“Do you enjoy winding me up?” she asked, working to curb her own smile.
“So much, you have no idea,” he murmured. He leaned down to kiss her again, his mouth just inches from hers, but stopped as a shrill voice pierced the air.
“It’s gorgeous! Just gorgeous!” Mrs. Pawloski exclaimed, emerging from the growing crowd, Mrs. Crawford in tow. “I was just telling Veronica—wasn’t I, Veronica? It’s like a winter wonderland!”
Mrs. Crawford nodded beside her. Like the rest of them, she knew better than to interrupt Mrs. Pawloski once she was on a roll.
“The garland—well, it’s just magic! It looks like there’s real snow on it! Real snow! And the tree!” Mrs. Pawloski placed a hand on her chest as if it were all too much. “It’s perfect! Oh, I just love the holidays!”
Emma’s smile widened as she stole a glance at Knightley. “Why, thank you, Mrs. Pawloski. I agree.”
“And let me tell you, the men around here aren’t too bad on the eyes, either!” Mrs. Pawloski cackled. “George, are these your friends, or did Emma hire a modeling agency?”
Emma had insisted that if they were hosting this year’s Christmas Party at Knightley’s house, Knightley had to invite some of his friends. So now the party wasn’t only filled with the usual attendees from 83rd Street, but also young professionals from Knightley Capital and their other firms. All of them looked like they had just stepped off the runway at Fashion Week, instead of coming from the nondescript buildings downtown where they worked.
“Oh! Looks like Nadine is enjoying the view too!” Mrs. Pawloski said, nodding to the far corner of the room.
Nadine was laughing, a glass of champagne in her hand. She looked happy and confident, and her hair looked fantastic thanks to the fact that she was still seeing Mateo even though she’d quit the salon a few months ago to take a new part-time job at Sotheby’s. The sight of her friend so at ease with herself almost made Emmacompletely miss who Nadine was talking to. But then her companion leaned down, whispering something in her ear, and Nadine laughed again. Another man stood a foot or so away, ignoring them and looking utterly bored.
“Who is that again?” Emma asked, leaning into Knightley. “The one talking to Nadine.”
Knightley glanced over. “That’s Charlie. I went to school with him and Will.”
“Is Will the one next to him who looks like he’s waiting for a root canal?”
Knightley laughed. “Yes.”
“Oh, there’s Margo and the baby!” Mrs. Crawford interjected, spotting Emma’s sister over by the fireplace. “I have to give that niece of yours a cuddle.”
Emma smiled. If anything could overshadow her party planning success, it was Cassandra Knightley, the latest–and smallest–addition to their clan, named after their late mother. Arriving into the world on May 2, a full three weeks early, Cassandra had thrown all of Margo’s carefully crafted plans out the window. Instead of a natural home birth, Margo had had an emergency C-section at Mount Sinai, and Cassandra spent two weeks in the NICU to monitor a possible heart murmur and fight off the effects of jaundice.
For Margo and Ben, it had been terrifying. Ben closed the restaurant and slept at the hospital while Margo and Cassandra recovered, spending every waking moment ricocheting between their beds. For Emma, it had been a call to action. She was supposed to start working for Inez’s wife, Olivia, as a sales associate with Casamentero Art Advisors right after graduation, but she immediately asked to push back her start date to mid-summer. Of course, her new boss had agreed, saying, “What’s all this for if we can’t be there for our families when they need us?” It also helpedthat Emma had already managed to line up a six-figure deal with the Crawfords before she’d even started.
With work settled, Emma moved into the guest room at Ben and Margo’s apartment for two weeks, coordinating clean clothes and supplies for Ben, calling pediatric specialists in the city, keeping her father calm, and organizing deliveries of fresh groceries and meals for when the family arrived back home.
By early June, they had. Cassandra weighed an incredible eight pounds six ounces, Margo could finally stand up and walk around without excruciating pain, and when the family of three walked into their clean, well-stocked apartment, it was like the stress of the past few weeks had never happened at all.
It was only when Emma got back home that night, when she finally sat down in her dark kitchen and let herself stop for the first time in almost a month, that the fear and anxiety caught up with her. Knightley had found her there, sobbing over a contraband pint of mint chocolate chip. He hadn’t said anything, just picked her up and carried her over to his house, curling up with her on his long sofa, and holding her as the tears flowed. She woke up the next morning still in his arms, his chin resting on the top of her head. She hadn’t moved for a long time. And she hadn’t really left his house since.
“You’ll have to wrestle her away from Dad,” Emma replied, motioning behind them. “He doesn’t want her to get cold, so he’s insisting she stay in his lap by the fireplace.”
The women tittered and headed in that direction, still oohing and aahing at the decorations.
Emma turned to watch them go, and Knightley took a step closer, his chest flush with her back. He wrapped his long arms around her waist and she leaned back into him. It was her favorite spot, as if she were made to fit there under the crook of his neck.
She had a hard time remembering her hesitancy at making their relationship official. After Margo had seen them, when she had torn down the stairs, screaming the news to her father and Fran and the rest of the neighborhood, it had been welcomed by everyone who heard. It was as if everyone expected it, as if everyone already knew. Everyone except Emma and Knightley.
Emma and Knightley. She smiled to herself. It was exactly as it should be. Despite all the pitfalls of her matchmaking ventures, she had still succeeded. She’d found her forever.
It really would be a shame to let that sort of skill go to waste.
Her eyes found their way back across the room to Nadine and Charlie. She was animated, talking and gesturing and smiling, and he was hanging on every word. Yes, that particular pairing seemed to be setting off just fine. But then her gaze drifted over to Will. His brow drew a severe line across his face as he pushed his blond hair away from it, his withering stare locking with the far wall as if he was counting the minutes until he could leave.
There was no denying that he looked miserable. But there was also no denying that he was very hot.
“So what’s the story with Will?” she asked.
Knightley leaned down to kiss her jaw. “Met him at Columbia. He runs a mergers and acquisitions firm with Charlie. Very smart. Blunt but fair. Doesn’t suffer fools.”
