Bridezillas and Billionaires
Page 17
“Oh my god!” she said, blearily brushing her curls out of her face. Ivy blinked, took one look at me then exclaimed, “Oh my god!” She pulled the comforter over her head. “You can’t see me like this! I’m a disaster in the morning. My hair is a rat’s nest, and I need to wash my face.”
“I’ve already woken up next to you, remember? Your cat puked on your pillow. Relax,” I said, crossing my arms behind my head and flexing my muscles, hoping to entice her for round two. I was still completely naked. Ivy’s eyes invariably shifted across my chest and down to my hard cock.
“You should put that away,” she grumbled. “You might put someone’s eye out with that thing.”
“There weren’t any complaints yesterday,” I told her.
“I shouldn’t have,” she groaned. “What if people find out?”
I shrugged. The comforter had slipped down, exposing one of her large, round tits, the nipple pink against her skin. My dick jumped. “It’s not like we can unfuck,” I told her. I took a condom out of the drawer and waved it at her. “You have the sexiest man in Manhattan at your disposal. I’m tall, dark, handsome, and blue-eyed. I’m your walking, fucking fantasy.”
Ivy swallowed; her eyes were a bit glassy. “I should make better choices.”
She shrugged off the comforter, but instead of leaving, she reached over to stroke my throbbing cock. I hissed as her hand ran up the length and she rubbed her thumb over the tip. Then she straddled me, rubbing her slick, wet pussy over my cock. I cursed, tipping my head back as Ivy ran her hands up my chest. Her wet pussy ground against my cock. I grabbed her ass, my fingers digging into her.
“I want to hear you scream my name this time when you come,” I told her.
“Mmh, I think you’re going to be screaming mine instead.” She made a satisfied noise as she took the condom packet, opened it, and rolled the sheath onto my cock.
She gasped as she guided my cock inside her. Moaning, she slowly rocked up and down the length, watching as I shuddered from what she was doing to me.
Her pace was slow, and I let her have control for now, but I knew I would need more. Cupping her tits, I teased them, playing with her nipples as she rode me. She flicked her hips, and I grabbed them, thrusting into her tight pussy, picking her up, slamming her down onto my cock, letting her feel every hard inch of me. I reached down to tease her clit, rubbing her as she bounced on my cock, taking every bit of pleasure from me.
I growled, feeling her knees tighten against my thighs. She was close. Her pussy rippled as she came, and my body shuddered as the orgasm tore through me. Ivy’s head draped back, and she screamed. I kissed her hard as she fell forward, her tits heaving. I pulled her closer, still buried inside her.
“This is not going to be a onetime thing. I need to fuck you like this every day.”
“I should protest,” she slurred, “and I will in just a second.”
“Sex with you is perfect,” I murmured into her ear. “More than worth suffering through all this wedding planning.”
“It will be over in a few months,” she told me, kissing me on the nose.
I wrapped my arms around her, not wanting to let her go. It felt right to have her in my bed, in my home, in my life.
“I have to go feed Fergus,” she said finally, pushing up off of my chest.
“Oh no! We don’t want him to starve!”
“Yes, heaven forbid he shrinks down to a normal weight,” Ivy said tartly, disentangling herself from me and swinging her feet over the bed.
I leaned back, admiring the curve of her figure as she walked across the plush carpet to the bathroom. I pushed the covers back, fully intending to join her in the shower, but my phone beeped with a calendar reminder.
Shit.
I had a meeting with the Svensson brothers.
My night and morning with Ivy had been so great that I wasn’t even all that mad that I had to go spend several hours with Greg and Hunter.
“Now that we have enough property assembled,” Greg said when I sat down in the conference room, “we need to discuss the timeline of the developments.”
I looked at the picture of the development area on the large screen at the front of the room. The area looked strangely familiar.
“Carl,” Greg addressed his half brother, “how are the resident removals going?”
“Great,” he said. “I just bought out the last holdout, an old Italian lady in the co-op on 626 29th Street.”
I froze. I knew that address. That was Ivy’s address.
There must be some mistake.
“I thought that was a four-unit building,” Hunter said, frowning as he looked through the packet with the development parcels listed.
“Yeah,” Carl said, “but two of the units were owned by the Sutherland Bank, and they rented them out. The third was resident owned, but she took out two mortgages on the condo, so the Sutherland Bank de facto owned it. The owner hasn’t been paying, so we have every right to evict her. I’ve already had Josh start the proceedings.”
Ice flooded through my veins.
“We can’t do that.”
“Excuse me?” Greg said, grey eyes cold. “I was under the impression that you wanted to be brought in on a large, high profile real-estate development. Part of that is removing people from the property. When appropriate, we offer above market rate, but if they don’t even own the property or can’t manage their money, then it’s not my problem.”
“But that’s where my…” My what? Hookup? Friend? Girlfriend? Woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with?
“That’s Imogen’s wedding planner’s house.”
Greg looked at me blankly. “So?”
“So,” I said, grasping, “you know how my half sister is. This could derail the wedding.”
“Yes, we can’t derail a wedding,” Greg said sarcastically. “Who the fuck are you? Man up.”
“You can’t kick Ivy out of her home,” I said.
Hunter was giving me a knowing look.
“He’s sleeping with her, Greg. In fact,” Hunter peered at me, pinning me with his gaze, “I think he fancies himself in love with her.”
Greg snorted. “Figures. I should have known you were an idiot. I never should have brought you on this project.”
“There has to be some other way,” I said desperately.
“We didn’t even want this property originally,” Beck Svensson stated. “If you can bring us that other property, we can leave this one alone.”
Hunter looked at him flatly.
“What?” Beck said. “If it were Meghan, you wouldn’t even waste time with asking, you’d just go scorched earth.”
“Fine. The original offer is still on the table. Bring us the preferred property, and Ivy can stay,” Greg told me.
“Fuck fuck fuck!” I muttered as I left the Svensson Investment tower. I paced out in front of the building, waiting for a car as I called Sutherland. His secretary answered then patched me through.
“Have you come to your senses?” Orson asked.
I took a deep breath and looked up at the cloudy sky between the tops of the glass and steel towers. “Is that original property still on the table?”
“Of course, as long as Camilla is still single. Why don’t you come in tomorrow and discuss it.”
Bile rose in my throat after the call ended. After being with Ivy, I realized that was what being with someone who cared about me felt like. I would never accept anything less. Ivy pushed me to be a better person. She was snarky but funny and kept me on my toes. She would never forgive me if I ripped her home out from under her. She was going to be heartbroken when she found out.
“She doesn’t need to find out,” I reminded myself when my car pulled up. “I’m going to fix this. She’ll never have to know. Or maybe I’ll tell her on our wedding day.”
I stared at my reflection in the town car window. Wedding day? I was never getting married. Between Camilla and Imogen, I’d had quite enough of weddings.
“Can you believe it?” she fumed when I walked into her living room. “They won’t let me come to the space. I have to see it in action. I want to see what other brides are doing, because I do not want to have the same wedding as everyone else.”
“I’m sure you won’t,” I drawled. But Imogen wasn’t talking to me. She was talking to a heavyset woman in her forties who nodded along enthusiastically and made notes in a colorful notebook as Imogen talked.
“Oh, absolutely, I completely agree. I don’t understand why that venue was so rude to you. After all the money you’re spending. Do they understand that you could bad-mouth them to all your friends? They’d never book another wedding!”
“Exactly!” Imogen said, waving her hands. “Oh, Evan,” she said, finally noticing me. “I finally had to hire an assistant. This is Tiffanie.”
“With an I-E!” the assistant said with a giggle, extending her hand to me. “Imogen never told me her brother was rich and handsome!”
Imogen rolled her eyes. “I know she’s not my usual style, but I cannot hire anyone young or pretty. I don’t want my groom to catch a wandering eye and end up like you, Evan, on my wedding day.”
I looked between her and Tiffanie incredulously.
“Oh, that doesn’t hurt my feelings!” the older woman said with a high-pitched laugh. Imogen’s assistant lightly touched my arm. “That was my big selling point when I interviewed for the job. A good-looking groom’s not going to go getting distracted around me, no sir! I’m totally safe and one hundred percent on Team Imogen.”
“Unlike that wedding planner I’m paying all of that money for,” Imogen said. “I’m sure she’s trying to sabotage me. Everyone is so jealous of me and my life. It’s so tiresome. Mika, of course, is incompetent.” My sister was sitting in the corner unhappily.
“I mean, honestly, Mika,” Imogen raised her voice. “You only managed to secure one litter of puppies. I can’t give some people a puppy and others not.”
“I have a connection with a corgi breeder,” Imogen’s new assistant assured her. “I’m sure with the right amount of money, we could work something out.”
Imogen looked at me expectantly.
“I am not paying for corgi puppies,” I said flatly. “You cannot give out live animals as gifts. That’s absurd.”
“Don’t you care about your little sister?” Tiffanie pouted. There was something familiar about her, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“I’m not budging on this.”
“Fine,” Imogen said crossly. “Daddy said he’d pay for the puppies anyway. So there.”
“You should have all the groomsmen pose with the puppies!” Tiffanie said with an obnoxious laugh. “Good-looking guys and baby animals are like catnip.”
“Yes! Write that down,” Imogen instructed. “And make sure the wedding planner knows. Honestly, I don’t understand why Ivy isn’t here yet.”
Probably because she had mind-blowing sex this morning then had to go all the way across town and come back up here.
The doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it!” Tiffanie sang.
The door opened, and I heard Ivy say, “Mom?”
36
Ivy
I still couldn’t believe I had actually slept with Evan freaking Harrington. I could barely keep it together on the train ride back to my condo. I was so caught up in reliving the moment, remembering how he felt in me, how heady it was to run my hands along those muscles, that I almost missed my stop.
“And this is why you really need to stay away from him,” I chastised myself as I hurried back to my apartment to shower and change. I had a meeting in an hour with Imogen about the wedding seating arrangements.
I grabbed the rolled-up seating chart and the guest list then hurried back uptown. Would Evan be there? I fretted as I waited for the train to slowly crawl through the station. See, this is why you shouldn’t be with him. He’s already affecting your business.
I wondered if he was going to even still be interested. He’d now officially conquered me. He had the feather in his cap. Maybe we would go our separate ways. It was no-strings-attached sex after all.
“And that’s all it needs to be,” I told myself as I walked out of the station to Imogen’s building. The best thing would be if Evan acted like none of this had ever happened. But a part of me wanted him to declare his undying love for me and whisk me away.
“Away to where,” I muttered as I angrily jabbed the up button on the elevator.
“You haven’t been fired yet?”
“Camilla!” I said, plastering on my best Oh, who me? No, I totally don’t think you’re a bitch smile.
“We do our best to make sure every bride feels special on her big day!” I chirped, refusing to let Camilla under my skin.
“I know you did it on purpose,” she hissed at me as the elevator doors opened.
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“Evan,” she spat. “You staged that reveal at the wedding with the pictures just to humiliate me so you could steal him for yourself.”
“I don’t want anything to do with him,” I lied.
“I know girls like you,” Camilla snarled, her face twisted up in anger. “You’re the weird chunky girl who sits in the back of the classroom and lusts after the rich football star and is jealous of those of us pretty enough to catch his attention.”
“I’m just trying to do my job,” I told Camilla, forcing myself to remain professional even though I wanted to smash her face into a pie.
“Just you watch,” she said, flouncing off the elevator when it arrived at Imogen’s floor. “Evan and I are getting back together. He still loves me. He still wants me. I just have to make him see it.”
I took a deep breath, trying to regain my composure, as Camilla repeatedly rang the doorbell.
“Finally,” she said as the door opened. “Mika, you can’t keep people waiting. I’m too important to be kept waiting. Oh.”
It wasn’t Mika, however, at the door.
“Mom?” I said in horror.
No. This cannot be happening.
“What are you doing here?”
“Your momma got a job! Isn’t that great?” she squealed, jumping up and down. “I’m an assistant just like you!”
Camilla looked between us and smirked then sashayed into Imogen’s trendily decorated condo.
“Like mother like daughter,” she said.
I was too flabbergasted that my mother had somehow weaseled her way into my life to pay Camilla much mind.
“Imogen and I have a lot of ideas for how to make this wedding better!” my mother said, grabbing my hand. “You have to use a little imagination. Imogen needs a big, splashy wedding, Ivy. You need to be a team player.”
“Yes, Ivy,” Imogen stated when she saw me. “I need everyone to be on Team Imogen. We have three weeks until the wedding. We cannot afford any mistakes.” She looked pointedly at Mika, who was unhappily pouring drinks for everyone.
“I’ve been taking another stab at the seating arrangements,” I said while Mika passed out drinks.
My eyes kept glancing to Evan though. He sat handsomely on a stool, legs half-akimbo. My eyes flicked down to the bulge visible under the stretch of his suit at his crotch. He noticed me looking, and his mouth quirked slightly.
Camilla must have known something was up, because she immediately went around the table to stand close to Evan.
I cleared my throat and pointed to the table arrangements. “The venue is in a beautiful historic art deco building,” I reminded everyone, pulling up the pictures on my tablet. “The bridal party table would be better off to the side of the room. I know originally we were thinking it would be against this wall of windows, but I don’t think we have enough members in the
wedding party to fill out a long table. If you have a short one there, it’s going to feel awkward.”
Imogen’s nostrils flared. “And whose fault is it that I don’t have enough bridesmaids?”
“Maybe if you didn’t fire all of them,” Evan said, looking up at the ceiling.
“Evan, be nice,” his stepmother chastised. “It wasn’t Immie’s fault.”
“Weddings really do show you who your true friends are,” my mother said, patting Imogen on the hand. “Honestly, that girl Kaitlyn couldn’t put off her pregnancy for five months so that she could be there for you on your big day after you were there for hers? It’s shameful.”
“I know!” Imogen wailed. “She’s trying to ruin my wedding!”
“All eight of your bridesmaids who quit were not trying to ruin your wedding,” Evan scoffed.
“Yes they were! Ann refused to grow her hair out; she said she wanted to keep her pixie cut and didn’t want to get extensions. Jenny gained all that weight and didn’t like the bridesmaid dress. She refused to wear it. Good riddance to her. I didn’t push her out. Mika’s bigger than her anyway, and Mika’s still in the wedding party.”
Mika’s shoulders sagged.
“If you can find more bridesmaids, we can move the table,” I told her. “Otherwise, I think we should keep it against this wall.”
Imogen pouted.
“I have Teddy’s family and friends over here and your family and friends grouped together. Usually, people treat weddings as big family reunions and like to be with their tribe, so to speak.”
“Fitting, since they’re all wearing kilts,” Evan remarked.
“Oh, stop it, Evan!” Camilla said playfully, patting him lightly on the chest.
I hated seeing her pawing at him.
What do you care? You don’t even like him. You two had sex. It’s not like you’re in a committed relationship.
“I want the good-looking family members up front and all the crazies and the old people against the wall,” Imogen said, inspecting the chart. “That means Teddy’s family all needs to be against this wall. My family can be near the windows.”