by Sierra Rose
Of course, Nick had refused to work with any of them himself. But when it came to crafting a public image, much less an image as convoluted and high-profile as his, there was a lot of behind-the-scenes work that needed to be taken care of.
For that—I had the team. For everything else—I was your girl.
“Morning, Abigail!” Jake Harmon, the first person I’d hired after I’d been granted a discretionary budget to do so, interrupted my quiet contemplation. “Didn’t expect you in today.”
I glanced up at the clock.
“Thought I’d get an early start. Plenty to do, after all.”
I’d texted my team late last night. It might have been about two in the morning when I’d made my final selection—but there wasn’t a shadow of doubt in my mind that all twelve of them were still awake and working. If they weren’t—they’d better get awake and working.
“Yeah,” he chuckled, making a beeline for the coffee maker, “I got your text.”
I handed him down a mug and took a sip myself.
Not the best. Certainly nothing like Nick’s. We could do with another upgrade.
“But that’s exactly why I’m surprised to see you here,” he continued. “I’m working up a full press packet for the girl, but don’t you have to go meet her?”
I shook my head, shrugged an innocent shoulder, and waltzed into my office with a secret little smile. The same smile that had been dancing around my face since two in the morning.
The girl’s name was Ella Campbell. She was from Oklahoma. And I would be meeting her here. In this office.
The location might have been seen as a slap in the face by those sensitive enough to take it that way. To an up-and-coming model like Ella, a person with a giant egotistical chip on her shoulder, it would most certainly be taken that way. But considering that of the two people in the equation, I represented Nicholas Hunter—I felt I had the leverage to call the shots.
And to be frank, a little slap in the face might be exactly what the doctor ordered if I was introducing her to Nick later that day. I wanted her bitchy. I wanted her fuming.
I circled around my desk and leaned back in my chair with that same little smile. Already, I could hear an argument at the security gate, as I’d failed to put Campbell’s name on the list.
Time to make a little mischief...
* * *
Ten minutes and a lot of shouting later, there was a tentative knock on my office door. I closed the book I was reading, set down my mug of coffee, and folded my hands upon my desk.
There was an art to it. This throne-like posture. I had picked it up from Mitchell.
“Who is it?”
Alison, my secretary, popped her head inside. A thin sheen of sweat had broken out over her forehead, and her dilated eyes locked nervously onto mine.
“Ms. Wilder, there’s an Ella Campbell here to see you.” She paused a second, then lowered her voice to a hush only I could hear. “She looks about ready to explode.”
Perfect.
I nodded with a little stab of satisfaction.
“Send her in.”
Allison disappeared, shaking her head like I’d been spending too much time with crazy-Nicholas. A moment later, the door burst open and two people swept inside.
One was a tiny little man. Glasses. Tight suit. All the classic indicators of an over-worked manager to an up-and-coming star, the kind who couldn’t yet afford to pay him.
The second...? Well, the second was different thing entirely.
The first thing I noticed were the breasts. In fact, they were all I could notice.
For a split second, my heart froze in my chest. Nick was a breast man. Like all adolescents cast off at an early-age to boarding school, he had developed an almost unparalleled affinity for the wonders of the female chest.
But then my eyes traveled up to her face.
My heart continued beating.
The second I’d seen the picture in her file, I knew I’d found ‘the one.’ There were simply no other candidates—I’d closed my computer soundly behind me.
She was a dead ringer for Nick’s least favorite ex-stepmother.
“Emma?” I rose tentatively from my chair, extending out a hand.
She froze in her tracks, a rather frightening look contorting her painted face.
“It’s Ella, actually.”
Already, it was easy to hear that bitchy tone just beneath the surface. The tone of a girl who thought she was better than everyone around her. Better than she really was.
I warmed in anticipation just at the thought of it.
“But that’s alright,” she hastened to continue (after receiving a sharp look from her manager), “the two of us just met.”
I smiled sweetly, and gestured for her to sit down. Damn right she would behave. This meeting was her ticket out. She knew it. I knew it. We all knew it. Even little Allison, eavesdropping outside the door, knew the significance of what was about to happen.
I was the key to making all that possible. All her dreams. All that insatiable ambition.
She would play nice. She’d smile until that plastic face of hers cracked.
“We may have just met, but I already feel as though I know you,” I said in a disarmingly friendly tone. I flipped open the file in front of me, and began scrolling through. “So you signed last week with Ford Models, right?”
Just like a million other girls.
She perched on the edge of her chair, nodding with the speed of someone who had spent many such hours on the edge of that chair, just trying to get noticed. “Yes, a one-year contract.”
I paused and looked up.
One year in the modeling world was not a good thing. Not when someone was just starting out. They offered longer years to younger girls—trying to get the most out of their age.
Now this girl wasn’t as young as they got—not by a long shot. She was twenty-four years old. Same age as Nick. Two years older than me. But still—just one year?
I looked at her manager. Her manager sank an inch or two lower in his chair.
Yes, everything was riding on this meeting alright. This meeting was making them sweat.
In a way, I almost felt sorry for her. Then I looked at her fake smile...and I didn’t.
Nick didn’t want to do it. I had effectively guilt-tripped him into it. Jobs were depending on it. His father had forced his hand.
This girl?
She’d step on anyone and everyone she could just to claw her way to the top.
“Congratulations,” I said politely.
There was no reason to be openly mean. In fact, in the long run, I was actually doing dear Ella the biggest favor of her entire career. Bestowing her a gift that was entirely undeserved.
“So...Ford Models, what then?”
It was a standard question. She gave me a standard answer back.
“Well, modeling is how I’m hoping to get my start, but acting is my one true love. I’d love to branch out into feature films as soon as possible. From there, the sky is the limit. Maybe I’ll transition into music? Start my own clothing line?”
Yeah, because I’m sure you have the talent for all that.
My eyes narrowed slightly, but I kept that fixed smile plastered on my face.
Don’t judge it now, Abby. She’s absolutely perfect!
I shut the folder with a smile, and slid it across the desk.
“Let me tell you a little about Nick...”
Chapter 14
Two hours later, I was convinced I’d found my girl. Everything from the snake-like eyes, to the heavily made-up face, to the cheap blonde dye job. It was perfect.
She was striking, don’t get me wrong. But striking, not beautiful. The kind of girl that you’d fantasize about once or twice in college, feel dirty for it, then find someone else instead.
Nick had dated striking, don’t get me wrong. At one point, I’d gotten a panicked call in the middle of the night saying he was in Vegas—about to elope with a porn
star.
But striking wasn’t his type.
Nick liked the finer things in life. Nick liked beautiful.
We drove into the city together, scheduled to meet Nick at his favorite place. She texted him on the way and asked to change locations.
He liked spontaneity—I’d said. (Just not exactly like that.)
Instead, she’d asked if he’d meet her at a Japanese restaurant.
He loved seafood—I’d said. (Just not at the moment. Not since the lobster.)
Nick agreed, as I knew he would. He was a gentleman, after all. And just twenty minutes later, our cab was pulling up against the curb.
Ella fussed and primped and applied so many coats of lip gloss, I bet she’d added a good half an inch to her face. When she was finally finished, she turned to me for support.
“What do you think?”
That same devilish smile started creeping back up my face, but I forced it down—pursing my lips with a professional assessment.
“I think...it’s going to be a day to remember.”
Abby Wilder...you are going to hell.
The cab was dismissed, as we darted through the cold and into the restaurant.
While Ella started craning her head around the second we walked inside, looking eagerly for the paparazzi, I walked straight up to the receptionist.
“Colton Breakhard?” I asked softly.
It was Nick’s alias whenever he went out. Restaurants. Hotels. Falsified travel documents. He’d thought it up late one night, and found himself quite clever.
The woman flipped through a list, then nodded at me with a secret smile—pleased to be in on the con. In the two years I’d been doing this, every receptionist was the same.
“He’s at a table in the back. Not a private room—like you asked.”
Another little con. But one that was easily excusable. The point of this whole thing was to be as public as possible, right?
“Thank you.”
I turned back to Ella and gestured her forward. I swear—the girl was checking herself out in the mirror.
“This should be really easy,” I reassured her. “Just a simple meet and greet—make sure the two of you are compatible. Now, from what I’ve been told, you don’t drink, correct?”
It made her perfect for Nick’s image. Terrible for Nick himself.
She shook her head, taking on the sudden ridiculous expression of a martyr.
“I have a condition. My body can’t process it. So sad.”
I nodded quickly. “So sad.”
We wound our way quickly through the restaurant—not speaking—until I saw Nick’s golden-brown waves reflected off a mirror in the back. I tugged Ella’s wrist to get her attention.
“Now remember what I told you,” I whispered in her ear as we came closer, “the man likes bold. And no offence, but girls rotate in and out of his life all the time. Do something to shock him. Do something to make him remember you.”
Of course, I couldn’t have any idea what the lunatic would actually do...
As we approached the table, Nick got politely to his feet. His eyes lingered on me for a second longer than they were probably supposed to, so that by the time he turned to meet his new girlfriend, she was already making her tragic move.
“Nicky,” she crooned, a nickname I might have subtly encouraged, “thanks for agreeing to meet me here. This place is really the best.”
Before he could say a single word, she reached down and grabbed his crouch.
“And I can’t wait to get better acquainted.”
Ooooooh shit. Abby, what have you done?
Chapter 15
Somebody gasped. I’m not sure who it was.
It could have been me. It could have been the two Japanese families sitting close enough to see it happen. It could have even been Nick, from the utter shock of having a woman he’d never seen before reach out and grab his pants.
Whoever it was, it clearly wasn’t enough to change things. The three of us stayed perfectly frozen. The hand remained.
I looked down at it. Nick looked down at it. Ella looked down at it herself—proudly.
“Um...Ella?” I cleared my throat softly, dying a million deaths. “Do you think you could...” Goodness—how did I even say it? “I mean, maybe it’s time you let go—”
“Nicholas Hunter.”
The introduction was as quick as it was strategic. He held out his hand between them, forcing her to release him in order to do the same. Banking on the fact that she wasn’t left-handed. It also created some well-needed space. In order to have made her little move, she’d had to get right up in front of him—just inches away. A handshake changed all that.
She stepped back a bit to introduce herself more formally.
(By that, I mean...to shake his hand.)
“Ella Campbell.” She smiled widely, seductively. Flashing the entire restaurant a pair of perfect veneers. “Abigail thought the two of us might hit it off.”
At the moment, Abigail was currently thinking of ways to discreetly kill herself.
“Did she now?” Nick’s eyebrows lifted ever so slightly, and he turned his fixed smile from her to me, scorching me with the heat of it. “How very...insightful.”
Insightful, sure. Everything about this just screamed insightful.
I couldn’t even meet his eyes. I literally wanted to crawl inside my brand-new bag in a state of essential hibernation. Wait for this dreadful day to be over. Ella, on the other hand, couldn’t have been more pleased with the way things were going.
“Wasn’t it, though?” She tossed back her hair, ‘casually’ angling herself in such a way as to attract the most possible attention. “From the second she mentioned your name, I knew the two of us would be a natural fit.”
Nick’s smile tightened, and his knuckles tensed white.
“Well, that’s my Abigail.” Only from years of years of knowing him, could I hear the steel beneath the honey. “Always has my best intentions at heart.”
With that barb to my soul, he gestured to the table and the three of us sat down.
I tried not to look up. Tried to keep my eyes fixed on the table. But it was like trying not to watch a car accident from just two feet away. One that you’d manically engineered yourself.
“So Nicky,” Ella lay her large breasts upon the table, resting them comfortably on her place-setting as she leaned seductively forward, “have you ever done anything like this before?”
The cleavage was distracting enough—I’d give him that. If Ella really applied herself, I was sure she could use the things for some kind of demolition. Breaking down doors, and such.
But that wasn’t what had my poor client temporarily tongue-tied. You see, upon sitting down, he’d suddenly realized that the girl he was supposed to be professionally ‘dating,’ bore a freakishly impossible resemblance to a woman his father had married a few years back. A woman who—if memory served—Mitchell had divorced after she’d done to Nick beneath the table at Christmas dinner, exactly what Ms. Campbell had done seconds before shaking his hand.
I kicked him under the table, and he shook himself back to the present—blinking away the horror as he stared back into her cat-like eyes and tried to remember the question.
“I’m sorry,” he tilted his head apologetically to the side, “what was that?”
Ella blushed, as if her irresistible attraction had derailed him. This was going to be even easier than she’d thought.
“I said,” she leaned closer, pushing the breasts right up against his arm, “have you ever done anything like this before?”
He glanced down, hesitated, then forced his eyes back up. Across the table, I hid my face behind a menu, slumping lower and lower in my chair.
“I...uh...I actually haven’t.” He leaned back with a casual smile, creating another well-needed bit of space. “At least not under these kinds of circumstances. I’m sure Abby told you—”
“A company merger, blah-blah, cleaning up your rep
utation, blah-blah.” She flashed an impish grin, as if she was being fucking adorable. “She told me you need something steady.”
I did no such thing.
Thankfully, a waiter appeared at that very moment, sparing Nick from having to come up with a response. The man looked over our rather odd trio for a moment, before lifting his pad of paper with a pleasant smile.
“Can I get you folks started with some drinks?”
Nick cleared his throat and glanced down at the menu for the first time, still trying to recover himself. “Uh—yes, thank you. I think we’ll start with a round of sake—”
“Oh, didn’t Abigail tell you?” Ella interrupted again. “I don’t drink.”
Nick’s bright eyes glassed over. At this point, he was completely incapable of telling whether or not I was pulling a prank. “You don’t drink...today? Or on weekdays? Or—”
“Ever.” She flashed him another smile. “I’m alcohol-intolerant. It basically means that I can’t process the stuff.”
The waiter piped up excitedly. “Oh—I have that too!”
I glanced between them in disbelief, before discreetly sliding my butter knife off the table and into my lap. At this rate, there was a distinct chance I was going to need to protect myself before the dust settled. Either from my seething client, or my own conscience, evening the score.
Nick looked like he was in his own personal hell as Ella handed up her own menu so the two of them would have to share, then proceeded to order drinks for the entire table.
“We’ll have two sparkling waters, please. And we’ll start with two kelp salads as well.”
Nick was staring at the table with a thoughtful, yet vacant expression. Clearly trying to keep his head down as much as possible and let this she-beast tire herself out. But his attention snapped up when she ordered in quantities of two, not three.
