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Chapter 33
Hope pushed open the door of Breading Dreams and let Hannah and Naomi enter before her. “Remember, I said just one for each,” she reminded them.
“Hi, Connie.” She approached the counter.
“Hey, lovelies!” Connie smiled. “You’re all looking so pretty, as always. Unicorn cupcakes for all?”
“Just them, thanks.”
Connie handed the girls their cupcakes, and while Hope paid, she half-whispered to her, “Your ex-mother-in-law came in the other day. Tried making me feel bad for ‘letting my daughter marry into the Delaney scandal,’ as she called it.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Connie.” Hope sighed. So many people around her had a stake in this, and every reminder drove the sword deeper into her heart.
“You have nothing to be sorry about, sweetie. She’s always been like that. I’m sorry you have to deal with her.”
Hope could only imagine how Lucile would react and what she would do if she knew her granddaughters were “associated” with the scandal, too. Just the thought sickened her. It was another reminder of how volatile things were.
Connie handed her a box with the bakery’s logo. “Here. On the house.” Preempting Hope’s refusal, she added, “Just a few mini quiches. Take them.”
“Thanks,” Hope relented. “Is Anne here?”
“Took a few days off. But she’s still doing the evening rounds for the food saving.”
“Tell her I said hi.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Is it okay if we talk about Jordan?” Libby asked from her place on the other side of the table in Life’s A Beach, two weeks later.
The week before, Hope had killed any attempt to talk about him when she had told her friends that her lawyer had reached an agreement regarding the holidays. “But for this Halloween, Eric’s parents will pick the girls up after Trick or Treat and fly to Nevada so Prince Hays can take them trick or treating there, too. The girls were thrilled to hear they’d get to do it twice, so at least I have that for comfort,” she had told Roni and Libby.
“What about Jordan?” Hope asked now. Saying his name out loud hurt. She had been trying to avoid mentions of him, hoping life and time would take their course, do their damn thing, until she got over him. So far, she had failed, but she kept hoping.
“What about him?” she repeated when Libby and Roni exchanged glances. That wasn’t a good sign.
“He’s buying a house in Riviera View. A split-plot with his sister,” Roni said carefully, as if she was notifying a death in the family. “He wants me to renovate it for him. Pay me to do both houses. For his sister, too; said it was her wedding present.”
Was the floor moving? Because Hope suddenly felt seasick.
“Is he moving here, or …?” Her pulse pounded with anticipation.
Libby chewed on her bottom lip before replying. “He’s still on a contract and has more offers. Doesn’t talk much about what’s next. I’m not sure he knows.”
“Oh. Okay.” The cool ocean air that came in through the large window suddenly wasn’t enough to drive away the smell of frying, and coffee, and beer that permeated the large space.
“It’s crazy how all that media noise almost died like that.” Roni snapped her fingers. “And he has more offers? Maybe it’s true what they say that no publicity is bad publicity.”
“Ava offered the plot to me and Luke first, but we like it on Ocean so much that we have this idea to buy the apartment next to mine and connect the two into a larger one,” Libby said almost apologetically.
“Wow. Okay. Congratulations, Lib,” Hope said. “I was a bad friend for not even asking about your house hunt.”
“There wasn’t much to ask. We didn’t hunt. We just … It’s a recent idea we had.”
“And you’re going to work with … for him?” she addressed Roni.
“Yeah. Turns out he wants the best and can afford it,” Roni said with a wink and a soft smile, reminding her of that night on his terrace in Wayford.
She was expecting she would have to meet him sometime, like at Libby and Luke’s wedding, which didn’t even have a date yet, but she wasn’t expecting that Roni, too, would be in touch with him. With both her friends somehow connected to him, how could she escape constant reminders? And, what did him buying a house here even mean? Probably nothing if he was still there.
