Corinne smiled coyly. “A bride needs time to look perfect for her husband.”
Rowan swallowed the lump in her throat and looked around the rest of the room, taking in the faces. Corinne’s girlfriends from Yale sat at a table, a few of them with young children. Another knot of kids fiddled with Papa Alfred’s ships in bottles, which were lined up on a shelf by the windows. Aunt Grace stood near the canapés with Natasha’s father, Patrick. Uncle Jonathan—Corinne had had to invite him, she said, for business reasons—stood on the opposite side of the room, deliberately avoiding contact with his ex-wife. Grace and Jonathan’s sons, Winston and Sullivan, mingled with some of Dixon’s friends, trying to sneak sips of whiskey. Rowan’s brothers, who’d flown in last night, joked with their parents by the fireplace. A gaggle of second cousins and cousins twice removed tittered by the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the beach. Edith cackled loudly at something Mason said. Rowan spied Danielle Gilchrist and her boyfriend, Brett, shaking Corinne’s hand and wishing her well.
Then a little girl streaked toward Rowan, the pink sash of her dress trailing behind her. “Aunt Rowan!” she cried, barreling into Rowan’s legs. Skylar glanced up at Rowan with big blue eyes. “Where have you been? I miss you!”
“Oh, honey, I miss you too,” Rowan said, bending down to hug her. “You look beautiful!” Then she sensed someone shifting behind Skylar, and stood up. And there, hands shoved in his pockets, was James.
Rowan’s throat tightened. She gave Skylar a quick pat on the head, then edged away. “Uh, I have to go do something for your aunt Corinne, honey. I’ll be back soon, okay?”
“Okay!” Skylar said, running toward Aster next.
Rowan walked down a long hall toward the back of the house and opened a door to the wraparound porch that overlooked the ocean. She staggered to the railing and held on to it tightly, taking deep, even breaths. It doesn’t matter, she tried to tell herself.
But it did. Not so long ago, she and James were supposed to have come to this wedding together. They had discussed how they would explain to the family that they had been seeing each other, that they were taking things slowly, that they didn’t want to confuse the children or cheapen what James and Poppy’s marriage had been.
What a fucking fool she’d been.
The door squeaked open, then slammed. Rowan knew James was standing there, without even having to look. His footsteps drew closer, and then there he was, standing at the railing by her side.
“Please leave,” she said in a low voice.
“Rowan.” James’s voice cracked. “I’m so sorry. I know I was crazy the other day. Ever since Poppy died . . . I’ve been out of my head.”
Rowan just stood there silently, hugging her body tight.
James knocked back the contents of his ginger-scented cocktail. “If you’re wondering about Evan, I haven’t even spoken to her all night.”
“I wasn’t wondering about Evan.” Rowan gazed out at the gray ocean in the distance. “To be honest, James, I was wondering about you.”
She turned and took in his bloodshot eyes, his drawn face, and how thin he looked. “Foley told me about your alibi on the morning Poppy died. You left my house to be with a woman named Amelia Morrow. She’s another one of Poppy’s friends, isn’t she?”
James’s skin paled. He looked down. “Yes.”
“Did Poppy know about her?”
His shoulders drooped. “I don’t know. Maybe. Probably.”
She brought her hands to her face. “Did you do this to her . . . a lot?”
James laughed bitterly. “Do you really want to know?”
“Why, James?” Rowan cried. “What is wrong with you?”
His hands fumbled for his drink. He tipped it back, even though the glass was already empty. “You know me. It’s really hard to say no to someone at the bar at the end of the night. Or at work. Or on a business trip. I’ve always been that way. I just can’t help it.”
Heat rose to Rowan’s face. “You have free will, you know. You can control yourself if you really want to. If someone matters enough.” She shut her eyes. “So was I just some girl at the bar too? Was Poppy?”
“No,” James said emphatically. He looked as though he was about to reach for Rowan’s hand, but then he thought better of it. “It was real with you. It was always real with you. And it was real with Poppy.” He took a breath. “I didn’t deserve Poppy. And I don’t deserve you, either.”
“You’re right,” Rowan said stiffly, angling in her shoulders. “You don’t.”