Page 58 of Promise Yule Be Mine
NOVA
Well, at least Jenna liked the flavors Kody had picked, although that was a straw man’s consolation. And I was definitely grasping at straws trying to rationalize what I was still doing here. Why I was still participating in this mess of a wedding instead of fleeing to the safety of a Kody-less New York.
“Are you okay hon?” Jenna asked.
I blinked and looked up at her. She was already looking better, not that she ever looked terrible, not even when she was sicker than a dog.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Why? Don’t I look okay?”
“No. Of course not. You just…you seem lost in your own little world.”
I rolled my eyes and reached for my wine. “Maybe that’s because present company is sooo boring,” I said.
“I thought you were my friend,” she gasped.
Me too, hon. Me too. And yet I can’t even stop drooling or fantasizing about your fiancé. I mean, what kind of friend is that?
Not a good one. I knew that much.
There was a knock on the door and she jumped up with a look of sheer bewilderment to answer it.
“Maybe whoever that is won’t be so rude and tell me I’m boring to my face,” she said.
“Would you prefer I said it behind your back?”
She shrugged. “What I don’t know, can’t hurt me,” she replied and opened the door, and oh how I wished that were true. How I was anything and everything she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her but that wasn’t how this worked. That wasn’t how any of this worked.
Kody walked in and looked at me with a spark in his eyes. A spark or annoyance. I couldn’t quite define it. Maybe it was both. And who could blame him? I was annoyed with myself. I was annoyed with how much I couldn’t control my words or my actions around him. I was annoyed with how much I thought of him despite trying to do the exact opposite.
The truth was…Iwasin love with him. I was head over heels for Kody Campbell, my best friend’s fiancé, and client. And no matter how much I denied it, or how much I tried to drown the fact in wine and Christmas cheer there was no doubt about what I truly felt. It didn’t even matter that I barely knew the guy, although in my defense every moment I spent with him I learned something new, and whatever it was I found out, only made me fall deeper for him.
“Hey,” Jenna said and he turned to plant a kiss on her cheek.
Why the cheek? Why did they never kiss in the mouth? Not that I was too eager to have a front row seat on a full French session but I’d never seen them act like a normal couple.
Then again there was nothing normal about them, was there? They didn’t live together, they weren’t exactly on the same page about their wedding, which in all fairness wasn’t that unusual, but they also hardly ever talked about each other. It was as if the other person didn’t exist unless they were in the room.
“You feeling better then?” Kody asked her.
Jenna pursed her lips and nodded. “Nothing like Momma taking care of her little girl,” she said and Kody smiled, taking a seat on the couch next to me.
Why? Why would he do that? Why wouldn’t he sit next to her? She’d been gone for a week. They should be all over each other.
“What brings you here?” Jenna asked, sitting back on the other couch.
I had to hold back a groan at these two. What did she mean what was her fiancé doing here? Why wouldn’t he stop by?
“I…I actually wanted to talk to you,” he told her.
Jenna raised an eyebrow. “Oh. Okay. Shoot,” she said.
Kody glanced at me and shuffled in his seat.
What was going on? Did he want to talk to her about me? Had he finally had enough and was going to tell her all the ways I’d been inappropriate since I’d met him? Was he going to ask her to fire me? To kick me to the curb?
“I was kinda hoping to speak to you in private,” he said.
I shot up and turned to grab my coat.
