Chapter 8: After the Twentieth

"Ten minutes," I said into the phone. "I went for a walk. I couldn't sleep."

"In the dark, in that neighborhood?" Hugh said. "Elise."

"Ten minutes, love."

I hung up, and Emmett had my dress in his hands before I turned around.

He drove me home in his truck with the heater going, neither of us speaking.

He stopped one block from the bakery, under a dead streetlight on Taylor.

"Go," he said quietly. "I'll wait until you're inside."

I kissed him once, hard, and got out.

Hugh stood under my doorway light with a bouquet of white roses and his coat over his arm.

He kissed my cheek and stopped.

"You smell like vinegar," he said.

"Nina and I were pickling peppers. We do a batch every week."

"At one in the morning," Hugh said.

"It's a very serious pepper."

He studied me for a moment, and then he laughed and handed me the roses.

"Go to bed, love," he said. "Big week."

He kept watching me through the glass as I climbed the stairs. I knew because I could feel it.

On Thursday, Hugh gave us an engagement party at his club, eighty guests and a string trio, and Emmett shot it.

I stood in a receiving line in a champagne dress and smiled until my jaw hurt.

At nine I felt a hand on my elbow, and Emmett said, "Miss Marchetti. I need you for a portrait. Coat room."

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