“Go home! Stop making a mockery of this! You all conspired against me. This isn’t my fault!” Camilla screamed at me, “This is your fault. Make all these people leave! Make them leave right now.”
“Just have the food delivered to the house,” Camilla’s father told Elsie.
Fuck. That was my dinner. Elsie usually saved containers of leftovers for me. Now there would be no leftovers. To top it off, I smelled like fish and dill. The salmon marinated on me as I shoved gift bags into guests’ hands, gritting my teeth against the screams of the bridezilla as she destroyed the beautiful, expensive wedding cake with the handmade sugar flowers that Sophie had spent weeks creating.
The sun was just setting when we finally finished packing everything up.
“See you Monday, I guess,” Elsie said as we walked to the parking lot.
“Another day, another wedding.”
“It will be January soon, right?” she asked desperately.
“Girl, wedding season has just started.”
My ears were ringing as I opened the door of my crappy little Toyota. I sat in silence in the dark with my hands on the steering wheel.
Fuck.What was I going to do?If the Sutherlands don’t pay me, my business will be ruined.
I fretted as I drove out of the parking lot and down the winding country road from the exclusive country club. Normally, I loved the end of a wedding—I would listen to upbeat pop music, replay all the best moments in my head, and snack on leftovers—but now I felt sick.
“It’s fine,” I told myself, trying not to hyperventilate. “Everything’s fine, right?”
I looked into the rearview mirror to see a man glaring at me from the back seat.
2
Evan
Ivy screamed and jerked the steering wheel.
“Fuck, woman, you’re going to get us killed!” I roared.
She kept screaming and pulled the car over, jerking to a stop and fumbling in her purse.
“I’m calling the police! Murderer! Serial killer!”
I grabbed her wrist.
“I have pepper spray,” she warned.
“Please don’t pepper spray me,” I said, grabbing her other hand, which was holding something canister-shaped in her purse. “I’ve already been through enough today, don’t you agree?”
I hadn’t been able to think when the maid of honor had announced that Camilla had been cheating on me. To be fair, she had never been the greatest fiancée; Camilla had regularly berated me for any perceived transgression and constantly complained I wasn’t spending enough money on her. I had assumed that she was just stressed about the wedding and that after it was over, we would be… well, not necessarily in love, but we would have one of those marriages like my father had with his sequence of wives: professional and distant but both oriented to the same goals. Everyone said marriage was about love, but as a billionaire, I had no such illusions. I just needed someone from a similar background—a good corporate wife who I could take to events and who could host a dinner party.
But lately, Camilla hadn’t even done that. The last few months, I had attended business events alone. Camilla had always said she was too busy with the wedding.
She was too busy cheating on you.
It stung. Actually, no. It was devastating.
And with my own father no less.
The betrayal had been too much. I had just wanted to run away from it all. But I hadn’t had my keys. I had recognized Ivy’s car in the lot, though—it was the only one that wasn’t some high-end imported car. It had smelled like flowers and cake, and I had curled up in the back seat, just wanting to disappear.
Now here we were in the dark. I had her wrists in my grasp, and she was snarling at me.
“If I release you, do you promise not to punch me?” I asked.
