Queen of Babble Bundle with Bonus Material

by Meg Cabot

  “Do I think who noticed what?” Chaz has seized me by the wrist, pulled me over, and is fumbling with the tiny buttons to my gown.

  “Luke!” I cry. “Do you think he noticed I’ve got beard burn all over my face?”

  “How would Luke notice that?” Chaz asks. “He’s in France. How do you get this thing off, anyway?”

  “He’s not in France!” I cry, swatting at Chaz’s hands. “He was just downstairs. That was him, at the door!”

  “The door?” Chaz pauses in his attempt to disrobe me, looking more adorably confused than ever. Not that I have any business noticing how adorable Chaz is. “Luke’s at the door?”

  “No, not anymore,” I say, swatting his hands away once more. “But he’s coming back in half an hour. And that’s why you have to leave now. He doesn’t know you’re here. And I want to keep it that way.” I wrestle his tuxedo jacket from beneath the knee he’s resting on it and hold it out for him. “So if you wouldn’t mind putting this on and kindly vacating the premises—”

  “Wait a minute.” Chaz raises a dark eyebrow. “Wait just a minute here. Are you honestly trying to tell me that you and Mr. Romance are getting back together?”

  “Of course we’re getting back together,” I say, throwing an urgent glance at the clock. Twenty-five minutes! Luke will be back in twenty-five minutes! He only went in search of a Starbucks to grab us coffees and a couple of Danish…or whatever it is Starbucks has available on New Year’s Day. Which, for all I care, could be rancid pig fat in plastic containers. What does it matter? “Why else do you think I’ve been standing here asking you to please get up? I don’t want him to know you spent the night—or that you gave me beard burn.”

  “Lizzie.” Chaz is shaking his head. But he’s putting his tuxedo jacket on. Thank God. “He’s not a little boy. You can’t protect him forever. He’s going to have to find out about us sometime.”

  Icy tentacles grip my heart. “Us? What us? Chaz…there is no us.”

  “What do you mean, there is no us?” He looks up from the inside coat pocket he’d been investigating, evidently in search of his wallet. “Did we, or did we not, just spend the night together?”

  “Yes,” I say, with another exasperated glance at the clock. Twenty-four minutes! And I have to wash my hair. I’m sure there’s confetti in it from the wedding. Not to mention, I probably have raccoon rings of mascara around my eyes. “But I already told you. Nothing happened.”

  “Nothing?” Chaz looks wounded. “I distinctly remember holding you tenderly in my arms and kissing you beneath a sky full of falling stars. You call that nothing?”

  “Those were balloons,” I remind him. “Not stars.”

  “Whatever. I thought we said we were going to work on the physical part of our relationship.”

  “No. You said that. I said we’d both just come out of painful breakups and needed time to heal.”

  Chaz reaches up and runs a hand through his hair, causing it to stand even more comically on end. Plus, confetti falls out of it and onto my bedspread. “Then what was all that kissing in the cab about?”

  He has a valid point. I’m not sure what all that kissing in the cab was about.

  Or why I enjoyed it so much, either.

  But I do know one thing. And that’s that I’m not going to stand here and talk about it. Not right now.

  “We had too much to drink,” I explain, with another frantic glance at the clock. Twenty-two minutes! And I have to blow-dry too! “We were at a wedding. We got carried away.”

  “Carried away?” Chaz’s blue eyes look unnaturally bright in the winter sunlight filtering through my new lace curtains. “That’s what you call my hand down your bra? Carried away?”

  I rush forward to place a hand over his mouth.

  “We must never speak of this again,” I say, my heart booming—yes, booming—in my chest.

  “Don’t even tell me,” Chaz says from behind my hand, “that you’re giving him another chance. Yes, he made the big romantic gesture, flying back from France on New Year’s Day, or whatever. But, Lizzie…the guy is a complete commitment-phobe. He’s never followed through with anything in his life.”

  “That isn’t true,” I cry, wrenching my hand away from Chaz’s mouth and flipping it around for him to see. “Look!”

  Chaz stares at the third finger on my left hand.

  “Oh God,” he says after a minute. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “That’s a nice thing to say,” I point out hotly, “to the girl your best friend’s just proposed to.”

  Although the truth is, I feel a little sick myself. But that’s from all the champagne last night. It has to be.

  “Lizzie.” Chaz flops back across my bed and stares up at the cracks in my ceiling. “Do I have to remind you that less than twenty-four hours ago you two were broken up? That you moved out of the apartment the two of you were sharing precisely because he said he couldn’t see you in his future? That you spent most of last night with your tongue down my throat because the two of you were supposed to be through?”

  “Well,” I say, looking down at the emerald-cut three-carat diamond sitting in its platinum band. It seems to catch the light just so. Luke told me the certificate authenticating the gem is blood-free is on its way. “He changed his mind.”

  “Because your moving out like that scared him shitless,” Chaz cries, sitting up again. “Is that what you want? A guy who comes running back to you and proposes just because he’s so scared of being alone, he’d rather be with a girl he knows isn’t right for him than be by himself?”

  I glare at him. “Oh,” I say. “And I suppose you think we’d make such a better couple.”

  “Yeah,” Chaz says. “Now that you mention it, I do. But the truth is, a monkey with a paper bag over its head would make a better boyfriend for you than Luke. Because you two are totally wrong for each other.”

  “You—” I suck in my breath. I can’t even believe I’m having this conversation. “What…How can—I thought Luke was supposed to be your best friend!”

  “He is my best friend,” Chaz says. “I’ve known him since he was fourteen years old. I probably know him better than he knows himself. That’s what makes me unequivocally qualified to say that he’s got no business asking anybody to marry him right now, let alone you.”

  “What do you mean, let alone me?” I can feel tears brimming along the edges of my eyelashes. “What’s so wrong with me?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with you, Lizzie,” Chaz says in a gentler voice. “It’s just that you know what you want, and Luke doesn’t. You’re a star. And Luke’s not the kind of guy who’s going to hitch his wagon to a star. He still thinks he’s the star. And you can’t have two stars in one relationship. Somebody has to be willing to be the wagon…at least some of the time.”

  “That’s not true,” I say, wiping my eyes with the back of one of my wrists. “Luke’s a star. He’s going to be a doctor. He’s going to save children’s lives one day.”

  Chaz raises his gaze to the ceiling.

  “The day Luke de Villiers ever actually becomes a doctor,” he says solemnly, “is the day I switch to light beer. For good.”

  I glare at him. “Get out,” I say, pointing at the door. “I mean it. Just get out.”

  Chaz stands up—then instantly looks as if he regrets it. Nevertheless, when he regains his balance, he says, with as much dignity as he can seem to muster, “You know what? Gladly.” He stalks out of the bedroom and into the living room, finding his coat on the floor where he’d dropped it the night before. He scoops it up—holding his head a bit woozily—then heads for the door.

  “You’re making a big mistake, Lizzie,” he turns to say when he gets there…looking a little surprised when he finds me right behind him.

  “No,” I shoot back, pressing my index finger against his sternum. “You are. Your best friend is getting married. You should be happy for him. And for me. Just because things didn’t work out for you an
d Shari—”

  “Shari?” Chaz shakes his head in bewilderment. “This has nothing to do with Shari. It has to do with you and me.”

  “You and me?” I let out a stunned bark of laughter. “There is no you and me.”

  “That’s what you think,” Chaz says, tugging on his coat. “And I’ll be damned if I’m going to wait around until you figure out that isn’t true.”

  “Fine,” I say. “I’m not asking you to, am I?”

  “No.” Chaz is smiling…but not like he’s happy. “But you would if you had the slightest idea what was good for you.”

  And with that, he yanks open the door and storms through it, slamming it closed behind him with enough force to cause the windowpanes to rattle.

  And then he’s gone.

  A HISTORY of WEDDINGS

  Once the kidnapped “bride” and her groom had safely escaped the wrath of her relatives, frantically searching for her around the outskirts of the village from which she’d been snatched, they’d lay low for a while, to avoid retaliation from her family (or any possible husbands already in existence).

  This was also the period during which the “groom” exerted his dominance over his new captive, stamping out any desire she might have to escape or murder him in his sleep (a not uncommon practice in early “marriages” of this sort where the bride wasn’t as happy with the situation as a groom might hope her to be).

  This “laying low” period could be considered the ancient predecessor to the honeymoon. Only it probably took place in a cave, not at a Sandals resort. And there definitely wasn’t room service.

  Tip to Avoid a Wedding Day Disaster

  Never try a new beauty product—or, God forbid, get a facial—on the day of or the days leading up to your wedding. The last thing you need is a breakout or rash! Stick to your normal routine, and you’ll glow like the angel you are.

  LIZZIE NICHOLS DESIGNS™

  • Chapter 2 •

  Two souls with but a single thought,

  Two hearts that beat as one.

  Franz Joseph von Münch-Bellinghausen (1806–1871), Austrian dramatist

  I blink. I have to admit: this was not the reaction I’d expected from the first person I’d told about my engagement to Luke. I’d expected Chaz to have some concerns, sure. I mean, it’s true that Luke and I have been having some problems up until recently. As recently as half an hour ago, as a matter of fact.

  But all those problems are over now. Because Luke asked me to marry him. That was the only major obstacle standing in the way of our being together—that he couldn’t see me in his future.

  But all that’s changed now. He’s asked me to marry him! I’m going to be a bride! Lizzie Nichols, a bride, at last!

  And okay. It’s a little weird that every time I think about that, I feel like I want to throw up.

  But that’s just all the excitement from having gotten engaged before I’ve had any breakfast. I’ve always suspected I’m a little hypoglycemic. Just like Nicole Richie.

  And anyway, it’s all Chaz’s fault. Why, instead of being happy for me, had he had to throw that absurd little hissy fit, almost as if…well, almost as if he’d been jealous?

  Except that that’s not possible. Because Chaz doesn’t like me that way. We’re just friends. I mean, sure, we’d messed around a little last night.

  And, I’ll admit, it had been…well, nice.

  Really nice, actually.

  But we’d both been a little tipsy. Drunk, even. It hadn’t meant anything. It was like I’d said: still smarting over our respective breakups, we’d sought solace in each other’s arms.

  But that doesn’t mean there was anything more going on.

  Does it?

  Well, I’m not going to waste any more time worrying about it. Luke is going to be here any minute. I have to get myself cleaned up before he arrives. It’s bad enough he proposed—and I accepted—while I still had morning breath. I am not going to start my first day as a newly engaged person wearing the same underwear I’ve had on since yesterday.

  By the time the downstairs buzzer goes off, I’m as sweet smelling and coiffed as I’ve ever been in my life—thanks to the world’s fastest shower, a quick change into a stunning 1950s Lorrie Deb pink chiffon party dress (perfect for the newly engaged, soon-to-be-certified professional wedding gown restorer), and a couple layers of undereye concealer—and ready to let in the man to whom I’ve just pledged my troth.

  I feel lighter than air as I make my way down the twin flights of steps to the building’s front door (I have to get that buzzer fixed first thing when places open up again tomorrow morning).

  “Whoa,” Luke says after I fling open the heavy metal door. “You look—”

  “Like a bride-to-be?” I ask, holding out the three layers—one chiffon, one net, and one nylon—of my full skirt and giving him a playful curtsy.

  “I was going to say hot,” Luke says. He triumphantly holds up a Starbucks bag…and a six-pack of Diet Coke for me. “Look what I scored. I only had to walk eleven blocks to find a place that was open on New Year’s Day.”

  “Oh, Luke! You remembered!”

  Except, of course, it was Chaz who told Luke how much I love Diet Coke in the first place. That’s the only reason Luke bought it for me that day in the village back in France last summer. Because Chaz told him that Diet Coke was the way to my heart.

  But that doesn’t mean I’m in love with Chaz, does it?

  Of course not! How could I think anything so silly?

  My eyes fill with tears. Really, Luke’s the most thoughtful fiancé in the whole world. Also the handsomest, standing there in his Hugo Boss overcoat, with his long dark eyelashes curling so perfectly…and without the help of a Shu Uemura eyelash curler, even. He’d looked so cute when he’d been kneeling there in that exact spot in the slush a half hour ago, so hopeful and nervous. How could I have said anything but yes when he’d proposed?

  Not that saying anything but yes had even occurred to me. Well, except for a few seconds, maybe. To punish him for that whole “I don’t know if I see you in my future” thing.

  “I just want to let you know that when I look into my future, I see nothing but you.” That’s what Chaz had whispered in my ear at some point during the wedding last night.

  Then he’d whispered, “And you’re not even wearing Spanx.”

  I shake my head. Why do I keep thinking about Chaz? He wears University of Michigan baseball caps nearly all the time.

  In public.

  Luke’s face falls. “What?” he asks. “What’d I do? You don’t drink Diet Coke anymore. Is that it? I can get something else. What do you want? Diet Dr Pepper?”

  “No!” I try to laugh breezily. Oh God. What’s wrong with me? “Of course I still drink Diet Coke. I’m sorry. Wow, it’s really cold out here. Come in.” I move out of the doorway so he can do just that.

  “I thought you’d never ask.” Luke gives me one of those grins that still cause my insides to go weak. He stops in the doorway just long enough to brush my cheek with his lips, letting them linger for a moment in my hair.

  “It’s good to be home,” he murmurs before moving past me. “Which is wherever you are. I know that now.”

  Oh! How sweet!

  And how could Chaz ever accuse Luke of not knowing what he wants? He knows exactly what he wants. Me!

  It just took him a little while to realize it. He needed a gentle nudge. In the form of my breaking up with him and moving out of the apartment we were sharing.

  “So this is the new place, huh?” Luke is looking around at the somewhat dingy and exceptionally narrow hallway.

  “It gets better,” I say.

  “No,” Luke says, his tone apologetic. “I like it. It has character.”

  It isn’t, I tell myself as I follow Luke, Chaz’s fault. Not really. He’s just never known happiness—true, romantic happiness—as great as what Luke and I share. So of course when he sees it, he looks on it with suspicion. Of course he d
oubts our chances of success.

  But when he sees us together—how happy we are, now that we’re really and truly committed to each other—he’ll change his mind. He’ll come around. He’ll see how wrong he was to say all those horrible things.

  And someday Chaz will find a girl—the right girl for him—who’ll make him as happy as I know I make Luke…and he’ll make her as happy as Luke makes me.

  And then everything will be all right.

  Wait and see. Just wait and see.

  “Here we are,” I say when we reach the door to my new apartment, which I fling open. “Home sweet home.”

  “It’s great,” Luke says enthusiastically as he follows me inside.

  I smile at him. “You don’t have to pretend to like it. I know it’s horrible. But it’s mine. And as soon as I get the time—and some extra money—I’m going to fix it up.”

  “No, Lizzie, it really is great.” Luke sets down the Starbucks bag and the Diet Coke and puts his arms around me. “It’s like you. Completely whimsical and totally charming.”

  “I hope it’s not like me,” I say with a laugh. “I hope I’m not covered in big blobby rose wallpaper with slopey floors and cracks in my ceiling.”

  “You know what I mean,” Luke says, nuzzling my neck. “It’s unique. Like you. It already smells like you. God, I can’t believe how much I missed you. And we were apart for only, what? A week?”

  “Is that what you want? A guy who comes running back to you and proposes just because he’s so scared of being alone, he’d rather be with a girl he knows isn’t right for him than be by himself?”

  God! Get out of my head, Chaz Pendergast!

  “Something like that,” I say. Luke’s nuzzling is getting more serious. Or at least closer to the bateau neckline of my dress.

  I jump away and reach for one of the Diet Cokes.

  “So who should we call first?” I ask brightly.

  “Call?” Luke’s eyes, which tend to have a dreamy look about them even when he’s wide awake, are heavy-lidded with a combination of jet lag and, well…sex. Sexual desire, anyway. “I wasn’t thinking about calling anyone, to tell you the truth. I was actually thinking about trying out that bed I see over there. And I was hoping you’d get out of that dress and join me…”