Page 20 of His Obsession
Work is the only thing that reliably shuts my brain up. My therapist would probably invite me to examine that. She’d tell me I’m using it to avoid the darker parts of my past. A classic avoidance technique. She’d say I need healthier coping mechanisms.
Except I don’t want coping mechanisms. I don’t want to face those dark things. So instead, I work.
Work rewards competence. It calms me down and gives me something concrete to do with all the restless, ugly energy that builds when I feel cornered. So I let the gala eat up my entire life.
I stay up nights fiddling with the seating chart because I’m still learning the personalities of the confirmed attendees. I change my mind a million times about which centerpieces will allow for seamless conversation. I build mood boards of flower arrangements until I’m sure I’ve found the perfect combination.
Weeks pass like that. In front of my team, and especially in front of Sebastian, I make it look simple. I pretend I haven’t spenthours agonizing over the smallest details. It pays off. They all think I’m effortless.
By the Monday before the event, my office looks like a war room. Fabric samples cover the conference table. Seating drafts are clipped to foam boards along the wall. Auction notes spread across one desk, floral revisions across another. My assistant is buried in donor meal restrictions and rental confirmations. Lila, my receptionist, has started screening my calls with the ferocity of a woman who thinks I’m one more email away from committing homicide.
Every hour brings a new minor crisis. A sponsor wants their logo placement adjusted. One of the board members decides she hates the first version of the donor gifting and wants something “more luxurious.” The hotel insists on updated loading dock timing because another event is turning over in the ballroom below ours. The auction house sends me a revised sequence and somehow manages to make it worse.
I handle all of it with as much grace as I can manage. Since I’m busy enough to think in fifteen-minute increments, there’s no room in my head for the things I don’t want there. I don’t think about Adrian or wonder if he’s somehow found me. I don’t think about how Sebastian’s attractiveness hasn’t remotely waned over all these weeks.
Unfortunately, the gala keeps dragging me into his orbit. I’ve spent more time with Sebastian in the last few weeks than with most of my old boyfriends. He’s annoyingly hands-on about this event. Unlike most of my clients, he insists on being involved in every single detail.
The longer we work together, the more I realize why all of his other event planners quit. He really is a nightmare, and I thinkhe’s probably being extra nice to me. He isn’t rude or hard to work with. He’s just relentless in his need to know every detail, all the time.
By Thursday morning, I’m more coffee than human.
At two-thirty, the candle vendor drops out. No explanation. No solution. I stare at the email for a full five seconds because my brain refuses to process that level of stupidity this close to the finish line.
I call them. It goes straight to voicemail.
My blood pressure spikes so fast I actually laugh once, sharp and humorless, because there’s something almost impressive about the timing. Two days before event day. Hundreds of candles already designed into the room. All ruined because some idiot with a wholesale account and a delivery van has apparently decided now is a good time to disappear.
I text. I call a second number. I email. Nothing.
My assistant looks up from her desk when I walk out of my office too fast.
“What happened?”
“Our candle vendor dropped out,” I snap.
Her face falls. “No.”
“Yes.”
“Can they still fulfill the order if we pick them up?”
“I don’t know because apparently they’ve all died.”
She gets up and follows me. “You always tell the staff to take a minute to breathe. It’s just a setback. It’s not a disaster.”
I grab my bag and car keys. “I’m going to the hotel.”
“What can they do?”
“Nothing. But I can.”
I need to see the room. I need to walk it. There’s still time to fix this. It may require me to completely overhaul the décor at the last minute, but I’ll do what I need to do to make this work. Otherwise, I’ll buy out every candle store in Beverly Hills.
The gala is being held at one of the DeLuca hotels. It’s a level of luxury most people can only dream about. The lobby gleams with expensive marble and muted décor. Every staff member is trained to move quickly and silently, anticipating needs before they arise. I know the space well by now. I’ve been in and out of it for weeks.
The ballroom is half set when I arrive. It helps that the event organizer owns the hotel. Rental crates are stacked near the service hall, and staging is marked out with tape. A few florists are already on ladders, hanging garlands. The hotel staff move through their checklists with purpose.
I walk straight in with my phone in one hand and a folder tucked under the other arm. Everyone draws a breath when I enter. They’re used to my insanity by now, bracing for whatever fresh hell I’ve brought with me today.
