suit, French cuffs.
Chris fucking Winchester.
I glared at him, but he smiled at me, accepted two drinks from the bartender, and then sauntered over, moving through the room like he owned it.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he drawled, sliding one glass in front of me. “I couldn’t help but notice you over here alone.”
I sucked in a breath.
“It’s just,” he continued, “you seem kind of familiar. I just couldn’t place from where.”
What in the world?
“So,” he said, “I thought I’d buy you a drink and see if we couldn’t figure it out.”
I picked up the glass.
“You did, did you?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. I wasn’t going to yell at him just yet because he had bought me a cocktail when I sorely wanted one.
“So where do you think you know me from? Or is this a terrible pickup line?”
Chris gave me that lazy, sexy smile.
“Hardly a pickup line,” he said. “I’m not that classless. Besides,” he added, “now that I see you, I do know where I know you from.”
“Really,” I said, resisting the urge to roll my eyes.
“Yeah, I saw you on Good Morning America yesterday,” he said. “You married that guy you never met.”
“What?” I laughed in spite of myself.
Chris grinned at me.
“I mean, no offense, but your ex… jeez, what a lunatic! I don’t know how you managed to stay married to him for as long as you did. He sounds like a moron. It’s shocking he was able to dress himself in the morning, let alone stay employed.” Chris shook his head in disbelief.
“But cheers to you for getting out of that cluster.”
He clinked his glass to mine.
I looked down at my cocktail, catching my lip in my teeth.
“He wasn’t all bad,” I said, my gaze flicking up to meet Chris’s familiar one.
“Seriously? He sounds like a real piece of work,” Chris remarked, taking a sip of his drink.
“He really wasn’t,” I said. “He was generous; he liked puppies, birds, and old people; he took me and my work seriously; and he did this freaking amazing thing with his tongue.”
Chris raised an eyebrow, grinning over his glass.
“You’re a lot more charitable than me,” Chris replied. Then he held out his hand.
“I’m Chris, by the way.”
“Grace,” I said, trying and failing not to smile.
“Very nice to meet you, Grace,” Chris said, shaking my hand.
It felt nice to touch him, even for a moment.
“Now, I know you’re busy, but I was wondering if you might want to have dinner with me,” Chris suggested, dipping his head down slightly so he could look at me from under his eyelashes.
“I recently bought this tower, and I hired a new chef for the restaurant. The crowds haven’t been big, and the chef is pretty down about it. We’re trying to upgrade the tower to attract more people, however.”
“Oh, good,” I said, “because the décor in here…” I gave a thumbs-down.
“This was hot in two thousand three,” Chris countered. Then he stood up and offered his hand.
“You like seafood?”
“Love it.”
“Great. This guy makes an amazing fennel-and-smoked-salmon tart. You’ll adore it. It’s perfect first-date food.”
“So you own this tower, huh?” I said as we walked arm in arm across the lobby to the restaurant.
“Yup,” Chris said. He grinned at me. “Maybe later you can come up and see the view?”
I bumped him with my hip. “I think I just might.”
61
Epilogue Grace
“Welcome to the reunion special of Marriage in a Minute,” Rainbow said as all eight of the inaugural class of Marriage in a Minute took a seat on one of the upholstered chairs around her. “Just as a reminder for our viewers, we started off with four couples. When we last saw you three months ago, two of you chose to marry for real, and two did not.”
“We wanted to check in with you and see how you’re progressing in your lives either as singletons or as married couples since the show ended,” Priyanka said, smiling.
A redhead wearing heavy makeup started crying. “He cheated on me a week after we married.” She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “Now we are divorced.”
The bald man sitting next to her rolled his eyes.
“Cheating was uncalled for,” Priyanka scolded the now ex-husband. “Why would you hurt her like that?”
“I just realized I didn’t want to be married to her,” he said stubbornly. “I found someone else who is actually the love of my life, and we’re having a child.”
The redhead screamed, “You’re having a baby?”
“Yes,” he said, “because I want my own child, not a