Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 85608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Our close friends, English and Court, would be married here this fall. It was going to be the wedding of the year. Court’s mother, Leslie Kensington, was the current mayor of New York and determined to have the blowout wedding she had been denied by her younger son. I wouldn’t have blamed English and Court if they’d also eloped in Paris, like Penn and Natalie.
Whitley’s outfit suddenly made sense if she was here to deal with wedding plans. She didn’t care about anyone’s approval and could take the heat off of English.
“Are you here for the wedding?”
Whitley nodded as we crossed the street, narrowly avoiding a gaggle of tourists. “English is frustrated with the wedding planner.”
“And her soon-to-be mother-in-law, I assume.”
She wrinkled her nose. “You have no idea.”
“I think I do. I went to the engagement party.”
Whitley’s cheeks colored. She’d still been in California when that little catastrophe took place.
“Was it that horrible?”
“Worse than horrible,” I confirmed. “I thought for sure that someone was going to come to blows. I ended up leaving early with my date because it was such a fucking mess.”
Whitley’s eyes widened a fraction, and then she dipped her head to dig into her purse.
Why the fuck had I said that? Of course I’d dated while she was gone, but I hadn’t had to bring it up. That was just how we’d always worked.
She had been the best wingman I’d ever had. Who could have known that all of that time we’d been trying to find people for the other to hook up with, the person standing right next to me had been the answer?
“Fuck,” Whitley said. “English is SOS-ing me. I have to get in there before she does more damage.”
I nodded easily. “Sure. I’m sure I’ll see you around.”
“Definitely,” she said, but she still wasn’t meeting my eyes.
I’d fucked up. Maybe I’d said it because I was mad that she’d left before we could figure this out. Now that she could barely look at me, I realized that I didn’t want her to go like this.
“Hey,” I said, reaching for the sleeve of her fur coat.
She blinked back at me, her hazel eyes a honey color in the afternoon sunlight. There was something in those eyes, like panic. She looked … terrified. As if she thought that I might say something horrible to her.
I withdrew suddenly. I didn’t like that look in her eyes. I didn’t like it one bit. And I wasn’t going to get rid of it by asking her out right here on the street when she had somewhere else to be. I’d need to play a longer game for her to see that I was serious.
“Good luck.”
Her smile brightened, as if she’d dodged a bullet. “I don’t need luck.”
She winked at me and then disappeared inside.
Fuck. I was fucking fucked up about this woman.
I jerked my phone out as soon as she was gone, dialing Court Kensington without missing a beat.
Court’s baritone filtered through the phone. “King.”
“You fucking asshole.”
Court laughed, low and resonant. “So, I’m guessing you heard Whit is back?”
“Heard? I just saw her in Percy Tower in a silver minidress. I walked her to English’s meeting.”
“She was wearing a minidress to the meeting with my mother? God preserve her.”
“Yeah. I think she’s trying to take the heat off of English, but that’s not the point, asshole.”
“What? Should I have told you that she was back? Still got a thing for her?”
I gritted my teeth. Court Kensington, Camden Percy, and I had met at Harvard. We’d become fast friends despite the fact that they had known each other their whole lives and didn’t like outsiders. Court had known exactly what he was doing by not telling me that Whitley was back.
“That was three years ago.”
“And?”
“And … I didn’t want to be blindsided.”
Court snickered. “Sure. Keep telling yourself that. Anyway, that’s why we’re all going out tonight. We were going to surprise everyone.”
Fuck. So, that was what that was about.
“I’ll see you tonight,” Court said.
“Yeah, whatever, fucker.”
Court laughed and then hung up.
I shouldn’t have been this worked up about it, but Court wasn’t wrong. I’d never really gotten over what could have been with Whitley. She’d made herself perfectly clear that she didn’t want to try this by moving across the country. And I didn’t think that I could change her mind now … but I was willing to try.
3
WHITLEY
English crashed into me. “There you are!”
I wrapped my arms around my best friend with relief. “Sorry I’m late.”
“It’s fine. I’m just glad that you’re here.”
She looked as sensible as she’d wanted me to dress. Her blonde hair pin straight with soft makeup and a neutral lip. She was in a Chanel suit with classic nude pumps. The friend I’d made at UCLA—who blew rockstars backstage at concerts because she had a thing for trauma to escape her Valley roots—was really and truly gone. Now, she handled rockstars with aplomb and was only flustered by the mayor of New York City, who was also about to be her mother-in-law.