Piper: The Casanova Club #1

by Ali Parker

  “You can tell me if you hate it. I want you to feel confident.” Janie stepped out of the way.

  I was startled by my own reflection. “Holy shit.”

  Janie peered at me. “Is this a good ‘holy shit’ or a bad ‘holy shit’?”

  I turned my head from side to side, admiring the work my friend had done. I looked beautiful. I’d never looked at my reflection and felt so good about it before. My lips were full, and the red was very complimentary. She had dusted my eyelids with soft shadows in sparkling silver and white shades. The color darkened toward the outside of my lid, cutting into the shape of a “V”. Then there was a flick of cat-winged eyeliner that gave the whole look an extra dramatic flair.

  “I love it, Janie. Thank you. I don’t even have words.”

  “You look incredible,” she said.

  “Do you think I stand a chance?”

  Janie nodded as she looked me over. “I don’t think you have a single clue how beautiful you are, Piper. And you have so much to offer. These men would be stupid to not give you a chance. And they won’t be able to keep their eyes off you. These other girls won’t have anything on you.”

  “You’re just saying that.”

  Janie grabbed me by the shoulders. “I’m not, Piper. I mean it. And it’s time you start believing it. Just because your family is struggling and you’re not where you think you should be in life doesn’t mean you don’t have a lot to offer. You are worthy of this and so much more. I love you. Your family loves you. And maybe one of these men will love you, too. Maybe more than one of them. I saw this work for Jackson last year firsthand. This experience can bring really good things if you let it. But you have to let this shit go.”

  My phone rang. I held up my finger before answering it. “One sec. It’s my mom.”

  Janie nodded and began packing up her makeup collection.

  I answered my phone. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Piper,” she said. She was out of breath and sounded flustered. “A whole construction crew just walked through the door, and we have other customers for once. Can you come in and help out? I know you wanted today off, but we’re stretched thin.”

  “I can’t today, Mom. I have that thing.”

  “Piper. I know. But we’re toast without you. Your dad couldn’t come in this morning. He’s not feeling well. So Aldo and I are trying to cover the kitchen, and your brother is waiting tables. But it’s not working. Please. We need you here.”

  Fuck. Shit. Fucking shit. “Fine. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  “Thank you, Piper. See you soon.”

  “See you soon.” I sighed and hung up the phone.

  Janie was staring at me with wide eyes. “What the fuck just happened?”

  “I have to go into work. Is there any way you can get me a later time slot today?”

  “Piper, I can’t just pull this shit out of my ass. Jackson might not let me. I’ve already had to bust my ass to get you this far. If I ask him for more favors, he might just cut you from the list.”

  “I know. I know. I’m sorry. But can you please try? I can’t screw my parents for this.”

  Janie shook her head. “You’re screwing them if you mess this up.”

  “I know,” I whispered as I took off out of her room to pack up my bag with my dress, heels, and jewelry. I was going to have to finish getting ready at work. Thankfully, my dad wouldn’t be there to ask me a dozen questions about where I was going.

  Why couldn’t I catch one break? Just one. That was all I needed.

  It was like life was working against me. Anytime I caught the chance for an opportunity, the universe converged upon me and buried me beneath more piles of shit.

  Like construction crews and an understaffed restaurant on the one night I had to save us all from this nightmare.

  Chapter 20

  Christian

  Hanging around late at the bar last night with the women and other guys had been a mistake. I should have known better. That last gin and tonic was responsible for my current fat head and churning gut. My colleagues, all fellow professors from Harvard, were enjoying their morning coffees as I nursed a bloody Mary. There was no better cure to a hangover than tomato juice. “Did your night get a little too wild last night, Christian?” Heather asked. Her eyes were double their usual size behind the thick lenses of her glasses.

  I shrugged one shoulder as I took a sip of my drink. “I may have had one too many. Sometimes I forget that I’m a lightweight.”

  Heather and the others at the table chuckled. She was a professor of English. The other two men at the table, Jim and Dwayne, were both professors of philosophy. Jim leaned back in his chair and sipped his coffee. A little bead of brown rolled down the side of the white mug. “Thanks for the invite, Christian.”

  I shrugged. “It was sort of a closed event.”

  “Oh?” Heather asked, tipping her head to the side and resting her cheek in her hand. “That sounds important.”

  “Not particularly,” I said. “But it was lucky coincidence that I had to come to the city the same weekend as you all. We haven’t been able to sit down like this in a while.”

  “What a smooth transition.” Dwayne chuckled.

  Our waiter appeared beside our table. Our meals were balanced on a tray he carried across his right forearm. He set everything down in front of us, and we thanked him. After he left, I found myself staring down at the over-easy eggs on my plate, fighting the rush of saliva in my mouth.

  Damn that gin and tonic.

  I forced myself to swallow several times and reached for the plain-white buttered toast perched on the edge of my plate. The first bite was always the riskiest. The last thing I needed was to have to get up and rush across the restaurant to the bathroom clutching my stomach. Knowing my luck, I’d be puking my guts out beside someone’s table as they tried to enjoy their breakfast. And in front of my colleagues, too.

  I didn’t need that today.

  I took a bite of toast, chewed, and swallowed. My stomach didn’t clench, and I managed to wash it down with a sip of my drink. I waited a minute before going back in and finishing half a slice of toast as everyone else at the table enjoyed their eggs and fruit and pancakes.

  Damn this Casanova Club. I’d gotten ahead of myself last night. I hadn’t crossed any lines though. Some of the other guys had gotten sloppy drunk. I’d merely been a bit tipsy. The booze hadn’t affected my ability to speak with all the women at least once. It did help me endure the idiocy of some of the other guys though. If I had to do it again, chances were I’d still have that last gin and tonic just to help me withstand Cooper’s company.

  Being around that guy was akin to capital punishment.

  I glanced at my watch. I had to be back at the club in two hours. Jackson had made it very clear that today’s scheduled events could not be missed. Each of the ten women had a scheduled time slot to come see us in a panel interview. It would be me and the other men asking the questions.

  I was already dreading what kinds of questions were going to come up. I could only imagine the sorts of things some of the men were going to want to know.

  Jackson had suggested I write some questions down ahead of time to make sure I was able to find out the things I thought were the most important before casting my vote for our finalist. That sounded like rubbish to me. If there was something I wanted to know in the moment, I would ask it. Otherwise, my game plan was to sit back and let the others lead the show. In my experience, I found that it was better to listen than to speak—especially in a situation like this.

  The waiter interrupted my train of thought when he popped over to top off some of the mugs of coffee.

  Jim stirred another creamer and a packet of artificial sweetener into his cup before turning toward me. “Are you going to call Lyndsay while you’re here?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Why not?” Heather asked. “She’d probably be happy to hear from you.”

  I shook my head. “I do
ubt it. Things between us sort of fell apart. It was a mistake. We should have kept it professional like she wanted to in the first place.” I shouldn’t have pushed her to go for that late nightcap with me when we bumped into each other in the halls of Harvard University. I should have noticed the ring on her left hand before we got to the cafe. And I sure as shit should not have taken her home that night.

  Our affair ruined her marriage when her husband found out she’d been sleeping with someone else. She never used my name, but I was sure he had his suspicions. Any man with half a brain would have suspected me.

  Lyndsay never forgave me for the part I played in making her a divorced woman at the age of thirty-four. I didn’t blame her for it. But it hurt like hell when she came to my place one night and told me her and I were through. I could still hear her voice in the back of my head, saying she wanted no contact with me whatsoever. If we were to pass each other in the halls again, she didn’t even want me making eye contact. She made me agree right then and there that she and I were nothing to each other anymore.

  I went along with it, and my heart was still recovering from the damage I should have had the foresight to protect myself from.

  “I’m sorry to hear things ended badly,” Heather said as she crossed one leg over the other and took a dainty sip of her coffee. “Are you seeing anyone else?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Do you have your sights set on someone special?” She winked.

  I’d always suspected that Heather might have a thing for me. I shrugged off that thought when it popped up in the back of my head and finished off my drink. My stomach was in better shape after finishing my toast, and I was about ready to head back to the club and get this day started. “There might be someone soon,” I said.

  Heather smiled. It was a well-rehearsed smile that didn’t touch her eyes. “Good.”

  I grabbed my wallet from my back pocket and left some cash on the table. “Well, it was nice seeing you guys. But I have to get out of here. Duty calls.”

  My colleagues and I went about the ceremony of shaking each other’s hands before I left. Heather made sure to squeeze in a quick hug. She smelled like cotton candy.

  * * *

  I stepped into the conference room at the Casanova Club about fifteen minutes after leaving the restaurant. Most of the other men were already there, and they had taken their seats around the obsidian table. There was one chair that stood apart from all the others. The ones we’d been sitting in every time we came here to meet were black. The new one was red. It was lavish and embellished with gold thread through the cushion on the back and the seat.

  I assumed that was where the women would sit during their interviews.

  I grabbed a bottle of water and took a seat next to two men whose company I didn’t despise. Asher, the somebody from London, and Miles, the photographer.

  Miles had his chair angled slightly away from mine so he could face the empty red one more directly. He looked over his shoulder at me. “You ready for this, Harvard?”

  “Ready as I can be,” I said.

  Asher took a deep breath on my other side. “I’m ready for it to be over. This seems so formal. Too rigid. How are you supposed to get to know a person in a setting like this?”

  The room was filling up as we spoke. Easton entered and was followed shortly by Wyatt, Aaron, and Max. They all took their seats, and I looked over at Asher. “I don’t think we’re really supposed to get to know them. We’re just supposed to get to the root of what might make us want to eliminate them.”

  “Harsh,” Asher said.

  I shrugged. “But not untrue.”

  “I like the way Harvard thinks.” Easton nodded in my direction. He drummed his fingers on the table as he looked around at the rest of us. We’d all arrived, and all chairs were occupied, except for the plush red one. “This isn’t a chance for us to get personal with these ladies. It’s just for us to find the things we don’t want in the woman we would potentially be proposing to.”

  “I thought you weren’t interested in marriage, Easton,” Wyatt said. His southern drawl made it hard to tell if he was being critical of the football player, or if that was just how he sounded.

  Easton’s gaze slid to the cowboy. “No. But I’m still going to show this girl a good time. I have to admit, each one of them is fine as hell. I’m not opposed to seeing how things go. Better look alive, boys. I’m here to win it.”

  Cooper kicked his heels up on the table and laughed. “Slow down, hot shot. You’re not surrounded by easy competition. The rest of us aren’t going to sit back and just let you woo her with your trophies and good throwing arm.”

  Easton scowled. “I can offer more than that.”

  “Like his bitchy attitude,” Miles muttered under his breath beside me.

  Easton looked sharply toward us. “Something you wanted to say, Miles?”

  Miles shook his head. Easton’s expression soured. Right before I thought the jock was about to say something else, there was a soft knock on the door.

  All our heads turned as if on a swivel. One of the young women I’d spoken to briefly last night stepped into the room. She was dressed in a tight, knee-length black dress and sky-high strappy heels. Her dark brown hair was down and slightly curled. Big hoops hung from her ears, and she smiled at all of us. “Um, hi. It looks like I’m first.”

  Her name was Claire. At least, I was pretty sure that was her name. I’d met too many women within a very short amount of time. It was hard to keep track.

  Claire took her seat in the red chair and looked around the room at us. Her posture was exceptional. I might have thought she was calm and collected had she not fidgeted nervously with the hem of her dress. She cleared her throat. “I think you can go ahead and ask what you need to. Jackson will send the next girl in when my time is up. You have half an hour.”

  Half an hour? Damn. That meant my ass was going to be in this chair for the next five hours. Fuck.

  It was no surprise to any of us when Cooper started in on the questions. “What do you do for a living, sweetheart?”

  “She’s a veterinarian,” Easton said with a slight eye roll. “Didn’t you pay any attention last night?”

  Miles leaned close to me. “Finally. I’ve been waiting for these two buffoons to butt heads.”

  I smothered my laugh by clearing my throat and rubbing my jaw.

  Claire nodded at Easton. “Yes, you’re close. I’m not a veterinarian yet. But I’m training to be.”

  Easton looked around at the rest of us like he’d just answered the hardest trivia question ever asked. Cooper slumped back in his chair, and the floor was opened up to the rest of us to ask our questions.

  That went on for some time. After Claire, there was Alicia. Then in her wake came Grace, Victoria, and Hannah. By that time, all the questions were repetitive and boring, and I felt like I knew the answers before they came. But we still had hours to go yet, and the questions just kept on coming.

  “Do you have any siblings?”

  “Where do you see yourself in five years? Ten?”

  “Do you like the outdoors?”

  “What is the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done?”

  “Do you think your future husband is in this room right now?”

  Chapter 21

  Piper

  “Piper!”

  I hurried to the kitchen to pick up the meals that had just been called. I pulled the order ticket off the shelf and threw it away before picking up the three plates and bringing them out to one of my tables.

  It was just my luck that the restaurant was busier today than it had been in the last year. Now that I had a chance to come into something big, Piper’s Paradise was trying to hold me down.

  I bumped into my mother’s shoulder as I passed her in the hallway to go check on my phone. I had no clue if I was even still a part of the Casanova Club selection. For all I knew, Jackson Lee had thrown my name out of the running when Janie came to him
with yet another special request.

  My mother caught me by the shoulders. “Where are you going? I need you on the floor.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I have to quickly check my phone. I’m waiting for an important phone call.”

  “Piper,” my mother said nervously. “Today is important. If these people leave bad reviews online about us, it might be the nail in our coffin. I need you out there. You’re the best waitress we have.”

  “I’m the only waitress you have.”

  My mother gave me a sad smile. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Really. But I have to check my phone. I’ll be quick.”

  She finally let me go, and I rushed the rest of the way down the hall to the back room. I grabbed my phone with shaking hands and stared down at the screen as I read the message that had come in from Janie fifteen minutes ago.

  I booked you the 4pm time slot. Don’t be late. I dropped off a bag with your other outfits in it at the front desk of the club. Ask for it. Wear the crop and the pants I put in there. Wear the blue dress to dinner. Good luck, xoxo.

  My hands started shaking even more.

  “Okay,” I breathed to myself. This was happening. It was happening, and I was hours away from standing in a room full of twelve super hot and super wealthy bachelors. Somehow, I had to convince them all that I was worthy of their time and that I had a lot to offer. I had no idea how I was going to pull it off. Not one fucking clue.

  I could jump that hurdle when I got to it.

  I tucked my phone away and went back out into the restaurant. I had about forty-five minutes before I would have to leave if I stood any chance of getting there on time. I’d have to ride my bike, and it had started snowing twenty minutes ago. That was going to be an absolute nightmare, but I didn’t have money for a cab, and traffic was too unpredictable in the city. Especially at his time of year. I would just have to pedal my ass off to get there in time, and then I’d have to find a way to make myself look presentable in one of the bathrooms at the club.