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No. To someone like Dale Hartford, she was trouble. Or troubled. Not that it mattered. She was beautiful enough to ensnare his son. Trey had to be pried from her claws before she brought them all to ruin. Imagine. Trey Hartford married to someone who was raised by a single mother after her alcoholic father ran out on them. She’d probably lift a finger to plan their wedding, which would be absolutely shameful. And she wasn’t a size zero, so while she was pretty enough, the whole trophy wife thing was off the table. She could do nothing to advance H&H. She wasn’t suitable. If she was a dog, she wasn’t the right breed.
So, Trey gave her the boot. He chose his family, his inheritance, and H&H over her.
Ambi slammed her open palm on top of her notepad so hard that tears welled up in her eyes. She was definitely producing that moisture because of the desk slap she’d just handed out and not because it hurt to think about Trey, even five years after the fact.
She’d stick it to H&H by doing an amazing job. By being the best event planner they ever freaking had. By doing her job so well that she’d prove them both wrong. She was a success in her own right. She might have worked for three years after college to save up and pay off her student loans before she could open her business, but she was rolling now. Plus, she’d be taking six grand of their money for doing pretty minimal work.
A huge bonus.
Another huge bonus was that people like Dale and Trey didn’t get their hands dirty. They sat up in their glass tower and watched while the rest of their menial little ants ran around all day, doing their bidding. She knew for a fact she wouldn’t see either of them. She’d just make sure that they knew that it was her who had planned the party everyone was raving about after. After. She’d send a thank you card with her signature on it and they’d know that not only had they given her company business, they’d also hired and paid her, the woman that Dale Hartford looked at as scum.
She’d make sure that everyone fell in love with her. That there was no chance she wouldn’t get a good reference or repeat business. She’d work her butt off for it and then, she’d have her revenge in the only way she could get it short of sending a steaming bag of shit to Trey’s doorstep. She hadn’t exactly ruled that one out, even half a decade later.
She just needed to find an anonymous pooper and an anonymous delivery guy willing to drop off a sketchy package. Maybe she’d use the six grand from planning the happy holiday party to do just that.
Ambi grinned as she picked up her pen and scrawled the happiest thought she’d had in a long time along the bottom of the notepad’s page.
Steaming hot pile of dung. Dubious package. Clueless delivery guy.
She underlined it after. Twice.
Revenge was a dish served piping hot. Piping hot and smelly.
CHAPTER 2
Trey
There were a few things in life that he regretted. Amberina Danby was one of them. His father threw down an ultimatum. He’d taken the bait. He had money now. He was VP right under his father, who was President, of a very wealthy, healthy, thriving company. He had a sprawling house in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Minneapolis. He had a collection of antique cars that would make most museums salivate. Sometimes, he even drove them.
In short, life was good. Life was really, really good, and Trey enjoyed the hell out of it. He believed in living.
He also had a shithead side that believed in sticking it to his father.
Daddy dearest told him to get rid of Amberina or lose his inheritance and spend his days penniless. Not that it would have happened. He was smart and he could have made his own money. Because he was stupid and young and a little afraid of a man who’d always been more like a dictator than a father, and because Dale had always played the mother card, invoking how disappointed Violet would be if he walked away from his duties and his family over a pretty face. Trey had loved his mother just about more than anything in the world, so he finally caved.
He’d also made just about every eligible bachelor list, magazines, and even a few billboards in the past five years. It was a big flip off to his father when that shit came out.
Dale Hartford had made stipulations about Ambi. But he hadn’t made stipulations about marriage, and sadly enough for him, that’s where he’d gone wrong.
To add fuel to the fire, when his father announced his intentions to throw a big office Christmas party to show just how well H&H treated their employees, he’d gone right along with it, knowing full well exactly who he’d get to plan that party.
