Page 28 of How to Ruin Your Ex's Wedding
“I’m sure he’ll be here any second,” I say aloud to no one in particular. Liza is busy on her phone. Matthew is in the other room, taking pictures of the cakes, and the baker has vanished. My stomach growls. I skipped breakfast this morning, opting just for coffee. I’m not relishing the idea of the added calories of cake, but I also don’t want to serve a cake to our guests that doesn’t taste good. So, I need to try it. I inch my hand toward the one that looks like lemon filling and swipe my finger along the frosting.
Mmmm. Oh, that is good.
I shut my eyes for a brief moment and savor the taste of the sweet sugar and tart lemon explosion in my mouth.
Click.
I look up, Matthew is back in the room with his camera pointed at me. “Gotcha.” He winks.
My face flushes, part embarrassment, part anger. I’m sure when Hunter asked for candid shots, he didn’t intend for them to be me sneaking frosting when no one was looking. Or at least when Ithoughtno one was looking.
Hunter rushes in to the room. “Oh goodness, I’m sorry I’m so late. I got stuck on a call and then traffic was terrible. Did you start without me?”
I glance at the time. Ten minutes after the hour.
“No, we waited,” I tell him.
“Ah, this is why I absolutely adore you. Tabatha, my queen, you are perfect in every way.” Hunter takes my hand and kisses the back of it. “Isn’t she just perfect, Liza?”
“She is,” Liza says, without looking up from her phone.
“Hello, you must be Matthew,” Hunter says holding his hand out to the photographer. “I’ve heard so many good things about your work. Thank you so much for fitting us into your schedule. May I call you Matthew?”
“Yes,” Matthew says, taking Hunter’s hand.
“Oh my, that is some grip that you have,” Hunter says, trying to pull his hand from Mathew’s.
“Sorry, sir,” Matthew says. “Sometimes I don’t know my own strength.” He doesn’t sound sorry when he says it.
“Call me Hunter, please.” Hunter claps his hands once and looks around. “Well, shall we get started?”
Liza finally puts her phone down. “Yes, sorry about that, just negotiating with the venues you asked me to look into, Hunter.”
“I thought we were going to discuss venues later?” I turn to Hunter.
“We were,” he says. “But then I decided that nothing was too good for my queen. So I asked Liza to get quotes from the top three places in the Seattle area and figured we could choose from there.”
“Oh,” I say, not quite sure if I feel relief over not having to make a larger decision than one of the three, or anger over not being consulted. “Okay.” But then I realize Hunter had hired Matthew without consulting me as well.
So: venues, Matthew,andLiza.
Again, not quite sure on my feelings about it. Do I really care about the details? No, probably not. The important thing is that I’m marrying Hunter. And that he’s happy. A big splashy wedding is important to him, so I’m going to let him have that. Which means he can plan it too.
I look down, lost in thought.
Click.
“Kindly stop that,” I tell Matthew.
“My apologies, ma’am. You sure are a photogenic little thing, though.” He tips his hat at me.
“She models,” Hunter boasts.
I roll my eyes. “I don’tmodel.”
“Sure you do, honey, for your clothing line.”
“I’ve posed for some marketing shots for a clothing line,” I tell him, not sure why I’m downplaying.
