My Big Fat Fake Honeymoon - Lauren Landish Page 0,55
purpose to distract her.
“Ross isn’t an asshole. He’s so good with Carly. I just miss him.” She presses a soft kiss to the baby’s head, and I can see the sheen of tears in her eyes. “Gah, distract me. Tell me about paradise and this whirlwind wedding. Let me live vicariously through you.”
A laugh pops out before I can stop it, and it’s too loud, disturbing Carly. Just like I said, the mother instinct in Violet kicks in automatically and she’s soothing the disruption away before she even realizes it. “What’s funny about that? What happened? Did you slip and fall into the pool and snort so much water up your nose that you sneezed it out . . . again? Or get poison ivy when you peed while hiking through the resort grounds? Or tell the bitchy wedding planner to ‘fuck off’ out loud when you meant to say it in your head? You do tend to do stuff like that.”
She’s right. I do have quite the history of fuck-ups and craziness. But this is on a whole different level.
“Actually, something did happen. Do you remember Emily Jones?”
Violet’s nose crinkles as if Carly just let a stinky one rip, but her reaction isn’t about baby shit but rather about the name Emily Jones. “Ugh, yeah. Why in the world are you bringing her up? Let the past stay in the past, especially the catty, bitchy past.”
“I wish you’d told me that before because she’s here. At the resort. On her honeymoon.”
“Well, good for her.” Violet’s snarky, drawn out tone says loud and clear that she doesn’t think it’s actually good.
“There’s more,” I tell her hesitantly. At that, she leads forward, hungry for the distraction she asked for. “Now, don’t give me shit about this because believe me, I know how it sounds . . .”
“Ooh, this is gonna be good. I can tell,” Vi says eagerly.
“Well, it was when I first got here. Emily saw me and was bragging about her wedding and honeymoon, all the while putting me down—”
Violet interrupts to add, “She always did that, Little Miss Competitive.”
“Before I knew it . . . she thinks I’m on my honeymoon too.”
Eyes wide and mouth open, Violet stammers. “What? How? Why?” And then most importantly, “Who?”
I stick to the easier questions first. “I was standing there, and she was talking smack about my brother and younger sister getting married and how wonderful that must be, except ‘ooh, you never did find someone who would love you, did you?’ ” It might not be exactly what Emily said, but it is what she meant with her cutting remarks. “And then he just stepped out of nowhere and saved me, telling Emily that we’re on our honeymoon too. We’ve had two double dates now and she totally believes it.”
“Wait . . . so you’re on a fake honeymoon?” Violet says meaningfully. “Along with the most important job of your career?”
I nod. I won’t hide the fake honeymoon thing, not from her. I know how much it hurt being lied to when she and Ross had their thing going on. As messed up as this whole thing is, I’ll own it. Even the hard part, which she hasn’t realized yet.
“So, who is this mystery knight in shining armor?”
Whoops, spoke too soon. That’s the ten-thousand-dollar question with the million-dollar answer. “Uhm, well . . . you see . . .”
Violet can sniff blood in the water. My blood. “Who’s the guy?”
“Lorenzo.”
“What?” she screeches. Carly goes ramrod straight in her arms and returns the scream, starting to wail. Violet stands up, bouncing and swaying with the baby in one hand and the phone in the other. “My cousin, Lorenzo?” When I nod, she lays down the gauntlet. “Abigail Andrews, you’d better start explaining now.”
I expect Vi to say something to me about how I chose this time to do something or to say I’m being stupid doing this in the middle of a very important business deal, but instead, she tilts her head, confused. “Wait . . . why would he be there?”
I shake my head, shrugging. “Somehow, he got offered a short-term gig for the wedding too. He’s making fettuccine. You really didn’t know?”
Violet glares at me. “Yeah, I knew my best friend and my cousin were working on the same event, going to the same place for a week, but it somehow slipped my mind to mention it as I helped you pack your suitcase.”