Page 7 of Hold Me Today

I’m an entrepreneur, something I never once imagined might be possible years ago. ACEO, for heck’s sake. Me, Ermione Pappas, Cambridge’s Most Likely to End Up Flunking Out of College. Okay, so that wasn’t arealvote in the ballot senior year, but some asshole had scrawled it across the final printed sheet in the cafeteria for all to gawk at like lemmings tripping over each other to all rush off the cliff together.

If I’m a hot mess, I’ll own it. But the hot-mess express is about to embark on its grand finale voyage, if I have anything to say about it.

C.E.O.

I may need the three letters stamped across my forehead as a constant reminder to myself that I’m as kickass and well-deserving of success as anyone else.

“I’m scrappy,” I say to Toula now, refusing to let my voice quiver with nerves. “I’ll figure it out. And then my old boss can eat her damn words whenAgapebecomesthego-to hair salon in the Boston-metro area.”

“Is your construction guy back from vacation yet?”

My smile freezes like I’m the one caught squatting, naked, over the toilet.

Don’t panic. Don’t cry. And, no matter what you do,don’tlaugh hysterically because you can’t handle the stress.

“We’re right on schedule,” I lie through a tight smile.

If by schedule I mean “we’re on track for the biggest shit show this city has ever witnessed,” then there’s never been a truer statement uttered in my life. Aside from Effie, who was with me when I first realized Jake took off with the money, no one else knows my ass isn’t just heated by the fire, it’s roasting in it. I can only imagine what my father might say—and all that hewouldn’tsay.

“Your place is in the home with a husband, Ermione,” he’d rumble, crushing me with the disapproval in his voice, “not owning a business.”

Embarrassment for being so naïve and trusting has kept my mouth shut thus far, but dogged determination to prove them all wrong is what drives me. What’s always driven me.

When Toula eyes me skeptically, I wave away her concern. “I’mgood, I promise. And enough about me—your husband is waiting for you.”

It’s the perfect distraction.

With a shimmy and a grin, Toula twiddles her fingers at me and throws the bathroom door wide open with enough force that it thwacks the wall with a dullthud. “Oh,husband!” she calls out, and I wince even as I laugh because Toula is just Toula. Crazy, outgoing, and so insanely kind.

Hooking my hand through the purse I abandoned on the bathroom counter during #PeeGate, I hold the door open with the heel of my stiletto and then head for the elevator that’ll take me up to the fifth floor of the Omni Parker House Hotel, where the wedding reception is being held.

The hotel itself is beyond exquisite. Oak-paneled walls. Gold-leaf accents. Bellmen dressed in smart, navy-blue suits. Men in tuxedos wander along the halls, crystal tumblers in one hand and fawning women tucked in close with the other. Their smug, masculine smirks are shadowed by the flickering of old-fashioned lamps, which offer an ethereal glow that even has my unromantic heart sighing.

Figures that the lamps would get to me while the men don’t inspire so much as a quickening of my breath. I prefer to keep my relationships simple, uncomplicated, and out of sight and out of mind.Agapeis where my head’s at, and where it has to remain if I want to drag myself out of my current hellhole.

With aping!the elevator doors open and I step in.

I knuckle the fifth-floor button, then lean against the outer wall of the elevator.

“You’re fine,” I mutter to myself, the base of my skull connecting with gold-embossed wallpaper as I release a heavy breath. “If anyone else asks about the salon, just—”

Just,what?

Lie and then lie some more? How long can I really expect to get away with the lying game? My mother watches us kids like a hawk, no matter the fact that we’re all grown and adulting to our very best abilities. My dad . . . Well, after the Nick-Brynn wedding incident from a few years back, I’ve managed to stay off his radar for the most part. When it comes to money and business, however, nothing escapes his notice—and I have no doubt he’s already standing by and waiting to announce each and every mistake I make.

No doubt about it, I’mfuc—

A masculine hand sticks through the closing elevator doors, cutting off my train of thought as I lurch forward to jab the KEEP OPEN button. I smack it once with a heavy, don’t-fail-me-now finger, then again, my gaze flitting to the doors that are inching closed like the gates of Mordor.

That hand balls into a fist and then a suit-encased forearm appears, followed by a long leg and a brown, leather dress shoe. The leather is so soft, so visibly supple, I wouldn’t doubt that they cost more than my mortgage.

“Gamóto.”

At the Greek curse, and the more than familiar gravel-pitched voice, my back snaps straight, and I yank my gaze up. Up past the lean waist not even a suit jacket can hide. Up past the barrel chest and the bulging, I-swing-hammers-for-a-living arms. Up to a face that’s as unforgiving in its aristocratic, angular bone structure as his hair is a wild, dark mop on his head.

Only that curly hair and a pair of full, pillow-soft lips—notthat I’ve ever tasted them, of course—make him seem more human than rigid statue.

Bingo.

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