by Lili Valente
Fuck, this is ridiculous.
Aidan can’t leave. I need him here for cock-blocking support.
But Aidan, the traitor, is already backing away. “Of course. No problem.” He thumps me twice on the back in the universal sign for “glad it’s you and not me, brother” and lifts a hand. “Catch you later, Bash. Take care, Penny.”
And then suddenly I’m alone with my no longer virtual assistant.
Alone with Penny, who is not a cat lady or in possession of a secret penis. Penny, who is a beautiful, irresistible liar, just like the last woman who ripped my heart from my chest, shredded it, salted it, and ate it raw and bleeding with a nice Chianti.
“I need you to start talking.” My voice is cool and distant, one of the many side effects of thinking about Rachael. “And if I don’t like what you have to say, you can consider your vacation time the start of your two weeks’ notice.”
Her throat works as she swallows, but she nods. “I understand. And I won’t blame you if you decide I’ve broken the cone of trust. But is there any chance we can get that drink you mentioned before we talk? I never drink before noon, but I’ve never told anyone this story before, either, and I’m not sure how I’m going to manage it sober.”
“I’ll call a car.” I tap the Uber app on my phone, suddenly not in the mood for a long, leisurely walk to Midtown. I’m in the mood to discover exactly what Penny has been hiding and to decide whether or not I can forgive her ASAP.
When it comes to forgiveness, I don’t fuck around.
I either grant it immediately—we all make mistakes and I’ve screwed up enough in my life to understand the importance of second chances—or I cut the offender off without a second thought. I learned the hard way how much it hurts to be betrayed again and again, to think you’ve finally gotten through to the person who’s fucking your heart up the ass, only to have them bend you over and go at it a third time.
But never again. These days, I do the bending over.
I don’t take shit from anyone, not even someone I depend on and care about as much as I do Penny.
CHAPTER SIX
From the e-mail archives of Sebastian “Bash” Prince and Penny Pickett
From: Penny4YourLobsterPot
To: MagnificentBastard1
Re: Your assumption that I am not enjoying a robust and varied nightlife
Dear Bash,
Pursuant to your last e-mail, insisting that I am a sad clown living in the lame circus because I happen to enjoy staying in on Saturday nights, I draw your attention to the attached article on the dangers of NYC nightlife. Including bed bugs in lounge cushions, assault with a deadly stiletto, and packs of wild and possibly rabid/werewolf dogs prowling lower Chelsea.
Enjoy your life on the edge. I’ll be safe at home with Netflix and leftover quinoa salad, the dinner of champions.
Sincerely,
Penny
From: MagnificentBastard1
To: Penny4YourLobsterPot
Re: Your assumption that I am not enjoying a robust and varied nightlife
But if you don’t get out and about, how are you ever going to be bitten by your werewolf mate and live happily ever after?
And don’t even try to pretend you weren’t all over that series.
I bet you read those books until the pages were in tatters.
Bash
From: Penny4YourLobsterPot
To: MagnificentBastard1
Re: Your assumption that I am not enjoying a robust and varied nightlife
At least I read more than one book a year!
You should be ashamed of yourself. A true Magnificent Bastard would be well read on a variety of subjects.
At least, that’s what I would want in an MB, were I ever to acquire one.
From: MagnificentBastard1
To: Penny4YourLobsterPot
Re: Your assumption that I am not enjoying a robust and varied nightlife
I’ll keep that in mind…
CHAPTER SEVEN
Outside the spring sun is warming Manhattan to a pleasant sixty-something degrees, but inside the dark brick, windowless walls of Highland Fling, there is a chill in the air.
Penny and I make our way past the solid mahogany bar to a cluster of couches gathered around the fireplace where a fire is crackling in the hearth. At ten fifteen in the morning, the bar is deserted. We have the establishment to ourselves, save for the twin deer heads mounted above the mantel of the fireplace, who seem to look down their noses at us as we settle onto the blue couch closest to the fire.
Under normal circumstances, I would make a joke about the disembodied heads’ opinions of day drinking, but nothing about this morning is normal. Penny has thrown me off my game and the longer I have to wait for an explanation, the more irritable I’m getting.
I’m short with the waitress who takes our drink order and can barely force a smile for the manager as she drifts by on the way to her office in the back. I have to literally bite my tongue to keep quiet until our scotch on the rocks is delivered.
The second our server wiggles away on her high heels, headed back toward the bar, I turn to Penny and order her to, “Spill it. Now.”
Her eyes go wide over the rim of her tumbler, but instead of putting the drink down, she tips it up, draining half the glass in one go.
“Jesus,” she gasps, wincing as she sets the tumbler down on the wooden arm of the couch. “That’ll put hair on your chest. How do you drink that every night?”
“It’s not meant to be guzzled.” I take an appropriately sized drink of my extremely expensive scotch. “It’s meant to be savored, enjoyed.”
Penny nods, her dark eyes scanning my face, an indecipherable expression tightening her features. I submit to her inspection, allowing the silence to stretch on for an uncomfortable moment before I ask, “Is something wrong?”
“No.” Her lips pucker before sliding to one side. “You just look…different than I expected.”
“I thought I looked like the picture we send to clients.”
“You do,” she says, still frowning. “But different.”
I lift a brow. “How so?”
“I don’t know.” Her open, vulnerable gaze meets mine, and for a moment, I’m tempted to assure her I won’t bite, but then she adds, “Less friendly, I guess? You’re always so laid back on the phone and in our e-mails.”
Clenching my jaw to keep my temper in check, I lean forward, bringing my face closer to hers before I say in a controlled voice, “Being ambushed in the middle of Manhattan and having one of the people I trust most in the world tell me she’s a liar doesn’t put me in a friendly mood, Penelope. If you don’t start explaining yourself soon, I will fire you for driving me out of my fucking mind with frustration and we can call it a day.”
“Right. Of course.” Her breath rushes out. “I’m sorry. I’m just so stinking nervous.”
Taking a deep breath, she lifts her glass to her lips and downs the rest of her scotch. Before the tumbler returns to the arm of her chair, she’s spilling the beans. “It started a few months before I moved to the city. I’d just finished grad school and was home for the summer, trying to decide what to do with my very useful masters degree in cultural anthropology. I’d only been back for a few days when I ended up reconnecting with my ex-boyfriend. I guess you could say we were high school sweethearts.”
She crosses her arms, her shoulders curling in a self-conscious way that reminds me of Caroline, pre-Magnificent Bastard intervention. “Phillip was the first boy I ever loved. Things didn’t end well, but you know how it is, you never really get over your first.” Her gaze drops to the cushions between us, and when she speaks again, her voice is soft, wounded. “I fell back in love with him stupidly fast. Stupidly, stupidly fast. It would have been dumb even if he hadn’t been a complete jerk to me the first time around. As it was…”
I fight the urge to nod encouragingly. So far, this story is all too familiar, but I need to know more before I let down my gu
ard.
She shakes her head. “Anyway. I guess some people would say I got what was coming to me. But in my defense, Phillip was very convincing. He made me believe he was head over heels. He even hinted about getting engaged. He never said anything flat out, but he majored in musical theater so he’s practically a professional when it comes to subtext.”
“Musical theater? And you’re sure he’s straight?” I ask, trying to lighten the mood. She hasn’t laid it all out there yet, but the reason for this meeting is becoming pretty clear. At least clear enough for me to want to make this confession easier for her.
Her cheeks flush. “Yeah, I’m sure. He was my first in every way. And even if he hadn’t been, the day I walked in on him and my mother going at it in the pool house, he was clearly having no trouble performing.”
I wince. “Ouch.”
“Yeah. So. That’s how our second chance at happily ever after ended.” Penny rolls her eyes toward the ceiling. “I caught my boyfriend banging my mom and then I kind of…went off the rails.”
“Off the rails.” I take another sip of my drink, sensing I’m going to need a buzz before this story is through. “In what way?”
“Well, first I went down to the local dive bar and got spectacularly drunk,” she says, her words beginning to slur a little, making me think she’s already feeling her double shot of scotch. “And then I cried on the bartender and spilled beer nuts all over the floor. And when the bartender refused to serve me because I was snotty and sad and making a huge mess, I bought a fifth of whiskey at the liquor store down the street and got even more spectacularly drunk in the alley behind the gas station.”
She sniffs. “There was a homeless couple sleeping by the garbage cans and we passed the bottle around for a while. I made sure not to wipe the bottle between swigs because I knew it would drive Phillip crazy. He’s a huge germophobe.”
Pressing her lips together, her gaze slides down to the bricks above the fireplace mantel. “And so I cried on the homeless couple, too. And they cried because they were homeless and had real problems. And then we all decided to go get tattoos to commemorate our misery. So we stumbled down the pier to the tattoo place that doesn’t care if you’re drunk or underage or want something really stupid tattooed on your body and I got a really stupid tattoo.”
“Of what? Can I see?”
She laughs, a sharp burst of sound that seems to surprise her. “Um, no.” She shakes her head, her lips losing their curve. “Never. There’s a reason my upper thighs remain covered at all times.”
“Well, that’s a shame,” I say, thinking that she has very nice thighs. Usually, I would say as much—a compliment is always a good thing—but I can tell she’s not in the headspace to find flattery helpful.
“Yeah, so…” Her hand drifts up to her face, her middle finger and thumb digging into the hollows behind her eyes. “After that, things get kind of fuzzy, but if local gossip and the Coast Guard are to be believed, I decided to go swimming to celebrate my terrible new tattoo and almost drowned. I was rescued a mile offshore.”
“Shit, Penny,” I say, throat tight. “You could have died.”
She nods a little too quickly but still doesn’t lift her gaze to mine. “I know. I could have. But I didn’t. Instead, while the Coast Guard was busy saving the stupid drunk girl, a couple whose boat had gone down a few miles off Gin Beach stayed in the water an extra hour and a half waiting for rescue.”
She pauses before adding in a whisper, “The wife almost died of hypothermia. She was in the hospital for three days. Every afternoon her husband would call my cell and remind me that it was my fault that the woman he loved was about to die. I don’t know how he got my phone number, but I didn’t try to change it. I knew I deserved those calls. I deserved his anger and his hurt and to suffer for all the stupid things I’d done.”
I stop fighting the urge to offer comfort and reach out to take her hand. “You did not. You didn’t deserve any of it. You’d just had your heart broken and you made some less than stellar decisions. It happens.”
“Maybe.” She slides her fingers from beneath mine and cups her sweating tumbler, setting the ice to clicking in the glass. “But when it happens to other people it isn’t plastered all over the tabloids.”
My brow furrows. I scan her face again. It’s as beautiful as it was the moment I first saw her—maybe even a little more beautiful now that I know my friend is attached to it—but it’s not a familiar face.
“My mother is Anastasia Pickett,” she says, waiting a beat before adding, “the actress?”
I search my mental pop culture database but come up empty. “Sorry.”
“You’re kidding. She was super famous in the nineties.”
I shrug. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“She was in Out of Water,” Penny supplies, clearly stunned. “The mermaid movie? The one with the jaded businessman who finds a beautiful blond woman washed up on the Jersey shore and she’s naked for the first twenty minutes of the movie before he buys her a tee shirt at a souvenir shop and brings her back to Manhattan?”
“Hmm.” I hum around the rim of my glass, nodding as the last swallow of scotch slides down my throat.
Shit, the naked mermaid movie. I absolutely remember it now. And I’m absolutely sure I beat off to Penny’s mom a couple of times during my early teens before I discovered a way to get around the porn blocker on my laptop.
Not that I’m about to admit that to Penny, of course…
“Out of Water. Right. I remember it.” I let my glass rest against my chin as my gaze plays up and down Penny’s petite but curvy frame.
“Don’t say it,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “I know. I look nothing like my mother. Believe me, you aren’t the first to notice.”
“No, you don’t,” I admit. “You’re beautiful in a different way.”
“Well, thank you,” she says, looking flustered though I’m sure it isn’t the first time she’s been told she’s beautiful. “But I’m not adopted though sometimes I wish I were. That would make the fact that my mother is marrying the boy who took my virginity fifteen percent less disturbing.”
This time, my wince becomes a full-body cringe. “Jesus, Penny. They’re getting married?”
“Yep.” Her soft brown eyes begin to shine. “The wedding’s this weekend. I’m the maid of honor.”
“Like hell you are.” I plunk my glass down on the floor beside the couch. “You’re not going anywhere near that wedding.”
And I mean it.
Even if I have to throw her over my shoulder, haul her back to my place, and keep her locked up until next Monday, I’m not letting her subject herself to that kind of nightmare. I wouldn’t let that happen to my worst enemy, let alone one of my best friends.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I’m about to tell her that she’s coming to the Hamptons with me so I can cheer her up somewhere far from the scene of the crime when she says—
“I have to go. I’ve got two little twin half sisters, Bash. And my mother has made it clear that if I’m not at the wedding, I’m no longer allowed access to the rest of the family. That includes my sisters coming over to my place on weekends.” Penny scowls, anger flashing in her dark eyes. “To prove her point, Mom kept Francis and Edna home the past two weekends, even though she barely spends any time with them when Phillip’s home.”
“Francis and Edna,” I repeat.
“She’s a terrible person,” Penny says flatly. “Forget sleeping with my ex-boyfriend and then marrying him. What kind of mother names her daughters Francis, Edna, and Penelope? Even if they are family names.”
I smile. I can’t help it.
Still, I feel bad for finding humor in her horrendous situation until she smiles back. It’s a halting, shy grin that spreads across her face in fits and starts, but when it finds its footing, it transforms her.
She’s no longer simply beautiful; she’s irresistible, and I know I’m going to do whatever it takes to help her even b
efore says in a sweet voice, “Now this. This is what I imagined you’d look like.”
My brows lift.
“Kind,” she says. “As kind as you are handsome.”
Now it’s my turn to feel flustered though I don’t know why. I’m well aware I’ve been gifted in the looks department, but something about hearing it from Penny makes me feel…off kilter. “Well, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” she says, her smile fading. “Please don’t. I’m a terrible person. I lied to you about availability at the condos in Miami. They still had plenty of room, but Miami isn’t five minutes away from where my mom and Phillip are getting married this weekend.”
So that’s the lie. It isn’t what I was expecting.
I frown. “Why didn’t you just ask me for help? I know we’ve never met in person until today, but I think of you as a friend, Penny. A good one.”
“Me too,” she says, eyes filling with unshed tears. “That’s why I feel so awful about this. I knew from the start that there was no way I’d be able to pay your fee. My family’s wealthy, but I don’t—”
“Forget about the fee.” I swipe a hand through the air. “You know I’ve waived it before.”
“Yes, but only for candidates I’ve vetted for you, and there’s no way I can objectively vet myself.”
I roll my eyes. “Please. Consider yourself vetted. If even half of what you told me is true, you more than qualify for a pro bono intervention.”
Her shoulders sag with obvious relief. “Thank you, Bash. Thank you so much. I swear everything I told you is true. And I promise I’ll pay you back in installments, even if it takes me ten years to do it.”
“You’ll do no such thing.” I tap my finger and thumb together as I tick through all the things that need to be done. “But we’ll have to bust our asses to get all the prep work finished. You haven’t left us much time. You said the wedding’s this weekend?”
“Yes,” she says, before adding sheepishly, “but there’s a wedding shower on Wednesday, a bachelorette and stag party on Thursday, and a rehearsal dinner on Friday before the ceremony Saturday afternoon.”