“Bye?”
Great. Of course they were treating us like the hired help, and I supposed, to a billionaire, we wedding planners were just that. I made a note in my calendar to go talk to the Sutherlands tomorrow then prepared the invoice. While I was there, I would bring up refinancing my condo.
What if they don’t pay me? Surely they will, right? It will be fine.
I flopped down on my bed. It smelled like Evan, that clean, masculine scent. Fergus was curled up on the side that Evan had slept on. A strand of brown hair fluttered on a pillow.
“Of course he comes into my house and leaves his hair everywhere,” I grumped as I angrily stripped all the sheets off of the bed and opened the window. “You know what? Sure, the bride’s family pays, but Evan participated in that wedding. I just have to figure out how to make him cut me a check.”
6
Evan
By the time I sat down at my desk on the top floor of my office tower the next morning, I had ten missed calls and twenty text messages from Camilla. I had believed that the one silver lining about being humiliated on my own wedding day was that I was free from Camilla’s scolding and nagging.
It seemed I was wrong.
I scrolled through the messages. They alternated between pleading with me that I was the love of her life, berating me that it was actually my fault she had cheated, giving excuses that she had thought my father was me, and then threatening that if I didn’t get back together with her, she was going to have her father ruin me.
The phone rang again, and the screen displayed her name. I shoved the phone into the drawer.
“He lives!” my best friend, Sebastian, announced, poking his head around the glass office door. He should have been best man in my wedding, but instead Camilla had insisted that it be her maid of honor’s boyfriend. It was another bright-red waving flag that I should have cut her loose when she refused to allow my best friend since childhood in the wedding party.
“Dude,” Sebastian said, coming into the office, “we thought you’d drowned in a canal. Where were you?”
My thoughts went to Ivy’s apartment. I wished I were back there.
“Nowhere, just out.” I stared out the window that overlooked the Manhattan skyline.
Sebastian patted me on the shoulder. “You’re a free man now. We should go celebrate!”
“I can’t,” I said. “I have that land deal with the Svenssons to finalize.”
“Surely they’ll cut you a break because of the circumstances.”
“The Svenssons?” I scoffed. “Hardly. They’re all crazy, and Greg is the worst. I have to make this deal go through, or I can forget about partnering with them in the future.”
Sebastian looked worried. “Do you think Camilla’s father will sell you the land now that you’re not marrying his daughter?”
“I have no idea. We shook hands, but there’s no contract or anything, and Camilla is probably over there now putting poison in his ear.”
The phone rang. I wrenched the drawer open, ended the call, and slammed it shut.
“Is that her?” Sebastian asked.
“Of course. Because it’s not enough for her to cheat on me; now she’s going to continue to harass me. And of course she can’t just ruin my future. She’s going to screw over my business deals too.”
“Hang in there,” Sebastian ordered, giving me a one-armed hug before he left.
The cold hand of grief gripped my chest as I was left in my empty office. I jumped up to pace. I wasn’t going to let the situation affect me.
Concentrate on the deal; concentrate on your business.
Usually thinking about business deals helped me center myself, but not today. Unbidden, I thought about Ivy’s apartment—the lights, the cat, her soft and warm next to me. I blinked.
I can handle this. I am Evan Harrington.
I put on my headset, picked up the phone, ignoring another call from Camilla, and rang my ex-future father-in-law.
