Free After the Party by Jackie Braun Page B

afraid.”
    As if Camilla hadn’t gleefully given every contact she knew in the industry an earful.
    Chase surprised her by claiming, “Ella is very much in demand. I was lucky to get her, especially on short notice.”
    Camilla looked as if she wanted to disagree, but couldn’t figure out how to do so without making herself appear churlish.
    “Trumbull, you said?”
    “Of the East Hampton Trumbulls, yes.” Even though Chase said it with a straight face, Ella caught the gleam of amusement in his eyes.
    Camilla’s expression changed to fawning. “East Hampton. Ooh. I adore East Hampton. I’ve been telling Javier that we should buy a place there. Our penthouse is lovely, but the city can be so tiresome after a while. It would be nice to have a weekend getaway that didn’t require a transatlantic flight, if you know what I mean.”
    “I do.”
    “You have a place abroad?”
    “A chateau in Paris and a Tuscan villa.”
    Ella didn’t know if Chase really owned real estate in Europe, but it didn’t matter. Camilla’s envy was plain.
    “Lovely places.”
    He nodded. “It was nice to meet you. Now if you’ll excuse us, Ella and I have a lot to discuss.”
    “Of course. Enjoy your dinner.”
    “Thanks. You, too,” Ella said, hoping to put an end to their uncomfortable reunion. If only she had left it there. But no, she had to say, “And tell Bernadette I said hello.”
    “I will.” Camilla lowered her voice. “And may I just say you’re taking it well.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Her engagement.”
    “Bernadette is engaged? That’s wonderful.” Even if Ella pitied the poor sap who found himself saddled with her high-maintenance, ill-tempered stepsister.
    But Camilla was frowning. “Oh, dear. You don’t know, do you?”
    “Know what?” Ella asked, fully aware she was going to regret it given the gleam in her former stepmother’s eyes.
    “Bernadette is marrying Bradley.”

FIVE
    Chase already had plenty of questions for Ella. Questions that, at her request, he’d put off asking until after they had finished their meal.
    Well, now he had one more.
    Who in the hell was Bradley?
    Make that two questions. The second being, why should it matter to him?
    Chase only knew it did. The guy had to be someone pretty important for Ella’s stepmother to fling him in Ella’s face the way she had.
    Generally speaking, patience wasn’t Chase’s strong suit, but he exercised what he considered to be an admirable amount while she picked at her cheesecake. With more than half of the slice remaining, she announced she was ready to go. Chase paid for their meal and they left.
    He tipped the valet and was buckling his seat belt when Ella said without any prompting, “So, what do you want to know?”
    “Am I that obvious?”
    “No. But I’ve had a lot of practice at this.”
    He didn’t ask what “this” she was referring to. Instead, he said, “I’m trying to figure out which question I want you to answer first.”
    “Let me know when you decide.” She turned to look out her window.
    “Who are you really?” he blurted out.
    She turned to face him, brows beetled. “I’m Ella Sanborn, the newbie party planner you’ve taken pity on by hiring me to put together a dinner for you the Saturday after next.”
    “But you’re not merely the struggling young woman with the grandiose business dream I first met.”
    The one who believed in luck and who stopped to pick up stray pennies to enhance her odds. The one who lived in a seedy neighborhood in an apartment that could have been measured in square inches rather than square feet. The one who desperately needed a job.
    “Why can’t I be that person?” she asked. “Does the fact that I was born wealthy negate my current ambitions?”
    Born wealthy. Now they were getting somewhere, even though it was no more than he’d suspected given her taste for fine wines, designer clothes and the fact that she was on a first-name basis with the maître d’ at one of