The velvet curtains part, and the screen begins to light up. The familiar strains of faux-Moroccan music fill the speakers around us.
“Casablanca,” says Cassie, with a grin. “Good choice. A classic.”
“Not too much of a downer, you don’t think?” I ask, trying to look like I knew what was coming.
“Not at all. It’s just the right amount of bittersweet.” She smiles wistfully at the screen. “When they all start singing La Marseillaise…”
“So you’ve seen it before, I take it.”
“Just a few times.” She looks up as the server enters with the first appetizer of our prix fixe. “Oh. Goodness. It’s a good thing I’m not allergic to seafood.”
He sets down a plate with some of the largest oysters I’ve ever seen, pours us each a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, and disappears with a flourish.
“I did my research,” I tell her.
“What does that mean?” She actually looks concerned, glancing over her shoulder like I’ve got spies following her.
“Relax. I talked to your sister.” I pick up an oyster and tilt it into my mouth, letting it slide down my throat. “She’s lovely, by the way.”
“Of course she is,” Cassie replies, her eyes narrowing. She picks up a shell, slowly. “You know it’s a myth, about oysters.”
“What?” I ask, innocently.
“That they’re an aphrodisiac. There’s no such thing. No magical food that works like Viagra.”
“God, I hope not.”
“You know what I mean,” she says, after delicately setting the empty shell down. “That myth only started because they look like…”
“Vulvas,” I finish for her. “Yes, I know.”
She’s silent for a moment, then bursts out with a short laugh. “Okay, sure. I should’ve guessed. You know everything.”
“Not everything,” I correct her, taking a sip of my wine. “But I am well-informed.”
Cassie shakes her head. “All right. New subject. How did you get into photography?”
I take another sip. “Should I pretend like you haven’t already studied my dossier?”
She shrugs a little. “I suspect most of your dates will be at least as thorough as me. You’re looking for…how did you put it?”
“A woman of substance,” I mutter into my glass, trying not to let my eyes rake over her ample curves. If she catches the double entendre, she doesn’t let on.
“Smart girls Google their dates,” she says, sagely. “Even if they don’t already know who you are - which is unlikely - they’re going to find out everything there is to know about you, before you ever show up.” She pauses to take a sip of her wine. “But a lot of them are going to ask you the same old questions anyway.”
“Why?” I’m genuinely curious.
“To see if you’re being honest. To be nice. Because they can’t think of anything else.” She shrugs. “There’s all kinds of reasons, so you should figure out how to do the getting-to-know-you thing without coming across like a self-important ass.”
“All right.” I swirl my glass. “Well, I started out like everyone else. Playing with my Mom’s Polaroid, taking pictures of my thumb, getting yelled at about how expensive the film was. She forced me to study classic paintings, which I hated at the time, but I’ve realized now that’s how I learned about composition and coloring and all that.”
“See, I didn’t read any of that in the interviews.” She sets down her glass and leans, ever so slightly, in my direction. “You were homeschooled, right?”
I nod, shortly. This isn’t my favorite topic, and I’m pretty sure she knows that. One of the best things about adulthood is that people stopped asking me about school. My whole childhood and adolescence was a parade of awkwardness, having to tell every single adult and many of the kids I met about my outcast status within seconds of meeting them. The adults were worse than the kids. Some of them talked right over me, like I couldn’t hear, asking my mother if she was worried about me turning out “weird.”
“I studied a lot of things that most kids don’t ever explore,” I tell her. “I had a whole six-week class on the Fibonacci sequence.”
Her brows knit slightly. “Refresh my memory?”
I smile a little. It’s been a while since I’ve dug this out, and it never occurred to me that I could use it on dates. It’s one of those fascinating, slightly mystical things that I’ve buried away in the back of my mind because it’s not relevant to writing business plans and navigating Manhattan traffic.
I dig a pen out of my pocket, snatching one of the extra napkins from under my drink. “The Fibonacci sequence,” I begin, drawing a spiral as she watches me with rapt attention, “is a sequence of numbers where each one is the sum of the previous two. One, one, two, three, five, eight, et cetera.”
She nods, watching my fingers.
“It’s named after the Italian mathematician who brought it to the Western world,” I continue. “But - shockingly enough - he didn’t actually invent it.” My pen keeps on spiraling across the page, filling in the drawing. Now, she can tell it’s a seashell. “Indian mathematics calls them ‘Virahanka numbers.’ They had it first, but Fibonacci gets the credit.”
The corner of her mouth quirks up. “I’d like to make fun of you for talking about math on a first date, but to be honest, you’re pretty good at drawing seashells.”
It might be the first genuine compliment I’ve gotten from her. Or from anyone, in a long, long time. There’s a twinge of something in my chest that I don’t appreciate, and I swallow it down.
“The seashell is important,” I tell her. “See, the pattern of seashells follows the Fibonacci sequence. So does the center of a sunflower. The flowering of an artichoke, a pinecone, the curl of a fern. It’s a way to express the Golden Ratio, which tells us how to arrange the subjects of a painting or a picture to be most pleasing to the eye.”
She nods, fascinated, and looks up at me. “And seashells.”
“And seashells,” I repeat, smiling. “It pops up in mathematics all the time, of course, but that’s not nearly as poetic. This is a sequence that exists in nature, everywhere, hidden in plain sight. And no one really knows why. Some people think it’s a signature, or a fingerprint of sorts. A sign that someone, or something, wanted us to know that we’re not alone here. Some people have built their entire spirituality around it.”
Her tongue flicks out to wet her lips. “And what do you think it is?” she asks, softly. It’s the first time she sounds like she actually wants to know the answer.
I smile, adding the squiggle of little mollusk filaments to the opening of the shell. “I think they’re a very interesting set of numbers.”
“Oh, come on. You spent six weeks studying this when you were a kid. You’re practically an expert.” She nudges my leg with her foot, and I can’t really tell if it’s on purpose. “You must have a theory.”
Chuckling, I set down my pen. “I really don’t. I think I’m better off focusing on the here and now.”
“I don’t know.” She glances at me, sidelong, with a hint of a Mona Lisa smile. “It’s hard to picture you as a creative, I guess. Now you’re so…boardroom.”
“Believe me, I looked the part. I had a man-bun before it was cool.”
Her eyes widen slightly. “You?”
“Me.” I tap my chest for emphasis. “Look it up. I’m sure there’s photographic evidence somewhere.”
Cassie’s mouth purses slightly. “Oh, I’ve Googled you. Anything that ancient’s been flooded out by a stream of paparazzi pictures.”
Right. Grimacing slightly, I reach for the champagne. We’re going to need another bottle. “Nobody who dates me is going to be surprised by any of that.”
“So what do you need me for?” she retorts. “You need to clean up your image, Wakefield. And barring that, you need to figure out a way to leave them with a different impression than your reputation implies.”
I shrug. “Can’t erase history. I’d
like to think…”
“You’d like to think,” she cuts me off. “But you needed my help for a reason, didn’t you? Every woman you’ve tried to seriously pursue up until this point - she either got cold feet, or turned out to be a gold digger. Right?”
She’s had way too much experience with this. I can’t get anything past her. “I’ve had bad luck,” I admit. “But I’m very exacting.”
“Uh huh,” she says, with a knowing smile. “So, I can set you up with the same action plan that I do for all of my…sociable clients. I have a lot of solid connections to charities, red carpet events, stuff that will help flood out the ‘who’s this new flavor-of-the-week’ stories. It’ll take six months to a year to really make a difference, but you’d be surprised how much it can bolster your reputation. Of course, you either need to appear alone, or…”
“Or with the same woman on my arm every time,” I finish for her. “Well, isn’t that convenient for you.”
“I’m not trying to drum up business,” she insists, with a little frown. “I’m way too busy for that. Once our practice sessions are over, we’ll have to find someone with a little more free time on their hands.”
I shake my head. “No deal,” I tell her. “It’s you or nobody.”
She gives me a long-suffering smile. “I’d like to complain that you’re my most difficult client, but…that’s not even true.”
I grin. “Just give me time.”
Chapter Seven
Cassie
“So, what’s on the docket for this week?” Becca takes a sip of her iced tea, eyeing me over the rim of the cup. “I couldn’t help but notice that big blank spot in your calendar.”
I haven’t told her about my date with Wakefield. I don’t need her judgments right now, or worse - and more likely - her wide-eyed questions.
Yes, I’m going against personal and professional policies to work with this man. Yes, I let him skip spots on my waiting list. No, I don’t know why, and I’d rather not be forced to examine it.
I shrug. “Some clients. You know how it is. Sometimes you have to stay flexible, to be at their beck and call.”
Her eyes narrow. “You can’t blow me off like that, Cassie. Come on. You don’t leave gaps in your schedule for anyone.”
“Apparently, if they put the right price tag on it - I do.” I focus very determinedly on my muffin, picking off the slightly burned edges. I don’t know why we keep coming back to this cafe. “Can we talk about something other than work?”
Becca shrugs. “Sure. What else do you have going on?”
She’s so dry. I’m not sure if it’s a pointed criticism, or not. But of course she’s right. I have nothing going on, outside of work. As usual.
“I saw a groundhog on the train,” I say, slowly, after a few moments of silence.
“Like…on the train?” Becca echoes. “Or like, you were on the train, and you saw a groundhog? Because one of those is a pretty interesting story, and the other one is a desperate and futile attempt to make me forget that you’re hiding something.”
“I’m not hiding anything,” I insist. “It’s just, this client…he’s got me running around in circles, and I’m exhausted. I want to think about something else.”
“It doesn’t really seem like you do,” Becca points out. “You’re a million miles away. You seriously need to learn how to switch it off before you burn out.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I stab at my muffin with a plastic fork, almost breaking off one of the tines. “I’ll get right on that.”
Becca chews on the edge of her fingernail, in that way that tells me she’s irritated. I already know why, but I’m not asking unless she tells me. Welcome to the Passive Aggressive Olympics.
“Do you want me in this with you, or not?” she says, finally. It’s not really a question.
“Becca, I need you.” I set my useless fork down on the table and meet her eyes, finally. “But this is hard for me. I need you to understand that. Have some patience, okay? I taught you how to tie your shoes.”
“When I was five,” she points out. “That’s not exactly a fair comparison.”
Okay. So I guess she has a point. When it comes to letting things go, delegating, handing over responsibility…I’m basically a five-year-old. It was probably the earliest lesson I learned: if you want a thing done right, do it yourself.
It’s not that I don’t trust Becca. It’s that I don’t trust myself. If anything goes wrong while she’s in charge, I’ll never be able to let go of the guilt. Even if she handles it like a rockstar, I’ll still feel like a failure. Like a mother who turned her back for a second while her toddler ran into traffic.
“This company…” I start, before drifting off. We’ve had this conversation so many times.
“It’s not all you have.” She’s arguing with me before I even finish my sentence - what else are sisters for? “You have me.”
“I know that,” I sigh. “But you can take care of yourself. The company is…I built it. It can’t exist without me. I’m responsible for what happens to it.”
Becca rolls her eyes. “You need to have a baby. Or get a goldfish or something.”
“I feel like there has to be a middle ground in there somewhere,” I mutter, peeling the paper away from my muffin in painstaking little bits. I know she’s put up with a lot from me. She’s earned her right to be a little dismissive.
The thing is, there’s something different about Devon. He brings out a side of me that I don’t want Becca to see. I’ve always been the older sister. The strong one. Her rock. Even when we were both little, I was mothering her. Devon unbalances me, pushes me off my axis. I can’t play it cool where he’s concerned.
Becca loves me. I’ve never doubted that. But she doesn’t really know me.
And whose fault is that?
***
Literally all I’ve been thinking about, for an entire week, is my next date with Devon. I don’t know what it is about him. The challenge, I guess. I was stupid to think I could resist it for so long. If I can match him, hell, I can match anybody. It’s an intoxicating thought.
He wanted to take me out for dinner again, but I convinced him that a casual coffee date in the middle of the day was a much better idea. I need to test him in a variety of environments, all kinds of settings, and besides I really want to get the biggest caramel macchiato available and then write it off as a business expense.
Wakefield walks into the coffee shop with his tie loosened and his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. My mouth is suddenly filled with saliva and I’m at a loss to explain why.
“You said casual,” he remarks, sliding into the chair opposite me. “You’re staring at me like I’m wearing a Minions costume.”
“No,” I reply, reflexively, willing myself not to blush. “No, you look fine. Great. That’s not - you’re fine.”
He chuckles, picking up the coffee that I ordered for him. “Do you always decide what your dates are going to drink?”
“Only when I’ve got their drink preferences in a file,” I retort. “Anyway, it’s a lot easier this way, we can just sit right down and talk. None of that awkward stuff where one of you is standing by the counter forever and you can’t decide if you should go sit down, or stand there hovering with them, or whatever.”
Devon takes a sip. “Has anyone ever told you…that you overthink everything?”
“That’s why I’m good at my job,” I reply, with an arched eyebrow. “Has anyone ever told you that you under-think everything?”
He laughs. “Not often.”
“All right, let’s bust out the small talk. We got a little off-track last time.” Because he was, to my surprise actually…pretty interesting to talk to. But that’s neither here nor there, I’ve got a job to do.
“So. How did you get into PR?” Devon stirs his coffee, smiling at me. He’s really good at eye contact and feigning interest, and all that. I’m starting to wonder if he really needs dating help at all. But if this is a pr
etense, I have no idea what his endgame is.
“Same old story.” I shrug a little. “I knew somebody who knew somebody. I networked, I went to business school, and the rest is history.”
He shakes his head. “Not the abbreviated version. I want to hear the whole thing.”
“All right.” My fingers start tugging at the hem of my napkin, reflexively, because I don’t like answering questions about myself. I never have. It’s usually pretty easy to circumvent, because almost everybody is more interested in talking about themselves. Wakefield, though…
“Go on,” he prompts, eyeing a plate of olives as it goes by. “Or we can start with something easier, if you like. Green olives, or black? Or neither?”
“Used to be neither. Now I prefer black.” I smile a little bit. “I grew up next door to a rich family. That’s it, really. That’s basically the whole story.”
“Basically,” he repeats. “But clearly not the whole thing. I think you’re the one who needs a lesson in dating, Ms. Kirkland.”
His foot nudges mine under the table, and I wonder if it’s an accident. I pull back, just in case.
“You know the Douglass family?” I ask him.
He nods. “I once talked Nick down from a bad acid trip at a party. Same old story.” He quirks an eyebrow at me. “Wait, you were neighbors?”
“More or less. They bought a vacation house in a new ultra-swank planned community, and the backyard butted up against the same forest that mine did. Yards away, but worlds apart. After the divorce, Nick came and lived with his mom there. He’s about the same age as my little sister.”
I’m carefully leaving out parts of the story, because he doesn’t need to know all of our dirty laundry. But he still seems interested, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. “So that’s how you ended up learning about the lifestyles of the rich and famous?”
I nod. “His mom had this PR assistant who came around and spent a lot of time with the family. I used to sit and talk to her while Nick and my sister threw dirt clods at each other.”
The Rake_Billionaire Seeking a Bride Page 6