“Why don’t you go choose a seat and I’ll order for us?” she asked, making me jump as she spoke in my ear. Another thing about her that always annoyed me was the height she had over me. Five inches, at least.
“You’re going to order for me?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “How will you know what to order?”
She shrugged. “Just trust me.”
My eyes narrowed. “I don’t.”
Vail just laughed. “Don’t worry, PT. I’ve got you.”
The use of the nickname made me flinch.
“I can’t believe you remember that,” I muttered when I’d recovered.
Then she had the audacity to wink at me. “I remember a lot of things.”
Was she fucking flirting with me? I turned around and fell into the closest chair that was at an unoccupied table.
PT was short for “Pop Tart” which was what I used to have for breakfast most days when we’d lived together. I’d had them after school too. The pantry had been full of them. I’d cooled down on my addiction later in life, but I still had two boxes in my pantry now.
At first the nickname had definitely been making fun of me. Maybe she still was. Using it certainly didn’t help endear her to me. I’d swallowed so many things and now they were coming back up again and making my stomach churn.
What the hell was she doing here? What did she want from me? I was not giving her a kidney. Or bone marrow. Nothing that would require invasive surgery. And not money. She could go to either of her parents for that. They had more than I ever would.
Did she need help moving, did she need a reference, did she need an alibi? Because I was not lying for her and I wasn’t talking to cops.
My leg jiggled up and down no matter what I did to make it stop as I waited for her to return with whatever she’d ordered for me.
Vail finally returned balancing a drink in each hand and a plate on her forearm that held a croissant and a blueberry muffin.
“Pick your poison,” she said when she set the plate between us. “I also got you a honey lavender matcha.” She set that in front of me and my mouth started watering as I looked at the clear cup with the layered green and purple drink. I hated that she’d gotten me so right. It was my favorite.
“Did I nail it?” she asked, sitting down with a grin on her face.
“What did you get?” I asked.
“Hazelnut dirty chai,” she said, lingering on the second word in a way that made me want to get up and leave.
I huffed out an annoyed breath instead and crossed my arms, trying to get my leg to calm down under the table.
“What do you want, Vail? Whatever it is, it has to be good if you’re coming to me.”
Vail grabbed her drink with both hands, and if I didn’t know her better, I’d say she was nervous.
“My mother is getting married again.”
“I’m so happy for her,” I said through clenched teeth. Incredible that she’d been able to dupe yet another victim. You’d think that the guys would have figured it out by now, but we were talking about rich white men here. When they saw a woman who dressed and acted like the exact kind of empty, vapid imitation of a woman that they wanted, they couldn’t help themselves.
She stabbed her straw into her drink. “He’s the CEO of a tech company that I’m pretty sure is going to be raided by the FBI in a few years, but for now, he’s marrying my mother and the wedding is in three weeks. He’s been throwing various junior executives at his company at me even though he’s been informed, many times, that I am not interested.” She paused for breath and I could see rage simmering in her brown eyes. Sparks practically flew across the table at me.
“He’s the worst kind of man and I can’t wait until my mother divorces him and takes half his money. But the least I can do is fuck with their wedding. What do you say?”
My mouth dropped open.
This was…not what I was expecting. Not even a little bit.
I held up a hand. “You want me to be your wedding date to your mother’s wedding to piss off your new stepdad?”
Her eyes narrowed. “He’snotmy stepdad. And it’s not just to ruin his day. It’s to ruin hers too. You remember my mother, right?”
