Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
My jaw drops. “You hid my phone?”
“I didn’t hide it. I relocated it.” He crosses to the kitchen and reaches up—way up, to a place I never could have seen without a stepladder—and retrieves my phone. When he turns back, seeing my no doubt stunned expression, he adds, “Okay, fine, I hid it, but I didn’t do it to upset you. I just… I didn’t want you to leave without saying goodbye. And perhaps giving me your number…”
The admission makes my chest ache in a way that can’t be totally chalked up to anger or betrayal.
Which only makes me angrier. I can’t afford to have soft feelings for Oliver Featherswallow right now. Or ever again.
I snatch the phone from his hand, noting the twenty-something missed calls.
Probably Maya.
Or my mother.
Or Isabelle.
Or more florists calling to assure me I’ll never secure a floral arrangement in this town again. I might as well tuck tail and waddle back across the pond.
“Goodbye, Oliver,” I mutter, ignoring the stab of regret in my gut as I shove the phone into my purse. “Good luck with everything. I’m sure you have a P.R. person, but just in case they’re at a loss for ideas, I’d suggest getting back together with Aisling.” I grab my roller and start for the door, tossing over my shoulder, “The people in the comments really liked you two together.”
“Don’t do this, Emily,” he calls after me. “Last night was special. You know it was.”
I pause in the doorway, glancing back at him. He’s still in his underwear, looking gorgeous and genuinely distressed, and for a split second, I’m tempted to close the door. Go back into the gorgeous flat. Let him hug me and “help.”
But he can’t help, not really.
It would be like a seagull trying to help a fish. Or a tubby chunk of kelp growing on the ocean floor. We live in two completely different worlds, and the sooner I face that reality, the better. Olly and I don’t work.
Heck, there is no Olly.
There’s only Oliver Featherswallow, an obscenely wealthy man in line for the throne who has no idea what life is like for the rest of us.
And no, he can’t really help that.
But he could have helped what he did last night. He didn’t have to lie and play me for a fool, leaving me defenseless against an onslaught of the kind of attention I’ve never wanted. I make other people’s parties go viral; I have no urge to be the focus of the spotlight myself.
Especially this kind of spotlight.
So, I just shake my head and close the door softly behind me. Then, I hobble down the hall in my broken heels.
The elevator arrives with a cheerful ding that feels like another stab in the back. As the doors close, I catch my reflection in the polished steel. Yesterday’s eye makeup is smeared under my eyes. My ponytail looks like I’ve been electrocuted by Christmas lights. And what might be a hickey is peeking out of the top of my cowl neck sweater.
The British tabloids were right.
I am a disaster.
A tubby, American, nativity-destroying, career-imploding agent of pandemonium who’s just walked away from the first man to make her “Big O” without help from a battery-operated boyfriend. The first man to make her laugh and feel carefree in longer than she can remember.
A man who did seem genuinely sorry for the mistakes he’d made…
“And he seemed to like you,” I whisper. “As much as you liked him.”
As the elevator descends, I allow myself two floors of regret.
Then I pull out my phone and start typing a list into my notes app:
Operation: Fix Everything
1. Call Maya. Apologize Profusely. Tell her about florist blackballing. Assure her you will not rest until you make this better.
2. Run damage control with remaining florists.
3. Find wizard/time machine to undo last 12 hours
4. Stop thinking about Oliver’s hands
5. And all his other parts.
6. And his smile and the fact that no man has ever been so desperate for your phone number.
7. Do NOT cry in the Uber.
8. Remember: You’re a strong, independent, entrepreneurial woman. You fix things. You don’t need a prince (or fifth-in-line-to-the-throne) to save you.
The elevator opens to the lobby, and I square my shoulders, marching out into the snowy London morning like a general heading to war.
A war I’m probably going to lose, but still…
At least I’ll go down fighting in sensible shoes.
As soon as I find time to buy some.
Chapter Seven
OLIVER
Three hours.
Just three bloody hours since Emily walked out of my flat, and I’ve already seen enough vile internet commentary to make me consider hunting down every keyboard warrior in Britain and introducing them to the business end of my great-grandfather’s cavalry saber.
What is wrong with these people?
Don’t they have something better to do than spew hate at a total stranger?