Waking Up with a Ring on My Finger and a Bad Boy at My Side [08]

Brandon laughed as soon as he saw me walking out of the room with Andrea's dress on. He laughed so hard that he actually fell out of his seat. Whatever doubts I had about how the dress looked disappeared. Now I knew...that the dress looked beyond like shit.

Mm, I wondered if they're going to make a company out of that.

Crap, Shit and BEYOND. Specialize in making your household look like the insides of a pigstye!

"Oh...oh god, she would not appreciate this..." Brandon said, flicking the huge ribbon at my back. "It's like a cross-over between a dress...and something horrible."

"Trust me, it's the most beautiful dress in that store."

He laughed again. "I'm actually doing her a favor by buying this rather than that...Spanish costume look-a-like. Only, they added more laces and frilly ribbons and so many layers of fabric that one might suffocate wearing the damn thing."

"So you bought her something that would make her look like a puke-green bubble gum?"

"Not just her, Brandon. Olivia, Hailey and the others would wear these too," I said, sighing. Olivia was a tomboy, but she was ecstatic that I picked her to be my bridesmaid nevertheless. We were friends in college and after graduation, we're still the closest of friends.

"It's olive green!" I protested and he laughed again. "Stop it," he said in between laughs. "When is Andrea getting here?" I asked, trying to steer him away from the dress-looking-like-puke conversation. As his laughter died away, he answered, "Mmm...tomorrow I guess."

Great, she was going to kill me.

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"Ugh! LET ME SEE YOUR WEDDING DRESS!" Andrea screamed and threw her bridesmaid dress aside. "I'm not going to look or even touch that thing until the actual wedding. And I'm doing this for you, Sammy. For you!"

I hugged her, giggling a thanks. "But my wedding dress is at Evelyn right now."

"I'm not going to even argue about that," she answered briskly. Ever since Andrea knew about Evelyn trying to sabotage the Compton Industries a few years ago, Andrea started to loathe her guts. She even told all of her friends about it.

I didn't think that her friends knew who Evelyn Spencer was but still.

"But you can see it on 8 tonight. I'm going to meet Evelyn again," I said. She shook her head. "No thank you. I won't go see her even if I'm paid a million bucks...two million, maybe, but no way in hell. Tim wanted to spend the night with me alone anyway," she said, rolling her eyes.

I giggled and told her that I would bring the dress back to this house then, and she agreed. "I need to go now, give my best wishes to Brandon."

Brandon had to fly out today to attend the opening ceremony of Compton Industries branch in Singapore. I wanted to come along but I had a job to do here too. He should be back by tomorrow, I suppose.

I opened my event planner and scribbled some notes on my post-its before pasting it all over the page. After a while of making calls and arrangements, I finally got ready to go meet Evelyn. For some reason, I was really reluctant.

But I think that's mainly because that I still wanted to watch The Simpsons marathon.

I walked out of the building with a coat wrapped around me and my knitted white scarf around my neck. The winter breeze wasn't giving me any mercy and I was actually a bit worried about my fever getting worst right now.

The headache was gone, thank god. But I still had a bit of a sore throat.

A black car was waiting for me and I climbed into it. "Where are we going?" I asked when I fastened my seatbelt. The driver shrugged. "Madame Spencer told me that it was to be kept as a secret."

So she was Madame Spencer?

Somehow it sounded comical.

We arrived at a brightly lit street almost an hour and a half later. There was a line of store to my right, which sold items ranging from handicrafts to costumes...and was that a...sex shop?

Okay, it was better if I didn't make any eye contact with it.

The driver showed me the shop and I thanked him as I hurried into it. Why the heck did she wants me to go to a bridal dress boutique again? Ugh, I was so exhausted. When I pushed the glass, wooden-framed door, the bell rang.

"You'll love me," Evelyn exclaimed excitedly when she saw me. It was really a small store, with light purple wallpapers, white carpetted floors and manequins wearing urban bridal dresses. "Evelyn, I'm wearing my mom's dress remember?" I asked, checking the clock that was hung on the wall.

"You are," she said. "But I've modified it a bit. Claire, is the dress finished yet?"

...Wait, did I just heard her correctly or was I turning deaf?