Page 66 of Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts

Cheers,

Renee

CHAPTER23

“We could reframe it.” I paced, my heels clacking on the wooden deck of the restaurant where the rehearsal dinner was being held. “Focus on how you broke the rules instead of me. We could close out by talking about the wedding, use it as a sort of grand finale to end the podcast.”

Jo frowned as she adjusted the brightness on the projector. Afternoon sun beat down on the outdoor restaurant, washing out the white projector screen, but she insisted on fiddling with it all the same. Probably just needed something to distract her from the mounting nerves. “But I didn’t break the rules.”

I stopped pacing to gawk at her. “Hello? Rule Number Seven. I’m pretty sure you caught feelings long before planning to walk down the aisle. At least I hope you did.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said. “It’s more that I didn’t keep track of when and where I was breaking them. I couldn’t tell you if I texted him first. I wasn’t planning on turning it into a story.”

There was something in her tone that felt almost accusatory, but given it was the afternoon before her rehearsal dinner, it was probably best not to open that particular can of worms. “So we make something up,” I suggested, tossing up my hands. “We have to come up with something. The contract with Castaway Catalina is calling for five plugs, so we need to generate enough content for five episodes, at minimum.” I chewed the inside of my cheek, mulling over our options. We’d talked things through the last few days and come to the same conclusion: Seven Rules didn’t make sense for either of us, moving forward. Unfortunately, there were various legal roadblocks to up and quitting. “Maybe we could renegotiate. She did say it was up for discussion.”

Renee was nowhere to be seen at the moment, probably barking orders in the kitchens or on the phone with the florist. She might’ve been Castaway Catalina’s marketing director, but today she’d transformed into an event coordinator, determined to oversee everything and make sure it all looked flawless in pictures. Employees in cream-yellow tiki shirts bustled back and forth, their shoes thumping against the hollow deck. Tomorrow’s reception was going to be held in the wide, opulent ballroom of the Catalina Casino, but there was another event booked for that location today, so the rehearsal dinner was being hosted by the beach club at the outdoor restaurant that abutted the bar.

“Can we talk about this later?” Jo asked. “It’s kind of hard to focus right now.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

She quadruple-checked the HDMI cable like it was going to disconnect itself at any moment. “Do me a favor and double-check that Declan brought the USB.”

“He did.” She’d already had me check with him three separate times, but she gave me a look that had me holding up my hands in surrender. “Okay, double-checking.”

Declan was at one of the tables arranging name cards for the seating plan. A smile crept over his face as I approached him. I was wearing a slinky champagne-colored dress, and his eyes raked over my body before returning to my face. “What’s up?”

“Jo’s asking about the USB again.”

His eyebrows shot up, and he reached into the breast pocket of his dress shirt. “Should I just give it to her?”

“No, she’s already got enough on her plate,” I said, placing a hand over the pocket to stop him removing the USB stick. “Better that you hold on to it.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

He resumed setting name cards around one of the circular tables. I watched as he placed Mr. Tony Montpelier on the plate in front of me and I was struck by a sudden idea. “Where’s my mom’s card?”

He glanced around at the names already on the table, and then shuffled through the remaining cards in his hand. “I haven’t seen any Andersons.”

“That’s because her last name is McCarthy. Blanche McCarthy.”

Any effort at searching for her name card was immediately abandoned, his face lighting up with alarming glee. “Your mother’s name is Blanche?”

“It’s a tradition in our family to give everyone old lady names. I was thinking ‘Millicent’ if we have a daughter. Thoughts?” His mouth opened, then closed. He looked like he didn’t know whether he should take me seriously and was scared of saying the wrong thing. I laughed and shook my head. “I’m kidding. Seriously, where’s her card?”

“Over there,” he said, pointing to the next table over. He watched as I grabbed the name card from the seat beside Tony’s—sorry, Mrs. Amanda Sutherland—and swapped it out for my mom’s. “What are you doing?”

“Mom’s had a crush on Tony since he first started reporting for channel two.”

“Playing matchmaker now, are you?” Declan observed with a hint of a smile. “I thought you didn’t believe in that sort of thing.”

“I’m a reformed woman,” I said coyly.

I turned as though to leave, but he caught me by the waist and pulled me in. “Is that so?”

“It might be.”

His hands bunched the slinky fabric of my dress as he pressed his body against mine and caught my mouth in a kiss. It would be hours before we got back to the hotel, but maybe there was a chance we could slip off somewhere, once the rehearsal dinner was all set up and ready to go.