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Zander swallowed, longing once again for the smooth burn of vodka, vermouth and a little olive brine sliding down his throat. Things were apparently worse than he’d anticipated.
The Times, for God’s sake. Only the society page, but still...
It wasn’t just the society page, though, as Zander soon realized.
Ryan took a deep breath and lowered the boom. “Specifically, the Vows column.”
Zander clenched his gut. “The Vows column? From the Sunday Wedding section?”
“The one and only.” Ryan sighed.
Having the hotel lambasted on the front page would have been better than the Vows column announcing that the Bennington was cursed. People all over the damn world read the wedding announcements in the Sunday edition of the Times. Like every other luxury hotel in Manhattan, a sizable portion of the Bennington’s business came from the wedding industry. Moonstruck brides and grooms.
He shook his head. This couldn’t happen. Not after he’d worked so hard to restore the Bennington to its former glory. “I don’t understand where this is coming from. Why would a columnist from Vows think we’re cursed?”
Ryan frowned. “You seriously have to ask?”
“I do, actually.”
I do.
The instant the words left his mouth, he remembered Allegra saying the same thing while she stood in front of him, looking like she’d just walked out of a fairy tale.
He’d taunted her. You even sound like a bride.
Now reality was finally coming together with horrific clarity.
Damn. He groaned. “We’ve had another runaway bride, haven’t we?”
“Bingo.” Ryan seemed to be fighting a smirk. “The bride who crashed your birthday party just now was the latest. You know, the one you assumed was here to strong-arm you into marrying her.”
“Yeah, I get that.” Now he did, anyway.
Zander sighed. No wonder Allegra had laughed in his face. She hadn’t turned up to make good on their deal. She’d been on the run from her own wedding to a completely different man.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. But the timing seemed awfully fortuitous. It wasn’t as if he’d wanted to believe she’d come back for him.
You sure about that?
Beneath the surface of his desk, Zander’s hands curled into fists. Of course he was sure.
Ryan’s gaze narrowed. “What’s the story there, if you don’t mind my asking? The two of you were engaged once?”
“No,” Zander said with a little too much force. Then, more evenly, he added, “It wasn’t like that.”
Ryan stared blankly at him, waiting for more.
Zander was in no mood to oblige. “Back to the matter at hand. We have two weddings on the schedule this weekend. Which one just went belly-up?”
Zander didn’t personally handle the hotel’s wedding-planning details, but as with everything else that went on beneath the roof of the fabled building, he supervised with a watchful eye. It was his job to know what was going on, and he definitely would have noticed if they’d had a wedding on the schedule with a bride named Allegra Clark.
Ryan took a beat too long to answer. “The big one. The Warren wedding.”
The Warren wedding, as in Spencer Warren, city councilman and mayoral candidate for the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts. No wonder the Times had already taken notice.
The hotel roster had listed the bride’s name as Ali Clark. So Allegra was going by Ali now?
Zander wasn’t sure what he found more surprising—the fact that Allegra had changed her name or that she’d ever considered being a politician’s wife.
It was time to face the facts. He no longer knew her. Allegra was a stranger now. She wasn’t even Allegra anymore, and she didn’t want to marry him any more than he wanted to marry her.
He also had far more pressing matters to deal with at the moment. “This is our third runaway bride in the span of a month.”
Ryan nodded. “We also had one about twelve weeks ago.”
No wonder the Times thought the Bennington was cursed. “Once the Vows column goes forward, no one will want to book a wedding here.”
“We’re screwed,” Ryan said.
“No, we’re not.” Zander gave his head a slow, methodical shake. “We’ll just have to prove them wrong.”
He wasn’t going down without a fight. He’d worked too long and too hard to let a runaway bride bring him to his knees.
Even a runaway bride he’d once been foolish enough to love.
* * *
Allegra woke the next morning when the first rays of soft pink sunlight peeked through the ruffled curtains of Emily Wilde’s guest room. Her first conscious thought was how pretty the cozy attic space looked, with its white barrel-vaulted ceiling and antique pedestal sink in the corner. Her second conscious thought was that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had such a good night’s sleep.
It defied logic. She was homeless, for all practical purposes. Stuck in New York with no belongings, no job and no fiancé. No plan. Yet, she felt more at peace than she had in months. Maybe she’d actually done the right thing, for once. She’d made a good choice in coming back...coming home.
Except this wasn’t home. This was Zander’s mother’s house. His mother’s room. The pale gray flannel pajamas Allegra had slept in didn’t belong to her either. They were at least three sizes too big. She could only guess they’d once belonged to Zander’s father.
Still, it felt nice here. Peaceful. She peeled back the curtain and watched the snow float down from the sky. Slowly, softly, like feathers shaken loose from a pillow. A tiny black kitten tiptoed its way through the white fluff on the sidewalk down below. Everything was so picturesque that Allegra’s heart gave a little lurch.
Don’t get used to it. You can’t stay here. You cannot.
Except where else could she go?
Somehow she’d thought she could figure it all out after she got some sleep. But nothing had changed. Not really. The hotel was booked. Even if they’d had a room and even if she’d managed to locate her purse, her debit card would have only been good for two or three nights. Four at the most. She’d spent every last dime on her dream wedding. There’d been the fancy caterer, the string quartet, the flowers...
An image of her extravagant bridal bouquet falling to the floor of the Bennington Hotel’s ballroom flashed through Allegra’s mind. She squeezed her eyes closed.
Everything is going to be okay. It will.
But when she opened her eyes, she found herself looking at a pouf of tulle at the foot of the bed. Her discarded wedding dress.
Everything was not okay.
She tossed aside the sheets, climbed out of bed and headed down the curved, Victorian-style staircase to Emily’s kitchen. She needed coffee. A gallon of it, if possible.
“Good morning, dear. How did you sleep?” Emily sat at the kitchen table and looked up from the copy of the New York Times in her hands.
Allegra glanced at the front page. She spotted Spencer’s name in a headline just below the fold and pointedly averted her gaze.
“I slept great, thank you.” Allegra looked around the kitchen, with its blue-and-white-toile wallpaper and shelves crammed full of mismatched china teacups. It hadn’t changed a bit since the last time she’d stood in this spot.
“Come sit down.” Emily folded the newspaper closed. “I’ve got your breakfast warming in the oven.”
“You didn’t need to do that, Mrs. Wilde. Honestly, you’ve done enough.”
“Nonsense.” Emily planted her hands on Allegra’s shoulders and steered her toward the table. “And stop calling me Mrs. Wilde. We’re not in dance class. Besides, I’ve known you since you were so tiny that your head didn’t even reach the top of the ballet barre.”
Allegra sat and watched as the older woman removed a breakfast casserole from the oven that looked big enough to feed an army. Just how hungry did Emily think she looked?
“Here you go. Dig in while I get you some coffee.” Emily slid a plate in front of her.
Allegra couldn’t remember the last time someone had cooked her breakfast. Or any meal, for that matter. She could get used to this kind of royal treatment if she stayed here for any length of time.
Which she most definitely would not.
She shouldn’t. She couldn’t. “This is delicious. Thank you so much. For everything. I’m not sure what I would have done last night if you hadn’t offered me your guest room.”
“You were in a bit of a pickle,” Emily said.
The understatement of the century. Allegra’s stomach churned. She set down her fork and forced herself to meet Emily’s penetrating gaze.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
Maybe.
No, actually. She didn’t. Not yet, and not with Zander’s mother. It was too soon and far too humiliating. “His name is Spencer Warren. But I’m guessing you know that by now.”
Allegra glanced at the folded newspaper and her throat grew tight. Her hands started to shake, and she had to remind herself to take a breath.
Not another panic attack. Not now.
“I’ve made such a mess of things,” she whispered.
“I’m sure you did the right thing,” Emily said, and even though Allegra knew she was just saying it to be kind, it still made her feel a little better. “You can stay here as long as you wish.”
“I can’t.” It was just too awkward. What would Zander say when he found out she was staying with his mother? A lot, probably. A whole lot.
“Of course you can. I’d love to have someone to dote on.”
“But I need to get my life in order.” Starting with a job. And something to wear. And a place to live. “I’m a mess, Emily.”
“Think of it as temporary, just until you get your feet under you. A month.”
“A month?” How many times would she run into Zander if she was living at his mother’s house for thirty days? Too many. “Absolutely not.”
Emily shrugged. “A week, then. Allegra, I hate to break it to you, but you can’t reinvent yourself in one day.”
She had a point.
And a week might not be too terrible. How often could Zander come by in seven measly days? He was a CEO now. He probably spent all his waking hours at his fancy hotel. He couldn’t even make it through a whole birthday party without working, which was a pretty good indication that he didn’t have time to hang around his mother’s brownstone. Plus seven days would give her time to come up with some sort of plan.
Still, something about this didn’t feel right.
You don’t have a choice. Be grateful.
She took a deep breath. “I’ll stay a week, if you’re sure it’s no bother.”
Emily waved a hand. “Why on earth would it be a bother?”
“Because I think I embarrassed your son last night. He seemed upset.” Yet another understatement.
Emily shrugged and sipped her coffee. “He probably had it coming.”
Actually he had. The misunderstanding was 100 percent his fault. He’d assumed she’d shown up in a wedding dress to marry him after all this time. What kind of person made such a nonsensical leap?
An egotistical one. One who was pathologically cocky.
One who’d just walked into the kitchen.
Allegra choked on a bite of eggs. “Zander.”
He stood staring at her from the threshold while snowflakes swirled around his head. A shiver coursed through her, and he slammed the door behind him.
“Allegra? What are you doing here?” Zander’s gaze dropped to her pajamas, then flitted back to her face. His eyes were red, his face wind chapped. He had a serious case of bed head, yet he was still dressed in his suit from the night before. He looked like he hadn’t slept a wink since she’d watched him saunter out of his birthday party.
Allegra’s head spun a little. Never in her life had she seen such a handsome exhausted man. His shoulders seemed even broader than they’d been just twelve hours ago. It was baffling. And infuriating. She looked down and stared pointedly at her plate.
“She lives here,” Emily said.
Zander let out a bitter laugh. “Very funny.”
“I’m not joking. Stop being rude to our guest.”
Allegra blinked. Our guest? What did that mean? Then she remembered the enormity of the breakfast casserole. And the pajamas.
She lost her grip on her fork and it clattered to the table. She ignored it and fixed her gaze on Zander as the mortifying reality of the situation dawned. “Wait a minute. What are you doing here?”
“Zander lives here, too,” Emily said far too sweetly. “Did I forget to mention that, dear?”
Chapter Four (#uc4a3fe3c-87dc-516b-9a15-605c6a5dc35d)
For the second time in less than twelve hours, Zander couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
