Gretchen looked at her, aghast. “Withhold?”
“You want to wring it out of him, don’t you?”
Gretchen sighed. “I just want to get married to the man I love.”
“Then leave it alone,” Daphne said bluntly, handing the phone back to Audrey. “Ask yourself if it really matters. If you’re happy, then just be happy. Let things lie.”
Easier said than done. Gretchen was many things, but patient wasn’t one of them. “I . . . guess.” Maybe she’d just seduce him after all and try to wring the information out of him. That sounded like the most fun. “I suppose we should go back to baking.” She rubbed her stomach. “Getting a little hungry here. How about you guys?”
Audrey got to her feet. “I have a feeling you’re going to be cramming a lot of sweets in my direction for the next week. It’s a good thing my gown isn’t fitted like Taylor’s.”
“Nothing for me, thanks,” Daphne added. “I’m counting my macros.”
“You’re . . . what?”
“Counting my macronutrients. Wesley has me logging everything I eat and drink so I can be aware of what my caloric expenditure is. The label doesn’t want me blimping up on my time off.” Her smile was rueful. “Not that I haven’t done a good job of that anyhow.”
“You look great,” Audrey grumbled.
“Because I look like you,” Daphne teased her sister.
And Gretchen suddenly felt all weepy again, because it was almost like they didn’t hate each other anymore. Man, she was such a sap lately. So much crying. “Who’s Wesley?” She asked, trying to change the subject before she started blubbering like a madwoman.
To her surprise, Daphne’s face flushed. “He’s my trainer and life coach.”
“But you’re blushing,” Gretchen pointed out. “Are you guys sleeping together?”
“What? No!” Her face grew redder. “I’m just a job to him.”
“But you don’t want to be?” Audrey guessed as they left the study.
Daphne just sighed.
***
His lovely, talkative Gretchen was unusually quiet that evening through dinner. She curled up with a book while he went through some last-minute emails during their favorite TV show, and then, when they went to bed? Still quiet.
It worried him.
Hunter tucked her against him and wrapped his arms around her. He kissed her neck. “Is everything all right?”
Her smile was absent. “Just thinking.”
That was a red flag if he’d ever heard one. “Having second thoughts about getting married?”
She jerked away from him in shock. “What? No! Why does everyone keep asking that?”
Unease gnawed at him. “Who keeps asking that?’
Gretchen shook her head and put her hands over his. “Just thinking about an annoying conversation I had earlier.” She sighed, and then got quiet.
He waited, but she remained silent. Hunter racked his brain, trying to think of what could be bothering her. Did she find out about the island he bought her and disapproved? It seemed unlikely. She never told him how to spend his money and the times he’d bought her something ridiculous, she’d been pleased. He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “And did you find new caterers?”
“No,” she said with a small sigh. “I’m just going to be doing a lot of baking between now and then. I’m never happy with what they make so I might as well do it myself.”
He frowned. “Gretchen, it’s a wedding for two hundred people.”
She yawned. “Yeah, but it’s Christmas baking. They’re just going to get a lot of sweets and like it. Besides, my sisters said they’d help.”
That was typical of Audrey . . . wait. “Sisters? Plural?”
“Mmm hmm. Daphne showed up today. Brought me a flower.”
He sat upright in the bed. “Why was she here?” A fierce surge of possessiveness moved over him. Daphne had hurt Gretchen in the past. She was irresponsible and self-destructive and the fact that she’d shown up in their lives mere days before the wedding? It sent alarm bells through him. Was this why Gretchen had been so worried and distant lately?
More importantly, how could he fix this?
“She wanted to say hi. Make amends. She was in town, you know.” Gretchen yawned and snuggled back against him. “She looked good. Actually, it’s funny. She looked a lot like Audrey again. She hasn’t since we were teenagers.”
“Is she on drugs again?” If so, he didn’t want her and her messy ways anywhere near the wedding. Gretchen was stressed-out enough already.
“I don’t think so? It’s hard to say. She’s working with a personal trainer, I think.” She turned in his arms and pushed her face against his neck, snuggling closer. “Or a life coach. Something strict. We were baking and she refused to touch any of it. Wouldn’t even lick her fingers. Said her trainer wouldn’t like it.”
“That doesn’t sound like the sister you told me about,” Hunter said, sliding his fingers through her tangled hair. Any excuse to touch her. Any at all.
“I know, right? It’s like she’s the old Daphne. The normal one. Before all the drugs.” Her nose pressed against his throat. “And now I feel bad that I didn’t invite her to my wedding and meanwhile her twin is my maid of honor.”
Ah. He suspected this was a large portion of what had been bothering her. Relieved that she’d confessed, he kissed the top of her head. Being able to hold Gretchen—to caress her and love her and know that he was loved in return. Every day still felt like a gift, and there was a small part of him that lived in fear that one day she’d wake up and change her mind. “You have a soft heart.”