The door opened, and I heard Ivy say, “Mom?”
36
Ivy
Istill couldn’t believe I had actually slept with Evan freaking Harrington. I could barely keep it together on the train ride back to my condo. I was so caught up in reliving the moment, remembering how he felt in me, how heady it was to run my hands along those muscles, that I almost missed my stop.
“And this is why you really need to stay away from him,” I chastised myself as I hurried back to my apartment to shower and change. I had a meeting in an hour with Imogen about the wedding seating arrangements.
I grabbed the rolled-up seating chart and the guest list then hurried back uptown.Would Evan be there?I fretted as I waited for the train to slowly crawl through the station.See, this is why you shouldn’t be with him. He’s already affecting your business.
I wondered if he was going to even still be interested. He’d now officially conquered me. He had the feather in his cap. Maybe we would go our separate ways. It was no-strings-attached sex after all.
“And that’s all it needs to be,” I told myself as I walked out of the station to Imogen’s building. The best thing would be if Evan acted like none of this had ever happened. But a part of me wanted him to declare his undying love for me and whisk me away.
“Away to where,” I muttered as I angrily jabbed the up button on the elevator.
“You haven’t been fired yet?”
“Camilla!” I said, plastering on my bestOh, who me? No, I totally don’t think you’re a bitchsmile.
“We do our best to make sure every bride feels special on her big day!” I chirped, refusing to let Camilla under my skin.
“I know you did it on purpose,” she hissed at me as the elevator doors opened.
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“Evan,” she spat. “You staged that reveal at the wedding with the pictures just to humiliate me so you could steal him for yourself.”
“I don’t want anything to do with him,” I lied.
“I know girls like you,” Camilla snarled, her face twisted up in anger. “You’re the weird chunky girl who sits in the back of the classroom and lusts after the rich football star and is jealous of those of us pretty enough to catch his attention.”
“I’m just trying to do my job,” I told Camilla, forcing myself to remain professional even though I wanted to smash her face into a pie.
“Just you watch,” she said, flouncing off the elevator when it arrived at Imogen’s floor. “Evan and I are getting back together. He still loves me. He still wants me. I just have to make him see it.”
I took a deep breath, trying to regain my composure, as Camilla repeatedly rang the doorbell.
“Finally,” she said as the door opened. “Mika, you can’t keep people waiting. I’m too important to be kept waiting. Oh.”
It wasn’t Mika, however, at the door.
“Mom?” I said in horror.
No. This cannot be happening.
“What are you doing here?”
“Your momma got a job! Isn’t that great?” she squealed, jumping up and down. “I’m an assistant just like you!”
Camilla looked between us and smirked then sashayed into Imogen’s trendily decorated condo.
“Like mother like daughter,” she said.
I was too flabbergasted that my mother had somehow weaseled her way into my life to pay Camilla much mind.
“Imogen and I have a lot of ideas for how to make this wedding better!” my mother said, grabbing my hand. “You have to use a little imagination. Imogen needs a big, splashy wedding, Ivy. You need to be a team player.”
