“Thank you, Joshua,” Beverly said coolly. “But never apologize to my husband for making an inappropriate comment about me. He is my husband, not my keeper. You’ve offended me, and hence your apology should be directed my way.”

There was a long, awkward pause, and then Emma stepped forward, breaking the silence.

“Well, since everyone is here, I think we can go ahead and eat,” she said, walking over and placing a hand on the back of one of the seats at the end of the table. She waved a hand at the rest of the settings. “Please, everyone, take a seat. There’s no assigned seating, so sit wherever you like.”

We all hesitated for a moment, waiting for someone else to move, but finally, Meggie walked over and plopped down next to her sister. Patrick followed her, sitting in one of the middle seats, leaving one chair on the other side of him. Beverly followed Meggie’s lead, sitting on the other side of Emma, and Andrew quickly slipped into the middle seat across from Patrick. Joshua and I settled into the remaining seats on opposite sides of Patrick and Andrew, leaving the other host place setting untouched.

“All right,” Emma said with a smile. “Let’s have a good night.”

Chapter 17

Like clockwork, the two members of the catering staff emerged from the kitchen, holding plates in their hands. They set the food down in front of Emma and then began to work their way around the table before hurrying back to get more plates. I looked down at the food—one small plate was the beef canapés that Emma had promised, and the other held a salad of microgreens, with walnuts and grape tomatoes.

“So, Meggie, how excited are you about having your first show?” Joshua asked, leaning forward to grab a piece of bread from the center of the table. He picked one up and examined it before tossing it back in the basket and grabbing another one. “Your work is really incredible, and I am absolutely honored to have the first showing at Klein’s.”

Meggie smiled. “I am excited,” she said. “I will just feel a lot better once we figure a few things out.”

She shot a glance at her sister before stabbing a tomato with her fork and putting it into her mouth. The answer felt abrupt, and there was silence for a few moments as everyone tried to decide if they should continue down that conversation path or pivot somewhere else.

“We should probably tell you a little more about Allure Apparel,” Emma said, looking down the table at me. “We make shopping for clothes sort of like shopping for makeup. We recognize that different colors are more flattering for different skin tones, so once you find the piece you like, you can find the exact shade of that color for your skin tone. So instead of one pink pair of high-waist pattern shorts, we have thirteen.”