“Oh no,” Iris said, pointing at her. “Oh hell no. You are not backing out now. You’re the one who said we couldn’t let her marry him.”
“I’m not backing out. I’m just . . . thinking.”
“You’re backing out. Even Delilah can see he’s a ghastly excuse for a human being.”
Delilah tapped her chin. “I’m going to choose to take that as a compliment.”
“Choose away,” Iris said, but then continued staring at Delilah. “Will you help us?”
“Help you get rid of Spencer?”
“Not get rid,” Claire said. “Just . . . maybe—”
“Yes. Get rid,” Iris said. “Our darling Claire here is too kindhearted.”
“Get rid sounds so violent,” Claire said. “We just need to talk to Astrid.”
“And three is better than two,” Iris said. “After last night, I like your style.”
Delilah flashed a grin at that but then grew serious. “What do you plan on doing? Tossing Astrid in a river?”
“Of course not,” Iris said.
“Oh, I know,” Delilah said, clasping her hands together under her chin and fluttering her lashes dramatically. “Sit her down for a nice heart-to-heart and convince her that her true love is still out there somewhere over the rainbow.”
Claire and Iris looked at each other. This wasn’t exactly what they planned on doing, but it was close.
“Do you have a better idea?” Iris asked.
Delilah looked at them both for a few seconds before answering. “Maybe I do.”
Iris stared at her. “Care to share, oh wise one?”
Delilah sucked her teeth. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“Which means you’ve already thought about this,” Iris said, lighting up like a firework. “You have, haven’t you?”
Delilah waved a nonchalant hand. “Why would I care who Astrid marries?”
“Trust me, I know you don’t care,” Iris said spitefully, and Delilah lifted a brow.
“Okay, enough,” Claire said, then looked at Delilah. She could’ve sworn the other woman’s gaze softened. “Look, we do want to talk to Astrid about this. We just don’t know how.”
“Aren’t you two supposed to know her better than anyone?” Delilah said.
“Yes. We do.” Claire grappled for the right words. “But Astrid’s . . . complex. She doesn’t open up easily, even to us.” She looked at Iris. “Remember when she had a crush on Toby McIntosh for all of tenth grade? She didn’t even admit it until graduation.”
“I remember,” Iris said.
“You don’t have to do anything,” Claire said to Delilah. “But, if you think of any ideas . . .”
Delilah stared at her for a second, Claire’s heart in her throat. Finally, the other woman released a huge sigh. “Fine. Jesus. But if you’re going to do this, you have to be careful about it. Astrid would have to be completely convinced that he’s wrong for her, not just mad at him over something you say he did. It has to come from her.”
“You mean we’d have to be manipulative,” Claire said, wincing.
“No, I mean what I said. Careful. Get her to talk about him, ask her questions about what she likes about him, things like that. Help her realize it all on her own.”
Iris paced, her thumbnail in her mouth. “Yes. That’s perfect. It needs to be her idea or she’ll never see it. You know Delilah’s right, Claire.”
Claire rubbed her eyes under her glasses. Delilah was right. Astrid would never, ever walk away from something she’d committed to unless it was her idea. Isabel raised her to be ruthless like that, always in control, always the one with the upper hand. Honestly, this die-hard trait was why Claire believed Astrid chose Spencer in the first place. He called the shots. He wore the pants. Astrid had been the perfect student, tried hard to be the perfect daughter, and now she was the perfect business manager. So for this one area in her life, she didn’t have to work so hard. She didn’t have to constantly be thinking about how to make her relationship succeed.
She just had to say yes to everything her already-perfect fiancé said.
Claire felt an almost unbearable sadness settle over her at the thought. She had to believe there were plenty of men out there who would love partnering with Astrid, working together to be successful together—or hell, even failing together—instead of this imbalance of power she had with Spencer.
“All right,” Claire said. “It’s a start, I guess.”
“Exactly,” Iris said. “So we’re all agreed”—here she waved her hand in a dramatic circle to include Delilah—“that our plan is getting her to talk and think about Spencer and his douchebag ways.”
Claire nodded while Delilah simply stood up, tightened her robe belt, and headed for the door.
Iris cleared her throat.
“What?” Delilah asked, dropping her phone into her robe’s pocket and slinging her camera bag over her shoulder. “You want to come up with a secret handshake or something?”
Iris just glared.
Chapter Twelve
DELILAH HAD NO clue what she’d been thinking.
She’d had her own plan—annoy Astrid to within an inch of her life about the human germ she’d chosen to marry, becoming the proverbial thorn in Astrid’s side during what should’ve been the happiest time in her life. Was Delilah an asshole for hatching this little scheme? Possibly. Okay, probably. But it was harmless fun, just little dips into the river and some broken glass, a way to hold on to a little bit of control, which Astrid—and Isabel, for that matter—always had in spades. Astrid was going to do what she wanted, no matter what her stepsister did, and Delilah had no doubt these two weeks would end with the happy couple sailing off into the sunset and Delilah heading back to New York with fifteen grand in her pocket, no harm, no foul.
Besides, what did she care if Astrid married this guy? What did she care if Astrid yessed her way to popping out a hundred babies in Seattle? What did she care if Astrid tied on an apron every night to cook her man’s dinner? Maybe Astrid liked doing all those things. Feminism, after all, was about equal respect for equal work, not ensuring a woman never baked a cake or fetched a cold one.
But then Claire had turned her doe eyes on Delilah. She’d been so . . . dammit, so sweet in her care for Astrid, her genuine worry, and Delilah had cracked like an egg. She’d never given in to anyone so easily in her life, and she still wasn’t exactly sure what the hell had happened back in their room, how she’d ended up helping the fucking coven break up her stepsister’s wedding. She’d get paid no matter what—compensation was guaranteed even in the event of a wedding cancellation, a little clause she’d added to her standard contract especially for her beloved stepfamily—and so here she was, collaborating with Astrid’s BFFs, helping them take down the patriarchy one dickbag at a time.