Page 48 of The Wedding Menu

— TODAY—

“A taboo topic, you say?” Barb asks before fitting a large piece of cantaloupe in her mouth and chewing.

My eyes don’t leave the scrambled eggs in front of me. It’s my second plate, so it’s fair to say I’m emotional eating. “Yeah. A topic we were allowed to avoid,” I explain again. I set my fork on the small wooden table, then steal a look at the breakfast room. Ian is nowhere to be found. Maybe he slept in. “We made a deal about it.”

“Well, it’s still crazy that he didn’t know who you were. Thatwedidn’t know whohewas.” With a “Humph,” she shakes her head. “You know William Roberts congratulated me at the wedding? It was the first time I ever spoke to him. He said his son also wished me the best, that he was somewhere around, but I never saw Ian. Never talked to him.” She smiles to herself. “Seriously, it’s crazy. Especially since the—” She widens her eyes, cutting herself off with a visible shiver. “I mean…”

She means since the article. And, of course, she has a point. Though I managed to distance myself from my father’s very public career, the few instances I spent online in the last days have beenexcruciating. That article is everywhere. How did he miss thehugepicture of me that comes with it?

Almost as if summoned, Ian walks into the breakfast room, and the whole atmosphere shifts. Logic tells me he’s too far for it to be possible, yet I could swear I’m enveloped by his fresh, comforting scent as he walks to the buffet.

Dark shoes, blue jeans, a pressed shirt that looks like it’s just waiting to be wrinkled. Ideally by me. He’s heart-stopping, but what steals my breath away is the gorgeous woman at his side, whispering something in his ear.

“Is that their chef?” Barb asks. The woman looks like she should be welcoming people into paradise rather than working in a kitchen, but yes, that’s her. Isabella Clarke.

She’s far more gorgeous than I imagined, but to be fair, in most pictures or videos I’ve seen of her, she’s always been in her red chef’s coat, with a ridiculous red toque on and a sheen of sweat over her face. The woman in front of me right now iswildlydifferent.

Barb blows a raspberry, a pretty unmistakable sign that she’s noticed her too. Just as I slap her hand, prompting her to stop staring, Ian turns around, and his eyes find mine.

Oh, my heart.

He waves, and I can almost see an ethereal light around him, wind blowing through his hair despite the closed windows. Sexy music in the background, slow-motion effects. The whole thing.

I wave back. Casual, not like the psycho I am. Once he faces the woman, she glances at me, and I’m seeing her in slow motion too. High cheekbones, perfect blond beach waves, and a gorgeous resting bitch face. She looks like aVoguemodel. She’s as tall as he is, slender and tanned. And heroutfit. She wears it with such grace, the short lilac dress should thank her.

“I think I hate her.” With the way she smiles at Ian as they study the breakfast buffet, I can’t help it. They’re obviously close, and though I adore Jules, La Brasserie’s manager, he’s a sixty-year-old grandfather. It’s not quite the same thing.

Barb steals a look and lets out a low whistle. “Oh, this is going to be a long week. A long, excruciating week.”

Fuck. I know what this is in front of me. Karma. One would think I paid enough, but it looks like the universe disagrees. This man obsessed over me for six months, and then I vanished for half a year, so he shows up here with a hotter version of Natalie Portman.

“She’s so beautiful,” I whisper. It’s all my mind can process. Every single one of her movements is sheer grace. How she fills her glass with apple juice, how she chuckles at something he said, how she tucks a strand of perfectly curled, bright blond hair behind her ear.

How was Ian ever attracted to me with someone like that woman beside him every day? She and I don’t belong to the same world. I live in the land of fuzzy hair and a touch of makeup, in the kingdom of baggy sweaters and knee socks. She’s from the realm of people who sleep in lingerie and wake up with zero need for makeup.

“You’re staring,” Barb says. When I force my gaze on the plate of food in front of me, she adds, “Now you’re fuming.”

I look up at Barb, pleading for help, and she squeezes my hand with hers.

“It’s too late to cancel, Ames. Unless I fake a pregnancy-related issue and you say you’re my doula.”

When a chuckle bursts out of my mouth, she points at my plate, but I don’t think I can eat anything. Instead, I ask her about the nursery, and though I grasp a few words about paint colorsand stuffed pandas, I can’t process any of it as my fingers pull at my necklace and my eyes study Ian and his gorgeous chef.

Barb groans, slapping her forehead as she grumbles a string of curse words. The introductory meeting just ended, and Ian and the blond goddess are sitting a couple of rows behind us in the conference room. Though I can’t see them, I’m sure their expressions resemble mine as I stare down at my copy of the schedule we’ve all received.

I stand and walk to Pamela, my stomach in a knot. “Pamela? What’s this?”

She stares at the paper, then smiles. “The schedule. Do you have any questions?”

Questions? Yes, I have questions. Though the schedule is fairly clear, with ten to twenty classes taking place in the conference rooms every day for the next week, there’s oneteeny tinyproblem. “Why am I paired with Ian Roberts?”

Her eyes move somewhere behind me, to Ian. I don’t get it. These people are aware of the hatred between our fathers. Especially after the scene we made last night at dinner.

“Since you both work with French cuisine, we figured…”

“But he’s not a chef. And we have very different views on food, opposite work ethics. The food that comes out of the Marguerite isn’t in the same universe as what I do.”

“Do you want me to see if we can move you around?”