Jake turned toward Grace. “What about me? Will you make it worth my while?”

“Don’t even pretend that you mind wearing a tux,” Grace said, topping off her wineglass.

“Bond,” Jake said in a low voice. “James Bond.”

Sam paused in his chewing. “Okay. Okay, I think you’re on to something. I might be able to get excited about the tux. I’m going to 007 the shit out of this.”

Julie rolled her eyes. “Cassidy?”

“I do own a tux, actually,” he said, wiping his mouth neatly with his napkin.

Sam and Jake gaped. “You own one? What the hell for?”

“Hey, I own one,” Mitchell said from the head of the table, sounding indignant.

Jake waved a hand at him. “You have season tickets to the opera. You probably own two.”

Mitchell shrugged, completely unashamed.

“I’ve had it for awhile,” Cassidy said. “I’ll need to make sure it still fits, but it did last year when I wore it to my cousin’s wedding, so I should be good.”

Grace shook her head. “You men don’t understand how easy you have it. You buy one good tux in your life, and it never goes out of style. Can you imagine if we wore a dress from…Cassidy, how old is your tux?”

Emma was sitting next to Cassidy, so she didn’t have to see his face, but she could tell from the slightly stiff way he cut a piece of his chicken and deliberately took a bite that he did not want to answer that question.

And there could be only one reason why he wouldn’t want to explain.

Emma wasn’t the only one to figure it out.

Riley groaned. “It’s your wedding tux, isn’t it?”

“Awwwwkward,” Jake said, in a fake dramatic voice before giving Cassidy a shit-eating grin.

“What was I supposed to do, burn it?” Cassidy asked.

“Actually, yes,” Riley said, jabbing her fork at him. “It would serve you right for ditching our girl on your wedding day.”

Emma froze. Hell, everyone froze. Emma and Cassidy might have made peace with their past. They might be able to participate in the same wedding. They could sit beside each other at a dinner party.

But they never talked about that day. Not with each other. Not with their friends.

“Ri,” Sam said in a warning voice, and Grace and Julie shot her shut-the-hell-up glares.

But Riley, was, well, Riley. She was as good a friend as there was, but she had a very low tolerance for bullshit.

And Emma was almost grateful. They had to rip this Band-Aid off sometime.

“No, it’s okay,” Emma said, setting her hand on Grace’s arm before Grace’s glare could bore a hole in Riley’s forehead.

All eyes turned to her and Cassidy, and Emma fiddled with her fork.

Riley tilted her head. “You did abandon her on her wedding day, right?” Her voice was quieter now. More hesitant.

Cassidy lifted his wineglass. “She mentioned that bit, did she?”

“Because it happened,” Emma said, refusing to let Cassidy get away with talking about her as though she weren’t there.

He hesitated. “It did,” he said slowly, cutting her a brief thoughtful glance as he swirled his wineglass before turning his attention back to Riley.

“Did Emma also mention that the night before her wedding, she threw her engagement ring at my head?” he asked.

Attention shifted from Cassidy to Emma, and all eyes were rather wide. Including the guys’.

She lifted her finger in protest. “I assure you, it was well deserved.”

“Tell me something, Jake, since you’re the only married guy,” Cassidy said, leaning forward so he could glance down the table at Jake.

Jake leaned back in his chair to avoid Cassidy’s gaze. “I am not here. I can’t see you, I can’t hear you….Please for the love of God leave me out of this.”

Cassidy pressed on. “If Grace had told you the night before your wedding that you were the last man on earth that she would ever consider marrying, would you have shown up the next day?”

“Emma!” Julie gasped. “You told him that?”

“Trust me,” Emma said, waving her fork around at the group. “You would have thrown your ring, too, and had words if you knew the full story.”

“But you still showed up the next day?” Grace asked Emma, her voice gentle.

Yup. Emma had shown up the next day. Cassidy hadn’t. Her sister had had to drag her away from the church and had patiently fed a couch-ridden Emma nothing but root beer floats for two weeks before quietly insisting that Emma was too young to throw her life away.

So Emma had gotten off the couch. Brushed her hair. And moved to New York City, and never looked back.

“It doesn’t matter,” Emma said, when the silence stretched on. “It was a long time ago, when we were both immature and stupid. We’ve moved on.”

Cassidy nodded once in agreement. “We’ve moved on.”

But from the looks going around the table, Emma had the sneaking suspicion that she and Cassidy were the only ones who believed that.

Chapter 12

Alex’s day had been complete shit.

Two copy editors had quit within an hour of each other. Then one of the printers had gone on the fritz. A major advertiser had declared bankruptcy and pulled out of a prime spot in the December issue.

And just as he was thinking it was impossible for the night to be any worse than the day, an epic thunderstorm rolled in as he walked home—without an umbrella.