Chapter Eight
Bishop
“Is something wrong, sir?”
That’s a loaded question. Poor Armand. If only he knew. My hotel manager has been putting up with my distracted behavior in our planning meetings all week.
Today, he’s had enough. But being my employee, he’s still deferential. “Do we need to go back to square one on the art gallery? Tell me if there’s something not right.”
All Armand knows is I’ve been showing up with bloodshot eyes from not sleeping the night before. He has witnessed me skipping out when we take breaks to eat and socialize.
“It’s not the plans. All of that is perfect. I’m just not myself this week.”
He pauses, trying to make the puzzle pieces fit in his mind. “Have you been eating? If you don’t mind me asking. You seem a little…off.”
“Where is she?”
“Who?” Armand asks.
“Cherise. Nothing feels right without her—her breakfast—here.”
The truth is, there’s much more than her cooking that I miss. I miss her smile. Her scent. Her laugh. Her enthusiasm. Life has less flavor and color when she’s not around, and I’ve lost my appetite for all of it.
Armand shrugs. “She said she had to go back to Charlotte for a few days. Tying up loose ends for the wedding,” he says.
I’ve been skulking around this hotel, this city, for days. This was my chance to woo her. I am prepared to steal her away, right or wrong.
But she’s left town and gone to see that loathsome man. A man who does nothing but stare at h
is phone when he’s seated next to a goddess. And I’m here, pacing and thinking and wondering what she’s doing.
I’m scheduled to take that much-delayed flight to Phoenix today. If I don’t go, someone else will snatch up the property.
And I don’t care. Simply being close to that unavailable woman takes precedence over my career. Frye Enterprises will be fine. My heart is what’s on the line.
“Did she say when she’d be back?”
Armand shrugs. “I told her to take all the time she needs. She’s trained the rest of the staff well on breakfast, and we don’t currently have any more weddings scheduled until hers next month.”
The Whitney wedding. Her wedding. Minutes later, I’m pouring myself a bourbon in the middle of the afternoon. Then, I’m pacing the administrative hallway again, canceling my flight to Phoenix.
Henrietta peeks out of her office and sees me. “You look like shit.”
I laugh. “You’re the only one who’s allowed to say that to me,” I say to my former sister-in-law.
“One good thing came out of marrying your brother. I learned the hard way to shoot straight. Both literally and with words.”
It’s a good thing I share our wedding planner’s dark sense of humor.
“You got me,” I say, raising my bar glass in salute. She catches me glancing down at my phone.
“She’s due back today.”
I look up at Henrietta, and she’s staring right through me.
“Are you going to try to stop me?”
Tapping a pen against her lip, she squints and purses her lips. Henrietta loves to leave me hanging for a few seconds while she decides what she can and cannot tell me. “Come here a minute,” she says, holding open her office door. “I need to show you something.”