1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Nine

by Carrie Ann Ryan

  “Well, that’s a shame,” I say, thinking that she has very nice thighs. Usually, I would say as much—a compliment is always a good thing—but I can tell she’s not in the headspace to find flattery helpful.

  “Yeah, so…” Her hand drifts up to her face, her middle finger and thumb digging into the hollows behind her eyes. “After that, things get kind of fuzzy, but if local gossip and the Coast Guard are to be believed, I decided to go swimming to celebrate my terrible new tattoo and almost drowned. I was rescued a mile offshore.”

  “Shit, Penny,” I say, throat tight. “You could have died.”

  She nods a little too quickly but still doesn’t lift her gaze to mine. “I know. I could have. But I didn’t. Instead, while the Coast Guard was busy saving the stupid drunk girl, a couple whose boat had gone down a few miles off Gin Beach stayed in the water an extra hour and a half waiting for rescue.”

  She pauses before adding in a whisper, “The wife almost died of hypothermia. She was in the hospital for three days. Every afternoon her husband would call my cell and remind me that it was my fault that the woman he loved was about to die. I don’t know how he got my phone number, but I didn’t try to change it. I knew I deserved those calls. I deserved his anger and his hurt and to suffer for all the stupid things I’d done.”

  I stop fighting the urge to offer comfort and reach out to take her hand. “You did not. You didn’t deserve any of it. You’d just had your heart broken and you made some less than stellar decisions. It happens.”

  “Maybe.” She slides her fingers from beneath mine and cups her sweating tumbler, setting the ice to clicking in the glass. “But when it happens to other people it isn’t plastered all over the tabloids.”

  My brow furrows. I scan her face again. It’s as beautiful as it was the moment I first saw her—maybe even a little more beautiful now that I know my friend is attached to it—but it’s not a familiar face.

  “My mother is Anastasia Pickett,” she says, waiting a beat before adding, “the actress?”

  I search my mental pop culture database but come up empty. “Sorry.”

  “You’re kidding. She was super famous in the nineties.”

  I shrug. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “She was in Out of Water,” Penny supplies, clearly stunned. “The mermaid movie? The one with the jaded businessman who finds a beautiful blond woman washed up on the Jersey shore and she’s naked for the first twenty minutes of the movie before he buys her a tee shirt at a souvenir shop and brings her back to Manhattan?”

  “Hmm.” I hum around the rim of my glass, nodding as the last swallow of scotch slides down my throat.

  Shit, the naked mermaid movie. I absolutely remember it now. And I’m absolutely sure I beat off to Penny’s mom a couple of times during my early teens before I discovered a way to get around the porn blocker on my laptop.

  Not that I’m about to admit that to Penny, of course…

  “Out of Water. Right. I remember it.” I let my glass rest against my chin as my gaze plays up and down Penny’s petite but curvy frame.

  “Don’t say it,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “I know. I look nothing like my mother. Believe me, you aren’t the first to notice.”

  “No, you don’t,” I admit. “You’re beautiful in a different way.”

  “Well, thank you,” she says, looking flustered though I’m sure it isn’t the first time she’s been told she’s beautiful. “But I’m not adopted though sometimes I wish I were. That would make the fact that my mother is marrying the boy who took my virginity fifteen percent less disturbing.”

  This time, my wince becomes a full-body cringe. “Jesus, Penny. They’re getting married?”

  “Yep.” Her soft brown eyes begin to shine. “The wedding’s this weekend. I’m the maid of honor.”

  “Like hell you are.” I plunk my glass down on the floor beside the couch. “You’re not going anywhere near that wedding.”

  And I mean it.

  Even if I have to throw her over my shoulder, haul her back to my place, and keep her locked up until next Monday, I’m not letting her subject herself to that kind of nightmare. I wouldn’t let that happen to my worst enemy, let alone one of my best friends.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I’m about to tell her that she’s coming to the Hamptons with me so I can cheer her up somewhere far from the scene of the crime when she says—

  “I have to go. I’ve got two little twin half sisters, Bash. And my mother has made it clear that if I’m not at the wedding, I’m no longer allowed access to the rest of the family. That includes my sisters coming over to my place on weekends.” Penny scowls, anger flashing in her dark eyes. “To prove her point, Mom kept Francis and Edna home the past two weekends, even though she barely spends any time with them when Phillip’s home.”

  “Francis and Edna,” I repeat.

  “She’s a terrible person,” Penny says flatly. “Forget sleeping with my ex-boyfriend and then marrying him. What kind of mother names her daughters Francis, Edna, and Penelope? Even if they are family names.”

  I smile. I can’t help it.

  Still, I feel bad for finding humor in her horrendous situation until she smiles back. It’s a halting, shy grin that spreads across her face in fits and starts, but when it finds its footing, it transforms her.

  She’s no longer simply beautiful; she’s irresistible, and I know I’m going to do whatever it takes to help her even before says in a sweet voice, “Now this. This is what I imagined you’d look like.”

  My brows lift.

  “Kind,” she says. “As kind as you are handsome.”

  Now it’s my turn to feel flustered though I don’t know why. I’m well aware I’ve been gifted in the looks department, but something about hearing it from Penny makes me feel…off kilter. “Well, thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me,” she says, her smile fading. “Please don’t. I’m a terrible person. I lied to you about availability at the condos in Miami. They still had plenty of room, but Miami isn’t five minutes away from where my mom and Phillip are getting married this weekend.”

  So that’s the lie. It isn’t what I was expecting.

  I frown. “Why didn’t you just ask me for help? I know we’ve never met in person until today, but I think of you as a friend, Penny. A good one.”

  “Me too,” she says, eyes filling with unshed tears. “That’s why I feel so awful about this. I knew from the start that there was no way I’d be able to pay your fee. My family’s wealthy, but I don’t—”

  “Forget about the fee.” I swipe a hand through the air. “You know I’ve waived it before.”

  “Yes, but only for candidates I’ve vetted for you, and there’s no way I can objectively vet myself.”

  I roll my eyes. “Please. Consider yourself vetted. If even half of what you told me is true, you more than qualify for a pro bono intervention.”

  Her shoulders sag with obvious relief. “Thank you, Bash. Thank you so much. I swear everything I told you is true. And I promise I’ll pay you back in installments, even if it takes me ten years to do it.”

  “You’ll do no such thing.” I tap my finger and thumb together as I tick through all the things that need to be done. “But we’ll have to bust our asses to get all the prep work finished. You haven’t left us much time. You said the wedding’s this weekend?”

  “Yes,” she says, before adding sheepishly, “but there’s a wedding shower on Wednesday, a bachelorette and stag party on Thursday, and a rehearsal dinner on Friday before the ceremony Saturday afternoon.”

  I curse beneath my breath and lift my arm, signaling for the waitress to bring us another round. We’re going to need it.

  “I’m sorry.” She sinks lower against the leather cushions. “I was hoping I would be able to pull it off solo, but the more I thought about going to the wedding alone the more I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die.” She stares down into her empty glass. “Seriously die. And I don’t want
to feel that way anymore.”

  “You won’t have to.” I scoot across the couch, putting my arm around her shoulders and drawing her close. “No worries, beautiful. We’ve got this.”

  She leans into me, her body soft and warm against mine, and for a moment, I’m aware of her the way I was when I first saw her standing on the street. She’s a gorgeous woman and her breast is pressed against my ribs and she smells like lavender and something addictively sweet and I’m only human for God’s sake.

  But stronger than the desire buzzing beneath my skin is the need to help her, heal her, to make sure my friend doesn’t have to face the ugliness of the world alone.

  This is why I do what I do.

  After all the things I’ve seen, I’m pretty sure romantic love is the stuff of fairy tales and bad porn, but friendship is real. And helping people who feel they’ve got no one on their side is what gets me up in the morning. My corporate friends can mock MB Consulting until the cows come home, but I know the dark places in my soul got a hell of a lot lighter the day I walked away from Wall Street for good.

  Still, the fact that Penny is my assistant and also happens to be the kind of curvy, brown-eyed girl that is the Incredible Bulk’s personal kryptonite will create certain…challenges.

  Challenges like controlling my body’s response when she turns and wraps her arms around my neck, whispering, “Thank you, Bash,” into my ear in this sexy as hell voice while she turns the moment into a full-fledged hug fest.

  “My pleasure,” I say. But it isn’t. It’s torture.

  Torture to wrap my arms around her and hold her close, offering her comfort even as I struggle to get my damned cock under control. I think of dead puppies and my college roommate who picked his nose pretty much constantly, but it isn’t until I bring up a vivid mental picture of the recently delivered goats at my grandmother’s farm eating their own afterbirth that the bulge in my pants finally begins to soften.

  And just in time. The server is here with our second round, and Penny is settling back onto her side of the couch, giving her an excellent view of my lap.

  “Here you go.” The raven-haired waitress hands Penny a fresh tumbler. “Two more Laphroiag double shots on the rocks. Anything else for you guys?”

  “This will do for now, thank you,” I say, accepting my fresh glass.

  “Drinks are my treat, by the way,” Penny says as the server drifts away to check on a group of newcomers settling in at a table for four across the bar. “I insist. It’s the least I can do to thank you.”

  “Absolutely not. These shots are obscenely expensive.”

  She grimaces. “How obscenely?”

  I let my voice go low and rough, “Dirty, filthy, wrongly expensive.”

  “Wow.” Her eyes glitter, and for a second, I wonder if she feels it too, the crackle of potential energy in the air every time our eyes meet. But then she laughs, a light, airy sound that makes me feel silly for reading too much into the moment. “Then I’ll let you get this and I’ll pay for pizza tonight while we work.”

  “Sounds good.” I take a fortifying swig of my drink, determined to keep my mind on business. “We’ll have to make the most of every minute before we leave on Tuesday. We only have forty-eight hours to cram in a week’s worth of preparation.”

  “We can do it. I mean, it’s not like we’re complete strangers. We already know a lot of each other’s backstory.” Her mischievous grin makes a dimple pop in her cheek. “I even know your LetsGoLove password so I can change it for you on days when you want to be locked out of your account.”

  “You do,” I agree, even as I think of all the things I intend to keep secret from Penny. Things like how sexy she looks sipping scotch at eleven o’clock in the morning in her running clothes and a messy bun and how much I’d like to pull her back into my arms.

  Or onto my lap.

  Or roll her beneath me on this couch and discover every inch of her incredible body.

  But none of that is going to happen.

  Penny knows the Magnificent Bastard rules better than anyone—never get emotionally involved, never confuse fantasy with reality, and never, ever, take things further than a kiss.

  CHAPTER NINE

  From the text archives of Sebastian “Bash” Prince and Penny Pickett

  From Bash: Let’s talk about the monkey piss you were drinking last night.

  It has come to my attention via your last e-mail that you have been subjecting your taste buds to the unfiltered night sweats of an unwashed homeless man—aka Bud Light—with your pizza.

  That shit will cease immediately.

  Your salary has just been raised two hundred dollars per annum in order to afford you the luxury of purchasing Labatt’s Blue Light, the true king of light beers.

  You’re welcome.

  Penny: Thank you!

  I’m so grateful I’m not even going to ask how you know what monkey piss or the night sweats of a homeless man taste like.

  Bash: A wise decision. Some stories are best left untold…

  Penny: LOL! Color me intrigued…

  I wonder if I’m the first assistant in the world to get a beer snob raise…

  Bash: I doubt it. Good bosses know that life’s too short to drink bad beer.

  Penny: Amen.

  CHAPTER TEN

  By the time we finish our second round of drinks, Penny and I have made it through a quick refresher course on the basic who, what, where, when, and why of our personal histories—Penny’s twenty-five, born in Los Angeles, raised in the Hamptons, and a graduate of Vanderbilt, Boston University, and the school of hard knocks; I’m thirty-two, born and raised in Manhattan, a graduate of NYU, Columbia, and the school of reformed corporate land sharks—and we’re both a little buzzed.

  Penny’s giggles are coming more frequently and I’m finding it harder to keep my eyes from straying to her lips and my thoughts from straying to territory as obscene as the price of our drinks.

  Much, much harder.

  So hard that I know there’s no way we can tackle the next stage of orientation until I’ve had the chance to decompress, sober up, and take a long, cold shower.

  After settling the bill, I put Penny into a car headed toward Brooklyn with a promise to be at her place at six p.m. and aim myself toward the West Village, hoping a long walk will help me get my head on straight.

  Thankfully, after logging several miles, chugging a liter of water, and enjoying a long shower and a longer power nap, I’m feeling like my old self. The self who knows business and pleasure are separate roads and never the twain shall meet.

  By five o’clock, I’m dressed in dark jeans, a gray tee shirt, and a deceptively simple-looking jean jacket that was nearly as pricey as our morning bar tab, and I’m itching to get back onto the streets. My apartment is enormous by Manhattan standards, an open concept two-bedroom loft purchased with the spoils of my first career tearing embattled companies apart piece by piece, so it’s not like I’m squeezed into an efficiency and can’t wait to escape. Still, I always feel most at home surrounded by the bustle of my favorite city.

  I grab a coffee with extra cream and sugar on my way to the L train and settle in for the ride across the river to Williamsburg.

  I was surprised this morning to learn that Penny dwells deep in the heart of the hipster jungle—she doesn’t seem the type to pay sky high rents in order to live closer to her favorite artisanal donut shop. But when I find her building and climb the steps to one of the last crumbling brownstones on a street filled with renovated million dollar homes, my mind is put at ease.

  Penny’s not a closet hipster; she’s a true New Yorker, hanging on to what is likely one of the last rent-controlled apartments in the area.

  I don’t know why that matters, but for some reason, I hate the thought of Penny insisting on drinking organic, locally sourced, handcrafted microbrews or dating men with questionable hygiene, tight tee shirt fetishes, and patchy facial hair. The trend toward social acceptance of men who
walk the streets looking like they just rolled out of bed four days ago is offensive.

  I pity the twenty-somethings whose dating pool is composed purely of such poorly groomed posers, even as I appreciate the edge granted to Yours Truly simply for utilizing a razor and getting a hair cut every six weeks.

  Women deserve better. Especially Penny.

  After all she’s been through, the girl deserves a Magnificent Bastard on her side protecting her from the failed Prince Charmings of the world.

  I knock on her door and call through the opening where the peephole lens is supposed to be. “MB Consulting. Here for my six o’clock.”

  “Just a second!” A moment later, a breathless Penny opens the door, her face flushed.

  Her hair is hanging in glossy waves around her shoulders, she’s wearing a touch of makeup—just enough to make me realize how long her lashes are—and a pair of fitted jean overalls that shouldn’t be sexy, but somehow, they are. Still, I manage to keep my mind on business and my gaze from drifting to where the jean straps stretch tight over the swells of her breasts.

  I am a fucking professional, and I can handle this.

  “Come in!” She motions for me to enter a cozy apartment filled with floor to ceiling bookshelves, a micro-kitchen with vintage 1940s appliances, and a window seat made up into a daybed, covered with obnoxiously colorful pillows. On the far wall are vintage ice cream ads framed in seashell frames and a motivational poster that declares “Let’s Make Today Suck Less than Yesterday!” in a decorative font.

  The place is very homey, very welcoming, a little bit weird, and all Penny.

  “I just finished cleaning up. The scotch knocked me out. I was asleep until an hour ago.” She bustles around the kitchen island toward the ancient fridge. “Would you like something to drink? I’ve got water, lemonade, ice tea, cheap box wine, and a few bottles of Labatt’s Blue Light.”

  “The True King of Light Beers,” I observe with approval.