Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Besides, with this beautiful scenery, this five-star meal we’re about to enjoy, and another eight weeks to go, I’d be wasting my time getting worked up over something so trivial in the grand scheme of things.
I’m here to do a job.
Everything else is inconsequential.
“Where are your manners, my darlings?” Nicola clucks her tongue. “Say hello to Miss Briar.”
“Hi,” they say in unison before they reach for the bread basket someone has just placed in front of them.
“We’re still working on fine-tuning our etiquette.” Nicola drapes a white linen napkin over her lap. “But we’re making progress.”
“I think they’re doing a fine job,” her husband says when he sits next to her. “Speaking of good manners, I’m Dashiell, since no one has bothered to introduce us yet.”
Nicola swats at him, rolling her eyes. “I was getting to that.”
“Wonderful to meet you, Dashiell,” I say, deciding now would be a terrible time to mention my childhood dog’s name was Cash, but somewhere along the line, we gave him the nickname Dash because he was always dashing off.
Something tells me these people wouldn’t find the humor in that.
Before I left, Maeve told me that out here, you can always tell if someone comes from old money because they have names better suited for dogs or horses: Busy, Birdie, Dolly, Kitty, Topper, Darby, Duke . . .
Maeve went to school with a lot of people like them and filled my head with scandalous tales of marital affairs, family quarrels, and white-collar crimes.
Things are never what they seem with these people, she told me last night. They’re skilled at putting on a good front, like everything’s perfect—it’s practically embedded in their DNA. In Nebraska, maybe your mom would teach you how to bake a blue-ribbon pie for the county fair. Out here, a mother might teach her daughter how to look the other way when her husband knocks up the tennis instructor at the country club.
“Margaret, could you please fetch Yvette and have her send Dorian down for dinner?” Redmond asks one of the staff. He reaches for a slice of bread and slides a white ceramic butter dish closer. “Tell him if he’s not here in two minutes, we’re starting without him.”
“No need,” a man’s voice says from behind me.
The chair beside me slides out, and a man in ripped jeans and a gray V-neck T-shirt takes a seat; however, I can’t bring myself to look at his face—not yet.
“Unfashionably late as always,” Nicola says under her breath, though loud enough for the whole table to hear her.
“It’s not my fault the airline lost my luggage,” he says in a voice that’s vaguely familiar, but I could be imagining it.
It’s been a long day.
I’m starving.
Physically and mentally exhausted.
And my nerves are frazzled.
“Oh?” Nicola’s brows lift. “So you’re saying you wouldn’t be dressed like a roadie if your suitcase were here?”
Roadie?
The Dorian I met last year was the manager of Phantom Symphony. At least, that’s what he told me. I tried googling him when I got home—despite both of us agreeing not to contact each other. But all I could find was that the band was managed by something called Beacon Music Management LLC. The business was registered in Delaware, so any further investigating was fruitless since most people who register in that state do it for privacy and anonymity.
“Wishful thinking on your part,” the man beside me counters, swiping bread from the basket in front of us. His arm brushes mine in the process, and my skin is on fire for an entire two seconds. “I’ll have you know, this T-shirt wasn’t cheap.”
“That flimsy fabric screams otherwise,” Nicola bites back.
Burke sighs, reaching for his water. Once again, I get the sense he’d rather be anywhere than here.
“All right, all right,” Redmond interrupts them. “Enough.” He directs his gaze at me, offering an apologetic wince. “Apologies, Briar. My kids spend so much time apart throughout the year that they forget how to behave like civilized people when they get together. Anyway, Dorian, now that you’ve joined us, I’d like you to meet Briar—your brother’s fiancée.”
My stomach is knotted, and my neck is so tense that I can’t bring myself to turn to look at the man sitting beside me.
I don’t want it to be him.
And yet I do.
I’d be lying if I said thoughts of him hadn’t haunted me at least once a day since the night we met. The connection I shared with that man was one I’d never experienced with anyone else before. It was brief and intense, and I’ve lived off that high—and the promise we made to one another—ever since.
Gathering a short breath, I turn to the stranger beside me, ready to shake his hand. Only the second our gazes catch, I freeze, my body turning to solid stone.
It isn’t a stranger.