I fold the clipboard tighter against my chest. “We should both stop doing this.”
“Doing what?”
I meet his eyes. “Pretending we don’t know what happens when we’re alone.”
A beat passes.
Then he says, very evenly, “I was not pretending.”
I keep moving because that’s the only way the morning stays in one piece.
The musicians arrive late by six minutes, which is not a disaster but feels like one because everything else is running so close to the wire already. The florist wants final confirmation on the chapel entrance. One of the bridesmaids can’t find her shoes. The photographer is asking where the family portraits start, and the makeup artist is standing beside the terrace doors with a case full of brushes and the expression of someone who has already used up her patience for the day.
“Has Camille come down yet?” she asks me.
I glance at my watch.
No.
She should have been in the bridal suite half an hour ago.
I look toward the house, then back at the artist. “Not yet.”
The artist presses her lips together. “Hair will take at least an hour and makeup another forty minutes if she wants the full look we discussed.”
I nod once. “Give me ten minutes.”
I turn and find Nadine near the service table. “Camille still isn’t downstairs,” I say quietly. “Can you check on her?”
Nadine looks toward the house. “I can, but the transport company is asking for final placement on the second car.”
Before I can answer, one of the servers hurries over and says the chapel candles on the left side are burning too fast and dripping onto the runner.
I close my eyes for half a second.
“Nadine, handle the cars,” I say. “I’ll go check on Camille.”
Nadine gives me a look that says she knows that is the last thing I want to do.
She’s right.
Still, she only nods. “I’ll sort the transport.”
I head toward the house with my clipboard tucked against my side and my jaw tight enough to ache. The last thing I need this morning is to go coax Camille into becoming a bride. But if she doesn’t come downstairs soon, the whole day starts slipping.
Halfway up the corridor leading to the bridal wing, I slow.
Ethan is coming the other way.
No. Not coming. Drifting.
My stomach drops the second I see his face. He looks wrong. Shirt collar loose, tie hanging open, eyes red, movements just a little off. Not dramatically drunk. Worse than that, maybe. The kind of drunk that’s trying very hard to look normal and failing in the details.
I stop.
He sees me and gives a laugh that dies almost immediately. “There you are.”
The smell of alcohol reaches me before he does.