Jamie, she meant.
Layla’s stomach flipped, the anvil in her brain taking on a new pounding rhythm: her ex-husband’s name. The thought of Jamie arriving here to find out that his little sister was having doubts about her wedding, doubts that Layla had somehow prompted?
It was an awful thought.
She shoved her phone back into her pocket and stepped into the courtyard.
Her eyes went to him immediately: the man in black,again, a piece of carved touchstone in the airy, uncrowded space. He sat at the opposite end of the courtyard at an ironwork table for two, nothing but a bottle of water and two glasses on its surface. His head was tipped down, his thumb swiping lazily up the surface of his phone. No hat today, but pants and a shirt that looked remarkably like what she saw him in yesterday.
Burglar chic, bank robber chic, she thought.Billionaire chic.
Bring-you-terrible-news chic.
He had practically beenseethingwhen she opened the door to him.
Layla put her shoulders back, gathering her strength. She crossed the courtyard’s slate-gray pavers, passing moresharp-edged tables like the one Griffin sat at and potted green shrubs shaped into rectangular pillars.
She watched as he raised his eyes, noticing her approach. He stood, tall and lean, the napkin from his lap now in his hand.
Her brain supplied another worthless observation:Jamie never stood up when I came to a table.
“I said fifteen minutes,” were his first words to her when she reached him, which pretty much canceled out any of the points he got for his standing-up manners.
He was an appalling person. Rude and arrogant and needlessly demanding.
“I had to get dressed,” she replied.
A part of her was ashamed of the half lie: Of course, shedidhave to get dressed, but Layla had been a board-certified hospitalist for nearly five years now, trained in a residency program at one of the busiest hospitals in the country. When she wanted to, she could get showeredanddressed in seven minutes flat. She was proud of this available efficiency. Usually, she didn’t mind showing it off a little.
But quickness was beyond her this morning. Everything had taken longer in the face of Griffin’s accusation.
“By all means,” he said to her now, a mocking edge in his voice, “take your time.”
Pop, pop, pop, little bubbles in her brain went, and for a few seconds, all she could do was take her time, her gaze locked with his across the table. He still hadn’t shaved, the patch of bare, scarred skin along his jaw more noticeable as a result. Beneath his dark eyes, there were grayish-purple crescent moons.
She let him win this staring contest she’d never agreed to, dropping her eyes and gripping the back of the chair at her side. Asshe moved to sit—taking her phone from her pocket and setting it on the table—she couldn’t help but notice the way he waited, not returning to his own seat until she lifted her own folded napkin, placing it across her lap.
Take your time, she wanted to snark back, if only to help her ignore the strange trilling feeling she got in her stomach from having him stand there like that. Above her, same as on the plane.
When he finally sat, though, he wasted no time.
“I need to know what it is you said.”
Ineed to know what it is I said, she thought. At the very least, she assumedheknew; she assumed if Emily told Michael, Michael told Griffin.
Then again, despite being Michael’s best man, Griffin didn’t seem the type of person it would be easy to open up to. Maybe Michael kept the details vague.
Which was terrible news for Layla and her champagned brain.
“To Emily,” he clarified unnecessarily, that blade of impatience back in his voice. It cut her so completely down to size. Answering his question—I don’t know—would make her feel sosmall. Messy and out of control.
“Bonjour, madame,” a voice interrupted, the most welcome two words of French Layla had ever heard in her life.
She looked up to find a server by their table, two thin rectangular menus in hand, which she set in front of both Layla and Griffin, who tensed in his seat. Layla could not follow the rapid French from the server that followed, and at whatever look she saw on Layla’s face, the woman smoothly shifted to English—a word about the day’s quiche, the croissants that would be out soon, a request for Layla’s drink order.
“Coffee,” she said, suddenly so desperate for it that she couldn’tbother attempting even a word as simple ascafé. Dark, heavy. The anti-champagne, really. Coffee would help.
The server nodded and turned to Griffin, who…who,for the love of God, spoke back to her in French.
