The Worst Best Man(58)

Of course they were cashmere lined leather.

“Oh, look! There’s a note in the box!”

Nestled in the tissue paper, Frankie snatched up the envelope before Brenda could get to it.



To keep you warm when I’m not around.

A



Holy. Shit.

“What’s it say? What’s it say?” Brenda was practically dancing from foot to foot.

Frankie cleared her throat. “It just says, ‘To keep you warm,’” she fibbed.

Brenda squealed. “This is so exciting! Our Frankie lands a jillionaire!”

Raul poked his head out of his office door. “How’s the workshop setup going?” he asked, eyeing them with suspicion.

“Great,” Brenda said sweetly. “And thank you for asking!”

“I’d better go set up,” Frankie said, reluctantly sliding out of the coat.

“You go ahead. I’m just going to pet your coat for a few minutes.”

Frankie put the coffee on in the kitchenette and then headed up the narrow staircase to the second floor. In the conference room, she turned up the thermostat and set out the notebooks and pens. And then flopped down in one of the chairs. She pulled out her phone.



Frankie: Where did you find a Burberry coat before 9 a.m. on a Tuesday?



He answered immediately and she guessed he must have been waiting for her to text.



Aiden: You’re welcome. I told you. Anything you want.



But she hadn’t asked for it. Gifts like this? A coat that cost at least a grand and probably more? There was no way in hell she could keep up with him on this side of their relationship.



Aiden: Do you like it?



She hadn’t thanked him, and that made her rude in addition to being poor. They have to talk about this side of things. That she wasn’t comfortable being the beneficiary of his deep pockets. But for now a little gratitude was due.



Frankie: It’s stunning. I want to say I can’t accept it. But I think my boss just threw my old one in the trash can with the coffee grounds. Thank you for thinking of me.



Aiden: I have a feeling I’ll be doing a lot of that.





Chapter Thirty


“You’re bringing your young man to lunch on Sunday, aren’t you?”

Frankie’s mother had caught her between work and class on exam night, guaranteeing the highest amount of stress.

“Ma! He’s forty. We’re having sex, not going to junior prom!”

“Even better. He’ll be wanting to settle down and give his mother-in-law a half-dozen grand babies.”

“Do you torture Marco and Rachel like this? They’re actually pregnant,” she pointed out.

“If I have to listen to my smug sister tell me one more time how smart Baby Nicky is or how she couldn’t wait to spend the day taking little Sebastian to the park, I’m going to set her on fire.”

May Baranski was never just a tiny bit dramatic.

“I don’t know if he can come, Ma,” Frankie sighed, running up the front steps of the building. It was the only class she had to physically be on campus for. The rest were online, thank God. So once a week she schlepped her ass downtown for Corporate Social Responsibility.

She started for the stairs.

“Well, you won’t know until you ask him,” May sniffed.

“Fine. I’ll ask him.”

“Good. We’ll see you both on Sunday.” Her mother hung up, and Frankie cursed family and its complications.

She was five minutes early. And rather than reviewing her notes one more time like she should have, she opened her texts.



Aiden: Good luck tonight.



How had he remembered that she had an exam? With as packed as she presumed his calendar to be, the fact that he was storing little personal details about her both delighted and unsettled her.



Frankie: Thanks. You’re going to need some luck now. You’ve been summoned to Baranski Sunday Lunch. You can say no. It’s loud, cramped quarters. People yell a lot. I can tell her you’re busy buying a country or something.



When he didn’t respond immediately, Frankie silenced her phone and stowed it in her bag. It was for the best if he didn’t go. It would be a mistake to take him to her parents’. Her mother would start building castles in the sky and “finally” planning her “only daughter’s wedding.” And when it ended, when she and Aiden went their separate ways, May would be more devastated than either of them. Plus, she didn’t want to complicate things. And that’s exactly what family usually did.

They were doing a good job of keeping it uncomplicated. They’d had dinner and (phenomenal) sex on Tuesday and had been texting off and on since then. See? Minus the expensive coat and gloves she loved so much that she wore them watching TV in her icebox of an apartment, they were basically a Tinder hookup.

That, she could handle.

Professor Neblanski shuffled into class clutching a latte and dumped his briefcase on his desk. “All right, let’s get this over with.”

--------

Frankie hated to admit it, but she was disappointed that she didn’t get to see Aiden Friday or Saturday. Friday night, she already had plans to go out with friends, hitting a new wine bar in Clinton Hill. Saturday Aiden spent half the day in the office and the other half juggling rich guy responsibilities. Something about a fundraiser appearance and a dinner with clients. Now, she was curled up on her couch with Netflix reruns on in the background and her thesis draft in her lap, ignoring both in favor of thinking about Aiden.