Page 29 of My Best French Wedding

He turned to the woman in a floral jumpsuit with waist-length box braids. Even without the context clues, he would have recognized Gabby from her online bio. “Walter Burns,” he said, extending a hand.

“You write the wedding column.” She had a firm handshake. “Bells and Whistles.”

He nodded, never sure how to respond when people recognized his professional affiliation.I’m sorry? It’s harder than it looks? No, I don’t get to eat the cake?

“There’s no personal connection between us,” Hildy preemptively declared. “Just to be clear on that point.”

Gabby’s eyes slid between them. “I have no idea what’s going on here, so this is me making an informed decision to move on.”

Smart of her. Walter should have made the same call a long time ago. “Duri said it would be okay if I stopped by.”

“Actually, we’re kind of in the middle of something.” Hildy made a flicking motion with one hand.

“The more coverage the better, as far as I’m concerned. You’re not going to make me choose, are you?” Gabby laughed at that, missing the venomous scowl Hildy shot Walter.

“I’m all about supporting woman-owned businesses. Believe me, I know how hard it is to launch a start-up in this economy.” The only thing missing from Hildy’s performance was a violin.

“Interesting.” Walter let Hildy sweat a little, since they both knew he could expose the truth about her background any time. “Are you getting hazard pay for day drinking on a Tuesday afternoon?”

“I should,” she sniffed, looking him up and down.

Walter did the same to Hildy, taking in the silky sheen of her shirt and the crisp pinstripes of her tailored skirt. “That must be your working-the-salt-mines outfit?”

“Is fashion part of your beat now?” Hildy fluttered her lashes at him. “I didn’t realize you were branching out.”

For a shot fired at random, that one stung. It was a question Walter had been asking himself more and more lately: Should I want more? And if so, what? Maybe he needed to push himself harder, try his hand at politics or public health reporting. What if he was stagnating on the wedding beat? He tucked those fears away before Hildy caught a whiff of them. She was the last person to understand career angst, or any other form of self-doubt. Must be nice to be born into moneyanda professional destiny.

Gabby turned to Hildy with a frown. “Did he run over your dog or something?”

“Not my dog, no.” Hildy added a pensive tip of the head, as if Walter had done something much worse.

“You don’t want to hear about us,” Walter assured Gabby. “That’s old news.”

“Snoozeville,” Hildy agreed, more emphatically than strictly required.

He kept his eyes on their hostess. “I want to know more about you.”

“I’m not the story.” Gabby edged behind the bar as if she could physically evade his question. “This is the heart of what we do.” Ice sloshed as she lifted an open bottle of Domaine Gabby Demi Sec from the bucket on the counter. “Can I pour you a glass?”

Hildy made a show of sipping from her flute of bubbly, in case Walter needed a reminder she’d gotten there first.

He wondered if Hildy knew how true that was, considering Walter had learned about Domaine Gabby from aLife, Styledstringer he’d overheard talking to the bartender at a wedding in the Hudson Valley.

It was a good story: the fresh-out-of-college business major convincing a vineyard in France to partner with her to bring high-quality champagne to an unexpected corner of Brooklyn. Thereweren’t a lot of women in the wine industry, much less women of color. When he ran into Corinne coming out of a coffee shop this morning and casually asked what she’d done with her partner in crime, her vague reply about fizzing it up in Brooklyn had been enough of a clue to rearrange Walter’s plans for the day. Why not combine an interview with a little light torture? Two birds, one stone.

Ignoring Hildy’s eye roll, he slid onto the stool next to hers.

Fifteen minutes later, Hildy kneed him in the thigh for the sixth time. Or was it the seventh? The shape of her kneecap was going to be imprinted on his leg.

“Oops,” she said, swiveling in the other direction. “I keep forgetting you’re there.”

It would have been more convincing if she hadn’t waited until he was mid-sip every single time.

“Do you sharpen those things?”

“Only my tongue.” She stuck it out at him when Gabby wasn’t looking.

“What do you think of this one?” their host asked, wiping the condensation off a new bottle.