moved her a little to the side to make room for other guests to talk to Romy and Matt.
“You look like you’re going to pass out,” Teague said.
She shook her head then nodded. “I need to duck back into the chapel and out the side exit. There’s a mausoleum.”
“Er...”
“Yeah, a mausoleum! Go figure! Tremenhill Estate really is a one-site-fits-all proposition, isn’t it? Births, deaths, marriages. The chapel, the reception hall, the manor house, the cottages, the mausoleum, where I really need to be. I’m staying here, you know—or maybe you don’t know. In a cottage, not a crypt. And I’m giving zero fucks, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Yeah, I can’t say I’ve noticed zero fucks so far. You’re babbling, just FYI.”
“That’s vasovagal syncope. I think it means I’m going to faint. So I’d better stop talking and go sit down.”
“Fuck.” He brought her close, his arm under hers. “How far away is your cottage?”
“Walking distance. Why?”
“Because I’ll take you there.”
She pulled away from him. “No! No, no, no. I’m just going to walk calmly away, call my sister and let her talk me out of murdering that bastard, while you—” giving him a little push in the direction of Romy and Matt “—do your duty, smile in the wedding photos and impress everyone with your sunshine-and-light act.”
“Okay, but—”
“Teague! If I was going to faint, it would have happened mid-babble. Please let me at least pretend to be giving zero fucks.”
He gave her a searching look and then sighed. “Fine,” he said. “But you come and get me if you need me.”
She waited until he was back with Matt and Romy, then gave him a quick thumbs-up of reassurance before straightening her spine and walking-not-running toward the chapel. She allowed herself a look over her shoulder as she reached the doorway to find the autographing session was finished. Felicity was now tucked under Rafael’s arm as the two of them made their leisurely way over to the bride and groom. A chill of foreboding raced down her spine as Rafael’s eyes landed on her and she froze like a deer in the headlights, every cell in her body quivering.
He tilted his head as though challenging her—to what, she had no idea—and she unfroze. “Oh no,” she said through gritted teeth. “Zero fucks.” She turned her back on him to enter the chapel, where she wasted no time making her way straight back out again through the infamous side exit she’d eschewed earlier.
She hadn’t known what to expect of the mausoleum, but it was magnificent. A circular stone structure set atop a platform on a grassy hill, surrounded by a veranda whose roof was supported by a series of columns all the way round. A stone path bisecting a pristine lawn connected it to the chapel but also seemed to isolate it, which seemed kind of surreal and yet completely perfect.
As Veronica slowly made her way along the path, she had the fanciful notion that the mausoleum wasn’t only a guardian of souls but a sentinel, keeping vigil over the brooding, untamed moors beyond the estate’s civilized perfection. Bleak, wild and lonely on one side, manicured perfection on the other—like the two halves of her.
She laughed as she ascended the steps, imagining what Scarlett would say if she started describing herself in such terms. Something like Stop hugging trees and get your head out of your ass! most likely.
That was Scarlett—always talking sense. And, by God, Veronica was ready to hear it!
She took her cell phone out of her purse, brought up her sister’s number and stabbed at the call button.
Scarlett answered on the second ring as though she’d been expecting the call. “So you’ve seen him,” she said without preamble.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I’m scared when I talk to him I’m going to lose it. Or maybe faint. Which would be worse?”
“Maaaybe try to avoid either.”
“If you’re saying I shouldn’t talk to him, why did you let me come in the first place?”
“I didn’t ‘let’ you. Nobody ‘lets’ you do anything. You just do it! As I recall it, I had the temerity to remind you that you still go stratospherically apeshit when someone says his name and you were the one who insisted you were ready for this.”
“I may have been...premature in my assessment.”
“So what are you going to do? Hide in the restroom all night?”
“No.”
“Where are you now?”
“Outside a mausoleum.”
“Hang on! The wedding’s in a cemetery? Never would have picked Romy as a Goth!”
“Romy as a Go—? No! It’s not a cemetery, just a kind of...of burial place, near the chapel.”
“Ooooh, I see dead people!”
“That’s exactly the problem!” Veronica said. “I do see dead people. At least, I want to see dead people. Correction, I want to see dead person. Just the one.” Pausing, she thought about Felicity beneath Rafael’s protective arm back at the chapel. “Okay, maybe two.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I want to kill him! Obviously.”
“Okaaay, take a breath.”
“I’ve taken so many breaths I’ve used up half the oxygen in Yorkshire!”
“Well, take another and try to remember what I said about using a catastrophe scale to keep things in perspective.”
“Oh, on the catastrophe scale this is a ten!”
“No, Veronica, it’s not a ten. There are worse things than seeing your ex at a wedding, so take a moment now to think about them.”
“Um, like...say...a typhoon ripping through the estate and killing all the guests?”
“Yeees. Although somewhat unlikely, if that makes you feel better, relatively speaking, then—”
“All the corpses in this mausoleum rising up as zombies and swarming out to kill all the guests.”
“That’s a little macabre but—”
“A sudden blizzard—”
“In July?”
“—snap-freezing the moors and killing all the guests.”
“I’m sensing a theme here, Veronica.”
“Sharknado.
