“Just a friend,” Zelda said, the secret smile still tugging up the corners of her lips. The wistful, faraway look in her eyes made it clear that her mind was somewhere else.
“None of my friends ever send me flowers like that,” Elle said. “Do yours, Kate?”
“I know, right?” Kate said. “And I can’t recall a single friend of mine who ever made me look the way you look right now.”
That seemed to snap Zelda out of her reverie. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about. The flowers are gorgeous. I was simply admiring them.”
Her Southern accident was a little thicker than usual. It was one of Zelda’s tells that signaled that she might be stretching the truth just a little.
With her long, curly copper hair, perfect smile and apple cheekbones, Zelda resembled a slightly older Debra Messing. As Kate watched a range of emotions play over her mother’s attractive face, it dawned on her that this was the way love should make you feel. This was why it had been a bad idea to marry Aidan the way she had.
It wasn’t the flowers or the promise of heady romance. It was that undefinable something that was written all over her mother’s face. It was the buoyancy that seemed to lift Zelda each time she glanced at the card and smelled the flowers sent by her mystery suitor. It was that palpable chemistry that zinged between Gigi and Charles as they had exchanged their wedding vows after waiting all these years. It was the je ne sais quoi between her sisters and their soul mate husbands.
It was something that Kate couldn’t quite define, but she couldn’t ignore it, either. Because when two people shared that kind of bond, the love between them radiated as naturally as the scent of roses filling the kitchen with romantic promise.
It was something that she and Aidan had always aspired to with each other but couldn’t seem to find.
While she and Aidan were perfectly fine together and had mad chemistry in the bedroom, there was no magic between them in everyday life. Or at least not this kind of magic. Kate knew relationships didn’t produce fireworks all the time. They were usually there in the beginning and settled down as they grew into something deeper. But if the fireworks and chemistry weren’t even there in the beginning, what chance did that relationship stand when the honeymoon was over?
It seemed pretty clear that they needed to annul their sham of a marriage, and the sooner the better.
She would tell Aidan she had made up her mind tonight when he came over to talk about things.
“I know you two have full days,” Zelda said. “Why don’t we get down to business and start planning Gigi and Charles’s party. Let’s figure out what needs to be done and then think about how we should divide up the work. Sound good?”
“Works for me,” Kate said.
Elle put pen to paper. “The way I see it, we need to come up with a guest list, decorations and food and drink.”
“Oh! And we need to figure out how we’re going to keep this party a surprise,” Zelda said. “Someone will have to pick up Gigi and Charles from the airport and bring them here.”
“I think it will be easy to keep it a surprise since they’re out of town until the party starts,” said Elle. “I’ll volunteer Daniel to pick them up.”
She jotted his name down on the list.
“It is a given that Jane and Liam should be in charge of food,” she said as she wrote. “Do you and Aidan want to do the decorations?”
It would be a miracle if she and Aidan were still speaking by the night of the party. Annulments tended to have that effect on relationships.
“I think Aidan is pretty busy with work right now,” Kate said. “Why don’t you and I take on decorations together?”
Kate was relieved when Elle chirped, “That works for me. Now we just have the guest list and invitations. Mom? That sounds like a perfect job for you. Are you up for it?”
“Sure. Gigi keeps her address book in the office. I’ll look through it and pick out her closest friends. We want to keep the party relatively small and intimate, don’t we?”
As Elle and their mom chatted about the optimum number of guests, all Kate could think about was what would transpire when she met with Aidan tonight.
Regardless of what the two of them decided, they needed to hold it together so as to not cast a shadow over Gigi and Charles’s homecoming. Then again, if they did this the right way, no one need ever know of their big Vegas mistake.
Chapter Three
“Are you ready to go?” Aidan asked after Kate pulled out of the stiff hello hug she had offered him in greeting. In his gut, he had known that things would be tense tonight. After all, they were meeting to discuss the fate of their marriage.
God, they were married. Kate was his wife.
But part of him had hoped that now that Kate had had a chance to process things, she might have had a change of heart.
Judging by her reaction, she hadn’t. The reality made him tense up, too. He took a deep breath. He would make sure things were as normal as possible tonight. If he had to, he would hold it together for both of them.
She was worth it.
“I thought we’d go to The Hitch and get some dinner. How does that sound?”
He knew how much Kate loved the kitschy restaurant on Drayton Street. Over the year that the two of them had been back together, it had become their place. Tonight it would be neutral territory, where they could talk this out, but at the same time it would be a place that was special to them as a couple, a place that had history for both
