Page 46 of Manhattan Bossholes

“The colors are all wrong,” Chloe wailed, her voice cracking as she stared in the mirror at her bridesmaids. Her eyes were glassy with the kind of frustration that comes from too many sleepless nights and too much pressure.

Her friends Payton, Caroline, and Emma looked at each other wordlessly, like they had no clue how to console their teary-eyed friend. I’d only just met them, and I couldn’t figure out why I, Chloe’s newest addition to her friend roster, was the only one willing to help solve the latest wedding disaster in the making.

“What don’t you like?” I asked. “Because I think our dresses are beautiful.”

And they were. But poor Chloe was so primed for every aspect of her wedding to blow up that she couldn’t see reason. We were in a pricey boutique in a huge white fitting room with multiple bottles of champagne chilling, which should’ve made the fitting celebratory, but Chloe was inconsolable.

She sniffled and walked closer to where we were standing in a line in front of the mirror, wearing the dresses she apparently hated. “I know you probably think I’m overreacting, but…” She hesitated, her voice small now, fragile. “I asked for shades of pale pink, and Caroline’s dress is…It’s just so bright. Almost neon.” She plucked at the draped fabric at the waistline. “And Emma’s dress is so pale it’s almost white! Yours is the only one that’s close to what I was imagining, Piper, and it still doesn’t seem right.”

I thought my dress was absolutely perfect, but attempts to tell her that weren’t doing any good. Clearly, this was about more than the dresses. I had to find another way of tackling the situation.

“Yeah, I see what you mean,” Emma agreed before I could say anything. “They’re a mess.”

It was gasoline on a brushfire.

“Thank you, I know!” Chloe huffed. “I just…I really don’t want to be a control freak, but they’re…they’re wrong, and I don’t know what to do about it. They’re just wrong!”

“Oh, now hold on, I wouldn’t say that,” I volunteered quickly, because I could see that Payton was about to add her two cents out of solidarity. The last thing we needed was to add more fuel to the fire when Chloe was this close to exploding. “They’re all in the same color family, but not exactly the same, which is what you wanted, and Caroline’s dress is bright but not neon. Why don’t we get the swatch palette to check the dye lot?”

“No,” Chloe said, sounding like she was on the verge of tears. “It’s no use, I just…I hate them. I don’t even know why. I just do.” She held a tissue up to her nose. “What are we going to do?”

The shop attendant must’ve heard the chaos, and she came rushing in. “Are we okay? What’s going on?”

“We hate the dresses,” Chloe cried. “I don’t know, maybe I need to have new ones made!”

The woman, a white-haired New Yorker who acted like she’d seen it all, looked at Chloe like she was a toddler throwing a tantrum. “I’m not sure we have enough time for that. And these gowns are custom, they need to be paid for.”

Chloe froze. “Not…enough…time?” She looked on the verge of collapsing.

I didn’t know Chloe well, but I could tell her frantic vibe was a product of the pressure of planning a high-profile, highly scrutinized society wedding. Everything was piling up on her, and now that overload was coming out in the most unfortunate way. She wasn’t a typical bridezilla; she was a stressed-out woman who was being pushed to the brink by decision fatigue. I wished her friends would see that, too.

But maybe Paul could?

I stepped into the hallway to SOS-call him, and thirty minutes later a brigade of concerned bros arrived. Paul gave me a quick hug on the way in and reintroduced me to his old friends Aiden, Dominic, and Trent. They’d all been hanging out watching a baseball game at Paul’s place, which thankfully was close enough for them to jet over. I followed them into the fitting room but stopped when a hand rested on the small of my back.

“Well, don’t you look gorgeous,” a low voice whispered in my ear. “Room for one more in there?”

Vincent.

“What’s the latest?” he asked.

His hand remained in place, which made it hard for me to remember to answer him.

“Bridesmaid dress-induced trauma,” I said. “She’s convinced the dresses are all wrong, but I think they look amazing.”

“I can only speak for what I’m seeing, and yes, you look stunning in it.”

The way he was checking me out went beyond dress appraisal. Heat rushed to my cheeks.

A sob echoed out into the hallway, and Vincent grimaced. “Oof, okay. Let’s see if I can help out.”

I followed him into the fitting room and watched in awe as he began finessing the attendant. Everyone else was focused on calming Chloe down, which gave Vincent time to convince the woman that for the right price, they absolutely did have the time to create new dresses, if that was what the bride wanted.

I smiled proudly. I knew what Vincent was capable of in the boardroom and I loved watching him use his powers on behalf of Paul and Chloe.

Once they worked through the details and Chloe was a little more collected, we had something of a game plan—Chloe would sleep on what she wanted to do and get back to the bridal salon the next day. In the meantime, Vincent suggested we all go out to lunch. I expected that we’d wind up at some swanky spot, but when the line of Uber Blacks stopped in front of a burger joint, I realized I still had a lot to learn about Vincent’s tastes.

He took my hand on the way in. “We’re still in it to win it through the wedding,” he murmured in my ear. “Let’s make it look good.”