Page 284 of Wild Card 13

LUCY

NOW

The problem with trying to look like a woman who had her entire life together was that life had a cruel sense of timing.

I had made an effort. Structured black dress. Sheer black tights. Pale blush heels with tiny black bows at the toes. Hair curled and behaving for once. Makeup finished enough to make me look rested, which was impressive because wedding week had turned every woman I loved into a scheduling casualty.

For approximately twelve minutes, I looked composed.

Then Vivienne Hart whispered, "Oh no."

I looked up immediately.

Vivienne stood near the corner of Arlo's private office, one manicured hand pressed against her mouth while the other gripped her phone hard enough to threaten the glass. The room around her continued operating in complete denial of the disaster that had just entered it.

Lo was perched on the edge of Arlo's desk with a seating chart in her lap and a pen behind her ear, looking unfairly elegant for a woman who had spent the last hour arguing with a printer. Freya knelt beside a garment bag, carefully steaming the hem of Bea's backup dress. Micah stood in front of the mirror, pinning one of her curls back with the solemn concentration of a surgeon.

And Bea sat in Arlo's leather chair with one hand on the top of her belly, the other holding a glass of ice water, glowing in thedeeply irritating way some pregnant women glowed when they were happy, exhausted, and too loved to fully tolerate it.

Lo's head snapped up. "What happened?"

"Nothing," Vivienne muttered.

Freya slowly lowered the steamer. "That sounded like an event-planner lie."

"It was professionally phrased."

Bea tried to sit forward.

"No," Lo, Freya, Micah, Vivienne, and I said at the exact same time.

"I am marrying Alois Müller.” Bea froze. "I am capable of hearing bad news."

Vivienne smiled at her with terrifying calm. "Of course you are."

Which meant Bea absolutely was not hearing whatever the bad news was.

I made the fatal mistake then. The one that should have been avoidable by any woman with pattern recognition and a functional survival instinct. "Do you need anything?"

Vivienne's eyes found mine.

There it was.Doom.

"Lucy," she cooed, and somehow my name sounded like both a compliment and a subpoena. Vivienne crossed the room, took me gently but firmly by the elbow, and guided me toward the door.

Bea narrowed her eyes. "Why are you taking Lucy?"

"Because Lucy asked if I needed anything."

"Rookie mistake," Micah muttered.

Lo gave me a sympathetic look that contained absolutely no offer to rescue me. "You walked into the trap, sweetheart."

"I live in traps," I said. "I should have seen it coming."

Vivienne pulled me into the hallway and shut Arlo's office door behind us with the soft, final click of a woman sealing evidence inside a crime scene.

The hallway outside the office was quieter, but North Line itself hummed beyond it. Staff moved through the back corridor carrying trays, linens, and glassware. Somewhere in the restaurant, music played low beneath the warm sound of guests beginning to arrive too early because apparently weddings made people forget how clocks worked.