Marriage of Inconvenience(Knitting in the City Book #7)(52)

“I’m not keeping her from you.”

“So help me God, if you don’t bring that girl home, I’ll take out an ad on Craigslist for season tickets to the Sox and list your cell phone number. There’s no problem, is there? I expect you both over Labor Day. I’ll call Katherine, she’ll tell Quinn to give you the day off.”

Katherine was Quinn’s mother, and one of my mother’s best friends.

“Don’t call Mrs. Sullivan. If I want to take the day off, then I’ll take the day off.”

“Great. Love you. See you both soon.”

“Ma, wait—shit.”

She hung up.

Fuck.

Fuck that fucking duck.





Chapter Nine





Fashion Police: Authorities that will arrest you for wearing the wrong thing.





—Urban Dictionary.com





**Kat**





While pulling on my Friday sweater—which coordinated with the rest of my Friday outfit—I remembered that I needed a wedding dress.

I knew it didn’t really need to be a wedding dress. It just needed to be something different than my Thursday outfit.

It could be what you’re wearing now, for example.

Biting my thumbnail, I stared at the sparse contents of my closet. I didn’t want to wear my Friday outfit to get married. And my Wednesday outfit was dirty. My eyes slid to my Monday outfit—gray pants and a white shirt—and I frowned. There was nothing wrong with Monday’s outfit, but I couldn’t bring myself to wear it.

The truth was, I didn’t want to wear any of my weekday attire for the ceremony. Perhaps I was being ridiculous, but the thought of getting married in khaki pants and an Oxford shirt made me feel an indefinable kind of unhappy.

My eyes moved to the far left side of my closet without me explicitly telling them to do so, likely because the left side of my closet was where I stored all the clothes I bought but rarely had a chance to wear: high-heeled shoes, funky shirts and sweaters, and pretty dresses that I’d found on sale.

I ignored a new kind of indefinably unhappy and thumbed through the hangers. Seven items deep, I stopped, my heart jumping to my throat with longing as I rubbed the thin satin material between my thumb and forefinger of a pale pink halter maxi dress. The waist was shirred and pleated leading to an ankle-length trumpet hem. The back was open and would expose my skin from neck to waist, which was why I’d never worn it outside of the store. I didn’t have a halter bra.

But it was just so darn pretty, and I felt so darn pretty wearing it, and—darn it—I wanted to feel pretty on my wedding day.

Fake wedding day.

Fake.

But still.

I didn’t know how long I stood there, staring at it, debating. But when I glanced at the alarm clock next to my bed, I yanked the dress out of the closet on a rush. My dawdling was in danger of making me late. Since I was leaving work early—hopefully my last modified schedule for the foreseeable future—I needed to get to work by 5:30 AM.

Hurriedly, I tucked it into my simple canvas garment bag, the one I used to carry dry-cleaning home, stuffed my pair of nude heels into my backpack, and was out the door. I didn’t allow myself to think about the dress. Short of skipping work and buying something else, I was stuck with my choice and that was that.

Luckily, despite my closet contemplations, I arrived at my desk with a few minutes to spare. Unlike the last two times I knew I’d be spending time in Dan’s company, I was able to concentrate just fine.

I suspected this was because his request at the end of lunch yesterday had left me annoyed.

Annoyance flavored with righteous indignation.

It was as though he thought I was incapable of controlling myself, or having respect for another person’s feelings. This was especially aggravating because my problem was the exact opposite. I couldn’t not control myself. Control was what I lived and breathed and consumed. The only treatment I’d identified for my crippling control was drugs and/or alcohol, and I refused to self-medicate anymore.

Coming from him, someone I liked and admired as much as I liked and admired Dan, it stung. More than a paper cut , more than a bee sting, the hurt lingered after lunch and for the rest of the day—during my Thursday night class, walking home from the university, while I tossed and turned in bed—until I’d fallen asleep and dreamt of Dan being revealed as a Dalek in disguise. And then I had to exterminate him.

Which was why, when Steven called after lunch on Friday, pulling me out of the work-zone, I was surprised it was already 4:14 PM.

“How is it already past three?” I scratched my jaw, clicking over to my emails to ensure there weren’t any emergencies that needed to be addressed. Seeing none, I enabled my out-of-office responder.