“Should we even bother planning things like this?” she asked as Arden kept scribbling in his notebook.
“What happens if you, I don’t know, fail on your little mission?”
“I won’t. I can’t.”
“Or what if you, perhaps, fall in love with your fiancé?”
“That’s even more impossible.”
“Forgive my doubt. I once witnessed the wedding of a storm elemental and a fire sprite. They literally extinguished each other. It waselectric. I’m just saying, if there is even a minuscule chance that this is fate, I say you may as well embrace—and monogram—it.”
“Fine, you can plan it. But I don’t really care about any of it.”
“But if you do end up falling for Mr. Tall, Dark, and Delectable—I meanElectable—and want a ceremony to celebrate that …”
“It’s not going to happen.”
“You know who else ran from love? A minotaur named Kevin. He ended up alone in a maze, eating sad cheese.”
“What is sad cheese?”
“The kind you eat to ease the sting of knowing you leftthe love of your life at the altar because you got a little tummy ache on your wedding day.”
“Finn is not the love of my life. The love of my life would know how toswim. And emote.”
“What can I say? I am a true romantic. Always rooting for the unlikely couples. Judging by this,” Arden said, picking up one of Iris’s books, “you are too.”
“I’m starting to think Selene is right.”
“About what?”
“Not believing in love. Except the kind that shows up in chapter fifteen after a near-death experience and grand declaration …”
“And pray tell, where did the inspiration for that story come from?”
“Fantastical thinking.”
“I see you are determined to live under your own personal storm cloud of doom and gloom—as is your right. But you’ll forgive me for not doing the same. This is dry-clean only,” he said, waving down at his suit. “So, what do you think about incorporating coral and shells into your traditional floral bouquet?”
It sounded perfect.
If her relationship were real.
And if her wedding was going to happen.
Which it wasn’t.
No matter how perfect Arden’s palette was.
11
Iris
“It’s time,” Henry declared as he strode into the apartment first thing the morning after the long-awaited debate. It seemed like there were more and more ‘very important events’ as the deadline to the election—and her upcoming wedding—drew closer with each passing day.
Iris didn’t even know how that went. She was pretty sure she’d rather watch coral grow than tune in to a political debate.
It was bad enough that she couldn’t escape it every time Henry was in the apartment. She wasn’t going to volunteer for more of it in her free time.
