Page 3 of Party Favors

If there was one thing the women in my family loved, it was royal families. And we were especially obsessed with the royal family of Monterra. My grandma had started the whole thing, and while some families passed down silverware or noble titles, our love of royalty was what bonded us all together.

I remembered viewing Nico and Kat’s wedding on TV eight years ago. We’d all gotten up at four in the morning to watch. Kat McTaggart, an American girl, had met the crown prince of Monterra while on vacation in his country, a small kingdom situated between Switzerland and Italy. Nico was gorgeous and had the sexiest accent I’d ever heard, and I completely understood why Kat had fallen head over heels in love with him.

I was fourteen years old when they got married, and it was the most romantic thing I’d ever seen, a real-life fairy tale.

I’d been chasing that dream for myself ever since and had continually come up short. I wanted my own Nico but hadn’t been able to find anything even close.

ARE YOU STILL WORKING? MOM SEND

I made a disgruntled noise but didn’t respond. She’d be upset if I told her I was still at the office.

The intercom on my desk phone buzzed and I reached for the button. “Yes?”

“Everly?”

Adrian’s warm, rich voice came over the loudspeaker and I couldn’t help but smile. He had called me Beverly for the first three months after I started as his assistant, and there had been a period of time when I’d considered giving in and just letting that be my new name, but I’d resisted and gently corrected him each time.

And I was glad that I had, because I got a flutter of happiness each time he said my name.

“Everly? My water?” he said when I didn’t respond.

Oh, right. I’d totally forgotten. I rushed into his office and handed it to him. He was very handsome. I’d expected that at some point I’d become more accustomed to his appearance, that light blond hair and those deep, dark brown eyes.

He was my own personal Nico. Not that they looked anything alike—but Adrian Stone was the heir to one of the richest families in New York. Adrian was working at Elevated to learn the ropes so that someday he could take over all of his father’s businesses.

Adrian and his family were constantly showing up online, dressed to the nines, going from one fabulous event to another.

I imagined that being his girlfriend would be like an Americanized version of being a princess.

This was probably an HR crisis waiting to happen, but I’d had a crush on Adrian since I’d started at Elevated. Both Vella and my mom told me I’d eventually outgrow it, but it hadn’t happened yet.

I knew he didn’t think of me that way. That he probably couldn’t think of me romantically, given that he was my boss. He was seven years older than I was, and while that might have been a big deal when I was eighteen and had just started here, now I was twenty-two.

I’d grown up, and I’d been waiting a long time for him to notice.

Not that he would. While he’d initially been the kind of guy who dated a different woman every week, he had been in a serious relationship for the last two years.

I wanted him to be happy, but a tiny part of me was jealous.

I also recognized that I wasn’t his type. His girlfriend was petite and perfect-looking and blonde and unbelievably sweet. I wanted to be okay with his relationship. But a small piece of me thought that if he ever got to really know me, he might like me.

He didn’t say anything about the water, but I saw the grimace he made when he took the bottle and felt a pang at disappointing him. This was another reason I wanted my crush to be over. So that I’d stop being so emotionally tied up in him and his reactions.

Adrian preferred it as cold as it could be, and I’d let myself get distracted by Claudia and then my mom and I had let him down and I hated how this felt.

“Is everything ready to go for Origin Telecom next week?” he asked.

“Yes.” As if I’d ever let a client as important as Origin Telecom fall to the wayside. “Everything is set up and we have multiple contingency plans in place just in case anything goes wrong.”

And in my experience, something always went wrong. Part of being a good event planner was having a backup plan for your backup plan when the AV system blew up or the bathrooms flooded.

Some sliver of my brain noted how easy it was for me to talk to Adrian now. It had taken a long time to get to this point. I’d been so bowled over by his good looks the first few days on this job that every time I’d had to speak to him, it was like I was having a series of mini-strokes.

But now we could have actual conversations. Progress.

“Good.” He put the water down and leaned back in his chair, giving me a charming smile. “I always know things will go well as long as I have you by my side.”

I felt his words from the top of my head all the way down to my tingling toes. Adrian didn’t give compliments often, but when he did? It was like Christmas, my birthday, and a royal wedding all wrapped into one. I lived for that approval in his voice.

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