by Staci Hart
But the most stressful part of the process was keeping it from Kash.
I couldn’t have said why, not exactly. In fact, I hadn’t told anyone, not even my sister. It all happened so fast, and there was, of course, the fear that it would fall through. The process was more like a strange, stressful dream than any kind of reality. And if it did fall through, I didn’t really want an audience for the disappointment. It was a secret, one I guarded with the quiet solitude of a miser, holding my dream in the dark like a golden coin. It was my secret, one I didn’t want to have to defend or answer for, one I’d made strictly because I could, autonomously and decisively.
But it’d been harder to keep it from Kash than anyone. In part, the thought of involving him in such a decision felt too familiar, as if that knowledge would apply some pressure I couldn’t foresee, pressure that would change things. Or maybe it was that I’d chosen a place so close to him, and I didn’t want to spook him by invading his space despite the fact that we spent every spare minute together. But perhaps most of all was the admission that I’d bought this place with him in my mind, with that daydream on my lips, ready to be spoken. It was the intent I found myself denying most. Because I couldn’t pretend as if I hadn’t made this purchase in large part for us.
Even thinking it made my stomach and heart trade places. I knew it was crazy. It was too soon and I was jumping the gun and blah, blah, blah. But even if he didn’t move in right away, I had a feeling he would eventually. He was sick of sleeping in the bunk bed at his parents’ house, and I somehow doubted that once I had a place of my own, he wouldn’t become a regular fixture. The next natural step was cohabitation. It would be convenient above all—or at least, that was the reason I gave for allowing myself such a frivolous musing. It wasn’t like we could ever stay at his place, although I’d suggested it once as a novelty. Apparently, he drew the line at hooking up with his mother under the same roof.
When he put it that way, I saw his point.
It’d made me wish I’d been as carefree as Ivy was when we were teenagers. If I’d accepted her many invitations to hang out with the Bennet brothers, Kash and I might have dated then. I would have snuck into his room while one of his brothers distracted their mom with Jane Eyre. Kissed him in the greenhouse when life was still shining with promise on the horizon. Been part of a hundred Bennet dinners and the undeniable feeling of belonging that clung to them like summer. I mourned the years we hadn’t had together. I wondered what my life would have been like if we’d gotten together all those years ago. If I would have gone to LA or stayed in New York, if I would have even ended up being a wedding planner.
The thought shocked me, left me flapping in the wind like a luffing sail. I couldn’t imagine another profession for myself, not even under duress. But for Kash, I might have.
I’d do just about anything for him.
The delivery van pulled to a stop at the service entrance to Skylight, and Kash smiled over at me as he put it in park.
“You ready for this?” he asked, concern flickering over his otherwise affable face.
“Ready as I’ll ever be. And just think—tonight, we will be through with the Felixes.”
“What if they have another event?”
“They do, an anniversary party for Alexandra. But Addison has already taken it over—she informed me this morning. I’d like to think it wasn’t to throw me today, of all days, but I know better. But want to hear something funny?”
“Always.”
“I’ve never been so happy to have a client stolen out from under me.”
He chuckled, leaning over the wide space between the captain’s chairs for a kiss, which I happily provided. And with that, we stepped out of the van.
I could already feel the hum of action that waited for me inside, but there was also a buzzing anxiety—my interns weren’t waiting for me and weren’t answering my texts. So once Kash had the first cart loaded, we headed inside to see what the holdup was. The elevator ride was quiet, which was unlike us on its own. But he seemed to know I needed to roll through a string of paranoid fantasies about what had gone wrong just to get it out of my system. Like maybe there was a fire. Or a salmonella outbreak. Or the cake had exploded. Or a flock of pigeons had kamikazeed into the skylight and busted it into a trillion irreparable pieces.
But what I found when the elevator doors opened was far, far worse.
Addison Lane wore that cruel smile of hers, the superior one she liked to don when I was in trouble. Her dark eyes shifted from me to Kash, taking a moment to look down the length of him slowly enough that I fantasized about flying at her like a bat to scratch her eyes out.
“Look at you, riding the service elevator like a plumber.”
“What are you doing here?” I said with a false smile as I strode toward her, back straight and the facade of confidence firmly in place.
“You didn’t actually think I’d let you do this alone, did you? This is one of the biggest accounts at Archer, and I’m not about to sit back and wait for you to screw it up.”
Kash stiffened beside me, cart in his big hands and his brows holding back thunder.
But I just kept smiling, my concern clutched in a headlock. “Do what you have to do. Where are my interns?”
“I’ve got them directing the staff as they set up the tables in the ballroom.”
“Thank you. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“I mean it, Lila. This event reflects on me just as much as it does you. I’ve already found discrepancies with the linens”—she glanced at Kash’s cart—“and I’ll need to have a look at those centerpieces.”
I drew a breath that did nothing to calm me. “Do what you have to, Addison,” I repeated, not willing to engage.
Discrepancies, my ass. I’d gone over everything last night for the fortieth time. If she’d actually found a problem, I would have handed over my gun and badge on the spot.
Addison gave Kash a final look, one mixed with appreciation and suspicion, but he only glared back before following me toward the atrium.
My hands shook, not from fear, but adrenaline. The pressure was palpable—Addison was going to breathe down my neck all night, inspect everything I did with kid gloves, looking for something, anything, to hold over me. She’d see me screw up or die trying.
I could only hope for the latter. Maybe one of those fictional dive-bombing pigeons would attack her like a Hitchcock movie. Or maybe she’d be within the cake’s blast range. Or she would eat the fish and shit her pants all night. I’d take any disaster if it rid me of Addison.
Once in the ballroom, I beelined for my interns, directing them to help Kash unload rather than uselessly watch half a dozen hotel crew lay out tablecloths. All five of them headed for the door, looking grateful for something to do, but before Kash followed, he stepped into me. His hand slid into the notch of my waist like it belonged there, the other capturing my chin, tilting it so the full weight of his gaze would be felt. And it was.
“It doesn’t matter that she’s here or what she says. Everything is going to be perfect—you know that deep down. Because you have orchestrated this event, and you don’t do anything halfway. You don’t even do it all the way. You don’t settle for anything but above and beyond, and she’ll see it. Even if she doesn’t acknowledge it, she’ll see it.”
The twist in my chest eased with a release of breath. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he answered with a sideways smile. “Now, go do what you came here to do so we can get the fuck out of here.”
With a laugh, I pushed up on my tiptoes to kiss him.
And then I went and did the hell out of my job.
Five hours—that was how long it took us to get set up. All hands were busy and full with the exception of Addison, who made it her job to triple-check everything I did, floating behind me like a ghost. Kash kept his distance, his eyes forever darting in her direction, watching her like a great black cat. And the jackal watched him right back, promising
ruin should he even try to intervene.
It felt like no time had passed—there never seemed to be enough when setting these things up—before the wedding party began to arrive. The Felix sisters arrived first, bridesmaids and groomsmen and immediate families. A fleet of makeup artists and hairdressers were already waiting in the bridal suite, and the bartender in the groom’s quarters was stocked up and ready to pour.
Other than escorting them to their suites, I was too busy with final preparations to even notice Addison’s hovering or Kash’s absence or anything beyond the checklist occupying the majority of space in my brain.
I stood at the back of the atrium room where the ceremony would take place, the city stretching up in the night around me as I enjoyed the moment of relative calm before the guests began to arrive. Interns were still fooling with the arrangements at the ends of the rows of chairs, and a crew member ran final tests with the microphones wired into the arbor. The wedding was about to go off, and the only hitch would happen at the end of this aisle.
“Lila …”
A flash of recognition, then disappointment as I turned to find Brock standing behind me.
His was not the male voice I wanted to hear.
My shoulders drew back, chin leveling. I started to turn away. “I’m sorry. I’m very busy—”
“Hang on. Please.”
There was something about the way he’d said the word, a sincerity so unlike him that I paused, uncertain what to do.
He took the window, saying softly, “I hate this, Lila. All of it.”
“So do I, but I don’t suspect for the same reasons,” I answered at equal decibel.
Standing there with him, his face touched with regret and sadness, something in me softened. It was that space in my heart he used to occupy, the one I’d bricked over to pretend it had never existed. And for the first time since I’d walked away, I remembered what it was like to know him.
His smile was sheepish. Boyish. “I’ve been watching you, you know.”
“I do, and it’s creepy,” I teased.
“Oh, don’t act like you don’t command it. You always did. I just keep wondering when I forgot.”
“Forgot what?”
“How much I loved you.”
The words were a bucket of ice water down my back. “Brock, I—”
“Just … just let me say this. Please.”
There it was again, that earnest word from a liar’s lips. Only I didn’t think he was false. Not this time.
“I’ve been watching you, trying to figure out what’s different. Something about the way you walk. A softness to you that wasn’t there before. But I’ve realized it’s worse than all that. I think it was there all along, but I didn’t see it. And I’ve been trying to reconcile just how I can live with that.”
I took a step back, needing out. Out of this conversation. Out of this room. “Thank you,” I started. “Thank you for saying so. But I should really—“
“This is what I always wanted, you know.”
At that, I stopped my retreat. “What you can’t have?”
His lips parted, breath drawn to speak, but whatever he was going to say died. “This wasn’t what I signed up for. She wasn’t what I expected. None of it was.” A pause. “I can’t help but feel like I’ve made a terrible mistake. We had a life together, a future, and I threw it away. I threw it away, and I can’t seem to remember why. But seeing you like this, with that … gardener?” He said the word like an insult. “Everything feels crystal clear for the first time in a long time. If I asked you to give me another chance, would you do it? If you were with me, would you be this … effortless? Undemanding? Would you give me what you’ve given him?”
What I’d given Kash he had earned simply by loving me. What I’d become was because of that love. And that could never be duplicated, least of all by the man standing before me.
Before I could tell him no in ten languages, slap him hard enough to leave a mark, knee him in the groin, or all of the above and in no particular order, a door at my back squeaked open and closed. Guests. Guests were coming, walking through the door, and here I had Brock groveling.
We stepped aside, and I glared at him, furious and sad and anxious to get away.
“We cannot discuss this here and now. I have work to do.”
“Later. Can we talk later?”
I paused, weighing my options. Saying no would delay me. Telling him all the ways he could go to hell wouldn’t do well for my future at Archer. Saying yes would be a lie.
“Text me tomorrow,” I dodged, turning to go.
“Maybe we can get coffee. Talk things over.”
I opened my mouth to let him know there was zero chance of that, but before I could speak, one of my interns approached with salvation on her wings.
And it was sweet enough, I could have given her a raise.
* * *
KASH
My hand slammed into the door, pushing it open hard enough to ping off the wall and rebound. I stopped it without looking, storming down the service hall.
I’d heard the whole thing, the acoustics in the atrium too good to have avoided it, which I desperately wished I had. When I’d come into the room looking for her, I’d seen her with him and paused. He was too close, too familiar with her as he waxed poetic about her beauty and grace like he hadn’t neglected her. As if he hadn’t betrayed her so cruelly. Unforgivably.
The only pleasure I took was that he was jealous, and spitefully, I believed he should be.
But what fueled my fury was her response. Or more accurately, her lack of response. She didn’t tell him all the ways she’d disavowed him. She didn’t tell him she’d chosen me, nor did she regale all the ways he had been wrong.
Instead, she’d agreed to speak to him again. And all the joy I’d felt on Brock’s jealousy shifted into a deep, unsettling rage at my own.
Maybe I’d been a rebound all along. Maybe I’d only convinced myself because she was so convincing.
I’d believed her, every word that she said. But I knew other truths to be certain, too. She hadn’t dealt with her breakup, the humiliation, the truth of how it hurt her. Instead, she’d packed it all up and put it away, pretending to forget. Pretending to move on. And along came Brock to crack that door open again. What if she decides she made a mistake? Would I be realized as replacement rather than a relationship? Would those feelings we’d both believed were honest be tarnished by the knowledge?
I should have known Brock’s presence would bite me in the ass. It was inescapable, a cruel inconvenience, and one that kept him firmly in his line of sight. How could she forget him when he—and more notably, Natasha—were so present? When Natasha insisted on parading it in front of her, flag in hand?
There has to be an explanation. It wasn’t what you think it was.
I drew a deep breath to steady myself, fearing it would only flame the inferno in my chest.
Trust her, I told myself. There’s nothing he has that she wants.
Except money. Power. Status. He’s everything you’re not, another merciless voice said.
She doesn’t want that. I know she doesn’t.
That ruthless other self only smiled like it knew better.
I made it back to the reception hall, and when the interns caught sight of me, there was a light of concern in their eyes. So I did my best to smooth my face, to calm myself, to offer a smile and relax my coiled shoulders and clenched fists, still poised to make Brock Bancroft eat his own teeth.
The visceral fury surprised and confused me. Not that I could have knocked Brock out—I’d been in enough fights with and behind my brothers that I held no issue with expressing myself with my fists, if necessary. But the depth of the potential betrayal tore open a part of me I rarely saw, one without ration.
What has she done to me?
I was changed, and at present, that change was not pretty. I sought to know why and realized it was simple.
I loved her. And the thought of
her leaving me for that son of a bitch had turned me into a monster.
Lila wouldn’t entertain him, I was sure. So sure that I watched the doors of the ballroom, waiting for her to rush in and tell me everything, moving things around without purpose just to stop myself from going crazy. But the minutes ticked by, and still, there was no Lila.
She’s busy, I assured myself. She’s in charge of this whole operation, and Addison is here, looking for an excuse to hurt her.
The thought redirected my rage to Addison, a protective flare overpowering my jealousy and fear over Brock.
When I couldn’t stand Lila’s absence anymore, I exited the ballroom, heading through the grand hallway to the atrium, buttoning the top button of my suit coat on my way. I slid into the room with the stream of the wealthy, chattering guests, splitting off once I entered to snake around the back. Lila stood in the corner, visible enough that anyone who needed her could find her but discreetly enough that she almost blended in. When she saw me, her eyes lit up, her red lips smiling her relief that was cool rain on that fire in me.
She dismissed an intern as I approached, and I put all my energy into playing it cool.
“Look at you,” she said with an admiring sweep of my form. “I love this suit.”
“Same goes. The Armani?” I guessed, the twin black suit to her white one.
“It’s a special occasion,” she said with a smile.
“The wedding?”
“Only in that it marks the end of the whole ordeal.”
I couldn’t help but smile back, even with worry niggling at my heart. The conversation halted with an uneasy pause.
“So,” I started, hoping an opening would lead to an admission, “how’s everything going? Hit any snags?”