by Sierra Rose
“That terrible bag which couldn’t be more than twenty bucks—tops.”
Twenty bucks?!
“Nick—it is several hundred dollars.” I couldn’t have stressed the word more. “That’s why I picked it. We agreed this was supposed to be price comparable, right?”
He nodded curtly.
“That’s what I’m doing. Honoring our professional arrangement.”
A sarcastic bout of laughter burst out of me, as I gestured to the lingerie.
“And what about that is possibly professional?”
Both of our eyes swept over the laced bra, for a moment. The black satin straps that hung down. Connecting to a thong. Connecting to a garter. Connecting to something else that...well honestly, I’m not even sure what it was. At some point, it could have been footies.
Nick faltered for only a moment, before regaining his perfect composure.
“I’m glad you asked. The thing that’s professional about this, is the price.” He lifted his chin proudly. “It’s a little over a hundred dollars. Bringing us closer and closer to our goal.”
There was a burst of laughter from the front of the store, and I shot a furious glare over my shoulder before turning that glare back to him.
“A hundred dollars?” I stepped forward, hand outstretched. “Let me see.”
In one fluid motion, he ripped off the tag and stuffed it into his pocket. If I’d really pressed him, I’m sure he would have swallowed the damn thing.
“Sorry,” he said dryly. “Reflex. Guess you’ll just have to trust me.”
To trust him.
I took a step back, and for a moment, everything paused.
“What are you doing?”
Over the last ten minutes, I’d asked the question a million times. But this time, it came out completely different. No banter. No games. We were talking about thousands of dollars here. It didn’t matter if that was pocket change to him, it was still a hell of a lot of money. The kind of money that shouldn’t be spent on employees, no matter how good of friends they might be.
Nick’s playful smile vanished for a moment, replaced with something almost shy.
Shy. From a man who didn’t know the definition of the word.
This, more than anything else, stopped me dead in my tracks.
“Just...let me.”
There was no entrapping debate this time. No tricks or champagne. Just a simple request.
Let me.
Chapter 10
We stared at each other for a long moment, gazing appraisingly into each other’s eyes. It was a look we had shared countless times before. Times when we were measuring each other’s opposition to an idea. Measuring each other’s intoxication. Measuring each other’s willingness to participate in either a PR venture, or a whimsical, hair-brained scheme.
It had never been quite like this. Truth be told, it had never even come close. But no matter his intentions now, the age-old question remained: When had I ever refused him?
“Alright, but that’s enough.”
He thrilled, then hesitated. Wedging his bets. Probably thinking about the word compromise for the first time in his life. Weighing its merits.
He clearly didn’t like it.
“Abby, we are friends, are we not?”
I studied him cautiously as some of the previous tension began to melt away. There was a little dimple forming in the corner of his cheeks, and those twinkling eyes worked even better than the booze.
“Yes...we’re friends.”
He nodded seriously, then held up the things he’d collected.
“Well as your friend, I cannot allow you to walk outside like this.” He glanced over each of them in turn. “In nothing but a garter, a purse, and some shoes? How could I?”
I dropped my head with an exasperated smile, covering my face in my hands.
“Nick—”
“One: you’d surely freeze to death. Probably before we got to the next hotdog stand, and I do really want a hotdog. Two—and this can’t be overstated: you are going to attract men if you go outside like that. Lots of men. Too many to count, and lord knows I can’t fight all of them off by myself. Truth be told—I’ll probably be one of them.”
I shook my head, lips pursed as he stared back with coaxing smile.
“So...please? Let a guy buy you a dress?”
My chest tightened in dismay, as I glanced automatically over towards the gowns. Now he wanted to buy a whole other dress? How much was this going to end up costing?
“I promise not to make you jump in a fountain...”
Okay—even I had to grin at that one.
“You’re a real dick, you know that?”
He threw back his head and laughed, grabbing me by the arm once more as he snapped his fingers for more champagne. A second later, we clinked glasses and cheers’d again. This time, to nothing really in particular.
“You know,” Nick glanced over with a smile, as we wandered back towards the front of the store, “you’re the only girl I’ve ever met who would call me a dick for buying you shoes.”
I considered this for a moment, grabbing his arm as I swayed with a bit of a buzz.
“Well, the girls you like...they like to be taken care of.”
Yeah—there was a definite buzz. I never would have said that otherwise.
He glanced down in surprise, keeping his arm steady for me all the while.
“And you don’t?”
There wasn’t an ounce of slur to his voice. After years and years of diligent practice, Nick had the tolerance of an Irish sailor. It would take more than champagne to unsteady him.
Again, I considered the question thoughtfully.
“I would I guess...I’m just proud of being able to take care of myself. In the neighborhood where I grew up—that wasn’t the easiest thing for a woman to claim.”
He looked at me seriously for a moment, and my cheeks flushed crimson at having given something so personal away. His lips parted to reassure me, but sensing my discomfort, he lightened the mood instead with a joke.
“I can imagine that it must have been tough. I hear that Brooklyn’s mostly an agrarian society...”
I snorted with laughter as we came to a stop in the middle of the gowns.
There were so many shapes and sizes. So many colors, and cuts, and fabrics—I had no idea where I’d even start to look.
But Nick seemed to have a very good idea. In fact, from the way he made a beeline for a specific one, I was willing to bet he’d had his eye on it from the moment we came in.
I couldn’t help but watch as his fingers slid the zipper down the mannequin’s back. The expert way he eased the sleeves off its shoulders before pulling the whole thing over its head.
Talk about a specific skill set.
There was a soft gasp, as behind me, the saleswomen were doing the exact same thing.
By now, the alcohol had taken firm effect and I was curious. Unlike the rest of his selections, Nick didn’t hold this one up for approval. Instead, he’d slipped it discreetly into the purse—shielding it from view.
“Well?” I asked with a little grin. “Can I see it?”
He shook his head firmly.
“Nope. It’s a surprise.”
I must admit, I was a bit crestfallen.
“What?” I took a step forward. “Why? Just let me—”
“Not a chance.” He held the purse out of reach, looking down with a smile. “You’re going to have to wait.”
I surrendered easily enough and followed him to the counter.
“Wait for what?”
He glanced over his shoulder, grinning at my petulant tone.
“For the rest of the apology.”
That was enough to shake me from my intoxicated stupor.
“The rest of the apology?” I stopped dead in my tracks. “Nick, this is so much more than enough. Surely even you can see that.”
“Actually...” he came to a stop in front of the jewels, “it needs one more thin
g.”
By now, I didn’t even try to fight it. I just stood there quietly as he pursed his lips and looked over each piece in their collection with a slight frown. Occasionally, he would hold something up to me, but each time, he put it back down without a word.
...until he got to the necklace.
“This.” His eyes glowed as he picked it up. “This is the one.”
My lips opened, then closed. No words could come.
It was, without a doubt, the most beautiful necklace I’d ever seen. It was long. Overly-long, in the style of 1920’s flappers. But instead of a string of pearls, this was a chain of diamonds. The thing sparkled like you wouldn’t believe. Dropping almost down to my navel, before ending in a teardrop-shaped pendant that was as big as my thumb.
“Mr. Hunter,” Ruby gasped. “It’s absolutely stunning. The finest piece in the store.”
Nick ignored her and turned to me instead.
“What do you think?” he asked softly. “Do you like it?”
I wanted to tell him no. I wanted to tell him it was obviously too much, that this entire spree had been kindhearted but confusing as shit, and walk right out of the store.
But the words ‘too much’ had never really registered with Nick. He wanted to do something nice to apologize. He was staring deep into my eyes.
In the end, I pulled in a breath and did the one thing that people who work in PR are never supposed to do.
I told the truth.
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
A beaming smile spread across his face—a smile I’d never seen before. It wasn’t bored, or mischievous, or amused, or anything else I’d come to associate with Nick.
It was sincere. A soft kind of radiant that seemed to glow from the inside-out.
“Then it’s yours.”
Chapter 11
By the time we emerged from the store, the afternoon sun had already risen high in the sky. We got hotdogs from a nearby stand—just as Nick had requested—and ate them in silence on a bench in Central Park. Watching the pedestrians. Tossing bread to the pigeons.
Neither one of us had really said much since the moment with the necklace. And while this silent, over-analytical tendency was completely normal for me, it couldn’t have been any less so for Nick. The man didn’t have an ‘off’ switch. Truth be told, the only times I could remember him being silent, were when he was sleeping.
Several times, he glanced over at me. Several times, he glanced down at the Dior bag by our feet. Each time, he was either unwilling or unable to speak.
When he finally did say something, it was the last thing I ever expected to hear.
“So,” he began softly, “do you have a list of names for me?”
For one of the first times in my professional life, I blanked.
“I’m sorry,” I sat up a little straighter, trying to catch up, “names?”
His face tightened for a second, then smoothed clear.
“Of girls. Girls the company would approve of. Girls you think I should date.”
It was all I’d wanted that morning—to hear him say those words. To ask that question. I would have given anything I had just to make it so. But now?
For some reason, it made my skin go cold.
“Oh. Right.” I dropped my eyes down to my lap, before forcing them back up. “Yeah, we should talk about that.”
The hotdog wrappers were thrown away. The Dior bag was slid out of sight.
“We could go one of two ways,” I said slowly, trying to will away the lingering alcohol so I could think clearly. “Either find someone you already like and know—someone that would make the board breathe easier, or...” I trailed off, unable to say the rest.
Nick cocked his head curiously to the side.
“Or?”
I glanced at him apologetically, already anticipating the fall-out.
“Or...we could find a complete stranger. Someone that could use the exposure, and would be using you, just as much as you used them. Happens in PR all the time.”
He didn’t say anything, and I moved quickly forward—dismissing the idea almost as quickly as I’d introduced it in the first place.
“But that’s probably a bad call. It has the benefit of keeping things strictly professional, but in doing so, I’m sure it would get terribly awkward. You’d be faking every kiss, every intimate moment caught on camera. Whereas with someone you already knew, there would at least be a personal aspect to it, and you wouldn’t have to pretend—”
“Let’s go with a stranger.”
I came up suddenly short, glancing up in surprise. My tablet—which I’d pulled out the second we started ‘talking shop’ paused on a list of Nick’s ex-girlfriends, freezing them in place.
“I’m sorry?” I had to clarify. It was absolutely not what I expected him to say. “You said you wanted to go with a stranger? Did you not hear what I just—”
“You just said that a stranger would be awkward, but professional,” he summarized briskly. “A mutually beneficial arrangement. One with no real emotion, everything would be staged. Am I understanding that correctly?”
I cringed a bit at the curt way he was talking—already feeling sorry to help facilitate putting him in such a position—but I nodded as well. Yes, that was entirely correct.
“Good.” He pushed to his feet without another word, dusting off his pants. “In that case, why don’t you come up with a list of names, and we’ll go through them tomorrow. Or better yet,” he suddenly reconsidered, “why don’t you just pick someone for me. You’re better at that sort of thing...”
He fell suddenly silent, waiting expectantly, and I hurried to push to my feet as well.
“Uh—yes, of course. I can have someone ready by the end of the day.”
He nodded once, then started walking away.
“Excellent. Thank you, Abigail.”
My jaw fell open as I watched him leave. Watched until he disappeared around the corner at the end of the street. He’d left the Dior bag behind. As well as an untouched cup of coffee.
...Abigail?
Chapter 12
I spent the rest of that evening going over lists of names in my apartment back in Brooklyn. My own little agrarian society come to life. The Dior bag sat untouched on the bed beside me, the only thing I’d removed was the purse. The dress itself had been dumped to the bottom of the bag. In a strange act of contrition, I’d refused to even look.
“A girl for Nick, a girl for Nick...”
I chanted it under my breath as I scrolled through a list of possible names. I’d cast a wide net and there were a lot to choose from. Actresses. Models. Aristocracy. I’d even thrown in one or two ‘every day trust fund daughters’ just for balance. It was an impressive list.
More importantly, it was a long list. One that was enough to sufficiently distract me from whatever it was that had happened that day.
As a woman trained to examine a situation from every possible angle, under every possible lens, I was failing at a spectacular level to understand. No matter how many times I played it back in my head. No matter how many times I reviewed his exact words, I couldn’t get them to make sense.
The disconnect was in three places.
One: I had no idea in the world why Nick had suddenly decided to buy me all those things in the first place. Close as we’d become—that couldn’t be farther from our usual dynamic.
Two: I had no idea what had made him suddenly cave to his father’s pressure, then get so business-like and cold. If there were two things that Nick was not, it was business-like and cold.
Three: I had NO idea at ALL what had made him go with the ‘stranger’ option.
Nick hated being scrutinized in this way. It was one thing when he was calling the shots himself. When he was the one parading around and making a spectacle. But when he wasn’t? When he was an openly acknowledged pawn in someone else’s game? He quite simply didn’t allow it to happen.
And now her
e he was, agreeing to fake smile, fake kiss, fake date, and fake selfie with some random stranger all to appease dear ‘ole dad? It didn’t make any sense.
At least, if he had paired up with one of his more tolerable exes, there would have been a genuine spark. Some history, and old feelings to fall back on. He would have felt like he was part of the game as well—fooling the paparazzi, misleading the press—instead of a puppet on parade.
No, nothing about today made any kind of sense. But for the moment, I didn’t have the luxury to dwell. For one of the first times in history, Nick had given me an ‘assignment.’ I would find a girl for him—and she would be absolutely perfect for the part.
...but maybe not perfect for him.
The idea seized me like a drug. Crushing and empowering at the same time. Knocking down all sense and reason. Sweeping me away before I had the slightest clue that I was even in danger of falling.
I don’t know what made me do it. I don’t know what made me lean forward with a smile, read the profile in front of me, and pick up the phone to call.
I have NO IDEA what I was thinking, creating a match like this.
It was crazy. It was job-suicide. It was borderline cruel.
All I know, is that I fell asleep that night with a smile on my face. The Dior bag tucked safely beneath my bed.
Chapter 13
I got to the office early the next morning. A place that I hadn’t been since the afternoon before my tragic date. My team hadn’t even arrived yet, and for a few rare moments, I had the place all to myself.
It was well-suited to me. The entire floor of an office-building in Manhattan within walking distance of either coffee or alcohol—depending on the day. Designed to fit my tastes.
Elegant. Professional. With just a touch of flair to add that extra pop.
In my case, the ‘flair’ was a gourmet espresso machine that I’d written off for tax purposes, claiming it was a necessary tool for my job.
A little excessive? Perhaps. But that was my life now. It had been my life ever since I’d signed my new contract and come to work that very first day.
Working with the Hunter Corporation, meant a professional upgrade. And in the land of public relations, a professional upgrade meant you got yourself a team. With the Hunter family behind me, it wasn’t hard to do. For people in my line of work—the Hunters were the dream, and not two weeks after I started working with Nick, I had an office with a full-time staff of twelve people at my beck and call.
