“Meg,” he said, smiling widely as she approached. “At last.”
She smiled politely back. “Spencer didn’t tell me he was sending a driver.”
His smile dimmed slightly as he pushed his glasses up his nose with one finger. “Uh…he didn’t. I’m Spencer.”
Meg shook her head, letting out a befuddled laugh. “No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am. Look, I can explain.”
Her heart began to pound. “You’re not Spencer. I know what Spencer looks like and…”
She looked him up and down. He was average height, maybe 5’9”, and on the thick side. He had a round face and soft, almost cherubic features. A short, sparse beard covered the lower edge of his jaw, but it didn’t quite suit him, as if he’d grown it out for kicks but hadn’t gotten around to shaving it off again. His black hair was unkempt and a little too long. There was no way, no matter how she squinted or projected back in time, that this guy could be the guy in her pictures of Spencer.
He held up his hands defensively. “I didn’t mean to lie to you. But when I first saw your picture and you were so hot, I was afraid you wouldn’t keep talking to me if you saw the real me. So I sent you my college roommate’s picture. That was a long time ago, remember? Back then, I didn’t think we’d ever meet face-to-face. I didn’t really think it through and it didn’t seem like a big deal. And then as time went on and we got closer, I didn’t know how to tell you the truth.”
This was a nightmare. Her head spun as she tried to grasp this new information. The Spencer she’d been picturing in her head for months was a lie. The face she’d imagined so many times didn’t exist. Well, it existed, but it didn’t belong to Spencer. Spencer looked like…this. Panic fluttered in her chest as she frantically tried to decide what to do. She opened her mouth to reply but shut it again. Garrett’s words from yesterday were ringing in her ears.
“And if Spencer turns out to be less attractive than the Captain America look-alike in the picture there?”
She’d been so smug as she’d assured him that none of that mattered, that she loved Spencer for who he was, not how he looked. She’d be a total hypocrite if she rejected him now, when it turned out he didn’t look like Captain America. Not even a little bit. His lie stung badly, but she could also see why he might have done it. They’d exchanged pictures so long ago, before they’d started calling what they had a “relationship.” They’d just been two people chatting online. He didn’t realize he’d be lying to his future wife when he sent that picture.
Wife. Oh, God. The reality of what they’d been discussing came crashing down on her like a ton of bricks. She’d been talking about marrying this guy…a total stranger! No, not a stranger. Spencer, she reminded herself firmly. He was still Spencer inside. All those months of conversations and soul-deep revelations were real. This man was the one she’d fallen in love with during those emails. So he didn’t look like she’d imagined. How shallow would she be if she declared his appearance to be a deal-breaker? Hadn’t she insisted to Garrett that their intellectual and emotional connection mattered more than looks? Maybe she needed to give herself a chance to fall in love with this version of him. Once they started talking, she’d find that kindred spirit inside of him.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them, the guy—Spencer—was still staring at her hopefully. He had a sweet face, really. Not classically handsome, but open and kind. Once they reestablished the connection they’d formed online, certainly the physical part would fall into place. The man he was inside would make the man he was outside more appealing. She fervently hoped so.
“I wish you’d told me the truth,” she said. “But I guess I can understand why you didn’t. You’re still the same person, right?”
“Of course,” he said quickly. “I knew you’d understand, Meg. You’re so sweet, so nice. I knew you’d never get hung up on something as shallow as looks.”
Then why didn’t you tell me the truth? she thought. But she forced a smile and promised herself that she’d give this a chance.
“I’m a little thrown, I won’t lie,” she warned him.
“Look, let’s get your luggage in the car and we’ll go have dinner. You must be hungry, right?”
She nodded.
“Great. We’ll eat and we’ll talk and you’ll see. Everything’s gonna be great.”
She smiled, willing it to not feel so awkward. “Okay, sounds good.”
“I’m really glad you’re here, Meg.” He stepped forward to hug her and she froze. She almost recoiled before she realized what she was doing. This was Spencer. She’d imagined doing much more than hugging him. Well, not this him, but one thing at a time. They’d been in love for months and finally they were together. Of course they should hug. At the very least. So she made herself hold still as his arms came around her and he pulled her in close. No heat. No tingles. She definitely didn’t feel like he was embracing her. He felt soft and a little damp with sweat. As she began to pull back—as quickly as she possibly could—he kissed her cheek. His lips were thin and dry. No spark of heat.
She smiled stiffly at him as he drew away. “Shall we go?” he asked. She nodded and followed him out of the airport, into her new life.
The food was delicious. That was the only positive thing Meg could come up with so far. The place was far more downscale than she would have expected from a wealthy investment banker. Spencer told her that in Mexico, the cheapest places had the best food and that, at least, was not a lie.
But as for everything else…
His car was a clunker of indeterminate make and model, at least fifteen years old. They’d barely managed to wedge her suitcases into the hatchback. Now that she was taking the time to look, his clothes were rumpled and inexpensive. He needed a haircut. Nothing about him screamed wealthy, expat American. And she hadn’t even seen his apartment yet. Horror flooded through her at the prospect of it. She was supposed to stay there with him tonight. Would he expect her to…? The way they’d talked in the run-up to this moment, it was all a foregone conclusion. But not now, at least, not for her. She’d need some time to work up to that event. If she ever did. Right now, it was frankly impossible to imagine she’d ever want to sleep with this guy.
As hard as she was trying to connect the man online to the one in front of her, it just wouldn’t happen. They referenced things they’d discussed online, and although he knew them, he didn’t seem to feel them. There was no emotional connection there, not the way she’d thought there’d be. Four months of impassioned conversations with the man of her dreams seemed to be dissolving right in front of her eyes. She could have been talking to any random stranger off the street. Her conversation with Garrett yesterday felt more genuine than this. No, she would not think about Garrett, or else she might start crying, as preposterous as that seemed.
Spencer didn’t seem to be suffering from any of her reservations. He chatted animatedly about all they would do together, although his plans seemed more practical than romantic so far. At the moment, his biggest concern was that they get to the bank first thing Monday to set up her Mexican account.
“You don’t want to walk around with a cashier’s check for that much money in Mexico, believe me,” he said knowingly.
“I don’t have a cashier’s check.”
“What?” he said sharply. “You were going to close your account and get a cashier’s check for the balance. That’s what we talked about.”
“The woman at the bank said it would be safer to wire the money to my new account once I was here.” She didn’t tell him that the bank had refused to cut her a check for the total amount. The teller had seemed concerned about her plans, and she’d convinced her that wiring the money was safer and would only take a couple of days at most. At the time, she hadn’t worried. She’d be with Spencer anyway. What was a day or two before she had access to her money? She wouldn’t need it with his wealth. Except he seemed really upset that she hadn’t brought the check as di
scussed. Her protective instinct, woefully slow to kick in, finally stirred to life.
“Why does it matter?” she challenged. “You’re rich. At least, that’s what you told me. Is that a lie, too?”
Spencer reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. “No, I have plenty of money, but most of it is tied up in this account in the Caymans that I’m having trouble accessing at the moment.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Nothing. It’s just some stupid tax thing. I have to clear up some paperwork and it will all be fine. You know how bureaucracy is, though. It might take a while.”
“So, what, you want to live off my money until you get it straightened out?”
“Well, we’re a couple, aren’t we? Isn’t that what we’ve been doing all this time?”
Meg fisted her hands together in her lap. She was angry, and she was so very rarely angry. “I have no idea what we’ve been doing all this time. Nothing seems to be what I thought it was.”
“Oh, I’m not some hot blond stud so now you’re rethinking everything, huh?”
“That’s not what I said—”
“For a girl who was telling me just last night how much she loved me, you seem awfully cautious today.”
“I just left my whole life behind to move to a foreign country for you, and every time I turn around, I’m finding out something about you isn’t what I thought it was. Is your name even Spencer?”
He shrugged. “It is now. When I relocated to Mexico, I changed my name.”
“Oh my God… Is anything you told me the truth? What about Aunt Judy?”
“Who?”
She blinked and sat back. Oh, no. No no no no no… “Your Aunt Judy,” she whispered. “When we met in the bereavement chat room, I’d just lost my dad, and you’d just lost your Aunt Judy, who was like a mother to you.”
“Oh, of course,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “Aunt Judy died a while ago.”
“How long ago?”
That face, which had seemed so open and harmless back at the airport was changing. His small eyes were shifty. He never met her gaze directly. He talked fast and he was so slick. She could imagine him as one of those people who could make up a story as he was telling it and have you believing every word.
“She died a couple of years back.”
“A couple of years?”
“It was true, more or less. What does it matter, Meg?”
“What does it matter? We shared that, you asshole! I trusted you! And this whole time you’ve been lying to me!”
Abruptly, Spencer—or whatever his name really was—shoved back from the table and stood up. “Yeah, I embellished here and there. So what, you thought you were getting some rich, hot dude to take care of you and now that things are a little different, you’re gonna be a bitch about it? Figures. Girls like you never fall for guys like me. That’s why I sent you someone else’s picture in the first place.”
“I didn’t move to Mexico for the rich, hot dude,” she shrieked, shooting to her feet as well. Meg was sure she’d never shrieked in her life. But she’d also never been so mad, so hurt, so…fucking betrayed. “I moved for the guy I fell in love with. But that guy would never treat me like this. He would never lie to me.”
“I should have known a princess like you would bitch and moan if everything wasn’t exactly like your stupid fantasy.”
She didn’t think, she didn’t plan it. Almost like it was somebody else, her hand reached for her water glass and flung it at his smug, lying face. He ducked and it clipped his ear before crashing to the floor behind him. Water splattered across his shirt and dripped from the side of his face. He blinked at her. Then he scowled, and those harmless, friendly features turned absolutely ugly.
“Fuck this,” he snarled, and then he turned and stormed out of the restaurant, shoving the waiter who was rushing toward them to clean up the glass.
The restaurant erupted into chatter and movement around her, but Meg stood still, not quite sure what had just happened.
Spencer walked out.
No, not Spencer. She didn’t know his name, but that guy was most definitely not Spencer. Spencer, it seemed, didn’t really exist. She began to shake, first her hands, but within seconds, her whole body. Dropping back into her chair, she stared unseeing at the chipped Formica tabletop. Gone. He was gone, nothing more than a ghost, a fantasy. At some point she was sure it would hurt. But right now she was just empty, frozen, and shocked into silence, uncertain what she was supposed to think or feel. None of this made any sense. How had he fooled her so completely? And why?
“Miss?” The waiter cautiously approached their table and pointed to Spencer’s empty chair. “He no come back?”
She shook her head numbly, and then in an instant, she was crying, great wrenching sobs from somewhere deep inside where something precious was breaking wide open. She only dimly registered the waiter backing away, the other diners recoiling in horror. It didn’t matter. She sobbed through the shocking pain and betrayal of it, not caring who watched her do it or what they thought. Because the pain had caught up to her and she wasn’t sure she could handle it.
Sometime later, when she got too tired to sob another second, she blinked, registering the nearly empty restaurant and the check tucked under the corner of her plate.
They were closing. She needed to pay the check and go…somewhere. Shit, she didn’t have any Mexican money.
Shit.
Every single thing she owned was in her suitcases in the back of Spencer’s car, including her passport. When she’d been juggling all that luggage, she’d slipped it into her carry-on because it had been easier to open in that moment than her purse. She hadn’t even thought about it. She’d been about to meet Spencer, who would take her home where she could safely reorganize all her documents. Now she was alone without a possession to her name in a foreign country where she didn’t speak the language. There should be a limit to the amount of crying a person could do, but when a fresh round took her under, Meg realized there wasn’t.
The waiters were tidying up the tables in preparation for closing. What the hell was she going to do? She had her purse, her laptop, and some cash and her credit cards. Thankfully the restaurant accepted one of those. As she waited for them to bring the slip back, she shrugged into her jacket, trying to order her thoughts and figure out what to do next. She could get a hotel, but she had no idea where she was. Remembering the endless sprawl of Mexico City as she’d flown over it this afternoon made her sick with fear. There was no way she could navigate this place by herself at this time of night.
Tears—more tears—streaked down her face. She reached into her pocket, praying for a tissue, but came up with something else. Garrett’s business card. And for the first time since she’d boarded her flight this morning, she wasn’t afraid.
#
The corporate rental Garrett had landed for this gig was better than most. Not as upscale as some, but it had some character. It was in the Colonia Roma, the third floor of an old converted mansion, with exposed brick and wide plank flooring. It didn’t really matter. He could do his job from a sterile corporate hotel room just as easily. But as he padded barefoot across the warm wood floorboards to refill his scotch, he realized that he liked this place. If he was going to spend a couple of months in-country covering a story, he’d certainly had worse digs.
His phone rang as he closed the bottle, and he took a long, appreciative sip as he walked back to the sofa to find it. He wasn’t drunk, but he was comfortably warm and loose, just the way he liked it. Empty, quiet rooms bothered him less that way.
The number on the display was unfamiliar. American, which was weird, considering the late hour.
“Hello?”
He heard rustling and a lot of indistinct background noise. Wrong number. He was about to disconnect when he heard the sniffle.
“Hello?” He tried again. Another watery sniff. “Who is this?”
“Garrett?” Her voice was so
wrecked that he almost didn’t place it. Except he knew. He knew she’d call. He knew she’d need him. He closed his eyes and sighed.
“Meg?”
“Oh God, Garrett, I don’t know where I am and he’s got my passport and—”
Horror chased away the lingering effects of the scotch. He was instantly, painfully alert. He’d suspected she was in for a fall, but not this, please not this. Not for her. “Meg? Where are you?”
“I don’t know.” It ended on a whimper and she started to cry again.
Garrett tried to stay calm. If Meg was in the hands of traffickers or worse, he needed to glean every piece of useful information he could before he lost this call.
“Meg, look around. Tell me what you see. Anything identifiable.”
“Um… I’m in a restaurant.”
What?
“What?”
“We went to dinner and he walked out and I don’t know where I am or where to go and—”
“You haven’t been abducted?”
“Abducted? No.”
“Where is Spencer?”
And just like that, she was weeping again. Garrett cursed under his breath. If he ever got his hands on Spencer, or the piece of shit who made him up, he’d make him pay for this.
“Meg? Meg, can you tell me where you are?”
“I don’t know,” she wailed. “He drove us here from the airport and it’s all so confusing and—”
“Hand the phone to the waiter, Meg.”
He heard more shuffling and a few murmured words, then a male voice came on the line. “Hola?”
They had a brief exchange in Spanish. Garrett ascertained the address of the restaurant and asked the waiter to let Meg stay inside until he got there. The man readily agreed, sounding relieved that someone was coming to take responsibility for the hysterical, weeping female abandoned in his restaurant.
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