“She can’t just forgive and forget because he’s hot,” Elsie argued.
“Of course not!” Brea added. “But it would have been a boss move to sleep with him, then be like, ‘Sorry, that sucked, I’m out of here!’ You know, really take him down a peg. You have to slap a guy like Chris in the face with a dildo for him to get the message.”
“I do not have time to play mind games with some deranged billionaire,” I said, angrily eating a spoonful of Rice Krispies.
“I need that time to work on my coffee-table book. I think it’s almost ready to start shopping around to publishers.”
“You work too hard,” Amy said, flopping back on the couch.
“Speaking of,” Sophie added, “let’s do our morning meeting before our ten o’clock arrives.”
We settled around the long reclaimed wood table in our office at the top of the Brookview Hotel.
Ivy had started Weddings in the City as a collaborative so that brides could have a one-stop shop for a beautiful, high-class wedding. She was the wedding planner. Amy, short and bubbly, created beautiful, locally grown flower arrangements. Sophie baked delicious wedding cakes decorated with her signature sculpted sugar flowers. Elsie cooked the tastiest catering ever. Brea designed and sewed one-of-a-kind, ethereal wedding dresses, and I was in charge of the wedding photography, though lately I felt more like a therapist-slash-hostage-negotiator.
The sun streamed in from the large windows surrounding our office.
“Ladies,” Ivy said, opening up her planner, “we have a new bride, Addison, who is planning a fall wedding.”
“Does she sound like another bridezilla?” Sophie asked.
Ivy grimaced. “I hesitate to label any woman a bridezilla without even having the first consultation, but Addison did stop mid phone conversation to scream at the dog groomer, so make of that what you will. On the subject of bridezillas, Grace, how are those photos for the Bruni wedding coming along? The bride called me last night. Three times.”
“She called me yesterday afternoon before my date to ask me to Photoshop the shade of her lipstick in all the photos to be slightly more pink,” I said. “I explained that it would take a while to go through all the pictures.”
“Ah.”
“Bridezillas.”
The elevator dinged. A tall brunette and a man with shaggy blond hair stepped off.
“It’s time for your most important meeting of the day!” Gunnar Svensson announced.
Dana Holbrook, his business partner at Romance Creative, rolled her eyes.
“Ready to talk reality TV?” Dana asked.
“Do you want some water?” Brea offered, setting down the embroidery she had been working on while we talked.
“Do you have anything stronger?” Dana asked.
“Marriage in a Minuteis filming the big wedding scene in two days, Dana,” Gunnar protested. “You have to stay sharp.”
“I cannot deal with these brides,” Dana complained.
“Welcome to our world,” I quipped.
“Speaking of!” Gunnar leaned forward. “Did you decide which of you are going to be one of the brides?”
“Excuse me?” I said in shock. “We were hired to plan the weddings for the show as part of a collaboration, not be brides.”
“Actually,” Ivy grimaced, “you missed that part of the contract negotiations. I think you were doing bridal portraits.”
“It’s a great idea!” Gunnar insisted. “Think of all the publicity if one of the Weddings in the City girls participates!”
Elsie raised an eyebrow.
“Women,” Gunnar amended. Elsie’s eyebrow went higher.
