The Little French Bridal Shop by Jennifer Dupee

Author:Jennifer Dupee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

CHAPTER EIGHT

When Jack was a little boy, he thought he’d been named after one of the little ducklings from the classic children’s story Make Way for Ducklings. He’d been sure of it. Jack, after all, was the lead duck in the list of many ducks—Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, etc.—and he, Jack Merrill, was the older brother. Even at the young age of five, when this realization had struck, he thought this said something about himself. He had a distinct responsibility for his two younger sisters, who had only been three years old and one year old, respectively. He needed to help take care of them, his mother had said, and he had taken this decree very seriously. He taught them how to maneuver up and down the stairs. He held their hands when walking down the sidewalk to the nearby park. He wiped their tears and comforted them when they fell. This sense of responsibility, this habit of tending to something other than himself, was a practice he had carried with him ever since. So, in a sense, he’d always been a caretaker, even long before Ursula or Elmhurst or this ridiculous nonsense with Larisa. Larisa. He shook his head. He thought he knew her, but somehow a stranger had emerged.

After Larisa had raced off into the storm, he’d sat stunned for a solid five minutes in the living room, trying to process. Something—that kiss—had finally happened between them and it had felt great, just the way it should. Sure, he had pushed her a little, but she had enjoyed it; he could tell. Then Brent had shown up, and Jack had been caught totally off guard with the news that Larisa planned to sell Elmhurst. Here he’d thought that he and Larisa were aligned, that they had been yearning for the same things. Companionship, culture, a shared aesthetic in the restoration of Elmhurst to her former beauty. But it wasn’t the sale that bothered him so much as the deception. He had trusted Larisa. And he’d felt that she had trusted him. Apparently, he’d been wrong.

Eventually Brent, who admittedly had to be even more stunned than he—not about the house, of course, but about the supposed wedding—came stumbling in.

“Level with me,” he said, his expression dubious as he slipped off his coat and tossed it onto one of the armchairs. “Do you think she actually wants to marry me?”

Jack shrugged, annoyed. “Beats me. You think I know what women want?”

Brent picked up a decorative bowl from the coffee table and inspected it skeptically before setting it back down and addressing Jack again. “Well, you’ve been around the house a lot. Has she said anything?”

Jack raised his eyebrows and motioned for Brent to take a seat. “Yeah, I’ve been around a lot. I’ve been living here. Didn’t she tell you?”

Brent smirked slightly and then paused, as though waiting for Jack to admit the joke. A look of alarm fluttered across his features when he realized Jack was serious. “Living here? With Larisa?”

Jack deflected.

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