AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER1
VERONICA
Reorder your favorites?
I scoff at the screen. They have it all wrong. If I was ordering my favorites, my online cart would be full of truffle mac and cheese and filet mignon with a porcini mushroom glaze. My order history would show slices of key lime pie and pints of dark chocolate gelato with a bottle or two of fine Cabernet thrown in for good measure. Oh, and salt and vinegar chips. Definitely those.
Instead, its power green chia smoothies, unsweetened almond milk yogurt, gluten-free seaweed crackers, and roasted red pepper hummus. Yup, I sigh, just the usual.
But instead of clicking to add my favorites to the delivery order, my mouse hovers over the big green button. I look up from my desk and glance out past the lush, vibrant evergreen and festive poinsettias in our famous holiday window display—and the bundled up tourists stopping to snap a picture at New York City’s premier floral boutique studio—to the thick, wet snow that’s blanketed the city over the past twenty-four hours with no end in sight.
The forecast is calling for a white Christmas which, for the first time in four years, I’m not dreading because I have finally followed my best friend’s advice. I’ve arranged for my team of senior floral designers to handle the usual Christmas Eve and Christmas Day events and am taking what she insists is a much needed vacation. Or at least forty-eight hours where I’ve promised not to pop into the design studio, the workshop, stop by any event, or check my email.
Despite the below zero wind chill, West Forty-Eighth Street is bustling with holiday shoppers rushing to Bergdorf Goodman’s for a last-minute gift or to Rockefeller Plaza to see the tree and go ice skating. Surely, there are some men dropping into Tiffany’s, too, for a little something sparkly that either says, I love you, or please marry me, or, as in my case four Christmas mornings ago, forgive me.
As if.
I reach up to finger the diamond earrings that aren’t anywhere in the orbit of my style but which I still wear regularly because…well that’s a good question, but I suppose it’s because there’s no reason two carat teardrops should sit in a jewelry box. Especially when, thanks to a divorce attorney friend of his mistress, my ex walked away with everything. Everything except my business, that is, which was a win on par with the Superbowl because it was the only thing I fought tooth and nail for.
A pop-up on the screen pulls my attention back to the order. Need more time? Why yes, I do need more time.
Five minutes later, in addition to my usual order, I’ve added some indulgences to my cart. Not only the decadent food items but also a Dreamy Lavender bath bomb, the hot new best-selling novel everyone’s been talking about—who knew this gourmet food store carried books—and a honeycomb beeswax candle. Between this cart and a Netflix subscription I’ll have to reset the password for, I should be set for my forty-eight hour mandatory sentence, er…vacation.
What’s the earliest delivery time I can get? I’m usually up with the sun and run nonstop until I crash close to midnight. Ten o’clock tomorrow morning is the best I can do. Just as I click Place Order, my cell phone buzzes. One glance at the name and I answer on the second ring. Tierney Roberts is not only my best friend but also the go to wedding planner in Manhattan. We met three years ago when we were both named to the annual Thirty under Thirty Women to Watch in New York City list and our businesses have blossomed along with our friendship ever since.
“Business or personal?” I ask, using our customary shorthand for cutting to the chase about the intent of any call, while simultaneously running through the weddings she has booked over the next two days in my mind.
“Business,” she confirms. “Buuuut, not on the schedule.”
I snap to attention at her tone. As if she’s warning me, she’s about to call in a favor.
“For when?”
“If you do it, you’ll be able to buy that upstart competitor you’ve been eyeing.” The one that’s ripe for a takeover? Man, Tierney really knows how to speak my language.
“When?” I press.
“The twenty-fourth.”
“December twenty-fourth?” No. No way is she calling now with an event in three days. I know the kind of weddings clients of Roberts Events expect and they are not affairs that can be pulled off in three days. Not even close.
“It’s a small ceremony and reception…intimate.”
I can just imagine the way her freckled nose is wrinkling.
“Intimate like two or intimate like two hundred?”
“Since when do you know about intimate for two other than you need a piece of that action?”
We’ve had this conversation over Moscow Mules with extra lime a dozen times. Despite her encouragement to get back out there, Tierney knows my sole focus is my business, especially after a messy divorce I’d rather forget. Plus, her dates, men in their late twenties, like the two of us, are either working a hundred hours a week trying to make it on Wall Street or still figuring their shit out, i.e., not worth my time. Plus, they’re not running multi-million-dollar businesses like we are.
I ignore her attempt at distraction. “How many, Tierney?”
“Twenty-five-ish and no expense spared. Maybe you could push your vacation back a few days. Take off between Christmas and New Year’s instead.”
Maybe. “Location?”
“Private residence on the Upper East Side. Chef Tomas is already on board.”
