In a word, this place was unbelievable.
Gone were the birdseed cups with the little yellow umbrellas they had worked to assemble just yesterday afternoon. Instead crystal champagne flutes were filled with creamy white rose petals and stacked in a pyramid pattern that began on the floor and stretched nearly to the ceiling. Gone were the small, neatly arranged bouquets draped with yellow ribbons and gingerly placed in the center of the tables. In their place, mounds of moss and ivy and every white flower imaginable hung in a mass along the ceiling, attached to light-strewn wooden trellises. Gone were the simple white linen tablecloths that had been rented at a nearby party store and positioned over plain wooden tables. Billowy silk fabric replaced the plain linen—mounded high and draped to the floor. Each table gleamed with oversized lighted candles and spotless silver place settings.
The only thing April recognized were the paper lanterns, but they had been moved to the four corners of the room, hanging in an asymmetrical pattern and back-lit in a way that made them appear to float on air. The room felt like a dream. April fully expected Cinderella to descend a magic staircase followed by fairies waving sparkling wands. But even as April took it all in, even as she scanned the room with her mouth hanging open because for some reason she couldn’t seem to close it, even then everything combined wasn’t the most shocking feature.
The photographer with the massive camera and the People magazine credentials hanging around his neck was the most shocking . . . and outlandish . . . feature.
People magazine?
What in the name of everything holy was People magazine doing here? More importantly, who were they here to interview?
Kristin latched onto her arm, squeezing like April’s bicep was a stress ball meant for kneading and twisting and reshaping into something more pliable. April fully expected fingerprint indentions to remain long after she let go, which wouldn’t be anytime soon.
“Did you know about this?” she asked. If April thought for even the slightest second her sister would be upset about the change in décor, her breathy, high-pitched squeal put that fear to rest.
“I had no idea. Still have no idea what is happening . . .” She let the sentence hang as Jack walked up to her, a shy smile curling one corner of his mouth.
“I hope you like it,” he said, looking truly concerned that both women would be angry. Gloria Quinn chose that exact moment to enter the room. Her shocked gasp could be distinguished even over the hum of two hundred guests. April had never heard such an unflattering sound come out of her mother’s mouth; the woman had forever preferred decorum and reservation over the reveal of honest emotion.
“What on earth has happened here?” But like both her daughters, the words were laced with dreamy incredulity rather than offense. “It’s like an entirely different world than the one we left last night.” If April had been in the frame of mind to giggle, she would have chosen this moment to do so based on her mother’s spellbound words. But she felt a little dazed herself. Dazed and completely baffled.
“I have no idea,” April answered, seeing that Kristin was still too out of it—spending her time craning her neck to see the flowers, the arbor, the lights that she seemed to be counting one by one—to speak. “But I think Jack may have had something to do with it.”
Three heads snapped in Jack’s direction, all laced with varying degrees of uncertainty. Yet they each wanted the same thing: an answer.
“You did this?” Everyone heard the underlying tone of accusation in Gloria’s question. It was slight, but it was there.
Reluctantly, Jack nodded, a kindergartner approaching his teacher’s desk to explain a missing assignment. “I did. I heard you talking about what you would do if you had more time, so I took it upon myself to take care of it. I have connections and a few people who owe me favors, and . . . I hope you don’t mind?”
April’s breath caught as she stared at her sister. Did they mind? Because she didn’t think they minded. She didn’t even think they minded if he offered to put the whole family up for the week at an upscale resort in Fiji. In fact, maybe she should make that important fact known just in case—
“Of course we don’t mind.” Kristin, clad in twenty pounds of silk and lace and tulle and pearls, flung herself into Jack’s arms. He looked as surprised as April felt.
It was the first time she could remember anyone in her family displaying anything besides anger toward Jack Vaughn. It was a weird sensation. The death of a pact. The end of an unspoken mission to unite in their hostility where he was concerned. And as she watched her sister locked in a hug-fest with the guy who used to be her bitterest rival, every negative emotion she’d ever held against him dissolved. Finally, after all these years, April was no longer angry.
What she felt for Jack didn’t resemble anger at all.