Garrett was a bitter reminder of everything she was giving up to marry stable, reliable Neil.
Too many things were bombarding her at once. Her possible dismissal from the firm. Questioning her relationship with Neil. Her feelings for Garrett.
It had been so much easier to dismiss her feelings for him as sentimentality for the past yesterday morning, but three random encounters in less than twenty-four hours had made her cold feet turn frigid. What were the odds of three coincidental meetings with the man who still stole her breath? And the odds of him turning out to be Neil’s cousin . . . How could such a thing happen?
Oh. God. No. A sick feeling spread from her stomach to the rest of her body—it felt a lot like certainty.
She picked up her purse and dug through it, then dumped the contents on her kitchen table when she couldn’t find her phone fast enough. Libby answered on the second ring, sounding breathless. “Hey, Blair.”
“What are you doing?” Blair asked. “Are you running? In this heat?”
“No, Noah and I are walking Tortoise around the pond at the dog park.”
Blair shuddered, wondering where to start. “You’re walking a turtle?”
Libby laughed. “No. Tortoise, my new lab rescue. I told you about him last week, but you were so preoccupied with the wedding you probably forgot. He’s been cooped up all day, so Noah and I brought him to the dog park.”
“Are you sure you’re responsible enough to care for another living animal? You kill plants.”
Libby laughed. “Shows what you know. My tomato plants are thriving.”
“Wow. You finally kept something alive longer than you usually keep your boyfriends. Hell, you might as well have a kid while you’re at it.”
Libby’s light tone turned serious. “What’s going on, Blair?”
“Why do you think something’s going on?”
“Because you’re talking nonsense.”
“Why are you at the dog park with Noah? That’s the real question here. Shouldn’t Mitch be with you instead?”
“He’s at football practice,” Libby replied. “You’d be amazed by the hours a high school football coach works.”
Blair wanted to ask if Mitch knew she was with Noah, then decided it was Libby’s business. She didn’t need to act the part of the jealous boyfriend for him. Besides, she had something more pressing to address. “Tell me again about this supposed wedding curse.”
“Oh, my God!” Libby squealed. “She was right, wasn’t she? Your wedding is cursed! I knew it!”
“You don’t have to sound so happy about it. Libby, I need this wedding to be perfect. My job depends on it.”
“Whoa. Start over and tell me why you think your wedding is cursed.”
“Garrett’s here. It turns out that he’s Neil’s cousin, and their grandmother is making him be a groomsman.”
“Wait. Garrett? You mean your law school boyfriend?”
“Yes, him. And he’s messing up everything.”
“Wow. What are the chances of that happening?”
“And get this: he just happens to be the opposing counsel in the case I’m deposing this week. That’s not even the worst part. If my wedding isn’t perfect on Saturday, there’s a good chance I’m going to lose my job.”
“What?”
Blair explained the situation, then waited through several seconds of dead air as her friend mulled it all over.
“Blair, that’s totally illegal. You would think attorneys would know better.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not supposed to know anything about it, and a couple of the senior partners are old school. Think Mad-Men-type sexist. But I can’t do anything about the illegality of it. Ben told me in confidence and would lose his job if it ever got out. I can’t throw him under the bus.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Get married on Saturday. And that’s not the point, anyway. You need to break this curse.”
“I never thought I’d hear you say those words. What did you say earlier? That the curse was nonsense?”
“It is! I’m far too logical to believe in that sort of thing, but I’m not taking any chances. Just in case it might be real, I need you to get rid of it.”
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?”
“Blair, the fortune teller at the Santa-Cal-Gon Days festival created the curse. She’s the only one who can break it.”
“Then go hunt her down, Libby.”
Libby laughed. “The first part of the curse says all three of our weddings would be disasters. You know what the second part says, right?”
She did—it was that she’d marry someone else—but there was no way that was happening.
“So Garrett . . . ?”
“Not happening, Libby.” Now if only her body would get on board with her mind. Just the thought of how close she came to kissing him made her hot. She told herself it was from embarrassment, not because she was turned on, but the reaction was so strong she had to grip the neck of her shirt and begin fanning herself.
Of course, it wasn’t easy to get anything by Libby, who knew her better than most people. “Things would probably go much easier if you would just open yourself to the possibility. At some point you have to stop relying on logic to get you through life and live with your heart. You’ll be a whole lot happier if you do.”