Melanie shot her a look. “You have, haven’t you? Rumors prevail.”
Tennyson’s gaze might have been Chinese throwing stars. “Since Melly and Kit are doing the engagement party, I’ll host the wedding shower.”
“I’m sure there will be several showers,” Melanie said, signaling the waiter so she could get another glass of chardonnay. Tennyson had moved to Shreveport. She needed a freaking bottle. “I know Mother’s garden club will want to do something. Oh, and you know your friends will want to host something, Emma. We need to get a calendar.”
Tennyson lifted the sleeping puppy from her bag. The little thing wore a tiny diaper. Melanie blinked once. Twice. “Is that dog wearing a diaper?”
Tennyson rooted around inside her large Louis Vuitton bag, setting sunglasses cases and lipsticks on the table. “Yes. I learned that trick from the Kardashians.”
Well, that explained everything.
“Here,” Tennyson huffed, setting a slim-wrapped package on the table and pushing it toward Emma. “I found this today.”
Emma lifted the gift and unwrapped it. “Wedding Bible?”
“By Sarah Haywood. She’s a fantastic wedding planner, but probably not able to do your wedding. It’s too short notice. Still, I called David Tutera and Kevin Lee, but, again, too short notice. So anyone worth anything is booked. I made a few calls to Dallas, but at this point, I think we’re going to have to use Marc Mallow. He’s local but tolerable. He did the Murrays’ wedding, which was written about in Southern Society magazine. Three months is not much time, but I promised him twenty percent more than his normal fee. He’s a money-hungry little beast, so he’s in. But this book will give you some things to be thinking about. We have a meeting with him in three weeks, but in the meantime, you can send him your preferences. Will that work?”
Melanie knew her mouth had dropped open, but so did Emma’s.
Emma snapped her mouth closed. “Oh my God, he said he’d do it?”
Tennyson patted the now groggy pup and set it back within the depths of her purse, nestling it into an expensive-looking scarf. “Yes, so does that work for you?”
“Absolutely,” Emma said, grinning at Andrew. “I loved the lighted trees he did for Ainsley Polk’s wedding. Oh, and the flowers were amazing. I already have a list of some ideas. I’m thinking lavender and cream for the color scheme. Perhaps a bit of spring green as an accent.”
So much for getting a leg up on this wedding thing. Melanie closed her mouth and glanced over at Kit, who now had a furrow between his pretty blue eyes. She knew why. Dollar signs were dancing across his vision. Marc Mallow did every society wedding in North Louisiana . . . if he wished to do it. The man was as flighty and fickle as any she knew. And she really didn’t know him. She knew his mother owned the floral shop Marc always used. Don’t even suggest another florist, or he’d walk away. She knew this because one of her friends had suggested using her own friend who was a florist to do the arrangements, and Marc got up and left. That being said, Marc was the best in the area.
The waiter appeared. “Are we ready to order?”
“Another drink,” Tennyson said, draining the last of her double martini.
“Right away, ma’am,” the waiter said, disappearing with a slight bow.
Tennyson looked up and smiled. “I do love a man who does what I ask.”
Emma’s delighted laughter was a cheese grater against Melanie’s nerves. If she could figure out a way to leave without looking as if she were in retreat, she would do it, but at this point any slinking about, even for self-preservation, would be acknowledged by her former friend with a twinkle of triumph in her eyes. So Melanie would have to sit and suffer.
She’d come up with something to counter Tennyson’s initial move. Her nemesis had gotten a heads-up on the engagement and used that to her advantage by buying the planner, booking Marc Mallow, and offering to do the shower.
But the game was on. And just like last time she faced Tennyson, Melanie didn’t plan on losing.
CHAPTER FOUR
Two weeks later
Tennyson stood in the threshold of her open French doors and surveyed the area around the pool with a critical eye. She needed to get the cedar-and-stone structure sheltering the enormous hearth restained and get new furniture in place. She’d already called an outdoor-design expert in Dallas, who would arrive for a consultation Wednesday. The pro would then hire the gardening team to redesign the landscaping in time for the wedding shower. For that event, clear tents would cover the entire pool area in case a pop-up thunderstorm made an appearance, and she’d made sure there would be large fans and air conditioners to cool the late June evening. Marc Mallow was handling the catering and decorating for the wedding shower of the decade.
“Mom, where should we put these boxes that were left in the carriage house?” Andrew asked, poking his head out from the two-story “garage” apartment that sat to the left of her property. Advertised as a mother-in-law apartment, the small bungalow-type structure was a perfect space for Emma and Andrew to live in their first year.
“What boxes specifically?” she called back, scooping up Prada, who had just piddled on the expensive Turkish rug in her dining room. The puppy didn’t seem to understand the difference between wool and grass. She should probably invest in a puppy training book and a few vats of carpet cleaner.
“I don’t know. Not yours. They must have been forgotten by the previous owner or something. Can I put them in your garage until they can pick them up? It’s tight quarters, and we don’t have room. Emma has a lot of stuff.”
“I have a lot of stuff? You mean you have a lot of stuff. Like this Peloton bike you don’t even use,” Emma called out, sounding so much like Melanie that Tennyson winced. Still, their teasing banter made her smile, especially when she heard a delighted squeal and knew her boy was probably lovingly harassing his fiancée. Oh, to be young and in love.
She’d been that once upon a time. A few times, to be exact. Hadn’t worked for her. She’d accepted that she wasn’t meant to be in a relationship. She liked her freedom, hopping over to Milan if she wanted, taking a month in the mountains, dating men who knew good champagne from the cheap stuff. She was a butterfly made to flit.
So why in the hell was she here?
She didn’t really understand her own inclinations sometimes.
Seeing Melanie a few weeks ago had been surreal. Even more so was seeing Kit and remembering what it was like to be the one to sit beside him. He’d been the one guy she’d never gotten over. Well, that wasn’t altogether true. She had gotten over him. Still, there was a part of herself that held on to that torn-apart piece of first love. The girl who still lived inside her remembered the boy who’d teased her about her wild hair and bubble butt (that he proclaimed to worship). Kit had been her first for many things—first boyfriend, first love, first sexual partner—and she’d been unable to uncurl her fingers and let go of that romanticized first love.
As much as she hated to admit it—she wasn’t good at letting go.
Kit had broken her heart. That he’d done so with Melanie, the one person she’d thought she could always depend on, had made it somehow ten times more devastating.