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“You know, my parents are going to want to meet you now.” I sighed against his chest and let him hold me for a second. His arms were warm, and I contemplated staying like this for the rest of the afternoon. My phone beeped in my pocket, letting me know that wasn’t even a remote possibility.
Texts from Juliet rolled in, asking if I was coming into the office. I shot a text back, letting her know I was on my way.
Ten minutes later, we were walking out of the store with fifteen bags of new clothes, most of which I would probably only get to wear once. If I was lucky, I wouldn’t have to wear most of them at all. That bird dress was going to haunt me for a long time.
“Who was that man at the boutique?” I turned towards him from the passenger seat. “You can tell me to mind my own business. It just looked kind of serious.”
Ryzen let out a heavy sigh and gripped the steering wheel. “It was my ex-business partner.” I nodded, but he didn’t look in my direction. “He has a tendency to show up at places where I am—including in bed with my fiancée.”
“Oh.Oh.Thatwas the guy?”
He nodded.
I touched his arm. “Besides the obvious, what exactly happened between you guys?”
It wasn’t like I was being nosy. I mean, I was technically his fiancée, and someone might ask me about it. I needed to be prepared. Besides, I had told him all about my crazy sister doing the same thing, so I totally knew what he had gone through.
“He always had a chip on his shoulder. Ever since high school. Always trying to prove himself because his family didn’t have money like the rest of us. His father was a drunk and took it out on him and his mom. He practically lived with me our entire senior year.”
“Sounds—really sad, actually.”
Ryzen scoffed. “It’s life, Nova. Welcome to the real world. Bad things happen here.”
I cringed at his crass remark and removed my hand from his arm. Another thing I had noticed about Ryzen? He could turn off the charm just as quickly as he turned it on. “Yeah, sure. What happened after high school?”
“My father helped him get into college, even paid for all his tuition up front. We started our first real estate company together, and things were great for a while. Until I found out he had been stealing from the company. The icing on the cake was finding him in bed with my fiancée the night before our wedding.” His knuckles were white as he sped through a red light.
Damn, I’d thought I had it bad with an evil sister. It paled compared to his situation. “That’s disgusting. What a jerk.” Odd how none of this had come up when I had stalked—um,researched—Ryzen. But now was not the time to ask about that.
Ryzen nodded in agreement just as we pulled up in front of my office on Monroe. He slammed the door and walked around to the trunk, pulled out the shopping bags and dropped them at the door. “I’ve got to head back to the office.” He leaned down and pecked me on the cheek. “I’ll text you tonight.” He rubbed the back of his neck and didn’t meet my eyes.
I scooped up as many bags as I could and used my butt to push the door open. “Jules, can you help me with some bags?” I shouted over my shoulder.
“Oh, she stepped out for a moment. Let me help you.” A petite woman about my age with long brown hair stood from behind my desk and came around to take the bags from my hands.
Um, what was going on here? Why would Juliet let a customer in the warehouse? Unsupervised, to top it off? “I’m sorry, but we don’t take orders in the store, only online at the moment.”
The girl giggled as she took the bags from my arms and dropped them on the table in the center of the room. “You must be Nova. It’s nice to meet you.”
“I’m sorry, but who are you?”
“I’m Thora, the new assistant.” She walked past me as I scratched my chin and grabbed the remaining bags from outside. “Juliet said she would be right back”—she glanced down at her watch—“in about two more minutes.”
“Oh, OK.” I tapped my foot and sent a text to Juliet. She sure had a lot of explaining to do. How could she hire someone without talking to me about it first? Speaking of the Devil, the bell above the door dinged as Juliet walked in with a smoothie in her hand.
“You’re back!” She barreled towards me and kissed both my cheeks. “I can’t wait to see the juicy outfits you got. You met Thora?” Juliet peeked into the bags, whistling as she touched the fabrics.
“Hey, can we catch up real quick?” I held the office door open for Juliet. “Thanks for the help with the bags, Thora.”
Juliet followed behind me, humming as she drank from her straw. I closed the door behind her and stood with my hands on my hips. She stopped humming when she looked at me, her eyes narrowing at my foot tapping on the floor.
“You’re mad about something.” She sucked so hard on the straw her cheeks hollowed. “What did Ryzen do?” She sat on the edge of the desk and placed her foot on one of the chairs.
I tugged on the end of my braid. “Nothing. But you, on the other hand—how could you hire someone without talking to me about it? This is our company; we should do these things together.”
“Whoa, whoa!” She put her cup on the table and stood, hands raised. “I told you, Nova. We talked about getting someone to help with organizing for the move.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket. “And I texted you days ago asking if you wanted to sit in on the interviews, to which you never responded.” She pushed her phone into my face, showing that in fact I hadn’t responded to her messages. “So I hired someone. It’s not a big deal. She’s great. You’re going to love her.”
“That’s not the point, Jul—”
