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She scanned the newsfeed and realized that it was pretty tame. “No, but it has just gone out. I was waiting to alert my boss. Do you mind if I go and call in? I want to let them know we are on top of the situation.”
“‘Situation,’” Adler said. “That’s what my wedding has become.”
Quinn turned around and walked over to her friend, pocketing her phone as she went. “No. It hasn’t. Not for you and not for Nick. To the outside world, it might be, but who cares about that. Everyone who matters to you will know—”
“I know that,” Adler interrupted. “Dad says a version of that all the time, but the truth is I hate it. I want people to not notice me, not talk about me. But from the moment I was born, everyone has.”
Quinn hugged Adler. She didn’t know what to say to help her friend. Words weren’t going to fix that bit of brokenness deep inside Adler. Words couldn’t change how much she hated to see her photo or her name in the press. Words couldn’t help, but a hug could. Friendship could.
“I know I’m so blessed and so lucky and I have Nick. He’s my rock, but... I just wanted a quiet, simple wedding. I mean I know I agreed to have it televised, but that’s because I thought I could control the narrative that way,” she said. “I’m not whining... I mean I am a bit. I’m feeling sorry for myself, I guess.”
“You’re allowed to. Honestly, you’re way better than a lot of the brides we film and you’ve had a lot more thrown at you.”
“Thanks for saying that. I’m sorry I sort of lost it a second ago. Go call your boss. I don’t want you to get into hot water because of this,” Adler said.
“You’re welcome. You can lose it as many times as you want. It’s all about you, Ad, I mean that. I won’t get into hot water. I just like to keep on top of my boss, so she thinks I’m efficient.”
“Then go. Do that. I’ll be fine. Iris made me glam, I’m going to sit here and enjoy that,” she said.
Quinn took her friend at her word and stood. She noticed that Iris looked over at her when she did so, and Quinn nodded at Adler. Iris walked over to sit with the bride-to-be as Quinn walked out to do her job. She was a friend first, but she was also there to work.
Something she kept forgetting, between Adler and Logan.
Cora Williams hadn’t shown up at the meeting at her mother’s house and Juliette couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad thing. The two of them weren’t friends and had nothing in common. Except for that one secret. The one that was getting closer to being revealed the more time they spent together. Now it seemed foolish that she’d never made an effort to meet Adler’s soon-to-be mother-in-law.
What would she have done if she had? Somehow tried to convince her niece to break off her engagement? God knew she’d never been a great sister, and Mari would argue that she hadn’t always been a good mother, but Juliette had tried. She’d done her best.
But she had a feeling that wasn’t enough.
She took a sip of the gin and tonic that Michael had made for her and then sighed. The press release was done, so there was nothing else to worry about, right? Juliette knew differently but for now she was going to have to put on her hostess smile and act like everything was good.
The announcement was just one more little chink in the image of their “perfect marriage” she’d fought so hard to project since Mari’s birth. It was like it was okay for her to see the ugly cracks from the inside but she had hated when one of August’s affairs was made public. She could only fake smile for so long before she crumbled.
And this time...well, this time was worse. Everyone—especially Auggie—was being so sweet to her. They were treating her as the injured party almost the same way they were acting toward Nick. But she knew that if the truth really came out, no one was going to look at her with sympathy.
Maybe she was borrowing trouble.
“What are you doing out here all alone?”
She turned to see Vivian standing there watching her. Her mom was the strongest woman Juliette knew. She’d buried a husband, a child, and withstood financial ups and downs. Yet she still managed to seem untouchable. Juliette envied her mother that.
“Thinking.”
“And drinking?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“Should I join you?” she asked, moving closer to her. Her mother always smelled faintly of Chanel No. 5. Her hair was now more gray than blond, but her eyes were forthright and she held herself with the strength of a woman who could handle anything.
“If you want to.”
She rang a little bell on a table near the door of the sitting room and a moment later Michael appeared with a martini. He refreshed Juliette’s gin and tonic and then left.
“Remember when you came home and told me you were engaged to Auggie?”
Juliette sighed. She’d been so in love with him. He’d been tall, dark and handsome. A forceful man with an easy smile and the kind of charm that made everyone like him. He was top of their class at college and they’d started out as friends and then fallen in love.
“Yes. You weren’t sure about him.”
