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Conner leans in so I can hear his lowered voice over the music. “I ran into one of the partners at another event and asked about their availability. It just so turned out that an event was canceled and they could pencil us in. I was just that lucky. You better buy my size twelve feet a new pair of Red Bottoms for this.”
I laugh at his antics, but I make a mental note to get him what he wished for as a present for organizing this. I didn’t even know the brand made them in that big of a size. I dated a girl once who only wore those things. They are very popular, but looked more like ankle-breaking death traps to me.
“Oh shit, Stoll, you have incoming. Hendrick's daughter is here and she's gunning right for you, buddy.” Conner tries to move on, but I grab him, afraid to turn and see Valerie approaching.
“Fuck,” I say under my breath. “You’re my assistant, Connor. One of the main reasons I hired you was to keep the unwanted females away from me, man.” I was practically begging him. “You’ll get a fat bonus this year if you help?—”
“Hi, Asher!” Valerie says, coming up to my side.
“Valerie, I'm going to work the crowd a little. I’ll talk to you later.” I try to disentangle the hand she has wrapped around my arm, but she just holds on tighter.
Her usually curly blonde hair is bone straight and looks wet, like it still needed to dry after she showered. The skin-tight red dress she wore looked like it was poured onto her curvy body to mold with it like a second skin. Valerie is dressed to kill tonight, but I desperately want to be far away from her.
“It's fine, I'll mingle with you,” she insists.
As the night goes on, I try my best multiple times to pass her off to other guests, but she has her claws deep into my arm and I can't get her to leave. Every time she opens her mouth, she lets people know her daddy is an investor.
I eventually get to her father, and I try my best to be nice to Valerie, but her incessant hovering is getting to me. When her father excuses himself, Valerie turns up her advance toward me.
She makes the mistake of trying to grab my crotch. I seize her arms to stop her, and just as I'm about to tell her off, her father’s investment be damned, my gaze catches the light as it bounces off a halo of blonde hair.
I know that hair. Every detail of that woman’s body is etched into my brain, never to be forgotten.
Samantha is here.
I manage to fight off Valerie's hands and make my way over to Samantha.
I feel like I'm struck by lightning as I get a better look at her. Her blonde hair falls around her shoulders in waves, and her makeup is light, almost natural-looking. She looks like an angel in her white dress.
“Hi,” I say to her. “What are you doing here? I mean, I'm glad you're here but…”I sound like a lovestruck schoolboy!I clear my throat and try again. “You know what? Never mind that. It’s good to see you?—”
I am brought up short when she daggers me with a hard look. “You invited thatviperto your launch party? I suppose it helps to have a cake like that on your arm for the night, and bigger the score if you get to eat it afterward, right?”
I look around and pull her away from the entrance doors, keeping my voice low. “Her father is an investor and invites her along to these things. She has never meant anything to me, Sam, not now and not then. But I’m a businessman, and even though I know my new sneaker line will work, I'd rather lose their money than my own.”
I’m irritated when one of the event staff interrupts us. But it's not me the man wants, but Samantha.
“Excuse me, Ms. Bennett, the rotating stand on the left-hand side isn’t working,” the staff member says to her.
“I told Lisa to double-check those,” she sighs. “But no matter, I want you to turn off the stands by evens and odds on either side of the room. This way it looks uniform with one rotating and one not,” she instructs the man who then walks off to do as she suggests.
I’m impressed by her problem-solving on the fly. “Wait, so you work at Transcend Events? Is that what you're doing here?” I ask, still puzzled.
She pastes a stiff smile on her face as another staff member nods to her. “Kind of,” she answers, still angry at me.
“What do you mean,kind of?”
“I own it,” she says.
“No way! You own Transcend Events?” I’m shocked.
“Yes Asher, I actually achieved something in my life, you know?” she tells me, rolling her eyes.
I scramble to take my foot out of my mouth. “That's not at all what I meant. I’m just surprised. Why didn’t you tell me?”
She shrugs her shoulders.
“Sam, we have to talk. It can't wait until we go back to Willowcreek.” I pray she doesn’t rebuff me.
