Camilla: And you can’t hold me sleeping with your father against me. I was drunk and I thought your father was you! I’m the victim here!
Camilla: Evan you need to talk to me right now!
I ground my teeth.
Would it help me get the land deal if I pretended to get back together with Camilla? Of course. I could have it in hand tomorrow if I played nice. But I couldn’t risk it. Besides, Ivy clearly didn’t approve of Camilla. What would she think? And why did I even care?
11
Ivy
The thing about weddings was that there wasn’t just the main event. No, before the big day, there were the engagement party, the couples’ shower, the bridal shower, the bridal tea, going dress shopping, and the rehearsal dinner. What in the olden days had been one, maybe two days of wedding festivities had now stretched out to more than a year of events for the future happy couple.
Or unhappy couple in Evan’s case.
“Is he just going to lurk there in the corner?” Amy asked as she put out the flower arrangements on the small tables in the solarium of the historic hotel.
“I think he’s too attractive to be considered lurking,” Grace said as she took close-up shots of the table décor. “Lurking is for greasy, scrawny men who work at Aldi. Evan is the lion surveying the Serengeti for his future queen.”
“Lord have mercy.”
“I bet he’s after Ivy,” Elsie said too loudly for my liking as she came by with a tray of miniature crab cakes.
“Sharing is caring!” Amy prompted, reaching for one.
“You can have any leftovers,” Elsie warned. “Up until then, don’t mess with my counts.”
Mika smiled at us, slid several crab cakes onto a plate, and came over with them.
“Since my brother is paying for this shindig, you can have as many as you want. I feel like we’re all going to need food and alcohol to deal with the upcoming bridezilla moment when Imogen realizes a bunch of people canceled at the last minute.”
“Oh no.”
Mika shoved a crab cake into my mouth then one into hers and nodded then offered me a sip of the watermelon mojito that Elsie had prepared.
“Yep. She’s just burning bridges right and left.”
“We have this place booked for eighty people!” I said, looking around in horror at all the tastefully decorated but glaringly empty tables. “The event is starting in fifteen minutes.”
Grace was concerned. “I can do tricks with the camera and make it look like a bigger crowd, but we need some warm bodies here.”
Mika ate another crab cake unhappily. “I’ve been texting and begging people to show up. They’re all full of excuses about why they can’t make it. Imogen is going to figure out that no one is coming, and then she’s going to blow up.”
Her phone dinged, and she looked down. “Oh no! Another person just said they weren’t coming. I think kicking Kaitlyn out of the bridal party because she was pregnant really irked a lot of people.”
“You don’t say,” Elsie remarked dryly, coming by with another tray of mini duck sliders.
“Excuse me,” Mika said, following her. “I’m going to fix myself a snack plate and hide somewhere.”
“Trouble in wedding-planning paradise?” Evan asked, sauntering over.
“Nothing you need to concern your precious billionaire self with,” I told him, my smile more a baring of teeth than a friendly expression. “I’m sure you have lots of manly things to do like bulldoze a forest or kick a bunch of people out of their homes so you can turn them into a strip mall.”
“I find that extremely offensive; my firm invests in many wholesome endeavors.”
“Oh, right, I’m sorry, yes, your hedge fund does own all those magazines, like Vanity Rag, that tell women they just have to eat scallops and cabbage for months and they too will look like Karli Kloss.”
“It’s entertainment,” Evan said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m trying to run a business. You should stick around me—you could learn a thing or two.”
“Yeah, like not to trust people when they promise that they’re going to pay for the services they’ve used. Noted.”
“You weren’t contracted under me,” he hissed. “I refuse to pay for a wedding that Camilla wanted. Besides, I paid you back for the lasagna I ate, with interest.”
“Fine, whatever. I don’t care since you clearly don’t,” I said. “But just know that for the rest of your life, whenever I see you, I’m going to be silently sending bad thoughts your way.”
Evan smirked. “Very scary.”
“Just you watch,” I warned. “You’re going to stop being so sinfully sexy, all your luscious hair is going to fall out, those washboard abs will turn to flab, and when you’re crying at your reflection in the mirror, you’re going to know it was me all along, silently wishing you ill.”
Evan grinned dangerously. “I thought you weren’t looking when I was undressed in your apartment.”
“I tried not to, but how could I when you were practically waving things in my face!” I countered.
Evan caught his lower lip in his teeth then said, “I bet you think about me when you’re lying in bed.”
“I don’t.”
“Admit it.”
“No.”
“I bet you looked when I was showering too.”
“I would never.”
Evan leaned over to whisper in my ear. “I know you could see me, because I could see you through the door.”
“Pervert.”
“Pervert? I’m your savior!” He rocked back on his heels, a smug look on his face.
I glared at him.
“It is obvious that no one is showing up to this little bridal tea. Now I don’t know about you, but I think I can only manage maybe half of that tray of crab cakes. What is Imogen going to say when she has this exquisitely decorated party planned and no one shows? You think she’s bad now? Just wait.”
“You can’t help,” I said, but I was wondering, could he? I’d seen brides go nuclear if even a flower was out of place. Imogen was going to unleash a tidal wave of destruction if no one attended the bridal tea.
I swallowed, refusing to allow Evan to see the uncertainty in my eyes.
“I can have this place packed with well-dressed, fun young twenty- and thirty-somethings that will make this the best bridal tea ever. All you have to do is say the word,” he whispered in my ear like some unfairly tall and sexy Mephistopheles.
I licked my lips. “What’s the word?”
“Well, words.” There was that smirk that I didn’t know if I wanted to slap off his face or kiss.
Kiss? What? No. Nope. No, not happening. Evan is an ass.
Yes, Ivy, he does have a very nice ass.
Lalalala can’t hear you!
“What words?” I asked, feeling like I was walking into a trap.
“It’s simple,” Evan said, that deliciously deep voice wrapping around me. “Just tell me how awesome I am and how handsome, incredibly sexy, and desirable you find me.”