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“Jason?” Dalton asks. “Well, since you met Sawyer earlier…”
Guilt gnaws at me. I regret being so curt with him, but I was so damn tired!
“Sawyer is Jason’s half-brother,” he answers.
Aubrey nods. “He’s got another brother, too, Kevin. He teaches at the same school that I work at.”
Marian raises her brows at me. “You’ve already met Sawyer?”
Dalton snorts a laugh.
“Yes, yes, I have,” I reply.
Marian smiles. “We don’t often have too many crews working around here. But with these two determined to renovate the whole state, it seems we’ve got a bevy of business coming our way.”
Lauren rubs her hands together. “The bed-and-breakfast will be booming in no time.”
“Maybe I won’t need to rely on the advertisement to get my reservations,” Marian says.
“For this food?” I ask as I take my second helping. “No. If you advertise this, you’ll never run out of customers.”
“No, how couples who meet here stay together.”
I give her a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”
“Lauren met Caleb here. Then Dalton met Aubrey here.”
As one, they turn their heads to me. I roll my eyes and shake my head. “No matchmaking on my agenda. Give up on my love life before you even think about it.”
I have.
Marian’s smile is polite, and when she immediately asks me about my so-called lux life in Paris, I’m grateful. She’s sharp, witty, and too observant in noticing that I didn’t want any attention on that matter. I need the easy out, and talking about the years I spent in Paris is a much more preferable topic than why I shouldn’t hope for a lasting love like the others have found here.
“It sounds like the adventure of a lifetime,” Aubrey says. “Studying abroad?” She sighs as Lauren brings out dessert. “I stayed in LA for college because of the scholarships that got me there, but I wish I could have seen more of the world.”
“It’s no different than an education anywhere else.” Being in Paris sounds like a vacation, but it wasn’t. I chose it not only because it is such a fashion center, but also because I needed that distance from my mother. “And that is what I went for. After all the hours of studying and working on projects, I didn’t have much time to party or explore.”
“You’ve always been so dedicated to your interests,” Caleb agrees.
“More like her one interest,” Dalton corrects. “It’s always been fashion.”
“Not fashion,” I reply. Before they can do that model nonsense again, I add, “I’m interested in designing fashion.”
“All work and no play?” Marian teases gently. “You’re a workaholic?”
I sigh, trying my best not to let her use of that word hit me like it did when Owen said it. He’d shouted it like a cruel accusation. Marian is too kind to be like him, and I can’t envision her ever calling anyone stuck-up either. It irks me, though, that having a steadfast commitment to making a career can have such a negative connotation, especially as a woman. My mother has and will never lift a finger to do anything that would be construed as work. She’s lazy and entitled, with only one goal of maintaining and holding the wealth my father granted her when he was alive. He passed away when I was a teen, and it didn’t matter—whether my mother was married or widowed, she was still an old-fashioned elitist, deeming a career a waste of time better left for the inferior plebs of the world.
“It takes one to know one,” Marian adds. “This place is my work, and no matter how much I let Caleb and Lauren help, it will always be my dream job.”
I grin, loving how easily she gets it. I’m not a workaholic, and neither is she. We simply want to never quit on our dreams.
I counted on coming here to relax and hide from my mom the best I could, but I hadn’t anticipated how much I could benefit from finding a mother in Marian here, too.
On the topic of working, though, I smile at Lauren. “And I can’t wait to get started on your dress.”
“You’ll do it? You’ll really make me a dress?” Her eyes widen with excitement.
“I can design it.” I sigh. “But I don’t have the tools and materials to it make one here.”
