Instinctively, Tom reached for Sasha, wanting the warmth and comfort of another person, but she swatted his hand away, keeping firmly to her side of the bed.
“You tossed and turned all night,” she complained irritably. “I’m going to need a bucket of eye concealer just to look presentable today.”
“Sorry,” Tom murmured, throwing an arm over his eyes. “I didn’t sleep well.”
“Mm.” Sasha shrugged, swinging her long legs from their bed and walking to a nearby mirror. “You never do when you’re here. You should go and see Dr Edelstein—he’ll give you something to help you sleep.”
“I don’t want anything to help me sleep.”
“Well, you should,” Sasha retorted. “If you don’t sleep,Idon’t sleep. Honestly, every time we visit your mother, you’reexactly the same. A restless and gloomy insomniac. It drives me crazy. Your mother isn’tthatbad, Tom.”
Tom watched as Sasha preened in front of the mirror, her hair a glossy mane, her skin smooth and soft.
“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what it is about this place that makes me this way.”
“So, until you find out, see Dr Edelstein,” Sasha retorted sharply, running a brush through her hair. “Then at least I’ll get some rest whenever we’re here, and not spend all night watching you toss and turn.”
Tom nodded, glancing out of the window. The day was dark and gloomy, with grey skies hanging threateningly overhead. It had rained all night, and he could nearly smell the damp, earthy scent of the surrounding countryside. It was a smell he was familiar with, having grown up on this large, sprawling estate. It reminded him of his childhood, of marshmallows roasting over an open fire, of fresh-caught fish wriggling on the line, of his father, standing despondently in the woods, staring up at an ominous sky.
“This is Ides weather, Tom,” Doug says mournfully, kicking at the mud. “Bad things happen when the sky looks like this.”
Doug again. With a start, Tom sat up, telling himself to get a grip. He looked back to Sasha, who was pulling a robe over her shoulders, clearly intent on showering in the connecting bathroom. Suddenly, Tom was overwhelmed with the sensation of not wanting to be left alone.
Bad things happened when he was left alone.
“Come back to bed,” he pleaded softly. “I’ll make last night up to you. And it’s Saturday... we don’t have to be anywhere today.”
Slowly, Sasha turned to look at him, disappointment in her eyes. “You’re kidding, right?” Her tone rigid and stiff with disapproval. “Our wedding planners are here today, Tom.Remember? We have a lunch date with them, and your mother, just after one in the summerhouse.”
Tom fell back on his pillows, exhaling hard. “Right. The wedding planners. I forgot.”
“You forgot?” Sasha was clearly incredulous. “They’re the reason we’re here, Tom. How could you forget?”
Tom shrugged in response. It seemed easier and less likely to cause an argument than to say,I didn’t forget, I just don’t really care.Not that it mattered. Sasha was searching through her hand luggage for her toiletries, completely lost in her own world.
“Your mother is the one insisting that we get married in that wilderness out there,” she carried on, without any attempt to conceal the bitterness poisoning her words, “I wanted the Plaza. Or, at the very least, the Capitale. But no. I get to have a wedding in the woods in upstate New York, shit sticks central.”
“It’s tradition,” Tom said blankly. “My grandparents were married in those woods. My parents were married there. Now, it’s my turn.”
“You don’t need to tell me again, I said yes, didn’t I?” Sasha replied, a hint of impatience in her voice. “If it’s important to you and your mom, well, I guess I can make it important to me too.”
“Thanks,” Tom muttered.
“You don’t need to thank me for being reasonable, Tom. And at least I get to choose the wedding planners myself. If I must be married out there in the mud, we’re going to do itmyway, with style.”
“The wedding planners,” Tom mused, standing with a sigh and pulling a towel around his waist. “Who are they again?”
Sasha gave him another one of her disbelieving stares. “Queen and Country Weddings,” she informed him tightly. “I told you about them before. They’re British. Up-and-coming andveryexclusive.”
“Expensive?” Tom watched as Sasha laughed, a mean little sound that made him wince. Laughter was supposed to be happy, he thought. It wasn’t supposed to sound likethat, a mean, self-satisfied, ugly sound.
Abruptly, Tom recalled the sound of another laugh. In his mind he saw a smile, wide and cat-like, spread across two cheeks dusted with pink blusher. He saw the crinkles at the corners of two blue eyes. He heard happiness fill the air, like a warm breeze washing over you on a summer’s day. The memory made his heart run faster and his stomach knot with pain — he looked down, clutching his towel in his hand.
“Criminally so,” Sasha replied flippantly. “But it’s all on your mother’s dime, so who cares? We struck a deal, your mother and me. We get married out in the forest, without complaint, and she coughs up the cost of the wedding.”
“Right,” Tom nodded, but his eyes were blank. He was still caught in the past, still locked in a memory. “Right.”
“Tom.”
