Because he loved her.
Love? Whether he loved Gwen or not didn’t matter. They wanted entirely different things from life. She wanted a passel of kids and a picket fence and he wanted…what the hell did he want? He wanted Gwen.
Enough. All he needed was time to readjust and get acclimated to being single again. The guy who lived for the convenient arrangement. In fact, maybe that very thing, a convenient arrangement, would help him get past the emptiness, even though the thought held no appeal. He clicked on an email from Mischa Galakanos, an heiress he’d met at Mesquale before the holidays. They’d both been there with other people, but Ishy’s thing was over and his thing was over and she was visiting New York for a couple weeks… Maybe if he acted like the guy he’d been, with a beautiful woman on his arm and a convenient arrangement, he’d get his mojo back. After all, he had an image to uphold.
*
“She stole my floral arrangements.” Milan stood in the middle of the living room at her parents’ Upper East Side condo, her stick-like arms crossed. The way she leaned forward reminded Gwen of a praying mantis. “My best friend, that bitch, stole my floral arrangements! What are you going to do about it?”
The housekeeper had scampered off like a rabbit chased by a hound as soon as she had shown Gwen in. Who could blame her, really? Milan was impossibly spoiled, with a mile-wide mean streak. When Milan was angry she might say anything, and usually that anything was most unkind.
“Milan, darling.” Mrs. Vanderpelk’s right eyelid twitched as though ticking off the seconds before her daughter exploded, blasting bits of perfect girl and silicone all over the Vanderpelks’ impeccably decorated home. “This is not the end of the world. Honestly, I never liked those floral arrangements. And I didn’t much like Lisbon, either.”
“What do you know, Mother? Pink peonies are the rage this season! They would have been imported, imported from a special grower in Argentina.” Milan pointed a bony, talon-like finger at her mother. “You let Lisbon come to that special meeting with Gwen, the one about the flowers.”
“Darling, if memory serves, you and Lisbon were running a bit late from your massage at—”
Milan tossed her mother a furious look. “Memory does not serve, Mother.” She darted her angry glare from Mrs. Vanderpelk to Gwen and back again. “Can you believe this? What a whore.” Milan put her hands on her boyishly slim hips and shook her head. “How did she even find the name of the grower? That’s what I want to know. We talked about the type of flower that day but not—” Milan’s eyes slitted, and she slowly turned as if a snake ready to strike. “Unless someone gave her the contact information for the South American grower?” Her accusing stare locked onto Gwen.
“One Google search and she could find the grower’s name.” Gwen walked toward the couch. She had zero patience for Milan’s antics today. Here was a woman handed everything, everything. A doting fiancé (which Gwen really couldn’t understand—Andrew seemed so normal and nice, and he was marrying this wackadoo?), parents who loved her, and a wedding that was a fairytale on acid. I mean really? Doves and white dancing horses? Gwen placed her computer on the coffee table in front of the couch and reached out for one of the butter cookies arranged in a perfect circle on a crystal dish, taking a bite. Certainly in this room, occupied by one gaunt waif and her nipped and tucked mother, Gwen would be the only person shoveling butter cookies into her mouth.
Gwen tucked her skirt to sit, but just before her behind hit the embroidered pillowtop sofa, Milan snapped, “Did you give Lisbon the grower’s name?”
“Me?” Gwen froze, her hand flying to her chest. Butter cookie crumbs dropped from her lips.
“Did she hire you to do her wedding?” Milan’s sharp, shrill tone felt like a slap against Gwen’s cheek.
“You know that I no longer do weddings. I’m doing yours as a favor to your godmother.”
“Some favor.” Milan rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “This is going to be the worst wedding ever.”
Gwen stiffened. Instead of lowering her butt to sit, she stood. Mrs. Vanderpelk’s lips thinned, and she looked at the giant diamond adorning her ring finger. Gwen felt a growing sense of calm sweep over her as she looked from mother to daughter. She didn’t need this abuse, she absolutely did not. Her patience for finding Argentinian peony growers, Russian horse dancers, Turkish dove trainers, British monkey peddlers—was this a wedding or an international zoo?—was exhausted. Yes, she had taken on planning Milan’s wedding as a favor, a favor to one of her first and favorite clients. But truly, really, she’d done her very best, gone above and beyond, but between the flood of texts, the miles-long emails, the middle-of-the-night interruptions and now this… Milan accusing her of wedding espionage? Well, Gwen was d-o-n-e, done.