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We’d spent almost an entire week arranging the funeral. My father had known a lot of very important people in the fashion world, and supported a lot of charities his entire life, as well as, a few professional sporting clubs. Connor notified each of them about his untimely passing, even though most of them knew already. It was going to be a difficult day for everyone.

By the time Friday came I was a nervous wreck. I spent the morning trying to calm my nerves by taking a long, hot bath and listening to upbeat music. In the past, I found that music often helped but today wasn’t one of those days.

It was the day of my father’s funeral. Even though it meant that I’d get to see my grandparents again, I also had to confront my biggest fear: the spotlight. After today, the short, quiet life I’d become accustomed to would no longer exist and I’d get thrown back into the media mess that terrified me. There was no way reporters would miss this event for anything.

Many people around the world had adored both my mother and my father, not only because of their remarkable high fashion culture but also for their admirable generosity. They were great humanitarians. No matter how demanding their own lives were they always found the time to give money and help out hundreds of charities all around the world.

It shocked the world to learn that they’d lost a great woman twelve years ago and now, it was the death of multi-billionaire, Rupert Montgomery. Nobody would dare miss this.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. I didn’t have any other choice; I had to be ready for this.

I checked myself in the mirror once more and adjusted the small veil that just covered my eyes, and then smoothed out my black Chanel pencil dress before heading out the door.

Connor had arranged for his driver, named Clifford to come pick up both Derek and I. Only Derek had decided to meet up with a friend of his late last night, which meant I had to travel to the other side of the city to get him from the hotel he stayed at. I silently prayed that this little detour wouldn’t cause us to be late.

During the car ride, I wondered if anybody was expecting me to make some kind of speech. Connor hadn’t asked me to and he would never force me to do something I wasn’t comfortable with doing. Even if I had wanted to say a few words, what would I say? And how would I handle standing up there, with thousands of eyes all on me? Watching me… Judging me…

Goldie
, the twenty eight year old, gold-digging girlfriend was making a speech. The very thought of her having held my seventy-year-old father’s hand brought up a vile taste in my mouth. She was only two years older than Connor, and would’ve been one year younger than my brother, Alex, if he were still alive!

Arriving at the front of the hotel, I asked Clifford to wait while I hopped out of the black Bentley, and walked into the lobby of the fancy hotel where Derek had told me to wait for him. Jeez, that boy knew how to get by. Judging by the look of this place, the ‘friend’ he met up with was loaded with cash.

The young girl at Reception informed me that Derek would be down in a moment so while I waited, I went over to explore the large fountain covering the center of the entrance hall. A large, in-ground, rectangular pool, about ten feet long, stretched out across the lobby floor. Large, colorful koi fish swam around, unmoved by the short spurts of water that spat out spontaneously from the jets and landed on top of them. The longer I stared the more I realized that there was a pattern forming between the spurts of water― like an upbeat rhythm. I felt like a conductor while each jet was an instrument, and together we were playing in a grand symphony. A tiny smile crept up on my face as I hummed a random tune in my head.

“
Evangeline?
”

I spun around at the sound of my name.
You have got to be kidding me!

A few feet away stood Ryan, with yet another young, beautiful, blond woman in tow. Both were elegantly dressed; Ryan in a fine black suit and the girl in a black lace dress. What were the odds of running into him at the same hotel? What were the odds of ever running into him at all? New York was a big city and it wasn’t like I ventured out much. And how stupid had I been for drunkenly hooking up with him? Clearly, it wasn’t enough. The player needed to get his fix from someone else and that someone else was attached to his side.

“What on earth are you doing here?” he questioned curiously.

I wanted to ask him the same thing but kept my mouth closed instead.

He covered the small distance between us with ease and the next thing I knew he was standing in front of me, towering down with that intimidating grin of his firmly in place. I felt my breath hitch in my throat as he leaned in closer.
Control yourself!

“Are you going to just stand there and act like you don’t know me? I’m finding it a little embarrassing,” he whispered into my ear. Although his words weren’t meant to be seductive, I felt my whole body shiver impulsively with delight.

My eyes fluttered closed and I began to imagine what it would be like to have those soft lips kissing my entire body again, just as they had a week ago. When I opened them a short moment later, I came face to face with a wide, ear-to-ear grin and a twinkle of amusement in his eye as he studied me intently.
Shit, what is wrong with me?

“Hello, Ryan. Sorry… I’ve just got a lot on my mind right now,” I finally replied. I could feel the heat slowly rising in my cheeks. He was too close.
Way
too close.

I somehow managed to take a step back out of the hot zone.

“I can definitely see that. I hope I appear in there somewhere,” he teased just loud enough for only me to hear. He took a step back, giving me even more room to breathe again. The air around me cooled almost instantly but I struggled to relax knowing he hadn’t taken his eyes off me.

“Are you going to keep me waiting while you flirt? You are such an ass sometimes, Ryan,” the girl behind him complained, throwing her hands up to her hips.

I blushed again.
Could this strange and awkward situation get any worse?
Did all the girls he messed around with act like this? How could they stand him being this way?

Our connection broke when I cowardly looked away. I swear I saw him blush but I had to be dreaming it.

I heard him let out an exasperated sigh. “Annabelle, will you just shut it for one minute?” he said sternly with a hint of sarcasm in his tone. He didn’t turn away. He kept his eyes locked on me, leaving me completely dumbfounded. These two clearly had some strange relationship going on.

“Stop telling me to ‘shut it’, Ry.”

The girl stormed up to us, nudged him out of the way and held her hand out towards me. I eyed it warily for a moment before slowly accepting it. Was this some kind of a joke?

“Hi, I’m Annabelle. I don’t often like introducing myself to any of the women Ryan has slept with but he’s acting rather strange so I thought I’d see what the fuss was all about.” The Annabelle girl actually looked me up and down before the smile on her face widened. “Well, this will be very interesting…” she muttered.

I stood there utterly speechless. I didn’t know what to make of this bizarre situation. Was this his girlfriend? Were they in some weird open relationship? Maybe they were into the whole ‘swingers’ scene?

Seeming to have collected himself, Ryan stepped in at that precise moment. “Annabelle, you’re such a brat. Stop terrifying the poor woman and quit embarrassing me.”

I turned my attention back to him. He was looking at me with a casual grin on his face but I could still see evidence of pink in his cheeks. He was blushing! “Evangeline, I’m sorry, this is my loud mouthed and
extremely
nosey baby sister.” He directed the ‘nosey’ part at his sister.

A strange feeling of relief washed over me. She wasn’t his girlfriend after all. But why did I even care?

Annabelle raised her arms and placed them on her hips again, turning away to give her brother a playful glare from over her shoulder, but Ryan was too busy staring at me to even notice.

“Now that... I have never seen you do before!”

Ryan scowled and turned back to Annabelle. “Quit it!”

She threw her head back and let out a light, girly laugh.

“You must have used some incredible bait to catch this fish, Evangeline. He’s never bothered introducing me to any of his women before and I have never seen him blush this much in my life!”

“Just get out of here, will you!” Ryan growled, pushing his giggling sister away. She slapped away his hands and continued walking towards the front entrance of the hotel.

I turned crimson. I wasn’t sure why, it wasn’t me she was teasing after all.

“Err… I’m sorry about that,” he said once he was facing me again. There was a slight awkwardness in his smile, which I could tell he was trying his best to hide. “Well, I need to get going. It’s an important day and it’s not something I want to be late for.”

“Yeah me too. Except I will be if someone doesn’t turn up in the next two minutes.”
In fact, where is he?

“Do you mean your ‘boyfriend’ from that night?” he teased.

I couldn’t help but frown. “Ha. Ha,” I replied dryly. “For the record, he’s my best friend, but if you must know then, yes, that’s who.”

“I thought it was him,” he muttered. “He and some guy were saying goodbye to another man―”

I quickly threw my hands up to cut him off. “I don’t even want to know.” There was no way I wanted images in my head of Derek’s sex life on the day of my father’s funeral or on any other day for that matter.

Ryan let out a soft laugh. “Well, I guess I’ll see you around some time then? Perhaps at the Inferno night club again?”

“Yeah, perhaps,” I lied. There was no way I was ever going back there again.
Yes you will. You want to see him again, admit it.

An awkward silence fell over us before Ryan opened his mouth to speak but then he quickly shut it.
“I’ll see you around, Evangeline,” he managed to get out and with a quick nod he turned away. I blinked as my thoughts ran wild.
That was it? That’s all he had to say? No inappropriate jokes? But isn’t that what you wanted? You don’t want a guy like him. But you do, don’t you…just admit it, Evangeline.

Lost in my own thoughts, I hadn’t realized that Ryan had only taken a few steps before stopping, and he was staring back at me over his shoulder with a devilish grin on his face. Now this was the Ryan I was used to. “Oh, and by the way, you look smokin’ hot in that dress. If you were wearing that on the night we’d met, veil and all, I’d have had you bent over the bar in a matter of seconds.”
Ohmygod!

I think my face turned every shade of red before I could come up with a witty reply, but by then Ryan was already making his way through the revolving doors with his sister by his side.

I watched until they were completely out of sight. Why couldn’t I have just asked him for his number?
No
, because I didn’t need a guy who slept around with everyone to worry about! I had enough problems of my own.

“Sorry I’m late,” a loud voice behind me suddenly said.

I gasped and swear I almost jumped twenty feet in the air.

“You wouldn’t believe what I did this morning.”

“Jesus Christ! You nearly gave me a heart attack,” I growled, throwing a hand over my chest. “If it involves more than one man and kinky sex positions, I don’t want to know.”

His eyebrows came together. “How’d you know?” He sounded surprised and a little disappointed at the same time, but I didn’t have time to go into the details. We were about to be very late if we didn’t leave right that second.

I grabbed Derek’s hand and started to drag him forward. “I’m psychic. Now come on or we’ll be late.”

****

As the Bentley slowed, I gazed through the heavily tinted window and out at the media that were gathered by the hundreds, held back by barricades and security officers just outside the front of the church. Seeing a crowd this size overwhelmed me. It was the loud voices speaking all at once, the constant bright camera flashes as celebrities and other well-known people made their way into the sanctuary of the church and the endless sea of black… It reminded me too much of the first time I had to go through it.

My heartbeat quickened. Each breath came out in short, shallow pants as I struggled to gasp for much needed fresh air. A dark shadow appeared in the corner of my vision, slowly taking over, until it left nothing but a small tunnel of light that continued to shrink with each passing moment. Suddenly it was hot,
very hot
… Oh no, it was happening. I needed to get out of the car, but I couldn’t move. I felt numb, with no control over my movements. A loud ringing sound filled my ears. Soon it was all I could hear and there was nothing around me but complete darkness…