Page 27 of Marriage (Red, White &) Blues

I certainly appreciated the gesture. It was the pink spaghetti strap sundress that Blake loved so much, pairing that with my tan leather wedge sandals. I picked the appropriate undergarments to go with the dress then blew out my hair, fixed my makeup, and added my rose-gold hoop earrings, rose-gold bangles, and a spritz of perfume.

Blake and Maisie waited in the living room for me. He wore business casual khaki slacks and a short-sleeved button-down with tiny starbursts on it that you couldn’t tell were starbursts unless you looked closely, pairing that outfit with his casual leather loafers. He looked amazing.

Maisie, in on her day off, wore a flowy, linen drawstring pants with a sleeveless button-down shirt, looking like someone on vacation rather than standing in the living room of her employer. Her graying hair she’d pulled back in a clip.

Seeing her made me genuinely happy because her eyes smiled as they moved over me and it gave me yet another example of how different my husband was from the rest of his family.

“Mr. Blake,” Maisie said. “She’s every bit as beautiful as you said.”

“That she is,” Blake replied. “Sweetheart, you look amazing,” he then said to me.

“Thank you. And thank you, Maisie, for helping pick the outfit.”

“I’m so glad to meet you. I’ve known Mr. Blake for years now and you are everything I could’ve hoped for him.”

My face began to heat from such a compliment. “Thank you.”

“My wife doesn’t take compliments very well, Maisie.”

“I see that,” she answered cheekily. “That’s something we’ll have to get her used to.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Blake said. Then he moved to my side. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get brunch over with.”

Heaven help me.

Chapter Seven

Brunch. It’s such a small word. I used to think the definition was as simple as a meal served encompassing breakfast and lunch. Little did I know its expanded definition went like this: Brunch: a meal served encompassing breakfast and lunch and eaten in the company of the Legion of Doom.

I wouldn’t have thought that, given the grandeur of the property, but pure evil resided in this house. A woman dressed head to toe in cream silk crepe with her arms folded over her chest stood behind the woman who answered the door. The woman in crepe glared at us, her light-brown hair cut in that business helmet bob thing that older women of wealth liked to wear. And she wore heels. In her house. On a Sunday. Who wanted to wear heels on a Sunday if you didn’t have to? She’d have been very pretty if not for the scowl on her face.

“Maggie.” Blake greeted the woman who might’ve been the housekeeper, then turned to the woman behind her. “Mother,” he said, and wow. I thought possibly his parents had sent an older sister in to “welcome” us. This woman birthed my husband?

“Blake,” his mother greeted—if you could call it that because it sounded more like a scolding than anything.

“I hear you liked boy bands,” I said cheekily, going off that first conversation Blake and I ever had back in Paris.

“Excuse me?” she replied and I got the feeling that in regards to the question of if she liked or didn’t like boy bands? The answer was an emphaticno.

Blake laughed, giving my waist a squeeze.

“You must be the wife,” she said.

And trying to be nice, I held my hand out. “Gloria.”

“Gloria? Seriously, Blake? Is this your way of rebelling? Did we not give you everything you needed growing up?”

“Everything but love,” he answered and I couldn’t help it. I popped out a laugh. Her scowl deepened at me as she flipped her hand in the air, as if to say,“Semantics.”

Okay.

“Let’s just move into the dining room,” she said. The poor woman sounded exasperated.

Maggie hardly had the door shut behind us when haters two and three showed up. “Is this her?” A tall, stately man who looked quite a bit like Blake asked Blake because it seemed no one here wanted to talk to Gloria.

“Yes, Brock. This is my wife, Gloria,” he said, then he turned to me. “Glory, this is my older brother, Brockton. That’s his wife, Emily.” He completed the introductions that they apparently were too good to make themselves. Emily was very pretty. Gorgeous blonde hair and big, blue eyes. She reminded me of Heidi Klum if Heidi Klum were a politician’s wife rather than a supermodel. “And because she was too rude to give you her name, my mother is Adair.”

“‘Mrs. Parker’ will work just fine,” she said as two children walked out of the dining room—I could see the massive table behind them—to join us. A boy about seven and a girl about four.They both had their mother’s hair, but the boy had his father’s brown eyes, not to mention the rest of his face. The little girl looked an even mix of them both.

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