Skinny Bitch Gets Hitched (30 page)

“Sar, you're my best friend. You come first.”

“Hey, so maybe we can have a double wedding.” She laughed. “Can you imagine?”

For a half hour, I had actually forgot about my messed-up love life. “There's not going to be a wedding—well, on my end, anyway. Zach thinks my cousin Harry is embezzling from his company. He's about to involve the police. We got into a huge fight and he said we should postpone the wedding.”

“Ugh, I'm really sorry, Clem. Have you talked to Harry?”

“He's not answering his phone. I don't know what that means.”

“Go to his condo. Go.”

“Going. Harry? Some sharklike embezzler? Zero sense.”

But a lot made zero sense these days.

If I could turn back the clock, go all Superman on time so that Zach hadn't accused Harry of embezzling, hadn't “postponed” the wedding, which had turned into “taking a break,”
I'd be so flipping grateful I'd happily take back Dominique as wedding planner. Well, maybe.

Another buzzer. I pressed apartment 3B at Harry's building. No answer. I pressed again.

“Clem?” Harry sounded weary. And because I knew him so well—scared.

He'd clearly been hiding by the window, peering out. He must be freaking out that the cops were going to bust down his door any minute.

He buzzed me in and I headed up the stairs. I'd barely knocked when the door flew open and he pulled me inside, then locked it up tight again.

Harry looked like a wreck. He had serious bedhead and looked as if he hadn't slept in weeks.

His apartment was in even worse shape. He had a nice place, modern and high-tech, but his clothes were strewn all over his bedroom floor, and various sections of the
LA Times
and the
Wall Street Journal
were on every surface.

Under serious pressure right now, Harry had turned into a freaked-out slob.

“Nadia dumped me when she found out I'm in trouble.” He grabbed his hair with both hands. “She's not even standing by me.”

Jocelyn had called that one. “Harry, you'll get through this.
Once Zach and the internal whoevers go through the paper trail or whatever you call it, they'll find out it's just a big mistake, some number-crunching error. It'll be okay.”

He started pacing, then headed over to the window and looked out. “Clem, I need to get some air, go for a long walk on the beach or something. I'll call you later, okay?”

The guy was a wreck. “I'll come with you.”

He shook his head. “I just need to think, okay? Figure out where the screwup happened. If I could just retrace my steps in my head . . .”

“Gotcha. Everything will be fine. Don't worry so much, okay? You're innocent and that's that.”

He walked me out, slid on his sunglasses, and bolted in the opposite direction I started walking. Not toward the beach, either.

Not until I was halfway to the restaurant did I realize he'd never said he
was
innocent. But, duh—of course he was.

A
t close to midnight, my buzzer rang. I'd just gotten home from the restaurant and had taken a long hot shower and no longer reeked of garlic and tomato sauce.

Zach.

For a second, I felt huge relief. He was probably coming over to tell me he found the real bad guy or a typo or a mathematical error. But my stomach was flip-flopping and my neck was stiff and every muscle in my body was clenching.

I buzzed him in and heard him taking the stairs two at a time. That had to be a good sign. He wouldn't rush to give me bad news; he'd walk slowly, like to his death or something.

I opened the door and waited.

At the look on his face—pained, regretful, and weary—I took a step back. What the hell?

He closed his eyes for a second, then reached for my hand, but I wouldn't take it. “I had to tell you this in person. Harry will be arrested in the morning. His guilt is beyond a shadow of a doubt as far as my investigators are concerned. I'm so sorry, Clem.”

My stomach dropped and I felt as if I might throw up. I shook my head. This made no sense. “Harry's not guilty. He's my
cousin Harry
. This can't be right, Zach.”

I just need to think . . . figure out where the screwup happened. If I could just retrace my steps in my head . . .

Had he meant the screwup that led to his
getting caught
?

Oh, Harry. I flashbacked to memory after memory of Harry and me as kids, as teens. Harry had been my first best friend.

“I wish he wasn't guilty, Clem. Because I love you more than anything, and I know what this is doing to you.”

Half of me wanted to fling myself into his arms and just let him hold me until the shock wore off. The other half wanted him gone. Now.

“I think you should go.”

He looked at me, his expression so full of regrets, then nodded and headed back downstairs.

Between midnight and when I fell asleep on the couch at 3:00 a.m. again, I called Harry's cell at least twenty times. Went straight to voice mail. I had to see him, had to hear him tell
me it wasn't true. That this was just a big, stupid mistake, that Zach and his investigators were wrong. That some megamind thug had framed him or something.

When I woke up in the morning, my first thought was that I knew where Harry was. I took a fast shower, grabbed one of my scones and a thermos of strong black tea and hit the road, going as fast as I could without making the cops chase me down.

Three hours later, I walked into my parents' barn and climbed the loft stairs and there he was, sitting against the wall, his knees up. He looked worse than he had the day before—his hair was a wreck, he had dark circles under his eyes, the ole five o'clock shadow, and his pants were stained. Next to him was a pretty full bottle of Jack Daniel's, so at least he wasn't drunk. Unless this was the second or third bottle he had with him.

“I'm turning myself in, in a little while,” he said, not looking up.

Turning himself in? What? “Harry, I—”

He leaned his head back against the wall. “I really messed things up, Clem.” He seemed about to say more, but then clamped his mouth shut.

“Harry, what are you saying?”

“I'm saying I'm in bad trouble.”

He
was
guilty. Holy hellzburgers, no.

I couldn't get this to compute in my brain. “Why, though? I mean, why'd you do it?”

He closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. “I had some gambling debts and then they snowballed. And Nadia—when she
was
my girlfriend—likes nice things. One thing led to another and another and another.” He dropped his head into his hands.

“Harry, you could have come to me.”

“Because you have a half million lying around? Because your fiancé, who happens to be my boss five times removed, would give it to me?”

“So you stole it from that fiancé instead?”

He picked up the bottle of Jack Daniel's but didn't take a swig. “I didn't intend to outright steal it. At first, I moved a little money around here and there, and I always planned to pay it back. But then that snowballed too. And I couldn't stop.”

Oh, Harry.

“I'm sorry, Clem. Just know that, okay?”

That sound you hear again? Heart cracking even more. “Me too.”

Then he pulled out his cell phone and called the LAPD and said he was turning himself in at noon.

“I'm opening a second restaurant in here,” I said numbly. “This loft won't even be here in a few months. That seems weird, doesn't it? Like this whole conversation couldn't have happened—none of it could have happened—because the loft will be gone.”

He looked at me. “Good. Like you need to be reminded every time you walk in here?”

Like I'd forget anyway.

I spent the next few hours with my parents, and when my sister arrived to meet with them and Harry's parents—who were sitting in the living room with ashen faces, wringing hands—I finally drove back home.

I stalked around my apartment, then dropped down on the window seat, staring out at the stupid hair salon that used to be the space I wanted for my restaurant, the space where I'd met Zach.

My phone rang: Jocelyn.

“What's this I hear about the wedding being postponed? Avery mentioned it to me. She said she didn't know the details, but that Zach was beside himself.”

I told Jocelyn the whole crappy story.

“Clementine, that's terrible and I'm very sorry. I know it seems like a very, very big deal, and it is, but it's not the only bad thing—or the worst—that will happen during your relationship with Zach. In sixty-four years with Frederick, we've been through incidents and events that would bring you to your knees. That's what life is.”

“Zach thinks we should take a break.”

“Take a break from what? Don't you need each other most right now?”

I did need the jerk. Right now, there wasn't anyone I wanted more. I wished we could just disappear somewhere together and not even talk, not say a word.

I thought about Jocelyn's list. About expectations. Were we going to take breaks every time something crappy happened?

I loved Zach, and he loved me, and, yeah, this whole thing with Harry sucked, but it wasn't Zach's fault for catching him, and it wasn't mine for asking Zach to hire him.

I grabbed my phone and texted him,
Coming over now
.

He immediately texted back,
Okay
.