Nightingale - (Bigtime #4) Page 0,2

pocket on my vest. Thanks to the video cameras I’d hooked up earlier, the phone screen showed me the inside of the auditorium. Flowers, decorations, and five hundred invited guests crowded into the space. In addition to hosting an engagement party for her sister, Octavia intended to announce Oomph’s buyout of Polish, the lip-care company Paul’s family owned. This was definitely a merger in every sense of the word.

I hit a button on the phone, and the screen flicked to another camera. The band members were clustered together at the foot of the stage, having just finished a number and preparing to play the entrance music. The guests had turned toward the doors, waiting on Olivia and Paul. I checked my watch. Fifty-seven seconds.

I activated the headset clamped to the side of my head. “Talk to me, Chloe.”

“We’re a go,” Chloe Cavanaugh, my right-hand woman, chirped in my ear. “The band’s ready, and everyone’s eager to get a glimpse of the happy couple.”

I glanced at the screen once more. The house lights dimmed, until only candles flickered in the auditorium. As I watched, a spotlight appeared on the doors where Olivia and Paul would make their grand appearance.

Satisfied everything was as perfect as it was going to get, I signaled to the two waiting ushers to open the doors.

“All right,” I told Chloe. “Here they come.” Olivia gave me another soft, dreamy look before she and Paul stepped inside. Gasps, claps, and murmurs of appreciation swept through the crowd.

I nodded. Another job well done—so far.

Olivia and Paul moved through the throngs of guests with Octavia watching their every step.

I headed for the concrete stairs leading to the second-floor, balcony level of the auditorium.

I emerged onto the landing, and Chloe turned at the sound of my footsteps. Chloe was a petite woman in her late twenties with black hair, hazel eyes, and olive skin. Like me, she wore a simple black pantsuit. Unlike me, she didn’t have a vest on over the top of it.

I’d offered to buy Chloe a vest when I’d hired her six months ago, but she’d politely refused. She thought she could get by with what she had stuffed in her pint-sized purse. Rookie.

Chloe hadn’t been through the disasters I had.

She’d learn, though—if she lasted that long.

Most of my employees tended to burn out after a few months. They couldn’t handle the pressure I put on them—or myself.

“How is everything?” I asked, moving to stand beside her.

Chloe swept out her hand. “See for yourself.”

I peered over the metal railing to the floor below. Earlier today, workers had removed the auditorium seats and had them replaced with thick, padded benches. Balloons shaped like enormous red lips, Oomph’s logo, bobbed up and down at the ends of the benches, while faux ivory columns ringed the area. The columns held up a sheer silk netting embossed with more lips and filled with red roses, ivy, and baby’s breath.

Lights entwined with the roses made the velvet petals glow. I’d been worried about the heat from the lights igniting the flowers, but everything seemed to be okay—for now.

Olivia and Paul made their way to the middle of the auditorium, where they shook hands and kissed cheeks. If the relaxidon didn’t take Olivia’s mind off her worries, maybe the constant attention would. She’d barely have time to breathe for the next thirty minutes.

From this distance, Olivia and Paul resembled two delicate figures on top of a wedding cake, surrounded by an army of moving, glittering frosting. At least, they would have to most people. I could see them as clearly as if they stood right in front of me. I might not care for some of my supersenses, but the enhanced eyesight was a perk—most of the time.

Chloe shook her head. “You’ve done it again, Abby. I can’t believe you planned this party on a week’s notice. It looks like it took months.”

I couldn’t believe it either. I might be the professional event planner in Bigtime, but even I had difficulty throwing together a high-society soiree in five business days. But Octavia had insisted. Her baby sister’s engagement and the Oomph and Polish merger had to be announced simultaneously by mid-January in the most lavish manner possible. Olivia freaking out right before the party had been the least of my problems.

Given the time crunch, I’d had to beg, badger, and berate everyone from the caterers to the florist to the band. Well, more so than usual. But somehow, it had all come together