“Well, this is now.”
“I’ll work on it,” she mumbles, glancing away. Ah, shit. I didn’t mean to make her feel ashamed.
A knock on the door has me turning around, spotting Serena’s pale face, unenthused to be here. Spare me already.
“I wasn’t sure I had the right place at first,” she murmurs hesitantly, taking the seat directly next to me.
“This is where the magic happens,” Mackenzie says brightly, spreading her arms out. “And we’ve got a lot to decide on today, so now that you’re both here, we can get to it.” She opens a notebook in front of her, some kind of checklist on the first page. “Did either of you get a chance to go through the consultation list I included in your folders?”
She eyes us knowingly, and Serena shifts uncomfortably in her seat. She didn’t even take the damn folder with her.
But contrary to everyone’s expectations of me, I plan on keeping everybody on their toes with this wedding. I pull the form out of my breast pocket, smoothing it out before handing it to her. “Here you go.”
Her eyes widen, the first genuine smile I’ve seen from her spreading across her face. “Gabriel, this is wonderful,” she says as she flips it over to scan the back too. “I’m very impressed.”
My cheeks heat, pleased with her praise, which seems to delight her further as she glances up at me, but she lets me keep my dignity.
“This gives us a great starting point and we’ll make sure everything is to your taste too, Serena. What kind of color scheme are you thinking of?”
There’s dead silence in the room as my new fiancee simply stares back at her, unable to form a response. It’s a freaking color. She’s not exactly putting her on the spot.
I glance down at my shirt. “How about blue?” I suggest. One color’s as good as the rest.
“Great!” Mackenzie chirps cheerfully, looking relieved. “Serena, how do you feel about blue?”
“It’s fine,” she shrugs. “Maybe silver too? I attended a benefit last month that had a lot of silver and it was beautiful.”
“Blue and silver. Perfect.” Mackenzie writes it down in the notebook in front of her.
She turns to the next page, starting in about caterers and live music and dress fittings, her professionalism giving way to enthusiasm as she continues on. Serena contributes little to the conversation, withdrawing more and more with each new topic, but I find myself getting caught up in it, debating with her about whether a Chiavari or Louis XVI style chair would look better, if the tablecloths should be cotton or satin.
Mackenzie has an opinion about everything and reasoning to back it up. This fabric wrinkles too easily, that kind of music won’t set the right tone for the guests, these types of decor will harmonize together. Planning this all is actually sort of… fun. Her eyes sparkle as she gushes about a wedding she worked on years ago where they transformed the inside ceremony space into a garden, those pink lips curling up as she recounts the thousands of flowers they brought in, her voice full of excitement recalling the beauty and grandeur of how it turned out.
I mentally shake my head, realizing how wrapped up I’ve become in watching her. I should be focusing on Serena, my… bride.
I swallow down the bile that rises, glancing over at the waft of a woman next to me, so washed out it’s almost like she’s translucent with her pale skin, white-blonde hair, and cream colored dress. If I squint hard, I’m pretty sure I can see through her to the table and chairs against the windows.
No, my eye shouldn’t be wandering anywhere else.
Despite how much it wants to.
Chapter Four
Mackenzie
At some point during the consultation, I give up on trying to engage Serena, who’s just sitting there all mopey picking at her nails. I understand this arrangement isn’t ideal for either of them, but at least Gabriel is helping with decisions.
And he’s surprisingly… committed to it. I can’t tell if it’s a way to prove his dad wrong or to make good on his comment earlier that he’s on my side, but it’s for sure not due to any warm feelings toward Serena. Every time she shrugs a non-reply, his irritation with her becomes more and more visible. I admit, her behavior is annoying, but I’m not in any position to give her a dressing down. Despite being hired, my employment still seems tenuous.
I set up meetings for us to visit vendors for catering, cake, wedding attire, venues, and a whole laundry list of other tasks until we’ve got everything scheduled. A sense of accomplishment races through me as I check them off in my planner, reveling in that familiar thrill. The disorder and uncertainty of my business in the past few months as I’ve struggled to get enough events to pay off my debts has taken a toll on my mental state, and for the first time in a long while, I take a full breath. Everything will be okay.
I glance at the clock on my phone, seeing we’ve been at it for an hour and a half already. “We could decide on flowers now,” I suggest. “If it’s okay with both of you, we could use what’s available here in Diana’s shop. She has a great selection.”
“Sounds good with me,” Gabriel says, standing and stretching, his back audibly popping. He’s not in a suit today, but his blue polo and gray slacks bring with them a different aesthetic, revealing even through his shirt a toned upper body and arms more muscular than I was expecting. Biceps are my one weakness, and his are thick with muscle.
No, bad Mackenzie. No looking. He’s the groom in the wedding you’re planning.
Serena stands too, slinging her designer bag over her shoulder. “I actually have to get going.”
“Oh, okay. Do you want to wait to decide on flowers?”
“No, no,” she waves absent-mindedly at me, already turning toward the door. “Anything you pick is fine.”
She’s halfway out before I remember to ask, “What about your bouquet?” Brides always have an opinion about that.
“Whatever you choose is good,” she calls out, the bell over the main door ringing a moment later as she exits.
Gabriel sticks his hands in his pockets, giving me a wry smile. “You’d almost think she’s not excited about this.”
I duck my head to hide my own grin, squeezing out from behind my desk to go into the flower shop. I walk ahead of him, feeling his eyes on me. It’s not an unpleasant sensation, I’m just… aware of it, a tangible thing.
“So if we’re going with blue and silver, our options are more limited than they’d be with other colors, but we’ll definitely still make it work. We can dye anything or use floral sprays to create what we want.”
He stops at an arrangement of sunflowers, mums, and daisies, bending down to sniff. “What about hydrangeas or hyacinths?”
I stare at him. “How do you know about those?” Seriously, what straight man knows off the top of his head what flowers are naturally blue?
He grins, explaining, “My mother was a gardener. She loved to grow flowers. That’s how I know you smell like-” He steps into my personal space, bringing his face slightly toward my neck, close enough to feel his body heat. “Gardenias.”