“I would have this time, if he’d let me. He was on a mission. I wasn’t allowed to do anything but take what he gave me. I’ve never been so happy to just lie there until it was over. I never wanted it to end.”
“Well, you were thirsty. You’d been crawling through the Sahara for years.”
“Felt like an eternity. And I made it to the oasis.”
She lifted a hand for a high five, singing “Wonderwall.”
I slapped it and sighed happily. “Thank you. For putting the idea into my head. For talking to Kash. I don’t think it would have occurred to me without you teasing me about him.”
“As your little sister, it is my joy and pleasure to tease you at leisure.”
Dean called us in from the kitchen for dinner, and I hurried to the baby’s room to change. I only owned a couple of T-shirts and was thankful for the foresight to have grabbed one, slipping it on with a pair of soft black sleep shorts. My hair I twisted into a messy knot, taking a moment in front of the antique mirror on the wall. I looked relaxed, casual, and not at all like myself. I didn’t bother cleaning up my lids or brushing my hair. Not yet. A shower would wash it all away, put me back to myself.
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