The Bride (The Boss 3)

“Jerk.” I passed the bag from the floor off to him and grabbed the handles of the one in my lap. “We’re going to have to get a sensible family car, you know? In case we need things like food or toilet paper—”

“Oh no.” His eyes went wide, and for a moment I panicked, until I remembered that I’d used the bathroom twice already, and there had been plenty of paper. He grinned at me, and I tried to kick him in the butt as he punched the security code in to unlock the kitchen door.

The kitchen was lovely and spacious, with beautiful reclaimed hardwood floors evenly sanded and varnished to a glassy shine. A hexagonal breakfast nook with a lovely round table for six had high, symmetrical arched picture windows that matched the larger one that looked out over the gorgeously manicured lawn to the east. The warm beige walls positively glowed with sunlight during the day, and inset lighting burnished them at night. Large squares of copper ceiling nestled between the dark wood beams overhead. The center island was topped with one giant oval slab of black, brown, and white marble, with a long rectangular inset bar sink, appropriate for filling with ice and lodging beer bottles in.

You can take the girl out of the UP, but you can’t take the UP out of the girl.

I set the paper bag on the island and unpacked the contents with demented speed. I’d been sorely tempted to rip into the baguette on the drive. I did so now, taking a huge bite from the very top with a moan of lusty relief.

“Hey!” Neil laughed, smacking my hand.

I giggled a

round my mouthful of bread and dropped the loaf on the counter. Covering my full mouth with one hand, I managed, “I wa ungy!”

“You’ll be thirsty in a moment, and I don’t have the wine open.”

Damn. I had to admit he had a point as I swallowed a very dry mouthful of crusty bread.

We ended up eating cross-legged on the floor, out of exhaustion and because there weren’t any stools or chairs in the kitchen; they were one of the few furnishings the previous owners had retained. Considering the huge collection of Stickley they’d left behind, it seemed like a weird detail.

“Maybe they had some family significance,” Neil suggested, taking my empty plate and stacking it atop his on the floor beside him. “I had the most horrible ottoman, probably the ugliest piece of furniture I’ve ever owned, or seen, for that matter, and I kept it for years because Emma was sitting on it when she lost her first tooth.” He paused and got that sentimental look he always had when he talked about Emma’s childhood. “She was chewing on the end of a pencil and one of her bottom front teeth just popped right out.”

I reached for the wine bottle and drank from it. We hadn’t bothered with glasses. “What happened to it?”

“The tooth?”

“No, the ottoman,” I laughed. “Obviously, I don’t think you kept the…”

He looked away, and I looked away.

The more left unsaid about that, the better.

We sat in silence as I imagined one day opening some random drawer and finding an envelope full of human teeth. “Hey, Neil?”

“Hmm?”

I reached for his hand and squeezed it. “We’re making a memory right now.”

He tilted his head, his beautiful green eyes flickering over my every feature.

Under such intense scrutiny, I always quavered. “What are you looking at?”

“I’m committing every detail I can. If we’re making a memory, I don’t want to forget a single thing.”

My stomach fluttered. “First night in my first house, with my fiancé.” I leaned my head on his shoulder, and he put an arm around me. “I don’t think I’ll forget, either.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Settling into the new house was a welcome distraction from my BFF troubles at first, but by mid-April, the newness had worn off and I was in serious panic mode at not having heard from Holli. When the first week of May rolled around, I was a barely eating insomniac with an incredibly worried boyfriend. It wasn’t an ideal situation, and we were both definitely feeling the stress.

It didn’t help that the second Saturday of the month was Emma’s wedding. Neil had been doing a great job of filling both the fiancé and best friend roles since we’d moved out of the city, but now, he was tied up in knots of his own over losing his only child to a handsome, well-off young attorney.

“I think we’ll spend a few days in the apartment,” Neil said, as he checked and rechecked his schedule of wedding events. “I’ve got a final fitting with my tailor on the Thursday before, and the rehearsal dinner is on Friday night. Sunday, we’ll be exhausted, so we may as well stay until Monday.”

“Ugh. I hate having to pack. It’s going to feel like I’m taking a vacation to my own house.” And, secretly, I didn’t want to go back to the apartment while we were still in the honeymoon period with our new place. The past month had been lots of fun, though Neil hadn’t quite let go of his company yet. He made the commute to the Elwood & Stern offices a couple times a week, either via helicopter or one of his ridiculous cars, the entire collection of which had arrived one at a time from his various storage facilities around the world. I suppose I should have anticipated he’d have some pricey cars, since one of Elwood & Stern’s flagship publications was Auto Watch, but our freaking garage looked like an episode of that weird British motoring show he was always watching.

But our days had been spent mostly together, lazing around reading, watching TV, cooking for ourselves, cleaning up after ourselves, just being a real couple without the interruptions of adult children, exes, or housekeepers. A team of cleaning staff came in once a week and unobtrusively tidied up, but we hardly ever saw them while they were there. It was amazing how easily you could just not see anyone in such a huge house.