I clutched at the napkin on my lap. It was all I could do not to take back my refusal.
Bennett tented his fingers together. “At the end of our six months, I’ll write a check for two hundred fifty thousand dollars to your favorite charity. Or to you directly, if that’s what you prefer.”
My jaw slackened. A quarter of a million dollars was a lot of money for doing little more than squiring him about town.
“Does that sound like something you can agree to?”
I took another swig of the dessert wine. I would regret my answer bitterly—I already did. “No.”
Bennett didn’t look displeased—he didn’t even look surprised. “I don’t know if anyone told you this, but I made a shit-ton of money when I was in California, and I’m willing to put it to use. If two hundred fifty thousand isn’t enough, let’s make it five hundred thousand.”
My stomach flipped, as much from the extravagance of the offer as from…I couldn’t be entirely sure, but something in the timbre of his voice had caught my attention, something that belied the impassiveness of his expression. “You could easily find someone else.”
“Of course. But no one else on my horizon has received a MacArthur Genius Grant for her work. You’ll make me look good.”
I rubbed my temple. What did he actually want? And what did I actually want? “I never thought I’d see the day when I’m asked to become a Park Avenue trophy girlfriend.”
“Look at it from my perspective—I never thought I’d see the day when a quarter of a million dollars wouldn’t be enough to hire me a fake girlfriend.”
I smiled weakly at that.
“As an added incentive, if we succeed in our endeavor, I’ll write a check for an additional half a million dollars, a grant toward your research.”
I should be flattered that he was so determined, but I was more than a little freaked out. “What’s the catch?”
Other than that for six months we’d be working toward a common goal. When my friends talked about falling for their colleagues, this almost always came up—that they were teammates, obsessed with the same objective. I didn’t want to be in the trenches with Bennett. I didn’t want to be his partner and confidante.
“If I’m going to pay double, I’ll be more stringent in my demands. At two hundred fifty I was willing to prorate. If you can only do four months, then I’ll hand over a check for two-thirds of the agreed-upon sum. But at five hundred it’s all or nothing. If you bail on me before six months is up, for any reason beyond acts of God, I keep the money.”
It was my turn to look out the window—hope and doubt kept chasing each other in my head and I didn’t want him to see that on my face.
I wasn’t hurting for cash in my personal life and I’d secured sufficient funding for my research for the next several years. But Pater had been a businessman—an art expert too but a businessman first and foremost—and he had taught me that very few things in life were as eloquent as money.
Not that I’d describe Bennett’s money as eloquent. It was more like a mysterious artifact, the writing on it in a language I’d never seen before. But its existence was significant enough that I couldn’t dismiss it out of hand.
“Let me…” I grimaced. “Let me think about it.”
Bennett exhaled audibly. “Take your time. But while you think about it, can you make me your plus-one at Charlotte Devonport’s wedding?”
Charlotte Devonport was marrying my second cousin Sam in three weeks. “Are you related to her?”
“She’s my mom’s goddaughter. So my parents will be there, most likely.”
“And I just ditch Zelda? She was going to be my date.”
“You don’t give my evil genius enough credit. She’ll be receiving a ticket to a private concert Annie Lennox is giving in town that night as part of a fund-raiser.”
Zelda was a huge Annie Lennox fan. She wouldn’t turn down such an opportunity.
“In which case you can tell people that I’m a last-minute replacement for Zelda,” Bennett went on, “somebody you asked on a whim.”
I truly hadn’t given his evil genius enough credit. “And you’ll pretend, until you arrive at the wedding, that you had no idea who the bride was.”
“Unless that claim seems too preposterous. In which case I’ll say that I had some inkling who might be there, but since I didn’t want to miss a chance to hang out with you…”
My heart pinched. If only he meant it. If only it wasn’t a Manhattan-size pretense. “You should ask a woman who’s more likely to take that six-month gig. Showing up at the wedding with me and then somewhere else two weeks later with another girlfriend might not give the impression you want.”
“I’ll decide who I want. You just say yes or no.”
And he wanted me, even if it wasn’t in the way I’d like to be wanted.
What’s the harm? asked a part of me. It’s just a wedding.
And this is just drinks at his place, retorted a different part of me. Look at everything that’s happened since you stepped into this apartment. Shut it down now. You can’t leave the door open for this man. Next thing you know, he’ll have taken over your entire life.
“Please,” he said, his voice so low I almost couldn’t hear him, “I’m asking this as a favor.”
Had he been looking at me, backed by the full force of his personality, I would have said no. But his gaze was somewhere in the middle of the table, that of a proud man who had run out of options.
“All right,” I heard myself say, “we can go to the wedding together. Just the wedding.”
Several seconds passed before his gaze lifted. I couldn’t read his expression, except to know that he didn’t seem glad, or even relieved.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “You don’t know what it means to me.”
Chapter 5
IT WAS EARLY STILL WHEN we got up from dinner, but Bennett had to go to work—he was taking a night shift for a colleague who’d fractured an elbow skiing. After we put away the dishes, he grabbed the messenger bag I’d seen in his car, and we left together.
A cab was waiting for us downstairs. We got in and Bennett gave the exact address of my house. “The cab dropped Zelda off first the other day, after our lunch,” he explained when I raised a brow.
There was no more vulnerability to be seen on his part, as if that despondent moment at the table had never happened.
“And how’s Zelda, by the way?” he asked, all smooth amiability. “How’s Turkey?”
“She loves Turkey, but she’s already finished with the Turkish portion of the trip. Now she’s in England, visiting her godmother.”
“Ah, Mrs. Asquith. I miss her, the old battle-ax. Haven’t seen her in a couple of years.”
“That’s right,” I recalled with some surprise. “Zelda mentioned that the two of you are thick as thieves.”
“She was—and is—a tremendous gossip, Mrs. Asquith. In fact, she used to tell me stories about Zelda, about how this man she really adored left her when he realized how serious her condition was.”
This casual revelation flabbergasted me: Zelda had never mentioned such a man. “What else do you know about him?”
“He’s a successful TV producer. Very low-key. Married forever to the same woman.”
“Have you ever met him?”
“No, but I remember Mrs. Asquith telling me once that I’d just missed him. So they are on visiting terms—or they were, fifteen years ago.” He glanced at me. “I guess this is news to you?”
I hesitated. “Yeah.”
We were before the light at 5th and 79th, waiting to turn onto the transverse to cross Central Park. I stared at the grille that separated us from the cabdriver, trying to come to grips with this unknown side of Zelda.
She had long joked that my father married her only because of her bloodline, and she him because he was her ticket to America. I used to have this image of them sitting across from each other, Zelda smoking one cigarette after another—she quit onl
y five years ago—while he jotted down the terms of their marriage with his Montblanc fountain pen.
Seemed like the sort of thing people did in the eighties.
But this man, this English TV producer, where did he fit in? And what had Zelda done with her heartbreak?
“Children are always the last to learn about their parents,” said Bennett, breaking the silence as the light turned green. “A couple of years ago my sister mentioned that I was Mom and Dad’s reconciliation baby. I can’t tell you how shocked I was—I had no idea that they’d divorced and married again.”
It was the first time he’d said anything about a sibling. “Is she your only sibling?”
“I have a brother too. He’s four years older than me, and she two years younger.”
I wouldn’t have pegged him for a middle child. “They’re not in the city, I suppose.”
“Prescott lives in Singapore, and Imogene is out in Silicon Valley.”
“Sounds like you get along just fine with them—your sister, at least.”
“Before I moved back east, she and I used to see each other every week. My brother usually makes a West Coast stop when he visits the States.”
I sighed. “One of them should serve as your liaison. I’m sure they’ll do it for far less than a million dollars.”
“What, and miss the fun of pretending to be a couple with you?”
That was the trouble, wasn’t it? That it might actually be fun, until we hit the six-month drop-off date, and he thanked me and walked off into the sunset with his parents.
We were exiting the park when Bennett said, “I call Mrs. Asquith every few weeks. Would you like me to ask her about Zelda’s old boyfriend when I speak to her next?”
I wavered for a moment. “Yes, I would. Thank you.”
“Consider it done.”
Consider it done. I remembered his text with that exact phrase. I could recite our entire exchange of texts from memory—and I sometimes did, silently, to myself.
The taxi came to a stop before my house. Bennett walked me to the front door and kissed me on the temple. “Sweet dreams.”
THE NEXT EVENING, AN ALMOST freakishly beautiful flower arrangement came to the door, a profusion of tulips in a clear glass trough, the blossoms progressing from pure creamy white to pale blush to a deep purple, the whole thing at once delicate and dramatic.
A note came along. Thanks for dinner.
I reached for my phone. Just for dinner?
For sex you should send me flowers. Your orgasms were worth a dozen gladioluses, at least.
I shook my head, half smiling, and looked at that message for far too long.
The next afternoon I came home early to meet Zelda. I was turning the key in the front door when a big, black Town Car pulled up and disgorged her, sun-kissed from the walking holiday, a stylish new coat swishing around her knees.
“Nice!” I said as I hugged her. The coat was cobalt blue, a brilliant pop of color against the overcast winter day.
“A present from Mrs. Asquith.”
“Did she get the car service for you too?”
“No, that’s courtesy of the Somerset boy.”
Whose evil genius I had once again underestimated. “I see.”
I opened my wallet to tip the driver, who had lined up Zelda’s luggage neatly inside our door. But he only smiled and said, “No worries, ma’am. The gratuity is all taken care of.”
I still gave him something, on the off chance that Bennett was a terrible tipper.
Zelda and I hugged each other again. But no sooner had I put the kettle to boil than the doorbell rang. I thought perhaps she had forgotten something in the Town Car, but it was a deliveryman, holding a big brown bag.
Which turned out to contain a five-course dinner, along with a box of pastry.
“Bennett did say he’d send something around,” said Zelda. “Doesn’t do anything by half measures, does he?”
The man’s manipulativeness was without bounds. “He called you?”
“Yes, during the ride. And apologized for being somewhat dishonest when we had lunch. He said that he already figured out you were his neighbor in Cos Cob, but chose not to mention it because he wasn’t sure whether at that point you’d realized who he was.”
“I hadn’t.”
“But you met again on Boxing Day and got it all sorted out. Isn’t he a dish?”
“I suppose you could say that.”
Zelda noticed the flowers. “Oh, my, did he send those also?”
“It’s a take-no-prisoners charm offensive.”
“Don’t be so tough on the poor dear. It’s about time some nice young man mounted a charm offensive for you. He did mention that you’re a bit reluctant to go out with him, but that he’s trying to change your mind.”
I was both miffed that Bennett had preempted me in his practice of evil genius-ism—and relieved that I didn’t have to explain anything. “All right, enough about him. Let’s talk about you. Tell me everything.”
She did. We polished off half a box of pastry as she showed me all the pictures, described her favorite places on the Turquoise Coast, and gave me the latest gossip about her cousins.
When she moved on to her visit to Mrs. Asquith, I was sorely tempted to ask her about the man from her past—whenever I wasn’t thinking about my research or Bennett, my mind would come to dwell on this mystery boyfriend and the particular stretch of her past that was like dark matter, something that couldn’t be observed except by its gravitational effects.
What forces did the heartbreak still exert on Zelda?
“Oh, that reminds me,” said Zelda. “I spoke to Mrs. Asquith about the Somerset boy, and she showed me pictures they took when they visited Iceland.”
“They go on trips together?”
“Isn’t that lovely of him? I mean, granted, he’s estranged from his own family and probably sees Mrs. Asquith as a surrogate, but still—not every man takes his actual grandmother to remote and beautiful places. You should give the boy a chance.”
But every chance was a risk, and Bennett was a far bigger risk than most.
If I wasn’t careful, he could become the kind of semisecret that people whispered about me. Oh, you know there was a man, years ago. But no one else since. Wonder what happened. Poor Evangeline.
“Are you trying to evict me, Zelda?” I asked, half jokingly. “Have you had enough of me as a housemate?”
“Oh, no, darling. All I want for you is a spectacular sex life, the kind that will shock people—and make them deeply envious.”
I blinked. And then the two of us burst out laughing together.
“You had me for a moment,” I told her, still giggling.
“Believe me, darling, I do want that for you. But more than anything else I want you to be madly adored.” Zelda ran her hand through my hair. “It’s what I’ve always wanted.”
There was a lump in my throat. I cupped her face and kissed her on her forehead. “All right, I’ll get on that—as soon as I achieve a sex life that will make people both gasp and choke.”
THE WEEKEND BEFORE THE WEDDING, I had lunch with the Material Girls.
The Material Girls were my friends from college. We lived in the same dorm building, all majored in STEM fields—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—and just kind of gravitated toward one another. I joked once that I always wanted to be referred to as a material girl, and thus was born our collective name.
After college, we were scattered for a while. But one by one we found our way to the Big Apple. I, the native Manhattanite, was actually the last to relocate six years ago, after I finished grad school.
Carolyn, our IT expert, was the one who’d given me the T-shirt that had caught Bennett’s eye. Lara worked as a bioengineer. And Daff, who dropped chemistry for molecular gastronomy, picked the restaurant where we met—this time a new place in Williamsburg.
“So what’s cooking in Hipster Central today?” asked Lara.
“D
o not take the name of the hipsters in vain,” admonished Daff, “for they shall spread the word of thy new establishment. When I have my own restaurant, I want all the hipsters to come and rave about it until the regular folks start giving me their money.”
“At which point the hipsters can shove it,” said Carolyn.
Daff laughed. “Exactly. Make my name and then they can go off to their next obscure, authentic discovery.”
While we looked over the menu, we talked about everyone’s holidays. Carolyn was still recovering from her visit home to Vancouver and a feast every day—her dad was a gourmet home cook who loved to entertain. Lara had been in Cabo, where her cousin got married over Christmas. Daff and I went nowhere—but for Daff that was a professional sacrifice; she’d be taking her vacation in a few days.
“You really have no life, E,” said Carolyn.
“Thank you,” I said. “And I worked hard for it too.”
Lara nudged my shoulder with hers. “And is your vagina still on extended leave?”
My lack of a love life had long been a running joke among the Material Girls. But they, like Zelda, had bought into the explanation that as a tenure-track professor who must produce an explosion of papers to prove my worth, I simply didn’t have the time. “Oh, come on, you don’t believe that. You know my ‘lab’ is actually a sex dungeon.”
No point bringing up Bennett yet.
“And how was the wedding, Lara?” I went on, turning the topic of the conversation away from me.
“Yeah,” said Daff. “You never said whether What’s-his-name was there.”
What’s-his-name was the guy who broke off an engagement to Lara to go out with her cousin—the sister of the one who got married.
Lara shrugged. “He popped in for like a second. I think he left before I even knew he was there.”
Daff looked disappointed. “So you didn’t shove your tongue down the throat of some other man right in front of him?”
“No, no hookups for me.”
“There goes my hope one of us would do it with a random stranger and live to tell the tale,” said Carolyn.
Someday, when I didn’t feel anything anymore about my own random stranger, I might give them the story. But as movie Aragorn would say, It is not this day.
The One in My Heart Page 6
