Harlow watches Pearl with a slight frown. Pearl doesn’t look up.
Then Tommy sets his napkin on the table. “I can’t do this.”
Pearl’s utensils go still.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Tommy demands.
Without meeting his eyes, she says, “I think I’ve said all I need to.”
Tommy looks at her in disbelief, then shifts his gaze to me."Good luck," he says, tossing his napkin onto the table as he comes to a stand. And then he’s gone, a surprisingly controlled exit for a man who looks like he’d just been gutted.
“What the hell was that?” Harlow asks.
Pearl shrugs, smoothing her napkin across her lap. “Tommy and I had a fight. Being at a wedding put certain ideas in his head. I let him know I wasn’t feeling the same, and he didn’t take it well.”
“So, he’s just leaving? Now?”
“We have a two-bedroom suite. He can leave in the morning.”
I look at Pearl. “So you took a two-bedroom suite and put your sister in a closet.”
“What?” Harlow asks.
“Rose’s room. It’s maybe ten by ten. The bed barely fits. The room looks like it was meant for staff.”
Harlow’s frown deepens. “My room’s enormous. Almost as big as Logan’s.”
We both look at Pearl. She draws herself up, affronted. “Guests deserve the full experience. Rose isn’t a guest, she’s the groom’s daughter. I’d have taken a smaller room myself if itweren’t for Tommy.” She pauses, glancing between us. “Why are you both looking at me like that? I think the better question is, what were you doing in Rose’s room?”
Glancing at Tommy’s empty chair, I grit, “I’m going to find Rose. Pearl, would you mind moving over one seat so she can join us and sit next to me?”
I don’t wait for a response. I throw my napkin down and get up to find my woman.
Chapter 16: Rose
“And then we had to reroute through Chicago before we got to Savannah. A train would have been faster! Isn’t that ridiculous? I just can’t believe it.” Marnie takes a big sip of her red wine, teeth already stained near the color of her lipstick, cloud of white hair shaking in time with her head.
One of Dad’s oldest colleagues and friends, Marnie has been at his side as his assistant through thirty years of hospital politics and department reshuffles before they settled into private care. She’s the kind of woman who remembers every birthday and never misses a reason to party. She tried to save a few bucks on her ticket to Georgia, which earned her an unplanned layover due to the storm, and she is not letting it go.
I don’t mind her stories, honestly. It’s easier than looking across the room at my father laughing with his bride, thinking about the fact that I’ve only seen him once since I arrived and only because I went looking for him. I wonder if he even noticed I wasn’t standing up there with Pearl.
Logan told me he wants me. Not just for this week. Not just a little. And I don’t know what to do with that either, so I just keep nodding along in agreement while Marnie tells me about her vacation last year to Bermuda, which was also a nightmare, onlythat one was on a cruise. She leans in slightly as she adds the gory details of being locked on a boat with five thousand people, when a warm hand finds my back.
I turn to find Logan smiling down at me. His dark hair is swept back, a few strands loose at his temple. He’s wearing a dark navy suit that fits him like it was made for him, and for a second, everything else in the room, all the worry in my head, fades away.
He looks so good in that suit. Really good. He holds my gaze for a beat too long before he looks up.
“Ladies. Do you mind if I steal Rose?”
Marnie giggles bashfully and raises her glass in greeting. I can’t say I blame her. “Of course, of course. You young people go have fun. We old folks are just happy with our wine. I’ll be in bed soon, anyway.” She winks suggestively at me, and I say my goodbyes and take Logan’s hand.
“Where are we going?”
“I got you a seat.”
“Yeah? How’d you manage that?”
“Your sister, actually. Apparently she and Tommy had a falling out, and he thought now was a good time to call it quits.”
