Fran sighed, moving around Emma and up the stairs. “I figured he’d need it before we brought out the pavlova.”
“Thank you,” she called after her, smiling.
Fran didn’t look back, only muttered something under her breath as she continued up.
Emma watched her ascend before throwing the cookie away in the nearby trash can and making her way down the hall to the kitchen. Even with a few caterers still preparing plates of canapés, it was wonderfully quiet down here, and the idea that Emma would have easy access to the champagne, maybe even be able to sit down and take a breath, made her genuinely smile for the first time all day.
The smile dropped the minute she entered the room.
George Knightley was standing by the kitchen island where the bar was set up, frowning down at the row of whiskeys as if they had personally insulted him. He was so tall he had to bend at the waist to see the labels, his dark hair falling forward so he had to run his fingers through it to put it back in place. Of course, it was never in place to begin with, but that only made it look more deliberate. Emma went to school with guys who spent at least an hour every day trying to achieve what Knightley’s hair did purely by accident. It was almost annoying.
“What did those bottles ever do to you?” she asked, jumping up to sit on the counter.
He didn’t look at her, though a small smile twitched one corner of his lips. “Merry Christmas, Woodhouse.”
“Merry Christmas, Knightley.”
“The party is a success, as always.”
“Thank you very much,” she said with a flourish of her hand.
He turned one of the bottles around to examine its label. “I take it he hasn’t seen the pavlova yet.”
“Why do you assume he hasn’t seen the pavlova?”
“Because I haven’t heard a scream of anguish from upstairs,” he murmured. “By the way, I saw him a little bit ago. He told me the big news.”
Emma narrowed her eyes on him. “About the hummus?”
“No, Woodhouse. About you getting into grad school.”
“Oh, right. Well, if you thought he was stressed about me commuting three miles to FIT for the past four years, you should have seen his reaction when I told him that NYU is all the way down in the Village. I’ve already had to promise him a dozen times that I’m not moving out,” she replied, leaning over for an open bottle of Bollinger.
Knightley was faster, moving the champagne further down the bar and away from her without even pausing his perusal.
She frowned at him. “I’m twenty-one now, you know.”
He ignored her. “So what are you going to grad school for?”
“Art history.”
That got his attention. He finally looked up, his amber eyes leveling a skeptical gaze at her.
She lifted her chin defiantly. “What’s wrong with art history?”
“There’s nothing wrong with art history.”
“Then why are you looking at me like that?”
“I thought you were graduating in May with a bachelor’s in fashion merchandising.”
“And?”
His scrutiny moved to a bottle of Laphroaig as he asked, “Is Prada opening a boutique at the Met?”
“They should. It would be amazing.”
The corner of his lip twitched again. “I’ve just never heard you voice an interest in art before.”
