But for now, I wanted to be that happy girl in the mirror. And with a sigh, I trotted out of the room, feeling fresher than I should have for being so filthy.
13
Blamo
LILA
“Are you listening?”
Addison’s voice was a cloud in front of the sun, a darkening of my mood, which had, for the past five days, been impossibly happy. Five days capped off by three nights in Kash Bennet’s arms, a place where I’d discovered things like time and worries didn’t exist.
We’d so far stuck to the rules, but I couldn’t pretend like it was easy. It was hard to watch him leave, disheveled and dead on his feet at two in the morning. It was painful not to see him on our days off, and I mean that—it was physically painful to subdue my libido after the drought I’d experienced with Brock. So painful that last night Kash and I spent half the night sexting. Which didn’t count.
But the moment I’d stepped out of that elevator and into my office, my mood had dampened with no hope of sunshine until I walked out again.
Addison always had that effect on me.
“Of course I was listening,” I lied, recalling the last sentence she’d said easily despite that I’d been daydreaming about Kash. “The Bayard wedding caterer double-booked, and you need me to take care of it.”
Which meant money. Money was always the way to take care of these problems.
She watched me with jackal eyes. “Tomorrow at four-thirty, I need you to meet with the caterer for the Lennox wedding. I’ve got an important lunch date that I expect to run over.”
A four-hour lunch was excessive, even for her.
But I smiled my best fake smile and said, “No problem.”
Never mind that I had an entire day packed with my own event meetings. Never mind that I had less than twenty-four-hours’ notice. Never mind that she would run me ragged so she could get day drunk with her important lunch date. God help me if that lunch date was with Caroline.
“Anything else?” I asked, desperate to get out of her office and on with my day, which was currently ticking by at an annoying rate from the clock on the shelf behind her.
“Oh, one other thing.” She smiled, leaning back in her chair. “St. Patrick’s found out about Angelika and Jordan and the confession booth and withdrew their invitation.”
My temperature dropped, my skin cold as ice with nothing more than a heartbeat and that sentence. “What?”
“St. Patrick’s is off the table for the Felix wedding. You’re going to have to find another venue.”
My thoughts raced with obstacles and chaos and a string of colorful expletives before landing on a solution. “Skylight. It’s already booked for the reception, and they have space.”
“You’ll have to convince Angelika. You know how she had her heart set on St. Patrick’s.”
“Then she shouldn’t have fucked her fiancé in the confession booth,” I snapped. “Are they still airing the footage?”
“Yes. They kept the money in exchange for that indignity.” She watched me shrewdly. Today, her hair was pulled back in a ponytail so sleek and severe, she could have whipped you with it and drawn blood. “Oh, come on—you had to know it wasn’t going to be that easy.”
“I suppose I did,” was all I could concede, too busy with the explosion that had just detonated inside my plans.
“I heard about Natasha.”
Even the blood in my veins stilled. I didn’t dare speak.
“It’s a shame about Brock. What a catch.”
The shot hit its mark. A bloom of pain spread in my chest. “She’s welcome to him,” I said with a wooden smile. “I caught a bigger fish.”
Rule number one: never give Addison Lane any personal information, lest she use it to pike your head later.
“Is that so?” she asked with a knife smile.
It was shock and petulance that’d made me admit it. It was fear and regret of the admittance that had me reeling my words back in.
“It is, and thanks so much for asking after me,” I said smartly, standing to let myself out. “Let me know if anything else comes up, would you?”
“I will.”
And then I got the fuck out of her office like my Choos were on fire.
My brain was a flurry of questions and suppositions as I snagged my bag and laptop and headed out of the building for the bakery.
Plans ticked into place for the wedding, the shift not as catastrophic as it could have been. I’d have a thousand calls to make, not to mention the convincing of the Felix women that Skylight would be the right move for the wedding. At this stage in the game, it was the only move. I fired off a text to Sorina, asking for a meeting after the tasting, anxious to fix all that had come unraveled.
If they tried to tell me they wanted the Plaza, I swore I’d pitch myself out of a moving cab.
But Addison niggled at my mind. She knew. She knew about Brock and Natasha, and I wanted to know how. The only people who knew on my end were family and Kash. Of course, if one Bennet knew something, they all knew. But it wasn’t like Addison hung around the Longbourne water cooler for the latest gossip. And I had no friends at our office, just a host of acquaintances.
It bothered me in the elevator, then in the cab. I hadn’t seen Brock since I’d gone to pack a suitcase—when I went to really move my things out, he was gone, as requested. So how did Addison know? Had she seen some of my messages? Had I left something out that would have clued her in? I’d never ask, not willing to give her any more ammunition than she already had. Not willing to admit weakness to the one person I knew would exploit it without a second thought.
But I’d wonder.
In fact, I made it a point to obsess about it until the second I pulled open the door to the bakery and stepped inside.
The Femmes weren’t there yet, thankfully and as planned. I shook hands with the owner and the producer of the show, who showed me to the table they’d set up. Beautiful china sat delicately on raw wood, each plate set with slices of cake and little signs noted with each flavor. Tess had sent over small arrangements of peach cabbage roses—I knew them on sight now, thanks to Kash—and they sat on the table in small cut-glass vases, scattered around the creamy, lush cakes.
We barely had time to exchange the minimum before the Felix entourage arrived like a fleet of swans, beautiful and tall and squawking. Instantly, the shop was too small. The crew alone would have filled the bakery. Add in the rest, and there was barely room to turn around, but Jennifer Lawrence had used this bakery for her wedding, and so must Angelika, whether there was space to film a TV show or not.
Four Felix sisters, their matriarch, and Jesus Jordan made their way to me where we greeted each other politely and professionally, air-kissing cheeks. Except Natasha. She barely looked up from her phone, which was just as well.
My gaze caught on her screen, noting she was on Instagram. And that was when it hit me.
Natasha. Addison knew because Natasha was probably posting all about him. I’d immediately unfollowed him everywhere the night I caught them together. I didn’t follow Natasha because I had enough sense of self-worth not to torture myself. But I swear to God, I wanted to snatch her phone on the fucking spot and find out if I was right.