As soon as she hung up, Jilly called Ken.
“Have you seen Jared?” he immediately asked.
“No, but I’ve heard what he’s doing.”
“So have I!” Ken said fiercely.
Jilly could tell by his voice that he was angry. “You don’t approve?”
“Of Jared leading my daughter on? Of slick-talking her, then dumping her? You’re damned right I—”
“Ken!” Jilly said loudly. “I think you better listen to what I have to tell you—and do you have a tuxedo?”
That question shut him up long enough to listen to what Jilly had to say.
As for Jared, he only walked a block before opening the door to a jewelry store. “What do you have in size five?” he asked the man who owned the shop.
Chapter Thirty-one
Alix spent the day with her mother, going from one store to another and looking at everything from cheeses to bridesmaids’ gifts to cuff links for the groomsmen.
“Mother, I think Izzy is doing all this. You seem to forget that it’s her wedding and not mine.”
“How could I forget something like that? When you get married, I’ll need a year to plan.”
“Good,” Alix muttered. “By the time I get married, I’ll be too old to shop for myself.”
Victoria took her daughter’s arm. “Jared still hasn’t called you?”
“No, not a word. No call, text, email, carrier pigeon, nothing.”
“Ken said Jared went out on his boat yesterday so maybe he’s still there. No! Wait. He got back last night. Maybe he’s been busy with some new commission.”
“Without me.”
“Oh, heavens, Alix! You must cheer up. It isn’t the first time you’ve been in love and it certainly won’t be the last.” Victoria stopped to admire some shoes in a window, then looked across the street at Sweet Inspirations. “How about some chocolate?”
“No, thanks,” Alix said, and looked at her mother. “What did you do when the man you loved didn’t call?”
“Never happened,” Victoria said.
“No man has ever not called you?” Alix asked with interest. Never before had she asked her mother about something like this.
“That’s happened. It’s just that I’ve never been in love. At least not the kind you mean.” She started walking.
Alix hurried after her mother. “You never told me that before.”
“I’ve never told anyone. I write books of great passion and of everlasting, undying True Love. If I ever get hold of Valentina’s journal, and if I should be so lucky as to meet the Kingsley ghost, I plan to write a great saga about a love that was so deep it survived death. It’s all wonderful to read and write about, but outside my books I’ve never felt it.”
Alix was blinking at her mother. You could live with a person all your life and not know fundamental facts about them. “What about that guy Rockwell? You liked him a lot.”
“That was pure sex.”
“Oh.” Alix was torn between wanting to hear and not wanting to hear from her mother. “I did think that was why you liked that young man André. I never t
old you that he made a pass at me. I was about sixteen then.”
“Darling, André made passes at everyone. At your seventeenth birthday party I found him in a closet with one of the male waiters. He asked me to strip from the waist up and join them.”