“I thought I knew all the wedding planners in the city.” Bella frowned at my card. “Why haven’t I heard of you?”
“She’s private,” Simone said, touching her gently on the arm. “Very exclusive. She doesn’t need to advertise. It’s all word of mouth.”
Bella’s parents shared a look that sent my pulse kicking up a notch.
“My daughter is getting married in three weeks,” Mrs. Angelini said. “Our wedding planner left us unexpectedly and we’ve been trying to manage everything ourselves. It’s a shambles.”
“We can just postpone the wedding,” Bella said. “It’s no big deal.”
“No big deal?” Her father turned on her, his face creased in a scowl. “It is a big deal; not just for our family but for the D’Amico family as well. This wedding is going ahead as planned. For two years you have dragged it out with your bad behavior and outrageous demands. But no more.” He was shaking now, his fury evident in every line of his hard body. Simone clasped my elbow and gently pulled me back a step.
Mr. Angelini turned his stormy gaze on me. “Can you get an elephant?”
Not how I had expected the conversation to go, but when you have a big family, you’re used to thinking on your feet.
“Yes, I can.” Elephants were not uncommon in South Asian weddings. I’d been to several baraats over the years where the groom had ridden an elephant to the ceremony, and I was pretty sure my aunties would know where they’d been sourced.
Mr. Angelini looked over at his burliest bodyguard, a six-and-a-half-foot mammoth of a man with a prison haircut and a gold tooth. “She can get a fucking elephant.”
“Oh my. Language.” Simone fanned her face. I grabbed her arm and braced myself in case she collapsed in a swoon.
“How much?” Mr. Angelini demanded.
“For the elephant?”
“For everything,” he said. “The wedding is on June twenty-fifth.”
Even if I’d been a professional event planner with dozens of weddings under my belt, I wouldn’t have wanted to take the gig. The dude legit scared me. His bodyguards scared me. The prospect of failing a man who clearly had no patience and little time for incompetence and failure scared me.
But . . . Chloe.
“I can check the calendar—”
His face darkened. Gold Tooth folded his arms across his massive chest. “Give me a number,” Mr. Angelini said. “The last one wanted ninety thousand, which was 15 percent of her estimated total costs. What about one hundred thousand? Can you clear your schedule for that?”
I would have kissed his shoe—both shoes—for ninety thousand dollars, but I was supposedly a professional and had to remind myself not to scream and jump with joy. Instead, I needed to act as if it were every day that people offered me one hundred thousand dollars for three weeks’ work for which I was not remotely qualified. “I’ll have to check with my business partner. It’s a lot of work in a short time. And we haven’t heard if Bella even wants us—”
“One hundred fifty thousand. Bella will do what she’s told. I’m the one footing the bill.”
Bella’s face had gone blank. She didn’t even meet my gaze.
Simone indiscreetly poked me in the back. I took that to mean I should accept the offer, but it was so much money, and I had no experience, and he was such a scary dude, I could barely breathe. “If you could give me a minute—”
“Two hundred fifty thousand plus a bonus if everything goes well, and I’m not taking no for an answer.” He nodded at Gold Tooth. “Get her card and put her in touch with my assistant to handle the payment.”
“You’ve got yourself a wedding planner.” I held out my hand like they taught in interview courses. He grabbed it and squeezed so hard I thought the bones would break.
“I’m a fair man,” he said. “Do well and you’ll be rewarded. Fail and—”
“So serious.” Simone laughed lightly and tapped his hand, gesturing for him to release me. “I’m sure Simi will do a wonderful job.”
“Saturday. Noon. My assistant will send you the address.” He looked over at his daughter. “That’s how you get things done. You’ve got a new wedding planner. You got your elephant. There is no reason now why the wedding can’t go ahead.”
“Yes, Papa,” she said quietly.
“How did I do?” I whispered to Simone after they walked away.
“Dahling.” Simone gave me a squeeze. “You’re fucked.”
Thirteen
I closed the door to Rose’s garage and looked around at my crew. I still couldn’t believe everyone except Jack had shown up on a Friday night. It was no big deal for me to be here—my Friday nights were usually spent watching crime shows with Rose or kicking back with Chloe and Olivia—but I’d assumed everyone else would have had plans.
“Thank you for attending this emergency meeting,” I said. “I’m sure you all have better things to do with your Friday night.” I used a red marker to write our company name on my new whiteboard. “Our new business is up and running. We are now officially Simply Elegant Events. Chloe will be handing out packets of business cards. You can use the QR code to check out our website and familiarize yourself with what we do.”
“What do we do?” Anil asked.
“We organize events—in particular, weddings—and in this case, the wedding of Bella Angelini. I spoke to her dad last night and we cut a deal. We are now her official wedding planners.”
“Cut is right,” Gage muttered. “You piss him off and you’re gonna lose a limb or two.”
“I could do without the negativity.”
Chloe patted my arm. “Don’t mind him. He’s been grumpy since he got here. I don’t think he’s been sleeping well.”
“How would you know? He hardly ever talks.”
“Just a feeling.”
“What kind of deal?” Cristian asked. He was dressed in his uniform of cargo pants, pastel shirt, Sperrys, and a backward ball cap. As usual, he looked like he’d just stepped off a fashion runway.
“He’s going to pay us two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to organize his daughter’s wedding.”
Cristian whistled. “Fuck me.”
“I thought no one fucked you unless they paid,” Emma quipped.
“Fuck you.” Cristian dropped his feet and sat up like he was about to start a fight, which I knew would never happen because he was anti-violence as well as being anti-everything-else.
“How about no one fucks anyone and we listen to Simi’s plan.” Chloe shot me a worried glance. “You do have a plan.”
“Yes. I have a plan.” I wrote four headings on the whiteboard. “Tomorrow we’re going to the Angelinis’ mansion to meet with the bride. I’ll introduce you as my team. Everyone will have a different wedding-related job that will give you access to an area of the house that needs to be searched or a system that we need to understand to pull off the heist.”
“What do you mean by ‘job’？” Anil asked.