Oops, Wrong Bride? Fine. No Wedding. novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Six Hotels

The Mattox dining room had a chandelier the size of a rowboat and a portrait of some general over the sideboard.

Twelve chairs at the table.

Five people.

Trey's mother sat at the head in gray silk, her silver hair set.

Trey slumped on her left with a bourbon he'd clearly started early.

Shelby sat beside him in pale blue, with her phone face down by her plate for once.

She smiled at me as I came in.

"Hi, sis."

Trey closed his eyes.

Hayes pulled out my chair across from her. He didn't sit until I had.

"Hayes," his mother said. "You came."

"You said both of us or nothing."

"I say a lot of things." She lifted a small silver bell and rang it. "Let's eat first. Business after."

A man in a white jacket brought out she-crab soup.

Nobody touched it except Trey, who drank his bourbon instead.

"So," I said. "Business."

His mother set down her spoon.

"Direct. I'll give you that." She folded her hands. "The Mattox Hotels are taking on a signature dessert. In all six properties. Room service, the restaurants, the wedding packages."

"Congratulations."

"Sweetgrass lemon cake," she said. "Under the name Shelby's at Sweetgrass."

I looked at Shelby.

She looked back at me with her chin in her hand.

"We launch Saturday," Trey's mother went on, "with a tasting at the Harbor House. Buyers from Savannah and Hilton Head. The Post and Courier. A food writer from Atlanta."

"Shelby can't bake," I said. "She burned water in home ec."

"Shelby doesn't need to bake." Trey's mother smiled at me, the first smile I'd ever seen her give me. "That's why you're here."

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