Chapter ten
Tessa
Ismooth the front of my dress for the fourth time since parking the car, telling myself the deep green was absolutely the right choice for a family dinner in a house full of people who already seem alarmingly inclined to like me.
It was the right choice. Probably.
The Maddox family home is bigger than I expected. There is warm yellow light spilling from every window like something off a Christmas card. It's the kind of house that looks like it smells of cinnamon and good decisions.
I stand on the front step for a moment.
George will be inside.
My stomach does a small, treacherous flip at the reminder, and I ring the doorbell before I can negotiate myself back to the car.
Eleanor Maddox opens the door so fast she must have been standing behind it, and she pulls me into a hug like I'm a parcel she's been tracking the delivery of for weeks. "Tessa!Come in, come in." She steps back and studies me with open, uncomplicated approval. "You look fantastic."
Heat climbs straight to my cheeks and I laugh the kind of laugh that communicates absolutely nothing.
The hallway smells of roasting garlic and something sweet underneath it, caramelised onions maybe, or a dessert already working away in the oven, and the scent hits me with surprising force.
I feel my shoulders relax. I had not realized I was holding them quite that high.
Margaret Maddox appears from the direction of the kitchen, elegant as ever despite the dish towel in her hands.
"Tessa," she says. "I'm so glad you could make it." She glances past me toward the empty driveway. "George isn't with you?"
"No," I say. Quickly. Too quickly.
Margaret hums. It's not quite judgment, but adjacent to it. "Running late. That sounds about right."
Before I can think of anything useful to add, Eleanor is tugging a tall, sandy-haired man forward by the sleeve. "This is Daniel. My fiancé. Be nice to him, he's nervous."
Daniel looks the opposite of nervous. He shakes my hand with an easy grin. "I've heard a lot about you," he says. "Mostly that you're the only person standing between this wedding and a minor international incident."
"That's generous," I say. "I'd say moderate diplomatic crisis at best."
He laughs, and I decide I like him immediately.
Eleanor steers me toward the dining room with a proprietorial hand at my back, narrating the house like a proud tour guide. That is where Daniel proposed. That is where George broke the banister in 2009. Apparently, I am not to ask.
I catch my reflection in a hallway mirror as we pass and realize I am already smiling. A real smile, not the polished professional one I practiced in the car on the drive over.
The dining table is enormous, set with mismatched china that somehow looks entirely intentional, and I love it on sight.
"George always sits there," Eleanor says, gesturing to a chair with the confidence of someone rearranging destiny, "so we put you right next to him." She says it the way you'd sayobviously.
I sit down. The empty place beside me has its chair angled almost conspiratorially toward mine, and I make myself look away from it. Someone presses a glass of red wine into my hand before I've fully settled, and I accept it like a life raft.
Daniel drops into the chair across from me and raises his glass. "So," he says pleasantly, "what embarrassing George stories have they told you so far?"
"Daniel!" Eleanor looks delighted by her own outrage.
"What?" He blinks with magnificent innocence. "It's an important bonding ritual."
I take a very deliberate sip of wine.
The family moves around me with the easy, overlapping noise of people who have shared this table a thousand times and for a moment I'm swept pleasantly along with it. Passing bread, refilling glasses, watching the Maddox's talking over each other.
