Page 80 of My Best French Wedding

“Was he not supposed to?”

Fiona swished her feet, not quite making a splash. “You probably think he’s super mellow, but he has a hard time when I get upset. You know how some people can’t see someone puke without throwing up?”

“Are you feeling sick?” A rocket went off in Hildy’s brain, blazing a trail of hypotheticals. Is Fiona pregnant? Does sheknowshe’s pregnant? Was Hildy going to have to be the one to get FionaPrescott to pee on a stick? She tried to remember if she’d seen Fiona partaking in the wine tasting, but as usual Hildy had been too occupied with Walter to pay more than passing attention to the rest of the world.

“This is like emotional distress.” Fiona touched her chest. “If I cry, Robbie starts crying. It’s super intense. And then his eyes will be all puffy and bloodshot, and people will assume we don’t love each other, when it has nothing to do with that. I wish we could be alone, just the two of us, instead of having all this”—she gestured at the hotel, or possibly the entire countryside—“breathing down our necks.”

“Do you want to talk about it? Or I could get your sister?” Hildy wondered why Robbie hadn’t sought out Maude in the first place.

“Good luck with that.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s with Loïc.” Fiona slid her a knowing glance. “I should have known that whole thing with your guy was a smoke screen.”

“Walter isn’tmyguy.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to put a label on it if you’re not there yet.”

“Yeah, no, that’s not—we’re not together.”

Fiona frowned like Hildy might be holding out on her. “Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“But he’s totally into you?”

Hildy’s heart chose that moment to take up ski jumping. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“You’re into him, though.” Fiona didn’t even have the decency to make it sound like a question.

“You know what? Let’s talk about you. And Robbie! Who is such a great guy.” Hildy infused her voice with maximum cheer, like a human air freshener pumping out clouds of cinnamon-scented bliss. “Which is why all that stuff I said in the cave has nothing to do with the two of you.”

Fiona looked down at her feet, swishing up and down without breaking the surface of the water. “You’re worried I’m going to call off the wedding.”

“No! It’s not that.” Hildy paused to check in with her conscience, verifying that what she’d just said was true. Or if not the whole truth, at least in the ballpark. “As you may have noticed, Walter and I have… a history. If he says the sky is blue, I say it’s purple.”

“It could be,” Fiona pointed out. “At sunset.”

“See? You’re an optimist. Usually I am too. All that dark stuff was coming from a place of panic and bitterness. Walter and I don’t bring out the best in each other. Not like you and Robbie.”

Fiona twisted the fringed hem of her cover-up. “So you don’t really believe all those things you said?”

Hildy wondered if she was crossing a line by getting this involved, but she was a person first and a journalist second. Having a heart-to-heart with the bride wasn’t that different from hand stitching seed pearls to someone’s bodice fifteen minutes before she was due to walk down the aisle, which Hildy had also done. Not to mention the part where the current crisis might be a teensy bit her fault.

“All that matters is whatyouthink. You have a lot more experience with love than I do.”

“Actually,” Fiona countered, “Robbie said we could learn from you two.”

“Oh? Learn what, exactly?”

“Don’t hold on to anger for so long that your love gets lost and buried and you fight all the time.”

“Right.” Before Hildy could point out that “love” wasn’t really the right word, Fiona went on.

“I never fight with Robbie. The closest we got was when we took Viennese waltz lessons for the wedding and Robbie wanted to add a breakdancing circle in the middle. Is that weird?”

The breakdancing?Hildy almost asked, but Fiona wasn’t finished.