Page 65

"I'm not going to." He drank some champagne. "I'll say one thing, and then I'm your best man and I'll be perfect all day, I promise."

"Lance…"

"Do you know how many times you've called me in two years?" He was looking straight ahead. "I counted. Because I'm neurotic and I keep score. And every single one of those calls was about a case, or my career, or something funny. Not one of them was about Steven. Or you."

"That's not—"

"And I've let it happen, because you're frightening and I'm a coward. Everyone in your life has decided that the way to love Blaine Cauthorne is to leave him alone." He turned and looked at me. "So I'm not going to ask you the question. I'm only going to say that I have been a bad friend by being polite, and that I'm going to stop."

"When?"

"Tomorrow," said Lance. "I'm going to be an absolute nightmare to you starting tomorrow."

Then he kissed me on both cheeks and walked back up toward the house.

* * *

I got back to the house at half past one.

My hair was correct. The suit was hanging in the west bedroom being photographed by somebody from Ascendant. I went into the small downstairs bathroom by the mudroom, shut the door, and locked it.

Then I stood there.

Nothing happened. I want to be accurate about that. I did not cry and I did not shake. I put both hands on the edge of the sink and looked at a man in the mirror who appeared entirely composed. Serene, even.

"You can do this," I whispered to him.

It's what I have said to myself before every difficult day of my professional life.

And standing there at half past one, I worked out that I have never once in all those years had to say it about something I wanted.

Somebody knocked.

"Darling?" My mother. "What are you doing in there? It's time to get you into the suit."

"Coming," I said, and unlocked the door.

Chapter Eighteen

Gregory

Here's what I'd decided, lying awake in that guest house.

Nothing.

I had no plan, and that's the truth. For the first time since the yacht club in Hawaii I woke on the morning of my ex-husband's wedding and understood that I’d run out of moves.

I'd hired Billy. I'd fixed a tent, and I'd pulled a man out of a pond. To top it off, I’d turned down a film with HIT written all over it. And at the end of all of it Blaine was getting married at four o'clock and there was not one single thing left for me to do.

I thought I could produce my way back into that man's heart. I was wrong.

So I got dressed and went to be a guest at his wedding.

I want to be honest about the suit. Navy, beautifully cut, and I bought it in Honolulu the afternoon I sold the boat, because it is the exact blue of the one I wore to a premiere in Cannes that Blaine once complimented me on.

I'm not proud of that. But I have committed to accuracy.

* * *