The Invitation

Which was a good thing, because the minute she stepped into my office doorway, I could barely remember my own name.

Evelyn—or rather Stella—was even more beautiful than I remembered. At the wedding, her hair had been pinned up, but now it was down, and wavy, blond locks framed her porcelain skin. She wore oversized, thick-rimmed glasses that gave her a sexy-librarian look, and the simple navy blue sundress and flats she had on made her look tinier than she had at the wedding.

Keeping my face as impassive as possible, I stood and gestured to the guest chairs on the other side of my desk.

“Please, have a seat.”

She bit down on her bottom lip, but nevertheless, walked into my office.

“Will you please shut the door behind you, Helena?” I asked my assistant.

She nodded. “Of course.”

Stella and I had a bit of a staring contest before she planted her ass in a seat on the other side of my desk.

“I didn’t think you were going to collect your glass slipper, Cinderella.”

She crossed her legs and folded her hands on top of her knee. “Trust me, if I had any other choice, I wouldn’t be here.”

I arched a brow. “Should I be offended? I was actually looking forward to you coming for a visit.”

She pursed her lips. “I bet you were. What kind of humiliation should I expect today? Will you be calling in all the employees to laugh and point?”

My lip twitched. “I wasn’t planning on it. But if that’s your thing…”

She sighed. “Look, I’m sorry for what I did. I already wrote the bride an apology letter and sent a little gift to the return address on the invitation. I didn’t mean any harm. When the invitation came, I accidentally opened it, and a few glasses of wine later, my friend Fisher and I concocted the idea that we should crash. I was pissed at my roommate—the person the invitation was actually sent to. She’d moved out in the middle of the night on me, and a bunch of my clothes and shoes went missing when she did. And just that day, the check she’d left me for the two months of back rent she owed had bounced. And to top it all off, it had been my last day at my job, so I really needed her half of the rent.” She paused a moment, seeming to catch her breath. “I know none of that excuses what I did. A wedding is supposed to be a sacred and intimate event for families and friends to share, but I want you to know it’s the first time I’ve ever done anything like that.” She shook her head. “Plus, I might not have gone through with it if it were anywhere else, but I love that library. I worked a block away for the last six years and had lunch on the steps more times than I could count. I’ve been dying to go to an event there.”

I scratched my chin and examined her face. She seemed sincere. “What took you so long to come collect your phone?”

“Truth?”

“No, I prefer you make up a story like you did at the wedding. Because that ended so well…”

She rolled her eyes and let out a big sigh. “I wasn’t planning on coming at all. I even went out and bought a new iPhone. But my rent is due in a few days, and I’m broke because I’ve sunk every penny I have into my business launch, which has now been delayed. I have fourteen days to return the overpriced phone—and the last one is today. I can’t afford a thousand dollars for a new cell, especially now that I don’t have a roommate. I need to return the phone, or call my father and ask him to borrow money. Faced with the choice of coming here and taking my lumps for doing something stupid, or calling my father… Well, here I am.”

My sister hadn’t really even been upset over what had happened at her wedding. Of course she’d been confused about who the woman telling a story about their childhood was, but when I’d explained that I’d caught her pretending to be a guest, Olivia had laid into me for putting the woman on the spot, rather than quietly escorting her to the door. To be honest, even I’d felt a little bad once Stella started to sweat and turn pale with the microphone in her hand. But I’d been pissed that she lied to me. Deep down, I knew it was partly because a woman lying to my face brought back some shitty reminders. It also didn’t help that my little sister had chosen to get married at the same place my own wedding had been just seven years before. So perhaps my anger at Stella could have been slightly misplaced.