Count Your Lucky Stars (Written in the Stars, #3)(5)

Or so she’d thought.

“It was.” Olivia coughed and clasped her hands in front of her for a brief moment before dropping them back to her sides where they dangled loosely, like she didn’t know what to do with them. “It’s Grant again.”

Margot’s eyes dropped to Olivia’s left hand, her ring finger bare.

Huh.

Interesting.

“Wait.” Brendon pointed between the both of them, looking confused. “You two know each other?”

Color rose in Olivia’s cheeks, and Margot remembered tracing the southward spread of that blush with her fingertips, tasting it with her tongue, Olivia’s skin soft as satin and hot beneath Margot’s lips. For a split second, Margot went dizzy, blood rising to the surface of her skin, mimicking Olivia’s flush.

Know each other. Margot swallowed hard. You could say that.

“Olivia and I go way back.” Back to Girl Scouts and slumber parties and double-dog dares and pinky promises made beneath the stars. Promises that had been long since forgotten, broken. “It’s been, what, eleven years?”

Olivia’s hazel eyes rounded as she met Margot’s stare across the room. “Give or take. We, um, we went to school together,” she said, words rushing out of her in a jumble. “In Enumclaw.”

“Damn.” Brendon’s eyes darted between them. “Talk about serendipity, right?”

Margot forced out a chuckle.

The universe was playing a cosmic joke on her, that was for sure.





Chapter Two




Contract signed and deposit placed, Olivia quickly updated the Google Sheet itemizing Annie and Brendon’s wedding budget—hello—filling in the field beside venue. The rest of the column auto-adjusted, doing the math for her. Olivia saved then toggled over to her calendar, blocking out a time slot for a cake tasting with a local bakery ECE and Lori had worked with many times and who was willing to accommodate the tighter timeline. Immediate tasks accomplished, Olivia cast a quick glance around the venue’s courtyard. Annie and Brendon had wandered off a few minutes ago, hand in hand, stating their desire to get the lay of the land for the photos. Across the courtyard, Brendon’s sister blushed when her girlfriend whispered in her ear, both of them lost in their own little world. Olivia made another sweep, craning her neck to peer past the fountain and through the glass-paned door. She frowned.

Margot was missing.

Margot Cooper.

Olivia fought the urge to shiver, fingers curling into fists at her sides as a flush inched its way up her jaw without her permission.

She’d call this fate, if she weren’t unsure whether she still believed in that sort of thing. Four million people in this city and M. Cooper and her Margot turned out to be one and the same. Olivia swallowed hard. Not her Margot. Not anymore.

Olivia puffed out her cheeks, her exhale measured. Now was not the time to lose herself in the past, in old hurts that should’ve healed. She had a wedding to plan. Lori was counting on her to pull this off. Olivia’s future was riding on the success of this wedding, on her ability to put her skills to task and pull this off. Screwing up was not an option.

Flipping the cover over the screen of her tablet, Olivia tucked it away inside her purse and left the courtyard in search of Brendon and Annie.

They weren’t in the dining room or the ballroom, either. Olivia hiked her purse higher on her shoulder and made a left down the winding hall, which more closely resembled a maze, what with the sheer number of intersections and doors to choose from. It was a place she could easily get lost in if she wasn’t careful, her memory of the exact layout a little hazy from the anniversary party she’d assisted Lori with months ago.

From the outside, the venue was unassuming, plain brick like any other warehouse in the area, not a place anyone would look at twice. Stepping inside was like falling through a looking glass, like entering a whole new world, a wonderland of glitzy chandeliers, ornate murals, creeping vines, and old-world exposed brick. It was achingly romantic, like something out of a fairy tale, the sort of place where Olivia had dreamed of getting married when she was little.

Olivia’s thumb brushed the bare skin beneath the knuckle of her third finger as she ducked her head through an open door. She drew up short, heart rate ratcheting, and cleared her throat. “Hi.”

Margot spun toward her, dark eyes wide behind the lenses of her cat-eye glasses. “There’s an elephant in this room.”

A laugh bubbled up inside Olivia’s throat. “You think?”

Margot’s face turned red, matching the color of the plaid shirt she wore unbuttoned over a black crop top so tight it might as well have been a second skin. The bare strip of her stomach was pale and flat, and Olivia’s own skin pebbled with goose bumps.

“Funny.” Margot gestured toward the life-sized and lifelike elephant, wrinkly and gray with huge ivory tusks, stationed in the corner of the room. “Who the fuck puts a fake elephant in a dining room?”

Olivia stepped inside the room, leaving a healthy distance between her and Margot as she lifted a hand, curling her fingers around the elephant’s right tusk. “It was built in 1931 for the Paris Colonial Exhibition.”

Margot’s eyes followed her, watching her like a hawk. “Since when did you become a fount of obscure knowledge?”

“Eleven years is a long time,” Olivia said, hating how that was meant to come out like a joke but her voice cracked halfway through, earnestness seeping out like blood from a wound.