My Big Fat Fake Honeymoon - Lauren Landish Page 0,44
a twisted satisfaction when I overhear Claire behind me as she sees the set, “Everything is so gorgeous! Gah, let me just do a few selfies and do a live feed before we get started with the actual shoot, ’kay?”
Such is the life of a celebrity. I can’t fault her, though. She seems to really care about her followers and enjoy talking with them. She’s the real deal.
“Hey, Abi!” Claire calls after me.
Thinking I’m about to get slammed for the arrangement, I turn back slowly. “Yes?”
“Do you have any more of these?” She points to the birds of paradise. “I’d love to put one in my hair for a few shots, but I wouldn’t dream of messing with your work.”
“I do have a few extra. Let me go grab them. I’ll be right back,” I promise with a no-big-deal smile.
Uh, looks like Janey and I have another Mission Impossible stunt to pull off.
Back by the cooler, the maintenance man is standing with another man. Based on his khaki, island-weight suit, this must be the manager. Judging by his pinched face, he’s not any happier to be dealing with me than I am with him.
“Miss Andrews, I’m told you requested my presence.”
He thinks I’m some sweet, flaky girl he can intimidate. But he couldn’t be more wrong. I’m an Andrews through and through, and if I can handle Meredith and do whatever it takes to get that arrangement where it needed to be, on time, I can sure as hell deal with a manager who’s majorly fucked up.
“I made sure last week that I’d have all the flowers I need for the Johnson-Kennedy wedding. My first morning here, and I find that your equipment failure has caused me to lose a large portion of them. Now, I don’t care if you have to call the owner, or the other resorts, or every flower shop on this island, or even get them air-flighted on a charter plane from the next island over. You are going to have those flowers replaced by the end of the day because I am not going to fuck around for the next few days trying to scrape bouquets together on the fly.”
The truth is, I will likely do that too. But getting flowers to the island was a long and difficult process with customs, so what’s already here is going to have to work. I just need them from their scattered locations to one central cooler so I can see what I’m working with.
“Miss, I’m sure this is stressful, but please calm down,” the manager says, trying to regain control, but his condescension is heavy as he mansplains, “I assure you that we’ll make this right. But by tonight is impossible. You must be reasonable.” He tacks on an awkward laugh, as though my request for flowers might as well be a temper tantrum over wanting a mythical unicorn with a rainbow mane that eats sugar and shits cotton candy.
My voice goes cold as ice, my tone threatening death. Not his, but his business’s, which might be even worse. “I think you’ll find that I am extremely reasonable, decidedly more so than Meredith Wildeman. Currently, she has not been informed of your failure, of Casa del Mario’s failure, to provide a satisfactory venue as outlined in your legally binding contract. Mr. Kennedy and Miss Johnson are also currently blissfully unaware that their pending nuptials might include none of their carefully selected flowers because of your issue. I would hate for them to lose faith in your resort, especially seeing as how high-profile this wedding is.” I look to the cooler with a sad frown.
The manager knows he’s backed into a corner. I am his kindest option to deal with. And to be clear, I’m not nice nor naïve. I will do whatever is necessary to make this right for my client. Even if it’s taking a wheelbarrow down to that greenhouse and chopping every last bloom at the root.
Sorry, Edward! I know better now, but desperate times . . . desperate measures, you know?
He sighs. “I will get as many flowers as I possibly can.” I raise my brows, silently demanding more. “They’ll be here by this afternoon.”
“Thank you.” I nod agreement to his terms. “And the cooler repaired or I’ll be taking over one of your restaurant’s refrigerators.”
“You can’t!” he balks.
If I could shoot daggers from my eyeballs, he’d be a dead man right where he’s standing.