02

Taylor beamed at me, completely unaware of my real take on this matter.

I actually did attempt to calm down a bit, and it worked pretty well at first. I walked around the ballroom breezily, silently surveying the work that was being done and politely answering my phone when it rang. Well, as politely as I could handle. My manners weren’t the best, despite my upbringing. I blamed the rebellious teenager in me for it.

The tiny bit of calmness and politeness I was managing to exude disappeared the moment I saw my bodyguard sneaking dessert samples into his jacket. He glanced around the room to make sure no one was watching him, but obviously he did a horrible job at surveying the room if I caught him. Seriously, what kind of a bodyguard was he ? He was supposed to be an expert at surveillance ! Who had my dad hired to guard me ? My God.

“Jack, you thieving fatso,” I shouted, narrowing my eyes at him. “Put that down right now !

He glanced over, looking at me with a guilty expression on his face. “Sorry, Em.”

I shook my head in disbelief, stalking over to where he was standing. I snatched the samples out of his hand and shot him a dirty look. “What if you took a sample that was absolutely amazing ? What if you destroyed our chance at having the most scrumptious dessert on the face of this planet at Taylor’s party ?”

“I think you’re exaggerating. I only took the cheap ones.”

I looked at the dessert table in horror. “There shouldn’t be any cheap ones here. What is this garbage ?”

Jack was quick to correct himself. “Let me rephrase my sentence. I only took the cheaper ones.”

“I’m sure.” I glared at him for a few more seconds, just for good effect, before turning away. He was lucky he was practically family, or I probably would’ve fired him already. “Just quit stealing the food, Lardo.”

He readily agreed, but just before I left the room, I saw him sneak one last sample into his jacket. I shook my head. Some things just never changed.

“Get to class, all of you !” a teacher yelled, stalking up and down the hallway. Her attempts were made in vain since we all promptly ignored her, even when she made obscene gestures out of anger.

Eventually, she just gave up and went back to her classroom. She’d never had much of a backbone, especially not when it came to huge groups of kids. She knew when she was outnumbered.

“It’s going to be the hottest party of the year,” I announced to the adoring crowd in front of me, turning the invitations over in my hands as I spoke. “It might just be the hottest party of the decade if people stop messing up my orders,” I added, my tone only a little bitter.

A few of the people standing in front of me laughed, staring at the invitations in my hand with anxious anticipation. My original plan had been to mail the invitations, but Taylor wanted to pass them out at school, and well, it was her party. What she said went.

The invitations weren’t readily available, of course. There were simply too many people that would want to come and too many people that we actually wanted to come. There wouldn’t be enough room in the ballroom, and there was no way I was changing the venue by that point. Besides, we didn’t want there to be over 500 people, and we had to take surprise guests into account. There was just no way we could let everyone come.

As I was handing out invitations to the lucky few that were on my list, my cell phone vibrated. I looked down and saw that it was the caterer again. Rolling my eyes, I handed the invitations over to Taylor, letting her take over. “It’s the caterer again. You handle this for right now. I’ll be right back.”

Taylor nodded at me, and I turned and walked away, answering the call. “Did you get it right this time ?” I asked.

“Well…” The woman’s voice trailed off slowly.

“What do you mean by that ?”

“There’s been a slight complication.”

“Don’t tell me that ; I’m running out of places to hide bodies.”

The phone call ended shortly after that, unsurprisingly. She’d find a way to fix the small complication.

Since I didn’t have a class the next hour, I left school grounds to go talk to my dad. He’d sent me a text saying he had a surprise for me, and I wasn’t about to wait until after school to talk to him.

No one said anything when I walked out of the building. No one ever did. My dad was the reason my high school was up and running, and they weren’t about to mess with his only daughter. It was one of the many perks of being his heiress.

The drive to his office was short, and getting through the front desk took seconds, if anything. Everyone at my dad’s office knew who I was and knew to let me pass whenever I wanted.

My dad was the CEO of a huge company that sold everything from clothing to jewelry to home goods, and he’d done ridiculously well with his business. I was sure his old boss really regretted selling the business to my dad because it had practically blossomed overnight once it was in my dad’s hands.

“Hi, daddy,” I said, walking over to his desk to give him a hug. “A little bird told me you have a surprise for me,” I added, nudging him with my shoulder.

My dad smiled over at me and said, “Now, how did I know you were going to rush over here the minute I mentioned the word ‘surprise’ ?”

“Because you know me too well. I don’t have much time, though. Lunch starts in half an hour.”

“That’s plenty of time. This won’t take long ; I have a lot of work to do myself,” he said, rifling through some papers on his desk as he spoke. “They were just here a second ago… aha ! Here we are.” He picked up two tickets and held them over his face. “Two tickets to Paramore’s sold out concert over in L.A. for my favorite girl.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’re actually taking time off of work to go to this concert with me.”

He shook his head. “No. I wish I could, but with two new ads coming out this month and this sale coming up soon, I can’t. I’m sure Taylor would love to go, though, and you know getting Jack in is never a problem.” People tended to let Jack slide by when he stood over them and told them he was my bodyguard.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. I wasn’t even disappointed anymore. I knew my dad was busy, and I respected the work he did. He had priorities, and concerts weren’t one of them, especially not at such late notice. “Taylor’s going to freak when she sees these.” I took the tickets from him and gave him another hug, squeezing him tightly. “Thank you, daddy.”

“You’re welcome, Princess,” he said, squeezing me back. “Have fun at the concert, and be careful. Don’t leave Jack’s side for anything.”

“I won’t,” I said, but I didn’t really want to be tied to Jack all day. We would have to see about that. “Well, I have to head back, so I’ll leave you to your work,” I added, already feeling a little uncomfortable in the awkward silence. We never had much to talk about.

He nodded, already looking through his computer. “See you later, Em.”

I waved and said goodbye, but he didn’t see me.

I got back to the school just in time for lunch, and it was a good thing I did because I didn’t think Taylor would have coped so well without me. Things were going normally at first. We sat at our usual table as we ate and talked, laughing at Aaron’s stupid childhood stories until Taylor’s ex-boyfriend just had to ruin our lunch period.

He came up to our table all of a sudden with an annoyed look on his face. “Hey, Williamson, van der Bilt. Where’s my invitation ?”

“Your invitation is nonexistent,” I answered simply.

“Nonexistent ?” Noel blinked at me. “Why ?”

I stared at him blankly. “Do you really have to ask ?” Was he serious ? Why would he even think to ask for an invitation after what he’d done to Taylor ? They dated for two years, and he broke her heart as if it were nothing but a toy, dropping her for some girl he met on the internet.

“I deserve an invitation, Emma,” he insisted.

I snorted with laughter. “You deserve an invitation ? What you deserve is a kick to the groin. Now get out of my face before I give you what you deserve.”