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She turns and pauses en route to the restroom. “Hey. Happy wedding day! You have the perfect weather. And this place is amazing.”
“Thanks,” Owen says.
Charlotte disappears through the door under the stairs.
Owen steps closer and lowers his voice. “Careful, bud.”
Shit. Did he just see me holding Charlotte’s hands outside? “What do you mean?”
He tips his head toward the powder room. “You guys look like you’re getting along well.”
I laugh it off. “Haven’t we always?”
“Yeah, but you looked pretty cozy out there just now.”
Fuck. “She’s been such a help, Owen.” Somehow, I manage a touch of indignance. “Without her, everyone would have had to wear rain boots and hard hats to the launch to keep their feet dry and chunks of ceiling off their heads.” I push up my glasses. “And that might have lost us Netto.”
“Yeah, she’s a gem. We all know that. I’m just saying…” He looks over his shoulder, before moving around so his back is to the kitchen door, as if he’s trying to avoid expert lip-readers, and lowers his voice to a whisper. “No good can come of tangling with Max’s assistant. That’s all.”
Maybe he saw me lean in to kiss her. But I didn’t kiss her. So there was nothing for him to see.
“Thanks. But you don’t need to worry.” I adjust my cuff links. “Anyway, don’t you have more important things to do right now? Like go get married.”
Charlotte emerges from the door under the stairs.
“Okay.” Owen gives me a brotherly pat on the arm. “Be good. And if you can’t be good”—he draws circles in the air—“yadda yadda.” He tugs on the hem of his jacket to straighten it. “Time to officially devote my life to the woman of my dreams.”
“Good luck,” Charlotte says, arriving beside us.
“Thanks,” he says. “And have fun,” he adds with a wave as he heads off toward the kitchen and the French doors into the yard. “Just not too much.”
Charlotte looks puzzled but ignores the comment. “Even the powder room is gorgeous,” she says as we slowly follow Owen. “The pattern on the backsplash is so pretty and—” Her big brown eyes get even bigger as we step into the kitchen that runs the full width of the back of the house. Floor-to-ceiling windows and French doors lead onto a patio and the acres of backyard.
“Wow.” Charlotte’s head moves through a full one hundred and eighty degrees as she takes in the room from the shiny white kitchen with its giant marble island at one end, across the big family dining table by the windows, to the other end of the room that Mom calls “the snug,” where a sofa and comfy chairs huddle around a huge fireplace. “So classy and cozy all at the same time.”
“Yeah, my parents pretty much live in this one room.” I lead her between the caterers who’ve come from outside to use the oven. “You’re probably going to like this too.”
I open the French doors.
Charlotte’s barely set foot on the patio before she laughs. “This is incredible. I mean, look at it.” She makes a sweeping gesture toward the flower garden in front of us, beyond which the pristine lawn slopes away toward the pond and the woods behind it. “It’s like something from a period drama.”
“Well, it was built in the 1800s by a big English textile manufacturer who was trying to woo some Irish chick. He wanted to impress her so she’d move across the Atlantic and marry him.”
“And did she?”
I pause. “You know what? I have no idea if that story has a happily ever after.”
“It looks like this place is definitely going to give Owen and Summer one, though.” She points down the hill to where guests in bright dresses and summer suits mill around, sipping champagne and waiting to take their seats for the pondside ceremony.
“How many people are here?” Charlotte asks as we head toward them.
“They set out one hundred and twelve chairs this morning, so I guess about that many.”
Charlotte chuckles. “One hundred and twelve? That’s incredibly precise.”
“Well, there are seven rows on each side, with eight chairs in each row, so?—”
She bumps me with her shoulder as she bends forward in laughter. “I can’t believe you can even be a math geek over wedding seating.”
