The Billionaire Game 3(27)

“Girl, careful, you are going to blind someone with those pearly whites,” I told her, returning the hug with interest.

“I just can’t stop smiling!” Lacey was bubbling over like a particularly happy cauldron: “I’m getting married! Me! Oh my God, Kate, I’m in love and he’s wonderful and I’m getting fucking married!”

“You go, girl!” I said. It sounded a little hollow to me, but Lacey was so happy she didn’t even notice.

Don’t get me wrong. I was over the moon for Lacey—this was everything I’d been assuring her she deserved for years.

But I was lonely. And with all the wedding planning going on lately, I felt distant from my best friend—and suddenly anxious about losing her to married life.

Lacey gave me another hug and bounced away to greet her family, who were arriving in a Volkswagen Beetle with more bumper stickers showing than paint. I felt another pang of jealousy, this time familial rather than romantic: say what you wanted to about Lacey’s hippie-dippy this-is-the-dawning-of-the-Age-of-Aquarius parents, but they always supported her. They always believed in her.

“It’s hard, isn’t it?” Brody Dalton said sympathetically. “To see someone else get everything you need.”

He was clearly trying to make me feel better, but I just felt annoyed. I turned away and marched into the rehearsal dinner, not waiting to make sure he was ready to follow me.

Stop being self-centered, I reminded myself. He’s doing you a favor, remember?

Brody didn’t seem like such a bad guy. So why couldn’t I make myself feel anything for him? It would solve everything. Just trade out one self-aggrandizing billionaire for another. They were totally interchangeable, right?

And then, just as I was feeling most vulnerable in my decision-making skills, Asher Young displayed that trademark sense of timing that could have made him another fortune if he could have just figured out how to bottle it and sell it to the military, and entered the room.

If I’d thought he looked good enough to eat in a tux before, this was clearly a brand spanking new recipe, and it was heavy on the spice. The suit jacket seemed to be clinging to his powerful shoulders through the sheer willpower of its individual threads, and the trousers were so tight it had to be illegal. The entire outfit was a feast of textures I wanted with suddenly dry-mouthed desperation to explore, draped over every exquisite inch of muscle…

I was so busy drooling that it took a second to realize there was someone on his arm: Evangeline.

She wore a low-cut cocktail dress the color of blood, and a necklace of coral beads whittled and polished into the shape of hearts.

“Hello, Kate,” Evangeline said with what seemed to be a genuine smile. Did she have amnesia and not remember our last awkward encounter? Was niceness this woman’s superpower? Had an alien ring fallen from the sky and imbued her with the power of perpetual kindness? She went on: “I was talking to Grant, and he says we’re seated together for the dinner. Won’t that be wonderful? We can attend this event and hammer out the details of the fashion show at the same time!”

“Wonderful,” I lied through my teeth.



#



I had hoped that the schedule would be so locked-in and regimented that there would be no need or even opportunity for small talk, but nope, someone had misplaced the microphones and so all of the guests had to mill around while the event planner went chasing after the missing equipment.

I tried to feign interest in the food courses on display to avoid talking to Brody, Asher, or Evangeline, but while the two men seemed content to glare at each other across the room like Holmes and Moriarty at the top of Reichenbach Falls, Evie was having none of it.

“Have I offered you congratulations yet?” she asked, enfolding me in a warm hug.

“Uh, I’m not the one getting married,” I pointed out.

She laughed her deep, throaty laugh, the one that always made me simultaneously feel that I must be incredibly witty, and that I would never be as polished and glamorous as her. “I meant on the mention from Tyra Banks. You didn’t hear her on TV last night?”

“No. She really mentioned my stuff?”

Evangeline nodded enthusiastically. “Apparently, someone at Blossom”—she winked at me and Brody—“sent her some peignoirs in a gift basket. She was very complimentary to the talk show host.”

“Wow,” I said, bowled over.

“Looks like you’re going places,” Brody said with a smile that didn’t seem to quite fit on his face.

“He’s right,” Evangeline said sincerely. “You’re such a hard worker, and such raw talent. It’s no more than you deserve.”