Right Number, Wrong Girl

Sophie scribbled that down. “I don’t have the contact details for them.”

“Whyever not?”

“I was never given them.”

“You should have been!”

“I don’t have them.”

This was going awfully.

“Mum,” I said, breaking into the back and forth. “It’s quite clear that she wasn’t given that information. Nancy handled the invitations. Perhaps Nancy should be the one you have this conversation with.”

She snapped her head to the side and glared at me. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that Nancy was responsible for the invitations being sent and any questions about that should be directed to her,” I replied, carefully choosing my words. “If Camilla knew, she’d have told you by now, don’t you think?”

Mum adjusted the collar of her dress and turned around. “Of course. Now, talk me through the rest. I want to see the flowers, the decorations, and all the transportation arrangements. We can discuss the rest tomorrow.”

Sophie ducked her head and swallowed.

Jesus Christ.

My mother was eating her alive.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – SOPHIE

Absolutely Not

I was dying.

This had to be what death felt like—the world swirled before you, your head thundered, your heart pounded, and it was almost as if you were about to explode right there and then.

Three hours.

Three hours of listening to the duchess nit-pick and tear apart everything I’d worked on for the last few days, and I couldn’t even offload that angst to anyone.

I had to give credit to Hugo. He’d stepped in and defended me against every viable criticism as much as he could, but his mother was honestly such a Type-A personality that there was no way she wasn’t going to micromanage the rest of this party, and that was such a vast contrast to my own…

Well.

Not Type-A personality.

I also knew she didn’t believe our assertations that Nancy had taken control over some things that hadn’t been shared with me.

If I’d thought it would be hard before, today had absolutely shown me how impossible my job was going to be from now.

Nancy was someone I needed on-side, but that ship had sailed halfway across the world and gone into orbit. There was no way she was going to help me, and I truly believed she thought she had it all under control. She was absolutely going to make my life hell and try and make this fail for her own goals.

It was my word against hers, even with Hugo factored in.

I didn’t see how, professionally, his mother could side with us. Nancy was her right-hand woman, after all, and I was sure she trusted her more than almost anyone else.

Which was my biggest fear.

Nancy knew my secret—that I wasn’t Camilla. I was sure it wouldn’t benefit her to reveal that information any more than it would me, which was almost worse.

It meant I was in an unpredictable situation.