His Sword

by Holly Hart

  We’re sitting down in under two minutes. The table’s laid for three.

  “Can I get you anything to eat, Mr. Thorne?” Jimmy asks.

  Terrified as I am of the conversation we’re about to have, my stomach rumbles. I’ve never been to a restaurant like this in my life. Hell, a week’s worth of my paycheck at Thorne Enterprises probably wouldn’t cover the entrées. So, I’m kind of hoping that Charlie says yes.

  He doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t.

  “I’m good, Jimmy; just a bottle of sparkling water.”

  Sure. That’s just my luck. I get the one goddamn billionaire in all of New York who isn’t a glutton. I mean, that it seems he’s also the one billionaire in all of New York who isn’t fat, red-nosed and verging on the edge of gout, but still…

  I stop thinking about it: about Charlie. It’s not like I’ve got any chance of sleeping with him anyway. I think we’re long past that point.

  I cast my eyes longingly around the restaurant. Spicy, Eastern scents waft into my nostrils. I breathe in, deeply. I wouldn’t miss them for the world.

  “You’re not hungry, are you?” Mr. Thorne asks. He’s definitely Mr. Thorne when he’s in this kind of mood.

  I shake my head. “No,” I reply. “Not hungry,” I lie.

  We wait. The sparkling water arrives. We wait some more.

  I stare at the perfectly pressed white tablecloth. My heart thuds in my chest. I feel like I’m waiting for Judgment Day. I guess in a way, I kind of am.

  I hear the clicking of heels approaching.

  Charlie’s chair scrapes back on the sparkling black marble floor. He stands. “Harper,” he says. “Thanks for making it here on such short notice.”

  I glance up guiltily. I expect to see Charlie’s lawyer: probably a man in his 60s with a rounding gut, and a two-thousand dollar suit.

  That’s… not … what I see.

  Instead, I see Charlie Thorne embracing a six foot tall beauty. I glance down to see if she’s wearing heels and a lance of jealousy burns through me when I notice she’s not. Harper’s not just model tall, but a perfect Scandinavian blonde. She’s wearing a restrained blouse, and a close-fitting pencil skirt. In short, she looks like every man’s fantasy.

  I pale away in comparison.

  “Penny,” Charlie says in a clipped tone. “Meet Harper: Harper Cole, my… fixer.”

  Harper, Harper Cole sticks out her hand. “Please, Charlie. I’m your lawyer, not some backstreet mob enforcer,” she says.

  They both sit.

  “So,” Harper says.

  Her eyes twinkle as she pours a small glass of water. The bubbles fizz and pop and I decide that out of everywhere in the world, those seem like the right place to look. Less dangerous, at least, than looking at Harper, Harper Cole, who I’m pretty sure can read me like a book. “What’s the emergency?”

  Charlie waits so long before he speaks that I begin to wonder whether he wants me to explain what I did. Luckily, he finally speaks up. As he does I finally summon the courage to look somewhere other than the tablecloth.

  “Harper,” he growls. “Meet Penny – my wife.”

  That, I think, is the only sentence that could possibly have knocked Harper’s cool, collected confidence. Her face blanches, and her eyes widen. She mops her dark red lips with her napkin, leaving a tiny smear of lipstick on the bright white cotton.

  “And I didn’t get an invite to the wedding, Charlie?” She says calmly, barely missing a beat. “After all we’ve been through together, I think I deserve that much, don’t you?”

  “That’s the thing, Harper,” Charlie says. “I didn’t get an invite, either.”

  Harper leans forward. “Oh,” she says. “Now this is getting interesting. Tell me everything.”

  Charlie does. It doesn’t take long. By the time he’s finished, I feel even more stupid than I already do. He lays out my silly excuse for a plan step-by-step, and doesn’t even need to knock it down for me to realize how stupid I was.

  Harper’s eyebrows soar like hot air balloons throughout the story. “Well, Charlie. You always bring me the most interesting cases, don’t you?”

  Charlie brushes aside Harper’s pale attempt at humor. “What the hell are we going to do, Harper? You assured me that the CPS thing was done. Then this woman turns up my office demanding a meeting out of the blue.”

  “Two words for you, Charlie,” Harper says: “Landon Winchester.”

  I sit up in my seat. Finally, I understand more than a fraction of the legal jargon the pair of them have been bandying around the last couple of minutes.

  Landon Winchester: I know that name. He’s New York’s other leading light. Unlike Charlie Thorne, he craves the spotlight. Unlike Charlie Thorne, he came from money, didn’t make his own fortune. Still, I don’t see what he could possibly have to do with what happened earlier in Charlie’s office.

  “Go on,” Charlie growls.

  He’s got a dangerous, hard edge to his voice. I shiver. He sounds like exactly the kind of man I thought he was when I took the job. And, though he doesn’t know it, it’s exactly the reason I applied.

  “Our good friend, Mr. Winchester’s father, was one of the mayor’s biggest donors. Since the old man died, little has changed. In the last election campaign alone, he gave a couple of million dollars. Not all legally, of course. Wired it through half a dozen 501s, but it’s hard to trace.”

  Charlie’s face wrinkles with disdain. “Elections,” he spits. “I’ll never understand why people spend so much time and money trying to influence grubby politicians like the mayor.”

  “See, Charlie,” Harper says. “Here’s the thing –.”

  I get the feeling this is a conversation they have had many times before. Again, a little tinge of jealousy runs down my spine. I know I shouldn’t feel it. I’m nothing to Charlie, and he’s nothing to me. But I envy the relationship he has with his lawyer. They treat each other like equals; it’s plain to see.

  “– I know you don’t like paying people off, but when it comes down to it, Landon Winchester has the power to put pressure on the mayor.”

  “I don’t want that power,” Charlie says. “I just want to make money and spend it, is that so much to ask?”

  Harper rolls her eyes. “Charlie, this is New York, not freaking Rhode Island. This place is like Game of Thrones, you know that. Anything goes; the gloves are off. If Winchester thinks he can mess with your head while this merger’s going on –”

  I realize what they’re talking about. I don’t know if it’s true, but Harper definitely thinks that the CPS investigation is politically motivated. Thinking about it, it makes sense. After all, even if he doesn’t have a wife – not before me, anyway – Charlie Thorne can still give Tilly the kind of life that most children could only dream of.

  “So what do we do?” Charlie says. He does it irritably, but shoots Harper a look of apology just a couple of seconds later. Trying to get my head around Charlie Thorne is giving me whiplash. Every time I think he’s an asshole, a piece of evidence suggests the opposite is true.

  I wish he was an asshole. I want him to be an asshole. It’ll make this so much easier.

  “You’re not going to like this, Charlie,” Harper says. “But until this investigation blows over, we can’t rock the boat.”

  Charlie shakes his head. “No, don’t you dare say it, Harps.”

  Harps: the nickname runs like a blade through my heart.

  The blonde lawyer smiles, and spreads her hands wide, like a priest giving a blessing. “It is what it is, Charlie. You two need to get married.”

  Chapter Three

  Penny

  I’m still trembling two hours later.

  My best friend, Robbie – Roberta, really, but she’s a tomboy and she’d kick my ass if she heard me call her that – slides into the diner booth next to me. I’m gripping a milkshake in both hands: chocolate, and hard. Hard in the sense that I dumped three shots of whiskey into it from a pint I bought in
a run-down grocery store across the street from my apartment. Condensation rolls down my fingers.

  “Get dumped?” Robbie giggles. She throws her hat and gloves down messily on the table.

  I look up at her. She’s colored her hair again: blue, this time. “You’ve got to stop doing that,” I say. “It’ll start falling out.”

  “Ooh,” Robbie grins. “Must have been a bad day if Little Miss Perfect’s back to telling me how to wear my hair.”

  “Don’t call me that,” I grump. “You know I hate it.”

  Robbie elbows me in the ribs. When she does that, she’s not messing around. I wince and rock away; almost spilling my milkshake in the process. Robbie leans over and gracefully steals it from me. She brings the straw to her mouth and takes a sip.

  “Wild Turkey,” she says, naming the brand of bottom shelf bourbon I’ve used.

  “It must’ve been a really bad first day. Geez, Penny, you know how many calories they put in these drinks? If you want to fit into one of those sexy li’l pencil skirts tomorrow, you better lay off. Don’t worry, I’ll help.”

  Help she does.

  A long, lingering slurp fills the cramped booth. I know Robbie’s messing with me on purpose, but it sure as hell works. I’m distracted by a little flicker of annoyance. It’s like having a stone in my shoe while I’m being chased by a bear. I shouldn’t notice it, but I do.

  It’s all I can think about.

  I guess that’s what best friends are for.

  “Why are you so upbeat?” I growl. “I screwed it up. Everything detail we’ve been planning, for months, I wrecked it all.”

  Robbie clunks the heavy milkshake glass down. She loops her arm around my shoulder and squeezes me tight. It feels funny, because she’s half a foot shorter than me, and doesn’t weigh hundred pounds soaking wet, but I don’t complain. I need a hug.

  “Hey, Penny?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know how they say misery loves company?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well they say bullshit. Or I do, if that makes more sense. Screw it, what I mean is that if I’d wanted someone to bring me down. I’d have gone over to Dan’s place.”

  Dan.

  He’s Robbie’s on-again, off-again boyfriend. He’s a musician – guitar – not that I’ve ever heard him practice. As far as I’m concerned, he’s an anchor dragging Robbie to the depths of despair. I’ve told her that, but she doesn’t agree. Besides, the sex is too good; or so she says. Seems like a crazy reason to stay with a guy to me. But then again, I can’t really say. It’s not like I’ve been with a man before.

  “You’re too good for him, Robbie,” I say. It’s an automatic reaction.

  “Bull. Shit.” Robbie grins.

  She reminds me of Harley Quinn from Suicide Squad. She’s got that same deliciously unhinged personality. Don’t get me wrong: I love it, but I’m not lying to myself. My friend is all kinds of crazy. On the plus side, at least, she doesn’t walk around town swinging a baseball bat.

  Yet.

  “I mean it –” I protest.

  “Nuh uh; trust me, girl, I know my strengths. My pussy’s dynamite, I’ve got a rack to die for, but like you say, my hair looks like straw and I’m so pale it looks like Dracula’s drained me of ten pints of blood.”

  “Robbie –!”

  “I told you, Pen. We ain’t having this conversation. Not now, not ever. Anyway, you’re the one drowning your sorrows in a freaking milkshake; so spill.”

  I wriggle free from Robbie’s arms. “You don’t have to be such an ass about it,” I mutter.

  “And you don’t have to keep deflecting, Pen. I know your game. I know something’s up, so tell me what it is. You can’t have screwed up that badly, can you? I’m sure it’s nothing. Just a storm in a teacup –”

  I fix my friend with a pointed stare.

  “I’m babbling again, aren’t I,” she says. She doesn’t even have the grace to look embarrassed.

  I nod.

  I speak softly. “I ruined everything, Rob. You know how I was supposed to stay under the radar: keep my head down; just get the lay of the land for a few weeks?”

  “Don’t tell me you spilled coffee all over your boss’s shirt or something.” She leans forward, a wicked glint in her eye. “You did, didn’t you? Did he change in front of you? What does he look like naked? Oh – shit.”

  My eyebrow kinks upward at the sound of her yelling. “What?”

  “He made a move on you, didn’t he? Charlie Thorne, I mean. What an asshole. What did you do?”

  “No,” I protest. “It’s nothing like that.”

  “No?”

  I shake my head. Dark red hair dances across my vision like I’m caught in a wind tunnel. “No,” I say. “Worse.”

  “Worse?” Robbie says. There’s a slight hint of disappointment to her tone. I know she wouldn’t really want me to be in that kind of situation.

  “Much worse,” I say.

  A crawling sense of worry strangles my stomach. I feel like I’m on a roller coaster, creeping up the rails, almost at the highest point. I’m just going to have to come out and say it. If not, in a few seconds, I won’t be able to speak at all.

  “Robbie – we’re getting married.”

  There aren’t many things that can strike my best friend dumb, but that statement is one of them. She turns to me with a look of shock on her face. If I wasn’t buried ten feet deep in crap, I’d almost think it would be worth it, just to see that.

  My heart beat drums loudly inside my chest as I wait for Robbie’s response.

  Thump, thump.

  Thump, thump.

  Thump –

  A wicked peal of laughter rings out across the diner. Customers turn their heads to search out the source, and quickly look away. I don’t blame them. I’m used to Robbie’s look – thick black lipstick, blue hair, and the choker collar around her neck, but most people aren’t.

  I grip my friend’s arm, digging my nails into her skin. “Robbie,” I hiss. “Shut up, people are looking.”

  She doubles over with laughter, slapping the table as it consumes her. “Pen, this is too much,” she says over snatches of giggles. “Say it again.”

  I look around the diner. Everyone’s looking studiously away – but I can’t help but feel they are listening into our conversation. I lower my voice. It comes out in a hushed, embarrassed murmur.

  “I’m not joking, Robbie. I’m freaking marrying him. Hell, I told a woman from Child Protective Services that we were already married!”

  Robbie blinks. The laughter dies in her throat. “Wait,” she says. “You’re serious.”

  Like I said, not many things can turn Robbie quiet. I’ve done it twice in one day. I’d go buy a lottery ticket, but I don’t think it’s my lucky day; the exact opposite, maybe?

  “Deadly.” I hiss. “What the hell am I going to do?”

  “Whoa. Take it from the top, Pen. And stop panicking. This might be exactly what we need.”

  I tell her everything. How I made a split-second decision to throw myself in at the deep end. How Charlie’s lawyer told us that we need to get married, that she can alter the wedding registry of some Central American state like the Dominican Republic so it makes it look like we got married months ago.

  How I’m moving in with Charlie Thorne, CEO of Thorne Enterprises.

  Now it’s Robbie’s fingers digging into my forearm. I wince. “Geez, that hurts. Lay off, will you?”

  “Penny; what the hell has you so worried?” Robbie asks. “You’re in. We don’t need to con the dude out of his fortune anymore. He’ll just give it to you. You’ll be married, right? In a few months you can walk away with half of everything he owns: shotgun the master bedroom.”

  “It – It doesn’t work like that,” I say. Apparently I spoke too quietly, because Robbie reaches over and envelops me in a hug.

  “This time next year,” she laughs, “we’ll be millionaires!”

  “Robbie,�
�� I hiss. “I told you, it doesn’t work like that.”

  The smile falls off Robbie’s face. In that instance, I realize exactly who we are: a couple of formally-homeless girls who are in way over our heads. It’s only day one, and our plan is already falling apart. “Why not?”

  “You don’t understand,” I whisper. I look around, making sure that no one’s listening in on our conversation.

  “We underestimated this guy, Rob. We were so dumb. There’s no way I can just waltz into Thorne Enterprises and help myself to the gold. It’s too big, too professional. He’s got security everywhere, and his lawyer –.”

  “Wait, there’s gold?”

  I grimace as my best friend winks at me.

  “But that’s the magic of it, Penny, don’t you understand? We don’t have to steal from him anymore. If you marry Charlie Thorne, he’ll have to give you anything you want.”

  “We my ass,” I say. “It’s me putting my freedom on the line, not you.”

  “Don’t be like that, Penny,” Robbie says. She pastes a hurt look on her face, but I know it’s just for show. She’s got thicker skin than your average rhinoceros. She lifts up her arms, turns them over, and shows me the cuts that scar her forearms.

  “It was the only way. There was no way a nut job like me gets a gig in a fancy office like that. You’re the hot one, the one no self-respecting billionaire in existence would be able to stop slobbering over. You know that. Hell, you were the one who suggested it!”

  “Don’t try and butter me up, Robbie,” I mutter.

  “I know better. Look, you weren’t there. They are going to button me down to an ironclad prenup. I know it. You didn’t meet his lawyer, Rob – she’s one cold fish. I put one foot out of place, and she’ll do whatever it takes to put me away.”

  Robbie goes quiet. She bites her lip.

  “Don’t you back out on me now, Penny,” she says. Her voice is hard. She’s only just concealing her anger.

  “I’m not –It’s just…”

  “You are, and you know it,” she says. “Have you forgotten what happened to us, Penny?”