“For the shoes you pick,” he added.
“Right.” She extended her fingers to take them, careful not to brush his. That look on his face plus his hand against hers again—she knew that was not a good idea.
They were interrupted again, then, by the woman who’d brought the shoes, aWe’re closinglook on her face that Layla thought must be universal in any language. In her hand, she held a portable card reader, and with only the most minimal instruction—as though it pained her to speak any more English—she took the tags from Layla’s newly donned clothes, scanning them first,and then the socks, and then, finally, the one pair of sneakers in Layla’s size…which she didn’t dare try on, for fear of slowing down the process.
“Let me get my purse,” she said, turning back toward the dressing room.
But before she could get to it, she heard theplinkof the card reader’s approval, Griffin beating her to it. She tried not to let her shoulders sag in defeat. When she turned around again, the woman was gone.
“I told her we’d hurry,” Griffin said.
She nodded, and he turned away, drifting toward the inner ring of the floor—the place from which, she knew, he could stare up into that gorgeous glass dome, if he wanted to see something truly stunning.
With him gone again, it came back—that feeling of utter aloneness, of doubt. The boat cruise had been a disaster, inarguably. She had not helped Emily, not even a little, not evenbeforeSamantha and Jamie arrived. She had been a distraction, a reason for Manon to be stressed about hotel arrangements, an elephant in the room big enough that Robert couldn’t help but acknowledge it in a toast.
She should go, no matter what she promised Emily. A flight out tomorrow.
Tonight, if she could swing it.
When she finished tying the second shoe and stood, she turned back to the open curtain, where an empty Galeries-branded bag sat on the floor, awaiting the clothes she’d come here in. Honestly, what she wouldn’t give for a Walmart bag—the plastic ones, terrible for the environment—to tuck the soiled dress into. As it was, she tried to arrange it all carefully: the balled-up dress, the shoes,even her clutch. When she stepped out again, she thought the light was dimmer—displays shutting down, surely, one by one.
Get out, the store was saying.
She picked up the bag, smoothed her new sweater needlessly. Straightened her posture before she walked to where Griffin stood.
Almost right up against the glass balcony now. His head tilted back the slightest amount, but enough to see what was above. A kaleidoscope of color up high, intricate and impossible, a faraway heaven. Ten long legs of glass curving downward from it, blue and green and orange and yellow, the expanses of opaque panels in between like a thick coat of the fluffiest snow blanketing your window. Arch after arch after arch of more color at the bottom, a boisterous bolstering of the whole loudly luxurious affair.
“It didn’t go well,” she said.
Other than a faint lifting of his shoulders—a deep breath, maybe—Griffin didn’t say anything, so she continued.
“As a first outing, I mean. I know you want this wedding to happen—”
She watched as he slowly set his right hand along the top of the balcony railing. Curled his fingers around it.
“And I think it will,” she rushed out, even though she wasn’t sure of that, not now. “But I’m—I’m a distraction as I am. It doesn’t matter what I do. It’ll just be theIs Layla Looking at Jamie?show.”
For a long time, he stayed where he was, saying nothing. Long enough that she heard a soft announcement in French come over some unseen speaker, and another light—somewhere—dimmed.
Long enough that she started to say, “We should—”
“You’re right,” he interrupted.
She swallowed, unreasonably stung. Shewasright. Still. “About?”
“It will be that. Is Layla looking at Jamie.”
Only the second time he said her name. The way he said it—it sounded all wrong, next to Jamie’s like that, when Layla had always thought their names sounded so nice together. Perfect together.
“Right,” she reconfirmed, weirdly unable to say the rest.
That she would get a flight, go home. Get out of the way of this.
“So,” she added limply.
“So,” he repeated, and then he dropped his hand. Turned and met her eyes again, took a deep breath before he spoke again.
“So you’ll look at me, then.”
