Page 23 of Accidental Wedding Crasher
“Oh, it looks very impressionist,” Sarah said, grinning.
“Tell me, who’s your fashion designer?” Luka put in. Even Arthur was smiling, but Ellen still looked serious.
“Dear, here’s a towel to wipe that off. You wouldn’t want people to stare.”
“No, it’s fine,” Mia said. “We’re cooking. It’s supposed to be messy.”
“But you look ridiculous, dear,” Ellen continued. Mia bit her lip, worry creeping in again, but Arthur came to her rescue. He dipped his hand into the bag of flour and sprinkled it onto Ellen’s apron.
“Now you match!” he said, laughing. Mia was pretty sure it was the first time he’d done anything like that in his life.
Ellen looked around at her family, her eyes narrowing. For a split second, Mia thought she was going to throw a fit, but then she took a pinch of shredded parmesan and threw it at Arthur. Within minutes, each member of the family had a little food on their apron, and they were all laughing. Mia’s spirits lifted as she dove back into the cooking process.
“Could we change the music?” she asked when the chef next came by.
“Yes. What do you have in mind?”
“How about ‘On This Starry Night’?” Mia suggested. It was one of her favorites, and she would always remember it as a song she and Evan had danced to, although he’d said he didn’t like it. He really had terrible taste in music, as well as being prone to disappearing.
A few minutes later, “On This Starry Night” came over the speakers. Mia swayed her shoulders and tapped against the counter with her wooden spoon in time with the song. Ellen raised her eyebrows, but Luka, who was operating the pasta machine, began twisting it to the beat, and Sarah shook her hips and hummed along. Pretty soon, even Ellen was tapping her foot underneath the counter and bobbing her head.
Mia’s heart soared. She hadn’t expected to have this much fun with Evan’s family, but this was turning out great. If only Evan were here, too. He could use the chance to lighten up and have a little spontaneous, silly fun. And maybe he’d change his opinion of this song when he saw how much his family was enjoying it.
The next round of wine came around while the tomato sauce was simmering, and Luka raised his glass in a toast.
“To Mia, for showing us that you can be terrible at cooking and still enjoy it.”
“To Mia!” the rest of the family echoed.
“To all of you, for welcoming me so kindly!” Mia said, holding up her own glass. It wasn’t entirely true that they’d been kind — Ellen still looked more than a little suspicious, and she’d brushed the flour off her apron — but it was close enough. They all drained the small amount of wine in their glasses.
“So, what does everyone think?” Ellen asked, lifting her empty glass. She looked meaningfully at Mia. “Thoughts, dear?”
“You know, I think it really has a nice grape flavor,” Mia said with a wink. Everyone laughed, even Ellen, and they returned to their cooking jobs.
Maybe this wasn’t going to be such a disaster after all.
CHAPTER 11
EVAN
With a sigh, Evan shut his laptop and sat back in the uncomfortable chair, rubbing his eyes with one hand. He’d had a video call with his team back in San Francisco, and it had taken longer than he’d expected to wrap things up. He was tired and on edge after a night of not sleeping and a morning of tense family interactions and trying to put out fires thousands of miles away.
All he wanted was to lie down, or at the very least to keep working until Reign’s immediate problems were solved. But Evan knew he needed to go downstairs and see what his family was doing, even though the thought was not appealing at all. He’d been gone a few hours. They’d probably said terrible things to Mia, and she’d be ready to get on the next plane home. And he wouldn’t be able to blame her. After all, he had abandoned her, and his family could be very snide when they wanted to be.
Sighing and rubbing his aching eyes again, Evan stood and stretched. Then, slowly, he went downstairs, dragging his feet as he went. He had a headache. He was hungry. He didn’t want to be here, and he felt terrible about having left Mia alone with hisfamily. It had been a mistake to bring her. He should have put up with his family’s usual passive-aggressive comments about his love life and been done with it.
At the front desk, he smiled at the receptionist, who directed him downstairs. “They’re in the cellar,” he explained. “They’re having a wine-tasting and cooking lesson.”
“Thank you,” Evan said. He descended into the kitchens, the warmth of the day turning pleasantly cool. To his surprise, he heard music, singing, laughter, and the clanking of pots and pans coming from behind the kitchen door. Maybe there was another event here and he was hearing the noises from that, because he had never heard such laughter, much less singing, from his own family.
He nudged the door open, and his eyes widened. His whole extended family was in the kitchen wearing monogrammed aprons smeared with tomato sauce and flour. His aunt Tabitha was holding a wooden spoon and singing into it as her sons, Evan’s cousins, clapped a rhythm in tune with the song that was playing. She had a surprisingly good voice. His parents were standing shoulder to shoulder, laughing, as they tried to decide if a strand of linguine was appropriately cooked or not. Luka was feeding Sarah a spoonful of tomato sauce from a bubbling pot. In the corner, a few of his other cousins leaned against a table, drinking wine.
In the middle of it all stood Mia, who was scooping fragrant, fresh pesto from a blender as she laughed with his parents over the linguine.
“See, this one seems too chewy,” Arthur was saying.
“I think that’s calledal dente, dear,” Ellen replied.
