Page 1 of The Wedding Crush

CHAPTER ONE

Stefano

No one evertold me getting married meant getting used to gray hair.

One day, I was saying “I do,” and we were in love and ridiculously happy. Then suddenly everything that used to be funny and adorable set her off, and another gray strand appeared. But I wasn’t worried because I had my person, and we were growing old together.

Now, twelve years later, the ink isn’t even dry on my divorce decree, I’ve got the same face—plus or minus a few laugh lines—and a full head of salt-and-pepper curls that I can’t tell whether they make me look distinguished or just older.

I adjust the rearview mirror, leaning in to examine my hairline before I turn up the volume on the “Confidence and Cologne” podcast I’d been listening to on the drive here to the vineyard. This episode aptly is titled, “Grieving, Graying, and Getting Back Out There.”

At least it’s not thinning.

Johnny Timmons’s laugh filters through my speakers like he knows my secret.

“The thing is, after my divorce, I used to be hopeless with women. Like,sobad.” He chuckles. “If there was aDon’t Do XYZ or Risk Turning Off Every Woman in a 100-Mile Radiuslist, I would’ve been the poster child. Women didn’t want me because I was forthright about my faults to a fault…”

I deflate back against my headrest.

Good God.

I should probably table this episode for now.

Currently, I’m parked in the brush, off the steps of my family’s vineyard, not even five hundred feet away from the massive silk-lined tent on the main lawn. It’s teeming with my three siblings, friends, and most of Napa’s nobility.

They’re all here to celebrate the matriarch of our family.

Not that Mother does any event on a small scale. Today, though, we’re marking the occasion of Victoria Fortemani’s sixty-fifth spin around the sun, appropriately with an outrageously lavish high tea.

It’s more than chamomile and crustless cucumber sandwiches. There’ll be a full catering army ready to serve and tend to Mother’s every whim. A long, single fifty-seater table will be dressed in white linen with fine china, bustling purple peony centerpieces, and collectible teapots. There’ll be dessert and sandwich towers for guests to nibble on as they chat about every salacious piece of gossip they can get their hands on.

That’s what I’m worried about.

The Gossip Set loves nothing more than spilling tea about business, real estate, weddings, divorces, who’s dating who.

After my ex-wife Carina’s post this morning, they won’t want to talk about—or celebrate—anyone else.

Why waste time chatting up the belle of the ball over scones and jam? Why not speculate about her eldest son making his debut back into society as an unmarried man on the day that his ex posts a picture holding hands with a younger, more athletic, virile man without a gray strand in sight?

“Jesus, why do I even care?”

Because I failed our marriage, maybe? Because I failed her? Because she deserves happiness, even if I couldn’t give it to her?

“Goddammit. You had to post this today, Carina?”

Glancing at the time on my dashboard, a full-chested sigh works its way through me.

Just a few more minutes.

I scrape my hand through my graying curls then tune back in to Johnny.

“What I’m saying is, confidence isn’t just attractive to women,” Johnny says before he clarifies. “It’s the MOST attractive thing to women.”

Whether I want to listen to this guy’s “instant results with women” spiel or not, my ears perk up.

I’m hiding in my car to spare Mother my drama and avoid answering questions about the state of my love life (spoiler: it’s in shambles), and Carina is moving on. She’s dating and holding hands with an oil-slicked Instagram fitness model, and I’m getting self-help advice from a motivational speaker wearing an inordinate amount of hair gel.

So, yeah, I’m a little insecure.

---