Bridesmaid for Hire

by Chance Carter

  I soon spotted him near the back corner of the room. He had a napkin of food in one hand and a drink in the other, and he looked bored as hell. He brightened up when he saw me.

  “For a lawyer, you’re awfully anti-social,” I mused when I reached him.

  Jeremy offered a weak shrug.

  “My job is to talk. I’d rather not do it in my spare time too if I can avoid it. Especially to your mother’s lot.”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, with amusement. “You say that like they’re not your own lot as well.”

  Jeremy had grown up just as privileged as I did, only his father was a lawyer instead of a business tycoon.

  “Oh, you know,” he said as he gestured vaguely toward the mass of people in the ballroom. “They’re all so… stodgy. She picks them based on breeding and temperament, much like a person chooses a show dog. Where are all the playful little mutts?”

  I knew exactly what he meant. If just one of the girls my mother introduced me to had a spark of fire in her, perhaps I would be more interested. But she wasn’t looking to entertain me—she was looking to marry me off.

  “Oh shit.”

  Jeremy shoved the food in his mouth and stepped around me before I even had the chance to ask him what he was doing.

  I turned and saw why he’d made such a speedy exit.

  Paulina was headed straight toward me, her jaw so tight I wouldn’t be surprised if she cracked a tooth. It was her signature ‘pissed off’ expression, one that she’d cultivated and perfected over decades of dealing with my churlishness and my father’s antics.

  “Maximilian Augustus Westfield!” she snapped, her voice a little louder than I would have liked. “What in the name of all that is holy do you think you’re doing?”

  “Well, I was having a conversation with one of my friends at my birthday party, but it looks as though you’ve scared him off.”

  It irritated me when she called me Maximilian, but I got especially annoyed when she resorted to using my full name. Most of the time I tried to pretend my middle name didn’t exist. It was just like her to name her firstborn son after a Roman emperor.

  She let out an exasperated sigh. “You know very well what I mean. Cynthia Bronstein is a lovely girl and now you’ve embarrassed her.”

  “Embarrassed her?” I asked. “How did I do that, I barely even spoke to her.”

  “Exactly! What will everyone think?”

  I groaned, not caring how impetuous it made me sound.

  “Mother, I don’t care what everyone thinks. Isn’t this supposed to be my birthday party? Aren’t I supposed to be doing what I want?”

  “Maximilian, my nerves are running very thin. Do you want to give your poor mother a heart attack?”

  Oh boy. She was gaining momentum and was likely to spin up into a full-blown tantrum if I didn’t do something to stop it. I often thought she’d entered the wrong business. Rather than being the stay-at-home wife of a billionaire property investor, she should have taken her penchant for drama to Broadway. Then I wouldn’t have to be the only one dealing with her song and dance.

  “I’m not trying to give you a heart attack.” I placed a reassuring palm on her shoulder. “Cynthia was very nice, but I thought it best to save both of us some time by ending our acquaintance before it truly began.”

  “That wouldn’t be a problem if you didn’t do it to every girl!” she moaned. “You’re thirty years old now, Maximilian. You need to start thinking about a smart match. You need to start thinking about an heir.”

  My eye twitched. “Why would I do that, when you spend so much time doing it already?” I clapped her on the shoulder.

  Paulina was not amused.

  “When are you going to start taking your role in this family seriously?” she said, downing the rest of her champagne flute, not waiting for me to answer. “I will find you a wife, Maximilian. Mark my words. I refuse to see the fortune your father built get divided amongst the snake den you call your cousins. Hear me?”

  “That’s a commandment for the ages, Mrs. Westfield,” said a smooth female voice from my left. “Possibly one of your best yet.”

  Rather than glowering at the newcomer, as Mother would usually do, she turned to the petite brunette at my side with a warm smile.

  “Haddie! My dear, you’re late! That’s not like you.”

  My personal assistant Haddie was my rock. I didn’t know what I’d do without her, especially in situations like this. She had an uncanny ability for defusing my mother, which was worth having her on my payroll all on its own.

  The pair air-kissed, and Haddie winked at me as they did.

  “I got a little caught up at home,” Haddie said. “Do you mind if I steal your son for a moment?”

  “Not at all, darling. Enjoy the party!”

  Then Paulina disappeared into the crowd, grabbing another glass of champagne on the way.

  I turned to my PA, smiling down into her brown eyes.

  “Remind me to give you a bonus for that. She was about to go nuclear.”

  Haddie chuckled.

  “I’ll remember you said that. Can I have a word outside?”

  We went out onto the patio, which was largely unoccupied due to the chilly spring evening. It wasn’t raining, at least. Haddie wrung her hands and pursed her lips, clearly about to say something she found uncomfortable.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  She smiled, and stuttered, “Uh, well... I’m pregnant.”

  My eyebrows dove skyward.

  “That’s great news! Congratulations.”

  Haddie smiled weakly, but I had a feeling her being pregnant wasn’t the big news she pulled me aside to talk about.

  “Yeah, the only thing is that Dave and I are going to move to Virginia to be closer to his family,” she said. “So you’re going to be needing a new personal assistant.”

  My smile fell.

  Fuck.

  Chapter 3

  Emma

  My knee shook uncontrollably. I had to rest a hand on it to keep from jiggling against the person next to me, who had already proven herself to be far more suited for the job for which we were both about to interview. She knew it, too.

  It wasn’t my fault I didn’t have a high-end pant suit to rock on interview day. I’d spent the past couple of years as a waitress, and the only uniform requirement for that had been something that wouldn’t show stains. This was a whole new world. A new and scary world. If I got this job, however, I’d be well on track toward getting over Lance and moving on with my life. What said progress more than a well-paying office job at one of the biggest real estate firms in the world?

  Unfortunately, the other people waiting in the reception area had the same hunger in their eyes that I did. They wanted this job bad—but I wanted it more. It would push me way out of my comfort zone, yes, but it was the only interview I’d been invited to so far, at a place where I wouldn’t have to serve or make food. I wanted to start taking steps forward in my life, and this job was my golden ticket. Which of course made me even more anxious as I listened to the ticking of the clock on the wall and waited for my name to be called.

  The woman doing the interviews, and the candidate she’d just interviewed, came down the glass paneled hallway across from me and into the room. The woman glanced down at the clipboard in her hand, then looked up, searching.

  “Emma Valentine?”

  “Present!” I said, shooting up out of my seat.

  It didn’t hit me how idiotic it looked until I saw the interviewer’s lips curl into a smile.

  “Right this way,” she said.

  We passed down the same glass hallway that I’d watched three people before me traverse, then entered into a brightly lit office space. There were cubicles spread across the room, each one tastefully decorated to match the general artistry of the space. People in business suits milled around the room, either chatting with their coworkers, working at their desks, or walking from place to place.
It was all a little overwhelming.

  Thankfully, the interview was held in an office at the back of the room. It was sparsely decorated, which led me to believe that perhaps it was the office of the person who had left, and thus provided a suitable vacant space.

  “Take a seat,” the brunette instructed, stepping around to the other side of the desk and sitting down.

  I sat as well, smiling in what I hoped was a pleasant, but not creepy or fake manner.

  “I’m Haddie Thompson,” she said, “Mr. Westfield’s current personal assistant, and I’ll be interviewing you today.”

  “Lovely to meet you, Haddie.”

  I reached over and shook her hand, which seemed to please her.

  “Before we get into your qualifications, Emma, let’s talk about why you’re here.”

  She shuffled the papers on the desk and nudged them to the side.

  “Why do you want this job?”

  I gulped.

  “I’ve always wanted to work in a professional office environment and I think it would be a good use of my skills.”

  Haddie raised a skeptical brow.

  “You’d be surprised how often I hear that.”

  Though evidently unsatisfied with my answer, Haddie was ready to move on. She pulled the papers back toward her, and I saw it was my resume she was looking over.

  Oh no. She already didn’t like me.

  What came next was the result of me having a major WWBJD (What Would Bridget Jones Do?) moment.

  “Actually, I applied for this job because I’ve been a waitress for the past two years and I’m trying this new thing where I better my life instead of taking steps backward because my crappy ex-boyfriend kicked me out of our apartment and I have nowhere to go but up,” I blurted.

  Haddie’s eyes met mine again and the panic rising in my throat slowly settled. It was almost impossible to believe, but she looked impressed.

  “That is unfortunate,” she said. “I had one like that. You’re right, the only thing you can do at that point is work on you.”

  With the faintest of smiles, she smoothly transitioned to my resume.

  The interview went on much longer than the others had seemed to. After we discussed the position and my qualifications, sparse though they were, Haddie and I just chatted for a bit. We both loved the pizza place down the street and she gave me tips on other places in the neighborhood worth checking out. I was feeling very hopeful about the whole thing, so by the time I hit the elevator, I was on another plane.

  I texted Willow, even though I knew she was at school and wouldn’t be able to answer for a little while. I told her that the interview had gone well and that hopefully I’d hear soon. She surprised me by texting back immediately, and I walked across the lobby downstairs with my nose shoved practically right against the screen. I was so excited about the potential job that I didn’t care how stupid it was to get so absorbed in my phone.

  I was just telling Willow that I would pick up a bottle of wine for us on the way home when the consequences of my carelessness hit me in the face. Well, more like I ran into them. Or him.

  The man whose shoulder I’d just clipped was about as solid as a brick wall. In my haste to back away, I tripped over my own feet and went sprawling on the marble.

  My knees hit the floor painfully, and I let out a small yelp without meaning to.

  “Are you okay?” a deep, male voice asked.

  I looked up at the man who I’d run into, and any words I’d been about to say dried up in my mouth.

  He was, without a doubt, the most attractive man I’d ever seen. His hair was so dark it was nearly black, and he wore it neatly combed back from his forehead. He had soulful cornflower blue eyes, now sparkling with mirth, and a wicked mouth that curved sensuously as I ogled him. He was leaning down toward me, extending a hand that I hadn’t noticed until now. I swallowed hard and took it, my skin burning where it touched his. From his wide jaw, dusted with a five o’clock shadow, to his long, aristocratic nose, this guy looked like he’d walked out of a fantasy built specifically for me. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him, and even when I was standing again I was hesitant to drop his hand.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

  “I noticed.”

  He reached down and plucked my phone off the tile, handing it back to me.

  How had I not noticed that I’d stood up without my phone? This was going from bad to worse.

  “Do you work here?” the man asked.

  I shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  This amused him, and his eyes narrowed on me.

  “You don’t know, huh? You can’t be that great of an employee, then.”

  “Either the best or the worst.”

  He chuckled and extended his hand, this time to shake.

  “I’m Max.”

  “Emma.”

  Losing his touch once was bad enough. This time, I had to do everything in my power not to hang onto his hand after the handshake. Was I going crazy? I certainly felt like it.

  “I only ask because I feel like I would have remembered seeing you around before,” Max said.

  “Likewise.” I shamelessly let my gaze slide down his towering frame, admiring the tailored fit of his charcoal suit and the white shirt stretched across his chest beneath. His leather shoes were shined perfectly, and everything about this guy screamed money.

  “Do you make a habit of bowling over innocent businessmen?” he asked.

  I smiled flirtatiously.

  “Only the cute ones.”

  What? This was a major WWBJD moment!

  “Cute?” Max made a face. “I haven’t been called cute in a good many years.”

  “What do people normally call you?”

  He smiled and said, “Depends on the person. If it’s my mother, ungrateful bastard is right up there.”

  The laugh that rippled through me was completely genuine. I loved how easy it was talking to Max. Even though I was still nervous and a little awkward because of how damn attractive he was, I felt generally at ease with the handsome stranger.

  “In that case, I only bowl over the ungrateful bastards,” I said, with a little half-smile. “Which today I guess puts you at the top of my list.”

  His eyes flashed. “I don’t think I mind being there.”

  Electricity zapped between us. I hadn’t gone this mushy over a guy other than Lance in a long time, and even with Lance, the attraction had never been so intense.

  Ugh. Lance.

  Talk about throwing a bucket of ice water over my mood.

  Max looked down at his watch, a flashy Rolex that probably cost more than my dream wedding. “I’ve got a meeting to get to,” he said. “But it was nice to meet you, Emma.”

  “Likewise.”

  He grinned, “Perhaps I’ll see you around.”

  I offered another shrug, “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  He stepped around me and walked toward the elevator, though the rich sound of his laugh floated back to me. It took everything in me not to turn and watch him walk away. He probably had a spectacular ass. It was a damn shame that I needed to keep at least a tiny shred of my dignity.

  When I got out into the cool air, I found that my cheeks were burning. I wondered if I’d been blushing like that the whole time.

  I texted Willow, filling her in on what had happened. She was excited that I’d had a flirtatious conversation with a complete stranger, and that he’d been sex on legs to boot. Maybe excited didn’t cover it. She was thrilled. She wanted me to get over Lance more than I even wanted me to get over Lance. Not to say I didn’t want to get over him, just that I didn’t see the need to rush. Getting over a heartbreak took time, right?

  One thing was for certain—even if my encounter with Max had been a little embarrassing, it was a big step for me. And a good one, too. For the first time in a long time I walked down the street with my head held high, feeling like I could take whatever the world wanted to t
hrow at me.

  Chapter 4

  Max

  Jeremy had a bad habit of rearranging everything in my office, from the moment he first stepped in to the millisecond before he left. Right now he was stacking paperclips into some sort of pyramid structure, and I left him to it. Cleaning up a few paperclips would be easier than rearranging the chairs once he was gone.

  “Do you think they’ll take the deal?” I asked.

  We were in the process of acquiring a couple properties on the outskirts of the city. They were far from exceptional investments, but I was eager to expand my father’s business in any and every way I could. He’d started working at Goodman-Westfield back when it was still Goodman, Inc., and had moved up the ranks until he was Bernard Goodman’s right hand man. The older man had practically treated my father like the son he never had, and my father had paid him back by using his sound business acumen to make strong investments and build the company. Goodman-Westfield was only what it was today because of my father’s hard work. It was a legacy I wanted to honor.

  “Of course they will. Their lawyers are a bunch of weak-willed sea sponges. Now, if they had someone like your mother on their legal team...” He made a throat slitting gesture.

  I laughed. “That woman has a sixth sense for sniffing out weakness.”

  “If only you’d inherited such a talent,” Jeremy mused. “Perhaps then you wouldn’t be so vulnerable to her every whim.”

  I sat up in my chair, frowning. “I am not vulnerable to her every whim.”

  “Oh, come on, Max.” My friend smiled. “I’m just messing with you. Although, I do think it’s worth mentioning that although you inevitably reject every girl she sends your way, you still let her keep sending them.”

  “You say let her as if I have a choice in the matter,” I muttered. “Even after she’s dead, she’ll be sending me potential wives from beyond the grave.”

  “Unless you’ve already married one of them by then.”

  I exhaled through my teeth. “Not likely.”