by Lee, Nadia
“No, that won’t work at all. Nobody Ubers to Elizabeth’s functions,” Sophia says. “We insist.”
“Well… If you’re sure,” I say, wondering exactly what David asked her and Dane to do. Why is David going to this much trouble? Did something terrible happen at the hotel?
“It’s no bother.” But Dane’s expression says that somebody’s going to pay.
We walk out together, him carrying the blue dress, which is now back in its bag. At the curb is a huge pink Cullinan. I admire the shade, wondering who owns it. Nobody from this apartment complex, that’s for sure. The car’s worth over 300k. I know because I priced one for David. And definitely not Dane, because I just can’t picture him in anything pink—whether it be cars or clothes or planes.
Dane opens the doors for Sophia and me. Wait. This pink thing is his?
I climb in the back seat and note the child seat and a couple of toys. “You have children?” I ask, picking up a puzzle off the floor and placing it on the seat.
“Thanks,” Sophia says. “And yes. A girl. She’s spending the weekend with her grandparents.”
Which means Sophia and Dane were looking forward to some couple time. “I’m really sorry David pulled you into this. I should’ve been more prepared,” I say. It’s my job to anticipate my boss’s needs. All the best assistants at Sweet Darlings told me so. Except I’m not sure what I should’ve anticipated. Is this what separates great assistants from the rank and file?
“You don’t have to apologize,” Dane says coolly. “It’s David’s fault.”
“He’s joking,” Sophia says before I can defend David again. “I’m going to text David just before we get to the hotel so he can come out and get you.”
“Oh, that isn’t necessary. I can just go find him inside.”
“If you don’t have a ticket, you probably won’t be able to get through security.”
When Dane pulls up to the glitzy hotel, a uniformed man comes over and opens the door for me. I’m glad Sophia texted David, because the entrance is a madhouse with people milling around, cars arriving and leaving, valets helping guests and men with earpieces going in and out. I would never be able to make it past this crowd and find my boss.
“Good luck,” Sophia says as I climb down.
“Thank you,” I say, hoping I’m doing a good job of disguising my anxiety. “Both of you. Really.”
Dane grunts as I shut the door and scan the area. So many faces and people, and I can feel my palms dampening. I start to wipe them on the skirt, but stop. I cannot sweat-stain Sophia’s dress.
I spot David coming through the revolving doors. Air catches in my throat.
I’ve seen men in tuxedos before, and I always thought the outfit made them look nice. But on David, it’s magical. It fits him perfectly, accentuating his broad shoulders, lean hips and long legs. Instead of the usual, slightly messy finger-combed appearance, his hair is slicked back. He looks like a modern-day Prince Charming coming to fetch his Cinderella.
And I think I’m smitten. But only a little. Actually, I’ve always been a little bit smitten with David. I mean, I try not to think about him that way, since he’s my boss and it’s unprofessional to have such feelings. But wow he’s hot. Like, I need to fan my face hot.
On top of that, knowing what he looks like underneath those clothes? My hormones are doing cartwheels inside me.
Our eyes meet and his step falters, shock rippling through his face. Anxiety spikes, making my mouth dry.
He resumes cutting through the crowd to reach me. I rush the rest of the way toward him.
“Is there something wrong?” I ask. “Am I not dressed right? Or is it my makeup?” Or possibly my shoes. Except I don’t have anything else I could’ve worn. Sophia didn’t comment on them, but she might not have noticed.
He starts to say something, then stops and blinks a couple of times. “Uh. No. Not at all.” He clears his throat. “You look great.”
“Oh. Good.” I let out a soft breath. “Glad to hear it.”
He extends a hand. My pulse grows unsteady. I hesitate, wondering what this means, because he’s never done anything like this before. At the same time, I can’t ignore it.
He won’t bite. He’s just being polite because it’s a hand-holding type of event, I tell myself.
I take it and watch his fingers close around my hand in a firm, warm grip.
“So. What’s going on?” I ask. “Where’s Charlotte?”
“She couldn’t make it tonight.”
“Oh. Too busy?”
“Yeah, trying to keep abreast of some other stuff.” He leads me into the hotel. “Anyway, forget about all that. I need you to play the love of my life tonight.”
Chapter Six
Erin
Shock slaps me, and I take a second to regroup. The love of his life? What? And most of all, Why me?
I wonder if it’s prudent to tell David that the only acting experience I have is from fifth grade. I was supposed to play an eggplant that loved to dance. But even though my mom held my hands before the play and whispered soothing words, instead of doing the steps I had practiced to the jaunty little piano tune, I threw up on stage because I was so nervous. After it was over, my dad glared at me, his face red, and declared me “the embarrassment of the year.”
Is David going to be angry and disgusted if I fail?
Now I wish I had taken some acting classes. This is L.A.! And Bev, another assistant at Sweet Darlings, told me that the company has deals with a lot of schools, so we might be able to get discounts. I should’ve taken that as a sign.
David leads me into the hotel ballroom, glittering marble under our feet and brilliant chandeliers over our heads. The music is low and soothing, something classical and upper-crust. Guests chat and smile at each other, holding slim champagne glasses.
I stare at the passing trays longingly. In the movies, guests take their drinks with such natural ease and elegance that it’s like they had waiters coming by with flutes of formula when they were babies. But not me. Every time I try, the waitstaff seem to move too fast or be just out of reach. And if I run after one, I’m going to look like a broke, desperate alcoholic trying to score free booze.
I’m sure the love of David’s life wouldn’t do that.
David effortlessly plucks a couple of flutes off a tray. It’s got to be some kind of sorcery, because his movements are unhurried… Lazy, even.
I accept one of them with a smile. “Thank you.”
David smiles back, although he’s still giving me a funny look. It’s not an expression I’ve seen on his face before. There’s nothing boss-like about it. If I had to describe it, I’d say he’s what a scientist might be like when he’s studying a newly discovered species of plankton. He’s certainly not looking at me the way a pretend boyfriend would the pretend love of his life.
It’s making me extra anxious. And a little too warm. My skin’s prickling.
To cover up my nerves, I take a sip of the wine. The bubbles fizzle in my nostrils and throat, making me wrinkle my nose although the champagne has a nice, cool finish to it.
That seems to draw even more of David’s odd attention. Now he’s looking at my lips.
Finally, I can’t stand it anymore. “Do I have something on my face?”
He shakes his head. “No. You look fine.”
“But you’re looking at me like something’s not right.”
Clearing his throat, he scratches the tip of his nose. “Sorry. It’s just that you look so…different.”
The understatement of the century. I shift a little, feeling like a kid caught in her mom’s dress. “Yeah. This isn’t what I normally wear.”
Suppressing a sigh, I look down at the attention-grabbing red dress wrapped around me, then prep an explanation in my head. I need to make it clear that I’m not usually impulsive, emotional or dramatic. I’m as normal as you can get. And a great, instruction-abiding assistant.
“I thought Sophia would bring a blac
k dress because that’s the color you mentioned,” I begin. “But she actually brought red and blue. And I wanted the blue, but it didn’t fit right. I’m sorry.” If I weren’t holding a glass, I’d be wringing my hands by now. So I take a healthy swallow instead. “I’ll make sure to get myself a black dress after this.”
David looks surprised, but shakes his head. “The red looks really good on you. You should get a red one.”
He sounds sincere, but I’m not sure if that’s a good idea. People are staring. I can feel the weight of their gazes without even turning around, and that means they’re looking blatantly. It has to be the dress, I decide. The fire-engine red is just begging to be noticed.
And all the attention is making me slightly dizzy. Or maybe it’s the alcohol. I haven’t had dinner yet because I was planning to eat after I finished video number six. David wraps an arm around my waist. I almost pull away in surprise, then catch myself. We’re role-playing here.
“Relax,” he whispers into my ear.
“Okay.”
His hold tightens. Maybe he can sense that I might do something embarrassing. Like puke.
Or maybe he’s trying to play the proper boyfriend? I’m supposed to be the love of his life, remember?
True. But how would such a woman behave around David? Is he supposed to be the love of my life for the evening, too? He never told me what his role is. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to just assume.
He really should’ve just hired an actress. I would’ve screened some for him, no problem. Or maybe Charlotte was supposed to be the one for him, but got busy in the meantime.
I turn to ask how exactly he expects us to play our roles, but we’re accosted by some people who want to chat with David. Given that we’ve only been in L.A. for a year, I’m shocked at how many people he seems to know. They ask how he’s doing, then chat about his parents and his grandmother. David makes introductions each time. I have no trouble remembering all the names. It’s a skill I had to master growing up as a mayor’s daughter. Dad would take me to social functions and have me mingle when Mom wasn’t feeling well. And it was up to me to remember everyone I met and charm them. And by “charm them,” Dad meant make them feel sorry for me because Mom was struggling with her challenges and Dad was doing double duty to raise me right. He said voter sympathy mattered—the difference between a win and loss.
I just wish it didn’t have to come at the price of me being displayed like some pathetic loser.
The memory brings me down, and I forcibly shake myself out of the funk. David isn’t bring me here to score pity points. He doesn’t need that in his dealings.
“You’re good at this,” David says, surprise in his eyes.
“I’m a quick learner,” I joke, not wanting him to know the truth of my childhood. It’s too humiliating.
I take a small breath when it looks like we’ve said hello to everyone. But maybe I relaxed too fast. A black-haired woman is approaching us with the intensity of a starving hyena. It makes me clench with a kind of dreadful anticipation.
Unlike me, she is in a tight black dress that shows off a long, voluptuous body with the kind of breasts even the most discerning Hollywood plastic surgeon would admire. She stops in front of me and gives me a squinting, head-to-toe once-over with the thoroughness of a bargain-hunting penny pincher examining merchandise at a yard sale. I wonder again if there’s something on my face. But maybe she just lost her contacts.
“This is your date?” she demands.
“Yes,” David says in a saccharine tone. “Erin, this is Shelly. Shelly, Erin.”
Understanding finally dawns on me. This woman must be the reason I’m here instead of watching the training videos. There’s just too much meanness in his voice for it to be anything else.
Normally I’d hate being used to hurt somebody, but I don’t like the way she studied me or her tone of voice. Not to mention, given how generally nice David’s been over the last two years, he must have a very good reason for doing this.
“Hi, pleased to meet you,” I say, just to be polite.
I might as well have said nothing. Her cheeks turn red as she continues to glare at David. “Are you serious?”
Still not a glance in my direction despite the blood-red sequins on my dress glittering under the chandeliers. She’s probably color-blind.
She adds, “Blondes aren’t your type.”
Rude people aren’t his type, either.
“People change,” David says easily. “I changed.”
“She’s too short and…and skinny!” She finally gives me another look, but it’s full of nauseated revulsion, like she’s in the presence of a farting cow.
I look at David, not sure how he wants me to play this. “I could dye my hair…”
“Don’t,” David says with the sweetest, most adoring smile I’ve ever seen on a man’s face. “I love your hair. Now cut it out, Shelly.” David pulls me closer in a gesture designed to comfort and shield me. I know it’s fake, but I like it. A lot.
Get a grip, Erin. This is just a scene in a play.
“She’s perfect just the way she is,” he adds. “You can’t see it because you’re too shallow.”
Shelly stares like he just slapped her. “How exactly is she better than me?”
“In every way possible.”
About the only thing I can do is stand next to him and act like how the love of his life might without having the faintest clue what kind of woman would seize David’s heart. I’ve never seen him with the same woman for more than a few weeks since I started working for him. And he seems to prefer it that way. He probably still does, despite the portrait of his pregnant cousin his mom sent him today to gently nudge him into a commitment-ready direction.
“I’m still somebody,” Shelly says. “My family is important. She’s nothing! Nobody! You’ve been rebounding, and there’s no way this woman can mean anything to you!”
Davis shrugs. “Insta-love.”
“I know you’re doing this because you were hurt when I left.”
“Wait a second, you dumped him?” I blurt out. David is obscenely rich and handsome. Smart, too. And nice. Can never forget nice. If a woman could just make him settle down, he’d be jackpot boyfriend material.
Her face turns even redder, verging on apoplexy. If she pops a vein, can I go home?
“That’s none of your business,” she says shrilly.
“She wanted a man who understood her career goals better,” David says to me.
“And now she thinks that man is you?” I ask, wanting to clarify so I can figure out exactly how I’m supposed to play this. It sounds like she wanted a career mentor rather than a boyfriend.
Shelly’s chest rises and falls impressively. “It isn’t like you to rub a woman in my face. Are you purposely trying to hurt me because I hurt you before?”
“Actually, he isn’t rubbing anything. You’re the one who confronted us,” I point out, needing to set the record straight. She seems like the type who could easily rewrite history to suit her narrative.
“I wasn’t talking to you!” Her voice is getting a bit too loud.
Oh my God, the attention we must be getting! Hopefully the other guests are too involved in their own conversations to notice us. Maybe I should shut up, stop chumming the water, so to speak. That might calm her down, and she’ll go away.
David apparently doesn’t share that opinion. “I find it comical that you think you know what I’m like, Shelly. Because if you did, you wouldn’t have done what you did.”
I’m curious what she did—other than break up with him—but he doesn’t elaborate. And I don’t ask. Seems hypocritical when I haven’t shared a single thing about myself unless it pertains to my job.
“How could I have known that you wouldn’t understand my ambition—that you wanted to keep me down?”
Shelly’s whining makes me scowl, my stomach twisting. Ambition. It’s something I understand all too well, and I don’t have a great feeling
about it. Dad often talked about it, like it’s the only thing that matters in the world: the aspiration to be more, to have more—to be powerful and admired, feared and looked up to.
It’s exhausting just thinking about it.
“Actually, David is very encouraging,” I interject, a need to defend him overwhelming my desire to remain unnoticed. “He’s been voted the most supportive boss for three years in a row, and believe me, competition is fierce at Sweet Darlings.”
Her head swivels like that girl from The Exorcist. “Stay out of this!”
“Don’t talk to her like that,” David shoots back, holding a hand out like a shield. Or a weapon. I can’t decide which.
Her jaw drops. “You’re taking her side?”
“What were you expecting? Didn’t I make it clear? She’s the one.”
Confusion clouds my head. The one? What “the one”?
Then I remember: the love of his life. I should try to look thrilled for the audience’s benefit.
Shelly inhales. Then her lips start to tremble, and unshed tears glitter in her eyes. Oh wow. She’s good. I start to feel bad, because my acting skills aren’t on that level.
Should I cling to David some more? Flutter my eyelashes while I stare up at him longingly?
Shelly’s gaze flickers as she sees something beyond me, and the tears and trembling vanish. The spot between my shoulder blades prickles, and not in a good way. It’s the same sensation that small animals must get when they sense a predator behind them.
“Hello, Warren. I was just talking with some friends.” She smiles, but cold shivers run through me.
David and I turn around. I suck in a lungful of air.
Hips swaying, Shelly walks over to the familiar face of Warren Theodore Fordham the Fourth. He hasn’t changed at all—the same dark, neatly cropped hair and square jaw ending in a heroically cleft chin. His body is trim and fit. He knows looking healthy and slim is important to his image. He aspires to be like JFK, minus the assassination part.
Shelly lays a hand on his shoulder like she’s done it a thousand times before. “Warren,” she says. “Meet David Darling and…Erin. Everyone, this is Warren Fordham the Fourth. He’s a newly elected member of the U.S. House of Representatives and my new friend.”
