“Oh, stop,” Melanie said to her daughter’s back side. “We can still pick the cake and proceed. Don’t be dramatic.”
Emma turned. “Don’t be dramatic. Dramatic? I don’t know what’s gotten into you. You’re acting like someone I don’t even know, Mom. You just started a cake fight because someone didn’t agree with you. That’s . . . insane!”
Marc clapped his hands. “Ladies, ladies. Let’s have some tea and talk through this.”
“Tea? Don’t you have something stronger? Because I think we could all use a drink,” Tennyson said, wiping the remainder of the cake and jam from her face.
Marc nodded. “Donna, can you fetch the brandy to go with the tea?”
The person who looked the most delighted with all that had transpired was Marc’s assistant. Her eyes danced with delight. “Are you sure you just don’t want me to get the bikinis and baby oil and let them have a go at each other? We could charge admission and make a fortune.”
“Donna,” Marc said, with a warning in his voice.
“Brandy it is,” she said, leaving the table and disappearing into the back.
Marc ushered them toward the seating area. Melanie grabbed a wad of napkins and scrubbed at her face. She could still taste the sweetness on her lips, and hey, maybe the butter in the frosting might help with the bags under her eyes. The expensive cream she’d bought wasn’t doing a bit of good.
“I’m not one to fuss, but my job is to keep the bride happy. Our bride doesn’t look happy,” Marc said, looking at Emma, who had sat with her arms crossed, angry tears still glinting in her eyes. Andrew had sat next to her, but he’d wisely stopped trying to console her.
Melanie set the wadded napkins on the coffee table and crossed her legs. “What cake have you decided on, honey?”
“So you’re really going to pretend that this didn’t just happen?” Emma asked, her blue eyes flashing with annoyance.
“No, but we tasted all the cakes. Which one?” Melanie insisted, because she couldn’t undo what she had done. And that was what they were here for. Cake.
Emma looked at Marc. “The last one. Blackberry.” Then she looked back at Melanie. “And?”
“And what?”
“You aren’t going to address your behavior?” Emma said, looking more like Melanie’s mother than she ever had.
Melanie shrugged. “I don’t have to answer to you. I’m a grown-up.”
Tennyson’s lips twitched, but she remained silent.
“That’s your answer?” Emma turned from her and shook her head in what looked like disgust.
Donna came in and plonked down the tea tray a bit too hard. Marc winced, grabbed the brandy bottle, poured a decent amount into two cups, and handed one to Tennyson and one to Melanie. He seemed to think it over before pouring himself a double shot and tossing it back. Emma and Andrew seemed to be on their own.
Tennyson took the brandy and sipped it, making a face. Melanie picked hers up and tossed it back the way Marc had. It burned like a mother, but she needed the warmth and calm it might bring her. She’d never done anything this spontaneous. Or, well, she hadn’t since she was friends with Tennyson. This was what that woman drove her to—misbehaving.
“Damn, girl,” Tennyson said in admiration, eyeing her.
Emma poured a steaming cup of water and dropped a tea bag in. Silence reigned for a good minute before Melanie’s daughter folded her hands and cleared her throat. “You need to tell me and Andrew what is going on between you. We can’t continue planning the wedding with this disagreement still sitting between you. It’s too much stress, and we need to put . . . whatever it is behind us. Both of you are going to be our family.”
At that moment regret slammed into Melanie. Her daughter was right—the tension between her and Tennyson wasn’t fair to either of their children. Still, how did she tell Emma the truth about her own family? For so long she’d protected Emma and Noah from the truth because she wanted the image of her father to be pristine. She hadn’t told any mistruths—her father had been smart, talented, handsome, and so full of kindness. So, no, Melanie hadn’t misrepresented the man who had given her rides on his shoulders and helped her build a playhouse in the backyard, but she hadn’t told the whole truth, either. Like her mother, she’d wanted the scandal to stay where it belonged—in the past.
But she had to say something, give her daughter some reason why she and Tennyson were at odds.
After another period of silence, Emma narrowed her eyes. “Well?”
“Fine. We fought over a guy,” Tennyson said.
Both Emma and Andrew turned to her, their eyebrows raised. Emma blinked. “This is over a guy?”
“Mom, please tell me you and Em’s mom didn’t throw away your friendship over some random dude,” Andrew said, sounding very mature and millennial. Guys weren’t worth it. Dime a dozen. Girl power. And all that jazz.
Melanie squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them. “It wasn’t just a random dude. It was Kit.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Andrew kissed an emotional Emma on the forehead and jogged toward Tennyson’s car. He tapped on the driver’s side window, ensuring she couldn’t put it in reverse and get the hell out of Dodge.
“I’m riding with you,” he shouted through the glass.
“I’m fine,” Tennyson said with a wave. She didn’t want him to ride home with her, because she needed some time to decompress after what had happened inside Marc’s office. The whole afternoon was a colossal fail, not to mention she had frosting in her hair and her face was sticky from the blackberry compote. The only silver lining was that Emma had chosen a cake and marked the design she wanted for the wedding cake, which had been the whole reason for the appointment, so maybe it wasn’t a colossal fail. Just a messy . . . mess.
Andrew had already jogged around her car. She pressed unlock so he could climb inside.
He closed the door, his knees nearly up to his chin. He moved the seat back as far as it would go and then looked at her. “Well, that was a real shit show.”
Tennyson lifted a shoulder. “It all had to come out sooner or later.”
“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?”
When he and Emma had first started dating, she’d almost casually said, I used to date your father and be BFFs with your mom, but hadn’t because it felt awkward to lead with something like that. She’d figured she’d hold off because it was likely Emma and Andrew would date a few months and then go their separate ways, as seemed to be Andrew’s MO with most girls. But then this one stuck, and it seemed harder and harder to blurt out the background she had with Emma’s parents. She’d gone with “We used to know each other” and left it at that. She figured one day she’d find a segue into a conversation about what had really happened between her and Emma’s parents, but it never came. Or, if she were going to be truthful, she had avoided talking about the past because she worried that if Emma knew the truth, she would hate Tennyson as much as Melanie did.
Of course, Emma still didn’t know what Tennyson had done at the wedding. Melanie was kind enough to refer to their behavior as “bad reactionary choices” and leave it at that.