Free The Second Assistant by Clare Naylor, Mimi Hare Page A

Byng turned up on the other side of my clipboard.
    “What’s your name, please?” I hadn’t been in my position of power long enough to lose my manners just yet.
    “Veronica Byng, with a y. ” I scanned my list diligently. “I’m sorry, madam, but you’re not on the list.”
    “Yes, I am. My assistant RSVP’d.”
    “Well, madam, maybe she forgot.”
    “She didn’t forget. She doesn’t forget anything. Get Daniel Rosen out here now.”
    “I’m sorry, I can’t do that.”
    “Yes, you can. Use the two mediocre legs God gave you and walk them in that door and get Daniel. Do it now.”
    “I’m afraid I can’t do that. Perhaps if you’re such good friends with Mr. Rosen, you can call him on his cell phone,” I suggested innocently.
    She looked at me with such arctic hatred that I flinched. I couldn’t help it. And Miss Veronica Byng very savvily saw the chink in my armor. Her voice began to rise, and I involuntarily took a step back. A good instinct, as she took a swing at me. Her talons missed my left cheek by an eighth of an inch. But her stilettos set her off balance. She teetered dangerously like a house of cards, and down she went. Ass over substantial tit, right over the velvet rope smack on top of me. Luckily for Daniel and unluckily for his lawyers, I broke her fall. Miss Byng would have run up a pretty penny with a lawsuit if she’d so much as broken a nail. Moments later Nick had placed her where she definitely belonged—outside the rope.
    By the time I’d brushed myself off and stopped trembling, the crowd waiting to be let in had grown, and a lot of them, despite looking very legitimate, were not on my list. Much as I longed for them to be, because I really didn’t want a repeat of the Veronica Byng experience. There were also a slew of people waiting who weren’t on my list that I could have sworn I’d actually sent invitations to. It was only then that it dawned on me what a sneaky-ass thing Ryan had done. He’d edited the list. Deleted the names of some of the invited guests in order to create a sense of urgency on the other side of the rope. There shouldalways be people who want to get into your party but can’t. It creates buzz and a whiff of exclusivity. Apparently.
    Not to mention hundreds of very pissed-off people yelling at me.
    “I was invited!”
    “I have my invite here!”
    “This is fucking stupid!”
    “I’m on the list!”
    “Get Scott for me!”
    “Fuck you, bitch!”
    “Esther Hartley,” a soft little voice whispered in my right ear, and I scanned my list as I wiped a stray piece of Veronica’s saliva from my left breast. I found Esther Hartley. Thank God somebody’s name was on the list. I glanced up to wave her on, but my eyes only just met the top of her red-sequined dress. I craned my neck and saw that she had the cleavage of a milkmaid, the white-blond ringlets of an ancient goddess of the moon, and a face that was so extraordinarily pretty that for a second I just chewed on my pencil and stared. It was only after I’d developed a crick in my neck that I was able to catch her emerald green eyes and nod for her to go through. It was at precisely that moment I realized that not only did Esther Hartley have enough blessings for an entire race of Honeys, she also had the man of my dreams holding her elbow in a proprietorial way.
    There he was. Jake Hudson. He looked even more devastating than I’d remembered. He was wearing black tie and had the air of a young Warren Beatty. He was a man with the evening at his feet. I had a palpitation or two and then smiled up at him. “Jake Hudson.” He grinned lazily and sexily at me, and I nodded at him, without checking my list. I smiled back. He smiled at me. I waited for the flash of recognition, the moment when he’d realize it was me and kiss me warmly on the cheeks at the very least. I wasn’t delusional enough to expect marriage proposals at this juncture. But after the fifth smile I gave him, he frowned in