Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Why do I even have a vase in my office? And what the fuck is it with this careless business.
“Careless with words,” she adds, sort of bouncing the piece in her hands as though weighing it.
“Did you ever work out why I call you bunny?”
Her gaze lifts, but not her head.
“Because you bounce like that—just like that vase—when you’re in my hands.”
“You’re careless with people’s feelings,” she continues, as though I haven’t spoken.
“I thought my actions were quite pointed today.”
“Bastard!”
The vase flies, and I duck. “You already said that one.”
Mila’s chest heaves, her hands balled into fists. “You are a bastard, and I can hardly believe it, but you are the one responsible for almost ruining my business.”
I feel my brow furrow. This isn’t the direction I was expecting. In fact—“Honeybuns, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t call me that! And you don’t know because you’re fucking careless!” This she says on a sob. “The night we met, you were at that wedding with Charlotte bloody Bancroft!”
I shake my head. “Wrong. Matt was my plus-one. I had to bribe the fucker with an expensive single malt to get him to come along.” I didn’t want to take a date—I didn’t want to take him. But I also didn’t want to be there alone. “She might’ve been there, but she wasn’t with me. What the fuck is this about?”
“She saw you come out of the closet looking disheveled, and she heard you laughing about what we’d done. Laughing about me back at your table!”
“She might’ve seen me looking less than my usual pristine self,” I say edging my way around the desk as Mila follows. Or stalks. “But if she did, that’s on you. You and your roaming hands, slut muffin.”
“Be serious!” she cries. “Try it, just for one minute!”
“I am serious. I’m serious about you. And whatever I’ve done, I’d rather be sorry for it, sorry for fucking up, than never having tried to keep you.”
“You fucked up, all right. You fucked the head of your fan club!”
“My what?”
“Charlotte Bancroft is obsessed! She has a forum all about her career . . . and you. To join, you have to prove your allegiance. Fucking buckteeth and crossed-out eyes!” she says, kind of jerky and angry and all waving hands.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Not only that, but I’m also a little worried. “Are you okay?”
“No, I am not okay. I am very far from being okay. Your high priestess tried to ruin me—she set them on me, Fin. Her fans. Her disciples. You laughed, and she painted me as some . . . skank. Someone who didn’t deserve to be happy, let alone be paid to arrange other people’s happiness—one of the most important days of their lives!”
I straighten, suddenly furious. “I know nothing about that, but I can guarantee you I wasn’t laughing. You want to know what I said? To Matt? I remember the moment as clear as day.”
“You shouldn’t have spoken to anyone. What happened between us was private—I thought it was special!”
“It was fucking pivotal,” I say, pulling out my phone. Matt answers at the first ring.
“What the fuck is all that noise coming from your office?” he says, forgoing a greeting again. “Are you moving furniture or something?”
“Kind of,” I answer, watching as Mila eyes my computer monitor. “Remember the night I met Mila?”
“Yeah,” he says suspiciously. “Haven’t we already had this conversation?”
“I went to get us a drink and came back without them. You remember what I said, don’t you?”
“I told you already, I’m not telling Mila. I’m not your emissary—we’re not in fucking high school! And how fucking stupid would we both sound if I told her you had a premonition after a knee-trembling moment in the coat closet with her?”
Mila’s brows come down like a shelf as she grasps a heavy-bottomed stapler as an appetizer to my monitor.
“Matt,” I demand. “What the fuck did I say?”
“That you’d just met the woman you were going to marry,” he mutters. “That you could feel it in your stupid, hollow bones. That match your stupid, hollow head.”
“That’s all you had to say.” I end the call. “Roza was right. Evie too. This is kismet, fate at work, through and through.”
“Liar!”
I’m so relieved she’s a terrible shot as the stapler thuds against the far wall. That would’ve knocked me the fuck out.
“That woman hid her identity!” she yells. “She told her followers I shouldn’t be allowed near other women’s men. That I shouldn’t be allowed near you!”
“Maybe it is my fault. Maybe I shouldn’t have told Matt, and then Charlotte wouldn’t have overheard. But I had to tell someone because I was bursting out of my skin with happiness, Mila.”
“That’s not true or you would’ve found me before. You wouldn’t have given Evie my card; you would’ve—”