Gretchen looked over at Edie. “Something wrong?”
She fixed a smile to her face. “No, I was just looking at the weather. It’s one of those curl-up-in-bed days today, isn’t it?” And man, she sure wanted to curl up in bed. Hopefully with the covers over her head and hiding from the world.
“It is pretty damn nasty outside, isn’t it?” Gretchen’s tone sounded mysteriously gleeful. “All that rain and cold, and if we’re lucky, we’ll even get hail.”
“Gretchen,” Hunter murmured.
“Oh, fine.” Gretchen gave a mock pout to her fiancé. “Can I help it if I’m having a good gloat that he’s standing out there in the rain?”
Edie turned to them, a puzzled look on her face. “Who is standing out in the rain?”
Gretchen picked up her cup of coffee and gave it a loud slurp, her expression overly innocent. Hunter just shook his head.
“Who?” Edie asked.
“Magnus,” Hunter said after a moment, and earned himself a playful slap on the arm from Gretchen. “My gate guards have orders not to let him in, so he’s sitting on the hood of his car in the rain and waiting for you to come out and talk to him.”
Edie’s jaw dropped. “He’s here?” She got up and went to the window, peering out into the rain. The gardens were a foggy blur, but in the distance, was that the gate? Was that dark form a familiar Maserati with a man on the hood? Or was it all in her imagination? “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Hunter and Gretchen exchanged a look. Gretchen squirmed awkwardly in her seat, and then shrugged at Edie. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to know. I mean, sitting out in the rain like a sad panda doesn’t take away the fact that you were a douche, you know?”
“It doesn’t,” Edie agreed. “But we can let him in. I’m not a child. I’m an adult, and I can have an adult conversation with him.”
“I guess,” Gretchen said. “I was just trying to help.”
“I know,” Edie said, a hint of a smile on her face. “I’m glad that at least someone has my back. But really, I can handle this. I’m a big girl.”
“Let’s finish breakfast at least,” Gretchen said.
Hunter got up out of his chair and kissed the top of Gretchen’s head. “You ladies finish breakfast. I’m going to go and phone down to the gate so they’ll let the man in.”
“Party pooper,” Gretchen told him affectionately, and squeezed his ass as he walked past.
Edie choked down a few more bites of oatmeal, then excused herself. She ran to the bathroom to fix her hair and makeup. Oh damn, she looked like a hot mess. Her hair was wild and she had dark circles under her puffy eyes. She washed her face again and toweled it dry, then used her damp fingers to smooth her hair as best she could. She bit her lips to make them plump a bit, then squared her shoulders to go out and face things.
Truth was, she shouldn’t have cared how she looked to Magnus, but she found that she did care. She didn’t want him to see her and think she looked like hell. Why, she had no idea, but it was important to her.
Gretchen was hovering outside the bathroom door as Edie emerged, and she produced a tube of concealer, some mascara and a pot of lip gloss. “If you’re going to meet the ass, at least look your best,” she grumped.
Edie hugged her. “You’re the best friend a girl could have.”
“I know,” Gretchen sighed.
Five minutes later, a freshly mascaraed, lip-glossed, no-undereye-circles Edie emerged from the bathroom again, slipped into the sweater Gretchen handed her, and went into the Blue Library, her heart thumping wildly in her chest.
There, seated on one of the ridiculous, tiny settees, sat Magnus, his big shoulders squared. His bristly, short hair gleamed with dampness, and he had a towel over his shoulders. Sitting across from him in one of the Louis XIV chairs was a sullen Levi, his lip swollen and split.
At the sight of Edie, Magnus jumped to his feet. He started to approach her, and she raised a hand, stopping him.
“Why are you here?” Edie asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
“I needed to talk to you,” Magnus said, slinging the towel off his shoulders and moving toward her again.
“You needed to do a lot of talking a long time ago,” Edie agreed, promptly dropping into a nearby chair that sat alone in a corner. It was a deliberate choice—she didn’t want Magnus scooting closer to her. She didn’t want to get cozy with him; she wanted them to keep their distance, because it made it easier to be mad when she didn’t have to smell his aftershave, or see that gorgeous greenish-gold color that his eyes were.
“That doesn’t change the fact that we need to talk now,” Magnus told her.
“I can’t disagree with that,” she said, clasping her hands in her lap. “Go ahead. Talk. Please, try to make this better.”
Magnus rubbed a hand over his short hair. “I don’t know if I can make it better, but I can at least give you the full picture.”
She forced herself to keep smiling, as if this were a normal conversation and her heart wasn’t breaking at the sight of him. “Go on.”
He gestured at his brother. “I brought Levi, because he needs to do some talking.”
Levi just glared at Magnus, slumped in his chair. For a moment, he looked like a sulky little boy and not like an adult.
“Talk,” Magnus growled.
“Where do you want me to start?”
“The beginning.”
“Fine,” Levi said, clearly exasperated. He straightened in his chair. “I met Bianca at the bridesmaid-and-groomsman-introduction party. I fell in love at the sight of her.”