“I know.”
“Andheagreed to the time off.”
“I know.”
“I already only get you for a handful of days. The man is out of his mind!” Tess huffed, her nose wrinkling. “What the hell did he need you in Scotland for anyway?”
“I don’t know. Proof of life for the lawyer? Or maybe to help him sort through the estate or set him up to work remotely? Anyway, that’s not an issue anymore.”
Tess scowled, clearly still offended at Weston’s audacity to interfere with our beachside margarita plans. “Did he really just think you were going to march down to the courthousewith him? Oh, excuse me, fly down in his fancy-schmancy helicopter.”
“Yep!” I said, my earlier frustration flaring to life.
“What a dick move.”
“And then when he finally realized that wasn’t going to happen, he dumped the responsibility of finding a wifeforhim on me.”
Tess gaped. “As if you’re some sort ofprocurer? Ugh, how gross.”
“I know!” I cried. “Like actually, how dare he? He’s the one who needs to get married so badly, so he can get up off his ass and put the work in to find a wife for himself.”
“Weston’s looking for a wife?”
My blood ran cold, and I swallowed hard. Tess stopped talking as she saw the shock register on my face. I saw myownshock in the camera. Licking sugar from my lips, I lowered my phone, turning around to find a tall, leggy brunette. She had a viper-like glare, was clad in head-to-toe cream Chanel and carried a Goyard tote because Louis Vuitton was for new money—or so I’d been told.
Aw, hell. All the cafés in Houston, and she has to choose this one? Could I not just have one space in this damn city that was free of Weston and his nightmare of an ex?
Narissa Montclair’s faux-polite smile thinned at the edges, her eyes narrowing. “Is it true?”
I opened my mouth, my words stalling in my throat. Ever since their engagement fell through four years ago, Narissa had made it her mission in life to stir up trouble for Weston in any way shecould. Spreading rumors about him having an STI was a favorite tactic of hers, but it was far from the only one she deployed.
“Yeah,” Tess confirmed before I could figure out a way to exit this conversation. “He wants a wife to get around the terms of a will. Talk about terrible and shameless.”
“How wretched!” Narissa agreed, her eyebrow arching subtly. The gears in her head were turning in a bad,badway. I could tell, and my heart dropped into my stomach.
Tess scoffed. “Can’t say I’m surprised. Though I feel like someone should warn all the eligible women in the vicinity to stay far,faraway from that man.”
I winced as I watched Tess’s words register on Narissa’s face. I wished I could snatch them out of the air, but it was already too late. A smug grin stretched across those dark red lips. Narissa’s phone appeared in her hand.
“Always so nice to see you, Lena,” she said before turning for the door.
“No, Narissa!” I called as my brain finally kicked into gear. “Wait!”
She’d fled the shop faster than a cowboy with commitment issues.
“Tess!” I hissed, turning back to my phone. I could already envision all the ways Narissa would twist the story of his engagement situation through their shared social circles. “Fuck! That’s going to be a nightmare—I can already tell,” I muttered, massaging the ache that flared behind my eyes.
“Who cares?” Tess said with a shrug. “His nightmares aren’t your problem anymore. After what he just put you through, he deserves it.”
“I know, but it’sNarissa!” A wave of guilt washed through me, and my stomach gurgled as the stress crept up on me. As angry as I was at Weston, I wouldn’t have wanted to unleash Hurricane Narissa on him. And I’d probably just made his job of securing a quick and unproblematic marriage one hundred times harder. Noprobablythere. Of that, I was sure.
“Lena, it’s not your circus, not your monkeys.Not anymore,” Tess insisted. “Whatever issues Weston has now, you need to get past your instinctive urge to fix them.”
She was right. I knew that. I needed to stop caring about Weston’s personal problems. I sucked in a deep breath, then let it out. “God, it feels like a literal weight off my shoulders.”
“That’s the feeling of dropping a grown man who’s responsible for his own mess.”
I nodded. For once, he could clean it up.
