* * *
“Fuck fuckfuck!”I muttered as I left the Svensson Investment tower. I paced out in front of the building, waiting for a car as I called Sutherland. His secretary answered then patched me through.
“Have you come to your senses?” Orson asked.
I took a deep breath and looked up at the cloudy sky between the tops of the glass and steel towers. “Is that original property still on the table?”
“Of course, as long as Camilla is still single. Why don’t you come in tomorrow and discuss it.”
Bile rose in my throat after the call ended. After being with Ivy, I realized that was what being with someone who cared about me felt like. I would never accept anything less. Ivy pushed me to be a better person. She was snarky but funny and kept me on my toes. She would never forgive me if I ripped her home out from under her. She was going to be heartbroken when she found out.
“She doesn’t need to find out,” I reminded myself when my car pulled up. “I’m going to fix this. She’ll never have to know. Or maybe I’ll tell her on our wedding day.”
I stared at my reflection in the town car window. Wedding day? I was never getting married. Between Camilla and Imogen, I’d had quite enough of weddings.
I arrived at my half sister’s condo fifteen minutes before the start of the next event in the death march leading up to the wedding. My sister was on the phone, screaming at some poor wedding vendor, when I arrived.
“Can you believe it?” she fumed when I walked into her living room. “They won’t let me come to the space. I have to see it in action. I want to see what other brides are doing, because I do not want to have the same wedding as everyone else.”
“I’m sure you won’t,” I drawled. But Imogen wasn’t talking to me. She was talking to a heavyset woman in her forties who nodded along enthusiastically and made notes in a colorful notebook as Imogen talked.
“Oh, absolutely, I completely agree. I don’t understand why that venue was so rude to you. After all the money you’re spending. Do they understand that you could bad-mouth them to all your friends? They’d never book another wedding!”
“Exactly!” Imogen said, waving her hands. “Oh, Evan,” she said, finally noticing me. “I finally had to hire an assistant. This is Tiffanie.”
“With an I-E!” the assistant said with a giggle, extending her hand to me. “Imogen never told me her brother was rich and handsome!”
Imogen rolled her eyes. “I know she’s not my usual style, but I cannot hire anyone young or pretty. I don’t want my groom to catch a wandering eye and end up like you, Evan, on my wedding day.”
I looked between her and Tiffanie incredulously.
“Oh, that doesn’t hurt my feelings!” the older woman said with a high-pitched laugh. Imogen’s assistant lightly touched my arm. “That was my big selling point when I interviewed for the job. A good-looking groom’s not going to go getting distracted around me, no sir! I’m totally safe and one hundred percent on Team Imogen.”
“Unlike that wedding planner I’m paying all of that money for,” Imogen said. “I’m sure she’s trying to sabotage me. Everyone is so jealous of me and my life. It’s so tiresome. Mika, of course, is incompetent.” My sister was sitting in the corner unhappily.
“I mean, honestly, Mika,” Imogen raised her voice. “You only managed to secure one litter of puppies. I can’t give some people a puppy and others not.”
“I have a connection with a corgi breeder,” Imogen’s new assistant assured her. “I’m sure with the right amount of money, we could work something out.”
Imogen looked at me expectantly.
“I am not paying for corgi puppies,” I said flatly. “You cannot give out live animals as gifts. That’s absurd.”
“Don’t you care about your little sister?” Tiffanie pouted. There was something familiar about her, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“I’m not budging on this.”
“Fine,” Imogen said crossly. “Daddy said he’d pay for the puppies anyway. So there.”
“You should have all the groomsmen pose with the puppies!” Tiffanie said with an obnoxious laugh. “Good-looking guys and baby animals are like catnip.”
“Yes! Write that down,” Imogen instructed. “And make sure the wedding planner knows. Honestly, I don’t understand why Ivy isn’t here yet.”
Probably because she had mind-blowing sex this morning then had to go all the way across town and come back up here.
The doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it!” Tiffanie sang.
