Page 61 of Stay With Me

“I can handle this as long as you don’t die on me,” she retorted, more candidly than she’d spoken to him yet. “I will seriously lose my freaking mind if I’m stuck here all night with your dead body so do me a favor and just don’t die. You don’t have to wake up. Just don’t die. Stay with me, Nick. I can’t do this without you.”

Chapter Fourteen

Nick

Planning a wedding appeared to be every bit as much of a nightmare as Nick had always imagined. Fortunately for him, however, Sammie, his mom, and Sammie’s mother, Kelly, took the reins and he didn’t have to do anything except hand over a credit card and show up for a tux fitting.

The wedding was set for the first weekend in March at a villa located on a bluff, overlooking Lake Travis. In the seven months between his spur-of-the-moment proposal and the big day itself, San Jac’s was thriving. Chapman’s was doing better than ever as well, and Nick found himself unable to manage both of them. So, for the first time in his career, he hired an administration team, which handled scheduling, payroll, inventory, property management, et cetera. This freed him up to focus exclusively on creative control of the menus, marketing and publicity, and crunching numbers—which was still his favorite aspect. Turning profit into lots of profit.

Now that he was going to have a wife and a family—something that he and Sammie decided they’d need to get to work on immediately because he was now thirty-two and she was twenty-nine—he had a vehement need to establish a certain lifestyle for them. And that lifestyle didn’t involve a quaint little house in the North Austin suburbs. He required a massive home on a lakefront property or nestled in one of the exclusive neighborhoods in West Lake Hills.

So he continued to experiment with Chase and the rest of the five-star culinary team he’d brought in, continued to fly in food critics, and continued to host high-profile events until March rolled around and it was time to don the tuxedo.

* * *

“Jesus,” Chase scoffed as he flipped a card down. He and Andrew were seated at a table in the men’s dressing room, along with Michael and Sean, two of Nick’s old college buddies, all of them swilling whiskey and swearing and laughing. “Would you calm the fuck down?” He slapped Andrew on the back and gestured with a glass toward Nick. “Look at this guy. His feet are so cold they’re turning to ice.”

Andrew guffawed as he tossed back a shot and tossed down a card. “Have a drink already. You’ll feel better. Think of this as one huge, expensive party and it’ll be over before you know it.”

Nick paced across the room three more times before deciding it was sage advice and approached the table to pour himself a drink. He finished it in one quick gulp and swallowed a second one, then flopped into a chair.

“Hey, douche bag,” Michael piped up. “If you sit, that tux is going to wrinkle.”

Nick immediately leaped off the chair, causing the four men to cackle like a flock of grackles. Nick huffed.

“You guys …suck,”he retorted as a knock sounded at the door.

“Are you boys decent?” Jenna called from the other side.

He pulled it open, relieved at the knowledge that the brief presence of a woman in the room would harness the testosterone, if only for a moment or two.

“Hey, Jenna,” he greeted her. “How’s it going?”

“She’s freaking out a little.”

His eyes grew wide. “Freaking out? Why? She’s not changing her mind is she?”

Jenna held up a hand to calm him, and Andrew slid up behind her and slammed her face with a sloppy kiss.

“Babe! You look hot!”

“And you are cut-off,” she stated in an exasperated tone, grabbing the glass out of his hand and pushing him back toward the table, and then ushering Nick out of the room. “Come with me.”

They exited the room, but not before Chase decided to chime in.

“Last chance to run, Chapman!”

“Shut the hell up, Chase!”

Nick swiftly followed Jenna through the winding halls of the venue to another room and Jenna pushed the door open.

“She’s in the dressing room.”

Nick lifted his eyebrows. “I’m not supposed to see her.”

Jenna shook her head. “That doesn’t matter right now. She needs you.”

“Did something happen?”