Her first stop of the day was to check on the tent and tables for the reception, but she needn’t have worried. The tent was up already, and staff were setting up the thirty tables required to hold the crowd. The thirty centerpieces and the flowers for the gazebo and wedding party were scheduled to arrive at noon, and Amy had already confirmed delivery with the florist. Courtney spent twenty minutes with Amy going over a checklist and had just started to think that maybe Allison Chapman’s wedding would be perfect when her cell phone jangled.
“Is that the bride?” Amy asked.
“Of course it is,” Courtney said as she punched the talk button.
“Hi, Allison. How’s it going?” Courtney held her breath, prepared to hear yet another conversation about the canapés.
“I have a few minutes before I need to go to the hairdresser. I’m having breakfast. Can you join me?” Allison sounded somber.
Courtney agreed and then gave Amy an exaggerated eye roll.
“Drama?” Amy asked.
“I don’t know yet.”
Five minutes later, Courtney strolled into Eagle Hill Manor’s dining room, where breakfast was served to the inn’s guests on a daily basis. Allison, wearing a University of Virginia sweatshirt and looking surprisingly calm for a bride, sat alone at a two-person table near one of the windows.
Something bothered Courtney about this. A bride usually didn’t eat breakfast alone on her wedding day. Where were Allison’s bridesmaids? Her mother? For that matter, where was breakfast? Allison’s table was bare except for a half-empty coffee cup.
Courtney slipped into the facing seat and immediately attempted to reassure the bride. “I was just down at the Carriage House,” she said. “The tent is already up, and the tables are being set. Amy says the flowers are on the way. We’ll have the corsages, bouquets, and boutonnieres delivered to the Churchill Suite when they arrive.” Courtney gave Allison a professional smile. “Are you excited?”
The bride nodded and took another sip of coffee. Her smile wavered.
Courtney leaned in, concerned. “Are you all right?”
“It’s terrifying,” she said on a shaky voice. “I mean, I think Erik is the right man. After all, he’s a hedge fund manager. So I’m probably set for life. But still…”
Courtney tried mightily not to snap at Allison. Without question, this woman was the most spoiled, the most calculating, the most annoying bride she’d ever worked with. “And you love him, right?”
“I suppose.”
She supposed? Arwen was right. Romance and true love had died somewhere in the 1990s during the Clinton administration.
“Are you having cold feet?” Courtney asked, dreading the answer.
Allison vigorously shook her head. “Of course not. I mean, Erik is great.”
Yep, she was having cold feet. Brides and grooms with second thoughts were becoming a real occupational hazard. “I’m glad to hear that you love your fiancé. Relax, girl. It’s going to be fine.”
Allison put her coffee cup down on the table and stared at it. “Are you still dating Matt Lyndon?”
Dating Matt Lyndon?
Courtney’s heart went on a wild trip before settling back into her chest. It wasn’t a new sensation. Ever since that night when she’d chickened out and pushed Matt into the friend zone, thinking about him had become a hobby. Thinking about him, lusting after him, and reliving their one night of breathtaking sex was not the same as dating him though. And she’d never told Allison that she and Matt were a thing, had she?
No. She’d told Allison that she had a plan for Matt. And at the time, three weeks ago, that had been a true statement. It wasn’t anymore. Her desire to put Matt in his place had disappeared.
“We’re not dating. We’re just friends,” Courtney said.
Allison looked up, the expression on her face morphing from uncertain bride into evil-eyed Maleficent. “You’re friends?” She delivered the words like a slap to the face.
Courtney probably deserved that. “I know. How could I possibly be friends with a player like him? But he moved in next door, and we’ve become…neighbors, okay?”
“And what? Are you taking casseroles over to him on a nightly basis?”
The comment hit perilously close to the mark. “Allison, did you ask me here so we could talk about Matt Lyndon?”
Allison leaned back in her chair and stared out the window. “I must have told you that we hooked up in college.”
Courtney nodded. “Yes, you did.” Where was she going with this?
“I knew him in high school, of course, but he was such a dork back then,” Allison said.
Damn. Matt had told her he’d been short and fat, but she hadn’t believed him. How was it possible? The Lyndons didn’t do dorky. Did they?
“I know it’s hard to believe when you look at him now. In high school, he was short and kind of chubby. And he liked poetry. Although, to be honest, he still liked poetry when we hooked up in college. I thought the whole poetry thing was a little gay, to tell you the truth. But Matt’s not gay.” She paused a moment. “He’s better in bed than Erik.”
Allison whispered the last sentence, and suddenly Courtney understood. Not ever having been a bride, Courtney had never actually experienced this emotion. But Allison wasn’t the first bride to freak out at the thought that her fiancé would be the last man to share her bed. And she could understand why any woman would look back on her encounter with Matt with a certain amount of nostalgia. Still, she didn’t need to know that Allison had slept with Matt.
“Sex isn’t everything,” she said, but her voice sounded pretty damn insincere.
“I was going to marry him.”
“What?” How gullible had Allison been?
Allison finally looked away from the window. “You heard what I said. He proposed to me, and then he broke it off…”
“What? He left you at the altar?”
Allison shook her head and sighed like a drama queen. “No. It never got that far. He broke off the engagement. But to be honest, I don’t think he wanted to break it off.”
“Why not?” Was this woman delusional?
“His
