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Chapter One
MADISON
COUNTDOWN TO THE WEDDING FROM HELL: ONE MONTH
“You have to find a date.” Josie sloshed some more wine into my glass. “Maddy, are you listening to me?”
“Ugh. I’m trying not to.” I wrinkled my nose and peered at my best friend. “Let’s not talk about it. I still have plenty of time.”
“Girl, please.” Josie waved her finger at me. When she drank too much, she often called me “girl” and started wagging her finger in the air as if she were a star on one of those Housewives shows and about to start a fight.
“Don’t you wag your finger at me!” I giggled. “It’s a whole month away.”
“A month is not a lot of time to find someone who’s going to pass the Delaney test.” She crossed her legs and settled against the cushions of my couch. For someone who’d had way too much wine, Josie still managed to look pretty. Her pink scarf was perfectly draped around her neck, and her black dress and leggings were stylish and immaculate, even after a ten-hour workday.
Josie always complained that she needed to lose forty pounds, and I cross-complained that she was completely gorgeous. That should have been the end of it, but listening was not always her strong suit. We’d been best friends since we were thirteen. She was more like my sister than my own sister.
“I don’t want to talk about the Delaney test. Stop, I beg of you!”
The Delaneys were my family. They were hardcore, society-pages, tea-at-the-Four Seasons, Holy-Cross-educated Boston socialites. And I, Madison J. Delaney—in spite of being decorated with a Harvard MBA and running a successful tech startup, or perhaps because of it—was my mother’s greatest disappointment in life.
Now my little sister was having the wedding of the century, and I was supposed to bring a date. FML!
Desperate to change the subject, I fixated on Josie’s perfect makeup. “Your lips are sparkling. Why are your lips sparkling? Do you have a new magic product that you’ve been keeping secret?” Josie was a makeup buyer from a national department store. She had makeup that could change lives. A woman could literally look like Dracula with a boxed-wine hangover, and Josie’s special voodoo makeup would transform her into Sofia Vergara.
“Let’s not change the subject!” Josie rolled her eyes. “I’m sparkling because I put lip gloss on before I came over. Now let’s talk about you-know-what. We need to deal with this.”
“But it’s not fair. Look at you—you’re so pretty, and you don’t have a stupid date for this stupid wedding.”
“That’s because I don’t have a boyfriend, and I don’t have to pretend I do. It’s not my evil little sister who’s getting married.” She gulped her wine. “It’s yours.”
“I know. I know.” I rubbed my temples. “Stupid Sienna!” I often referred to my little sister, Sienna, as Evil Sorority Spawn. She was having a black-tie, three-hundred-guest wedding in four weeks, and I was pretty sure I wanted to throttle her for it—and a whole lifetime’s worth of other grievances.
“Why did I say I’d bring a plus-one?” I wailed.
Josie laughed. “Because your mother nagged you about not having a boyfriend. So you lied and said you did!”
“I was provoked.” My wine was disappearing fast.
“You’re always provoked when it comes to your mother.”
I frowned. “I was drunk. It was Easter!”
“You’re always drunk at Easter.”
“You try spending the holidays with my family. You’d be drunk too!”
Josie snorted and poured us each more wine. “I have spent the holidays with your family. And I was quite drunk, thank you very much.”
“See?” I giggled. “It’s not just me!”
Josie laughed for a moment but then frowned. “You need a super-hot, super-perfect boyfriend in four weeks. This is serious. We need to mobilize.” She got out her cell phone and started opening God only knew what apps.
“No phones, no dating sites. Not tonight, please.” I fist-pumped when she put the phone down. “Four weeks is plenty of time. No problem. If I can organize investors in four weeks, I can totally find a date. It’s not rocket science.”
“No, it’s not, and that’s the problem.” Josie sighed. “You’re doing great with your investors. Your personal life? Not so much. I hope I’m not hurting your feelings. But you’re putting it off, and I know what your mother’s like. I just don’t want this wedding to be a total shit show.”
I peered at her over my glass. “Of course it’s going to be a total shit show.”
Her shoulders slumped. “It would be better with a buffer. A hot buffer.”
“I know—I’ll find one. I promise. Is there more wine? Because my only mobilization tonight is going to be from this couch to my bed.”
“There’s always more wine.” Josie tsked and headed to the kitchen. “What sort of bestie would I be if I didn’t bring reinforcements?”
COUNTDOWN TO WEDDING FROM HELL: TWO WEEKS
“You have a call, Madison.” My assistant, Marc, sounded as though he’d been laughing.
“Who is it?”
“Josie.”
I gritted my teeth. “Put her through.”
“Hey!” She sounded so nice, but I knew she was calling to harass me. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“Like I don’t know that? I didn’t respond to your sixteen messages for a reason.” She’d been sending me one-word texts all afternoon, like Date? Progress? Anything? Bueller?
“What reason was that?”
“I think you can figure it out.” I sighed. “I don’t have a date yet. I’ve made zero progress in that department. I did, however, get that grant written—”
“That’s great—yay, grants!” she interrupted. “But what are you going to do? Did you check Match? Or LinkedIn?”
“Ugh and gross.” I tapped my pen against my desk. “Losers and man-whores, respectively.”
“You’re not supposed to slut-shame anymore, not even those who’ve sunk to the level of hooking up on LinkedIn, thank God.” She paused for a second. “Not that I’ve ever done that or anything.”
“We both know you have, and I’d love to harass
you about it, but I have to go. I have a meeting.”
“You have your mother in two weeks.”
