fornot staying clean. God,Griffinwould surely blame her, wouldn’t he? No matter what had happened between them? He would still get that implacable face, thatThe wedding has to happenfist. It wasn’t as though she mattered to him more than his best friend; it wasn’t as though sheshould.
It would make a mess of everything.
But maybe she shouldn’t care.
Maybe shedidn’tcare, at least not about everyone on that list. Not anymore.
“—if heactuallycomes, though, I’ll probably die.”
