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“Was it bad?”

“I kissed her.” She shook her head. “I’m so very sorry, and I never should have done that.”

Helen blinked slowly. “Okay. I’m processing.”

“Totally fair. I want to explain everything and will. I think we need to talk about the implications and why and—”

Helen held up a hand to silence Leighton. “Hang on. Let’s not go there. You kissed. Are you planning to kiss again?”

“No.”

“Good. Then let’s shelve it.”

“But there’s more to the story, and I think it matters.”

“Do you know what matters, Leighton? We have two hundred and sixty invitations on their way to be printed. Each one represents a person coming to our wedding, which is coming together so nicely. So let’s not do this if we don’t have to, okay?”

Leighton had known what she had to do before arriving home, but Helen’s reaction, her hyperfocus on the optics and lack of attention on them, what really mattered, had never been more clear. With both hands flat on the cold countertop, Leighton gathered her wits and courage. She turned around to Helen, typing away. “I think you’re a really good person, Helen. But I don’t think we should get married.”

“Seriously?” Helen asked, mouth agape. “Over a misinformed kiss?”

“We’re not right for each other, and I think it’s better we come to that realization now than a few years down the line, after we’ve robbed each other of precious time and have a lot more of our lives to untangle.”

“There’s no such thing as a perfect fit, Leighton. If that’s what you’re searching for, you’re going to be at it for a fucking long time.” She stood, closed her laptop, and exhaled. “You know, I predicted this.”

“I’m really sorry.”

Helen didn’t so much as pause. “I said to myself, she’s going through the motions.”

That snagged Leighton’s attention. “Weren’t we both, though?” she asked gently. “Forgive me if I’m off base, but you seemed more focused on what our life would be than you did on us. We’re not in love, Helen.”

“Love is overrated,” she said quietly, slipping her laptop into its case, picking up her bag, and heading for the door. “I’m keeping the key so I can get my stuff. I’ll let Susan-Jane know.” She paused in the doorway. “We could have been really good together, Leighton.”

“You would have hated me one day.”

“I guess we’ll never know.”

Chapter Twenty-three

Honesty was a tricky thing. Jamie didn’t regret her confession to Leighton because no truer words had ever been spoken, no sentence more from her heart. But she did regret her timing. She’d put Leighton in a difficult position, and the anguish on her face after the kiss they’d shared had been seared into Jamie’s mind for all time. She’d put that look there. She was the responsible party, and she hated herself for it.

She went about her week like an automaton programmed to go through the motions, bringing coffee and wine to the masses with a plastic smile and a hollow existence. Customers came and went. Her regulars at the Chelsea bar joked and laughed as always. She stayed on the periphery, missing Leighton, wondering how she was, where she was, what she was thinking.

“Hi, I’ll take a shapely mocha, please. Medium sized.”

“I’ll be happy to get that for you. Can you tell me what you’d like us to do to make it shapely?”

“It’s shaming to call a drink skinny just because it has low-fat milk or sugar-free sweetener, so I’d like a shapely drink with full fat and maximum sweetener.”

Jamie blinked. That was certainly a new one, but she could comply. “A shapely medium mocha is on the way.”

This was normally the kind of noteworthy interaction Jamie would text to Leighton. They’d go back and forth dissecting the woman’s angle, appreciating her take, and laughing about the uniqueness of the exchange. But none of the texts she’d sent to Leighton these days hadcome back. She’d send this story anyway. Wherever she was, maybe she’d appreciate the new term.

“You know you’ve been a mopester for a couple of months now,” Marjorie said. “Is it the workload that has you down? It’s gotta be a lot, overseeing both stores.”

“It’s not the workload,” Leo said and gave his head a shake. That guy was too intuitive.

“Is it the weather? I wish it would warm up,” Marvin said and slid farther beneath his cardigan. “I’m convinced cold weather brings out serial killers.”