Page 27 of Love Me Ever After
I shook my head, trying to breathe through the veil of snot and tears. “Can you take a lunch break?”
“Let me see if I can get away for a little while.”
Amber Kane—seriously, could I not get away from the Kane women today?—sat at one of the nail stations, her back to me, chatting away to her client. Sara went over to her and whispered something in her ear. Amber looked over in my direction and gave the smallest of nods.
“Thanks, Amber. Really appreciate it. I’ll work late tonight to make up for it.” Sara disappeared into the back room to grab her bag and we headed out of the salon. “She’s only given me half an hour so you’ll have to talk quick.”
We went to one of the cafes along the front where Sara knew the owner, which came in handy as within seconds we both had a large glass of wine, much to the annoyance of the other customers who had been waiting longer than us.
“Do you want some food?” she asked. “I already ate, knowing I’d be covering reception over lunch.”
I shook my head, gulping down the wine.
“So what’s going on? You never come to see me during the day and aren’t you meant to be at the conference thing for Mason’s company?” Sara took a smaller sip of her drink. I suppose she did have to be back at work later, whereas I could get absolutely shit faced. I had nowhere to be.
“Sonya sent me home,” I admitted, twirling the stem of my wine glass around. “She found out I slept with someone last night at the hotel after using my access code to get a room.”
“Ems!” Her shriek was loud enough to have everyone else in the cafe turn to look at our table. “You dark horse! Now I wantallthe details. Who was it? Have you been seeing someone I don’t know about? Or did you hook up with someone from the conference?”
Rip off the Band Aid, Ems. She’ll find out soon enough.
“It was Mason.”
This time, no sound came from Sara. She flapped her mouth open and closed like one of the fish in the aquarium we used to visit when we were younger. Every time I thought she was about to speak, nothing came out. After a beat, she grabbed her own glass and downed half the contents in one go.
“Mason?I mean, how? When? How did I not know this was going on? I live in the same house for fuck’s sake!”
“Nothing happened until last night. I swear we haven’t been conducting an illicit affair.” I swallowed some more of my wine, the alcohol starting to take the edge off.
“What does that mean? Are you two back together?”
Slowly, I nodded. “Yes. We’ve decided to give things another go.”
This time, her squeal was at a slightly lower volume. “Well, you two didn’t hang around. Thank fuck Tasha moved out, otherwise this wouldn’t have happened.” She paused. “Does Sonya know it was Mason?”
“God, no! I didn’t want him to get into any trouble.” I sighed. “Ididn’t want to get into trouble either, but here we are.”
“Why is she making such a big deal out of it anyway? I mean, it’s not likely to be the first time this sort of thing has happened.” Sara wrinkled her nose.
“I think it’s because this was the first time we’ve done a conference and my first time taking charge of such a big event. Sure, I can do weddings and one-day things standing on my head. But playing host to an international company who might want to build a relationship with us for the future? That’s next level. I’d handled it all until today. Now she’s going to do the final meeting and no doubt throw shade on what I’ve done.” The realisation that my career might go backwards rather than forwards at this point made me down the rest of my wine.
“Well, I hope she won’t. That doesn’t sound fair.” Sara checked her phone, then leaned forward, eyes glittering with excitement. “I’ve got about fifteen minutes, so tell me more about you and Mason.”
13
Mason
Despite there only being onesession after lunch, the hour dragged. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. Robert made an inspiring closing speech, making me more determined than ever to make my career a success with Lane & Parks. I’d already had some amazing opportunities and could only hope to get others.
“You coming for a drink before we get the train back?” asked Trevor.
My interests lay in finding Ems and picking up where we’d left off last night. She still hadn’t replied to any of my messages.
“Not today, mate. Got a few things to do.”
“What? Like crawl up Robert’s arse again?” He snorted a laugh.
I glanced around to see the CEO chatting with Sonya Kane. My eyes narrowed. Why wasn’t Ems there? “I might just do that,” I said, stalking towards the couple.
