“Charge it to the Harding party,” Olivia called to the waiter, ignoring Natalie.
Natalie grabbed her bags and hurried after Olivia, who was moving at an impressive clip given the height of her heels. She followed her back inside and then over to reception, where the same blond woman was still standing behind the desk. Natalie shrank, bracing for another rejection, but as Olivia approached, the woman’s demeanor changed. She looked up right away and greeted Olivia with a smile. “Hello. How may I help you?”
“Yes, hi,” Olivia said briskly. “We’re both checking in. One room under Natalie Pickard, one under Olivia Harding. It’s part of the block for the Harding/Stein wedding.”
“Of course, welcome,” the woman said, fingers tapping on her keyboard. “Just give me one moment…”
“She said I couldn’t check in until three! I swear!” Natalie whispered to Olivia.
“Here you go,” the woman said brightly as she passed each of them an old-fashioned brass key. “Ms. Harding, you’re in room twelve. Ms. Pickard, you’re in room nineteen. I hope you both have a wonderful weekend. If you leave your bags here, I’ll have them sent up right away.”
“Why aren’t you staying with your parents?” Natalie grumbled as she followed Olivia up the wide, gleaming wooden staircase lined with candle sconces and more oil paintings.
“Cell reception is too spotty on that side of the island. I need to be reachable in case a client calls me.”
“You’reworkingthis weekend?”
“I’m always working.” Olivia paused on the first landing. “This is me. I think you’re on the next floor. Do you want me to take the dress?”
“No, I’ll take it,” Natalie said, snatching the bag off Olivia’s shoulder. “I brought it all the way from New York. I think I can handle a flight of stairs.” It came out a little pricklier than she’d intended, so she forced a little laugh. “I’ll see you at the welcome drinks.”
Natalie continued up the stairs, turned into the next hallway, and found room nineteen near the end of the corridor. She fumbled with the key for a moment before managing to turn the heavy lock. The door swung open, and Natalie staggered inside with the heavy garment bag, which she carefully draped over the back of a brocaded armchair before collapsing onto the four-poster brass bed. She needed to close her eyes for a minute before she could muster the energy to head back down to the dock for the ring delivery.
“Jesus Christ!” a male voice said.
Natalie shot up into a seated position and stared wide-eyedat the man who’d apparently just walked out of the bathroom. His dark curls were damp from the shower, making him seem younger and even more boyish than usual, just like it did back in their dorm all those years ago. But for once, Natalie didn’t have to imagine what was under the towel, as this time, he was completely naked.
When their eyes met, the shock on his face faded, replaced by a much more familiar expression—the amused smirk that had been making her heart race for the last twelve years. The one that had kept her awake at night back in college; the one that had lured her to New York years later, causing her to abandon her plans to attend grad school in Scotland.
The one that made her feel like the shittiest maid of honor in the history of weddings.
“Hey, Bumpy,” Jonathan said. “What are you doing in my room?”
CHAPTER TWOMarigold
Marigold frowned into the small, warped mirror above her dresser. It felt wrong to be wearing makeup on Sandpiper Island, something she hadn’t done since age sixteen, when she spent the summer trying to seduce Paul, the college student her parents had hired to redo the garden. Well, not the whole summer, exactly. Poor Paul had done his best to avoid looking at Marigold while she sunbathed in increasingly tiny bikinis, but his resolve had crumbled by the end of June.
She hadn’t appliedmuchmakeup—just mascara and lipstick—but even that was enough to make her feel like she was in costume, playing the role of the bride. “Mare? Are you almost ready?” her mother called up the stairs. “Olivia’s bringing Jonathan’s family over from the inn.”
“One sec!” She stepped back to view her whole outfit, but the mirror was too small. There wasn’t a full-length mirror anywhere in the cottage, something Marigold had grown toappreciate. She spent so much time looking at the photos of herself brands paid her to post that it was refreshing to go weeks without seeing her full reflection.
Marigold looked around her bedroom, scanning the cluttered surfaces for some sign of the gift she’d bought for Jonathan. She hadn’t planned on giving him a wedding present, but when she’d stumbled across a first edition of his favorite book,Of Human Bondage, in the antiquarian bookstore on Madison, she’d known she had to buy it for him. She’d even read the summary on Wikipedia so they could discuss it on their honeymoon, but had been secretly disappointed to discover it had nothing to do with S&M. Not that she thought her sweet, slightly nerdy fiancé would’ve spoken so highly ofFifty Shades of Grey–esque erotica; she’d assumed it was one of those sexy classics that were banned for making people too horny in the 1950s. But it turned out thatOf Human Bondagewas actually about an unhappy doctor who spends his whole life wishing he’d made it as an artist, a slightly worrying reveal given Jonathan’s profession.
She could picture the navy-and-gold-striped paper she’d selected, but didn’t see it anywhere among the wedding detritus. A tiny prick of worry twinged in her stomach. It felt weirdly important to give the book to Jonathan before the wedding. Had she left it behind in New York? No, Natalie had scoured Marigold and Jonathan’s apartment to make sure they hadn’t forgotten anything. It had to be in the cottage somewhere.
She ran down the stairs, reaching up to touch the antlers mounted above the landing. When she was little, she’d pet the antlers as a form of apology to the poor deer who’d been murdered for wall décor. Now it was mostly just habit. Marigold paused at the bottom of the stairs to survey the scene, scanningfor any early guests who might use the opportunity to corner her. The coast seemed clear, so she headed into the living room, where her mother was arranging flowers in an asymmetrical ceramic vase she’d made herself.
When she heard Marigold approach, Lulu looked up and beamed. “Oh, that looks fabulous on you.”
Her mother had lent her a spectacular white Halston jumpsuit that Lulu had worn to Studio 54 as a teenager. Marigold shimmied and did the disco-fingers dance move. “Are you sure you don’t mind? What if I spill something on it?”
“Who cares? It was meant to be lived in, to bedancedin. It’s a crime to leave it in a closet for decades.”
Lulu looked radiant in a vintage black silk slip dress that’d always been a favorite of Marigold’s. It wasn’t a conventional choice for the mother of the bride, but that was to be expected. Growing up, Marigold had taken pride in how different Lulu seemed from the other Upper East Side moms with their identical blond highlights, identical SUVs they were all too nervous to drive in the city, and identical opinions. Lulu was an artist—she painted, sculpted, wrote poetry, and played the guitar. She’d also been the muse to a famous painter back in the late ’70s, and there were nude portraits of her at MoMA and the Guggenheim, a fact that had never embarrassed Marigold, even during field trips with her classmates.
That’s why Marigold had been surprised when Lulu insisted on throwing her and Jonathan a lavish wedding instead of letting them run down to city hall and then jump on a plane to Bora Bora as they’d been planning. But Marigold wasn’t going to stand in the way of anything Lulu wanted. Not now, anyway.
Stop it, Marigold told herself. Her mother was going to befine. She was about to start a new drug, one that’d performed miracles in trials. Eager for a distraction, she asked, “What can I help with?”
