Too Good to Be True(44)
“I’d better get back to work,” he said, and, turning his back on me, he did just that.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE SECOND I OPENED THE DOOR, I knew that Natalie and Andrew were living together. Natalie’s apartment had his smell, that baby shampoo sweetness, and it hit me in a slap of undeniable recognition. “Hello!” I said, hugging my sister, stroking her sleek hair.
“Hi! Oh, it’s so good to see you!” Nat hugged me tight, then pulled back. “Where’s Wyatt?”
“Hey, Grace!” Andrew called from the kitchen.
My stomach clenched. Andrew at Natalie’s. So cozy.
“Hi, Andrew,” I called back. “Wyatt got stuck at the hospital, so he’ll be a little late.” My voice was smooth and controlled. Bully for me.
“But he is coming?” Nat said, her brows puckering in concern.
“Oh, sure. He’ll just be a while yet.”
“I made this fabulous cream tart for dessert,” Nat grinned. “Definitely wanted to make a good impression, you know?”
Natalie’s apartment was in the Ninth Square section of New Haven, a rescued part of the city not far from the downtown firm where she worked. I’d been here, of course, helped her move in, gave her that iron horse statue for a housewarming gift. But things were different now. How long had Nat and Andrew been together? A month?
Six weeks? Yet already his things were scattered here and there…a jacket on the coatrack, his running shoes by the door, the New York Law Journal by the fireplace. If he wasn’t living here, he was staying over. A lot.
“Hey, there,” Andrew said, coming out of the kitchen. He gave me a quick hug, and I could feel his familiar sharp angles. Angles that felt repugnant today.
“Hi,” I said, stretching the old mouth in a grin. “How are you?”
“Great! How about a drink? A vodka gimlet? Appletini? White Russian?” Andrew’s merry green eyes smiled behind his glasses. He’d always been proud of having bartended his way through law school.
“I’d love some wine,” I said, just to deny him the exhibitionistic pleasure of making me a cocktail.
“White or red? We have a nice cabernet sauvignon open.”
“White, please,” I answered. My smile felt tight. “Wyatt likes cabernet, though.”
At this moment, I was incredibly grateful to young Wyatt Dunn, M.D. This night would’ve been awful without him, even if he didn’t exist in the corporeal world. I drifted over to the couch, Natalie chattering away about how she couldn’t find tilapia anywhere today and had to go to Fair Haven to a little fish market down by the Quinnipiac River. I had to stifle a sigh at the picture of Natalie, a study of elegant beauty, riding her bike down to the Italian market, where, no doubt, the owner fussed over her and threw in a few biscotti, since she was so pretty. Natalie with the perfect hair and fabulous job. Natalie with the lovely apartment and Natalie with the beautiful furniture.
Natalie with my ex-fiancé, telling me how she was dying to meet my imaginary beau.
I didn’t relish the fact that I was lying to Natalie—and my parents, and grandmother and even Callahan O’ Shea —but it was a far sight better than being Poor Grace, tossed over for her sister. Morally wrong to lie, but hey! If lying was ever justified, I’d have to say it was now.
For a brief second, another scenario flashed across the old brain cells. Callahan O’ Shea sitting by my side, rolling his eyes at how Andrew was even now showing off in the kitchen, chopping parsley like a manic spider monkey. That Cal would sling his big, muscular arm around my shoulder and mutter, “I can’t believe you were engaged to that scrawny jerk.”
Right. That would happen, and then I’d win the Lotto and discover I was the love child of Margaret Mitchell and Clark Gable.
To distract myself, I looked around Nat’s living room. My gaze stopped abruptly on the mantel. “I remember this,” I said, my voice a tad tight. “Andrew, this is the clock I gave you, isn’t it? Wow!”
And it was. A lovely, whiskey-colored mantel clock with a buttery face and elaborately detailed numbers, a brass key for winding it. I found it in an antiques shop in Litchfield and gave it to Andrew for his thirtieth birthday, two years ago. I planned the whole dang party, good little fiancée that I was. A picnic in the field along the Farmington. His work friends—our friends, back then—as well as Ava, Paul, Kiki and Dr. Eckhart, Margaret and Stuart, Julian, Mom and Dad, and Andrew’s snooty parents, who looked vaguely startled at the idea of eating on a public picnic table. What a great day that had been. Of course, that was back when he still loved me. Before he met my sister.
“Oh. Yeah. I love that clock,” he said awkwardly, handing me my wine.
“Good, since it cost the earth,” I announced with a stab of crass pleasure. “One of a kind.”
“And it’s…it’s gorgeous,” Andrew mumbled.
I know it is, dopey. “So. You two are very cozy. Are you living here now, Andrew?” I asked, and my voice was just a trifle loud.
“Well, uh…not…I still have a few months on my lease. So, no, not really.” He exchanged a quick, nervous glance with Natalie.
“Mmm-hmm. But obviously, since your things are migrating here…” I took a healthy sip of my chardonnay.
Neither of them said anything. I continued, making sure my tone was pleasant. “That’s nice. Saves on rent, too.