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“Melissa, this is my fiancé, William. Babe, this is the wedding designer I’ve been trying to get you to meet.”
Allison has her arm around Will’s as he stares at me, dumbfounded. We must have matching expressions because I am equally as confused as to why he’s here with his fiancée. Yes, the man I kissed last night has a fiancée. I think I’m going to be sick.
“You’re a wedding planner?” he asks, that deep voice so damn low and disappointed that it rattles my gut.
My head slowly rises and falls at his question. “Weddingdesigner. My partner is the wedding planner.”
I never told him what I did for a living. If I did, maybe the fact that he had afiancéewould have come up.
Will rubs his hand along his jaw as he turns sharply to Allison, forcing her to remove her hand from his arm. “I didn’t know we were meeting with a wedding designer today.”
“You’ve been so busy, so when I finally got you to agree to brunch, I figured it was the best time.”
He lowers his head to her ear. “We need to talk privately about this. You can’t ambush me to pick a date.”
“Maybe if you picked a date, I wouldn’t have to ambush you with a wedding planner.” She talks back in an equally hushed tone despite the wide, forced smile on her face. “Take a seat. I ordered you the frittata.”
For a man as physically commanding as William is, he takes the seat. He doesn’t look pleased at being told what to do. That, or he’s having serious man guilt. He should.Bastard.
Allison takes her seat beside him, scoots her chair close to the table, then grabs his hand and gives it a squeeze. “Babe, Melissa and I worked out a dream wedding for us. Melissa, why don’t you tell him some of your ideas?”
William’s eyes rise to mine, and it’s hard not to notice how uncomfortable he is, sitting here. His lips are pursed, making them look small and not as full as they did last night.
Those lips were on mine. I can still taste his tongue gliding along my bottom lip and feel his hands as they gripped the fabric of my clothing so tight that I think I still have indentations of his fingers on my ass.
I take a drink of my champagne and orange juice. I might need a few more of these to get through this meal.
“Well, Allison was talking about having a modern event. All white with a DJ, a photo booth, and a rose arch behind the dais. She suggested a venue, but I have a few I’d like you to consider. I am going to see what dates are available for each and work up a proposal for the event design based on availability, and we’ll work from there.”
Usually, I’d be more conversational with a prospective groom, but I can’t this time. I no longer want to talk about their magical wedding. Not when the groom is the man who, just yesterday, I thought was funny and a great dancer and who, for the first time in two years, I actually let my guard down for. I hadn’t realized I had a guard up, but now that I let it down, I know for a fact that I did, and it’s back up, never coming down again.
I’m such a fool.
I down my mimosa and place it on the table in a rather unladylike way. “Weddings are crazy expensive, and if you’re gonna spend the money, you have to make sure it’s what you want.”
“Exactly. That’s why we want to do this right from the beginning. Right, babe?” Allison grabs his hand again, which I assume he let go of while I was talking, and places it on her lap.
She looks so hopeful. A woman on the verge of the rest of her life while the man next to her is dancing with other women and kissing them back in parking lots. Sure, I’m the one who initiated it, and he pushed me away … but he kissed me back. I know I’m not crazy. Maybe I am. Maybe Tyler ruined me for good.
Men. They’re all scoundrels.
“It’s one day,” I say. “The entire experience is eight hours, max. Everyone says it, but no one listens. They plan detail after detail, as if this perfect day is going to dictate the next fifty years of their lives.
“Next thing you know, you’re pregnant. You have a kid, then another, and a mortgage, and that’s when the fights over whose turn it is to take the trash out and why men never have to clean the toilet, start. He leaves the empty orange juice container on the counter and his laundry on the ground, like you’re the maid who has to pick it up. So, you hire a cleaning girl to help out, but it’s never enough.
“He gets resentful because you spend more time with the kids than him—and he’s not wrong. You genuinely like the kids more than you like him. And you fight all … the … time … and then your mom gets sick and that little time you did have for one another—you know, after work, and kids, and life—is now taxed to the point that you don’t even speak until you separate and he ends up in bed with another woman.”
A woman walks around with a pitcher and refills my mimosa. I take a drink.
“That’s all very”—Allison sits with raised brows and a slack jaw—“intense.”
“It is intense. We’re sitting here, talking about the difference between ice white and snow-white linens when you should be discussing the possibility that this might not work out. You should figure that out before year ten because that’s when the pensions get shared and there’s the 401(k) and the stocks you dabbled in on Ameritrade.”
I swivel my glass in the air as I continue, “The house, the cars, the kids … everything is up for grabs, and before you know it, you’re paying a mediation law firm twenty thousand dollars to end up exactly where you started, except the attorney has a nice big check in his pocket and you two are both screwed. All the while, he’s screwing the hairdresser, and you’re left with bad hair!”
“Who ordered the crab and avocado eggs Benedict?” the waiter asks with a tray of three plates in his hand.
Allison is looking at me, bewildered, while Will just … stares at me.
