One Night Wife (Confidence Game)

by Ainslie Paton

  “Her name is Aurora, and she works for me. My family have all sided with Rory. This makes life extremely complicated.”

  Fin laughed. “A fine pair we make. I got dumped. You did the dumping.”

  “Not like I enjoyed it.”

  “No, you were saving Rory from making a mistake she’d regret for the rest of her life.”

  He frowned. “Why does everyone think that’s a dreadful thing? Would you have been happy married to Win? Finley and Win forever.”

  “I should’ve insisted on Finley and Winley.”

  Funny, but neither of them laughed.

  “I underestimated how much Rory assumed we’d stay together. But I didn’t cheat on her.” Not in the usual way.

  “You want a medal for that?”

  Now he laughed. “Yes, I suppose I do.” Which made no sense. He was used to being the bad guy. It was his specialization, except with family, with people he loved, and apparently, women who ravish him in Irish pubs. “There’s no way to make it better now.”

  “Yes, there is. You can change. Don’t be an emotional cheat. Don’t lie. Don’t lead people on. Honesty is the best policy.”

  He stopped breathing, stared at her.

  Cheating, lying, leading people on. They were his defining characteristics. They were skills passed down generation to generation. The Sherwood motto was, nec sinitur quiescere te homini honesto—you can’t cheat an honest man. But that was only because they couldn’t very well use you can fool all the people all of the time, despite it being essentially true.

  People like Fin, open and trusting, were simply ripe for being conned by people like Cal, devious and calculating. He had a strong urge to get up and walk out, but she was talking.

  “That’s what I’m doing. I’m changing. I told you I was tenacious, but you were right. I’m not. You were right about a lot. I need to learn how to keep at something. Try not to be such a flake anymore. To have more courage. To stick. I never stuck with anyone before Win. If something got too hard in a relationship, in a job, I’d quit, move on. I don’t like that about myself, so I’m changing it.”

  “Who said you were a flake?”

  “My family. Pretty much anyone I know. It goes with the professional territory.” She struck another pose, hand behind her head, iconic Hollywood beauty. “I was an actor.” Down came her hand. “But not a very good one, if you judge by the amount of auditions I failed. I’ve had some TV commercials and a few minor roles on stage. I was a Lands’ End catalogue girl for a while, but it got hard, so I quit going to auditions and started waiting on tables and pulling beers. Finally, I realized I didn’t have what it takes to deal with rejection. I even tried being a drama coach, but I quit that, too, because I felt like a fraud encouraging people to do what I failed at.”

  “That’s a harsh appraisal. It’s notoriously difficult to succeed in the performing arts.”

  “I was told over and over what I needed to do to get cast. More of these.” She plumped her tits and then pouted. “More cheek, more lip, more voice coaching, more acting lessons. I got points for hair, but since hair is often a wig, that barely matters. Win even offered to pay for implants, but all that was too hard. Yes, it’s difficult to succeed as an actor, but it’s not like I didn’t know that, and it’s not like it’s not difficult for everyone who isn’t Jennifer Lawrence. I can make all the excuses in the world for quitting, but quitting is what I do.

  “I quit Little League. I quit on my own band. I’d have quit college, but I met Lenny and she basically sat on me so I couldn’t quit. If I’m honest about Win and me, I quit on him before he quit on me. Dollars for Daughters is my last stand. I always wanted to do something useful other than collect strays and give to homeless people and this is it. If I walk away now that we’re in trouble I might as well—” She clamped her mouth shut, her shoulders tightening, one fist balling in her lap.

  Cal leaned forward. “What?”

  “I don’t know.” Fin slapped her hands on the arms of the chair. “I even quit on monologues.”

  “Don’t discount quitting. Sometimes quitting is what it takes. Sometimes you have to quit on a bad situation to find a better one. I quit on Rory, and it was the right thing to do for both of us.” Even if Rory didn’t see it that way yet. On the grift, quitting was an essential element of success. You quit if the mark wised up. You quit so you could stay on the grift. “Quitting on surgery sounds like good sense to me.”

  “Don’t help me make excuses. I could’ve quit going to auditions where tits counted and focused on being a character actor, but I quit altogether instead.”

  “Your tits count.” She shot him a look of incredulity. “More than adequate.”

  She snorted. “You did have your hands all over them.”

  He let his vision wander all over them now. “You didn’t appear to mind.” He didn’t know if the flush she got was real or acting. She’d unbalanced him with kisses, and he was still dizzy on her. Moving on to safer ground. “Where does the inspiration for your charity come from?”

  “I’ve always been a cause supporter, you know. Wear the ribbon, give a donation, perform for free. I read about microfinance in college and what happens when you give someone in need a small loan, how the benefits ripple out, especially when it’s a woman you loan the money to. A woman spends it to ensure the ongoing safety and health of her family, and she pays it back, which lets you loan another woman money to get started.”

  “I can believe that. Women have always had to put others first.” It wasn’t an effort to be agreeable, it was a truth. It wasn’t only because he wanted to get kissed again. The fact they both wanted that was a palpable current between them, sparking like an electric shock.

  “Lenny and I decided we wanted to start our own microfinance charity. Like Tinder, but matching donors with deserving women.”

  “How do you determine who’s worthy?”

  They had a list at Sherwood. Worthy causes, of which there were many, matched with the money from worthy marks. Fuckers who’d gotten excessively rich at the expense of others. Wealthy manipulators and users who’d profited on luck, gall, or misfortune. Superior, entitled narcissists who were bigots, racists, and homophobes. Only a con artist could be heartened to know how many of them were out there.

  Get rich off the fashion label you made in third world sweatshops, you were on the Sherwood Alpha list. Drill for oil or mine for minerals on sacred ground, Alpha list. Likewise, if you killed off sea life or made decisions that pushed polar bears further towards extinction or otherwise polluted or endangered the planet. Slum owner, Alpha list. Illegal arms dealer or drug lord, Alpha list. If you created a financial product that went bad and bankrupted millions of families while you scored an enormous bonus, you went to the top of the list. If you bought influence designed to benefit your own fortune and disadvantage others, you got a bullet on the list. Sit on your wealth without giving back, you made the list, too, because that was only fair.

  “Established charity groups we partner with determine who should benefit. They’re on the ground and they vet applications, so no one is taking advantage of the system,” Fin said.

  Cal had dozens of questions. Mom would love this. She no doubt knew more about microloans than Fin did. She reigned supreme over Sherwood’s social justice program, taking charge of what they gave out and to whom, while Cal directed what they brought in from who they ripped off.

  Wealth redistribution. It was a very simple business plan. Be like Robin Hood. Shift money from the ugly rich who abused it, to those who could best use it. Don’t get caught. Keep doing it. Sherwood took a percentage for their costs and salaries, much like Fin’s charity needed an administration fee to keep running.

  “We had backing, we’ve applied for grants, we have a groups program, and we can do payroll deductions, but our major funding fell over and unless I can find a way to keep the lights on, I’m going to have to get a job.”

  “Or stand on a lot more barstools.”
r />   “It’s better than quitting. Maybe it worked.”

  “Unlikely. Your pitch needs refining.” In the back of Cal’s head, ideas were forming. He could support Fin to get her charity humming, he could teach her to stick, and maybe that would help him feel better about himself post-Rory.

  “My barstool pitch or my pitch to you? I seem to recall you went down a dark alley with me willingly.”

  And he’d do it again, with about the same level of hesitation as he’d used earlier, which is to say, none at all. He should be ashamed. Caution to the wind was a grifter’s Achilles’ heel. Instead, everything about Fin inflamed him.

  He stood and held his hand out. She took it and came upright into his arms. “Your personal pitch to me was a knockout,” he said.

  “But we’re not naked.”

  “Not for a lack of desire.”

  “So, what’s going on with us?”

  “I don’t want to be another thing you think you can’t quit, Finley Cartwright. This isn’t you. You’re not the girl who gets the fake boobs, who goes down on a casting couch to get hired, or goes to a hotel with a rich stranger to get laid because she’s worried about funding her business.”

  “But—”

  He stopped the rest of her words with a light kiss. “I know, I feel it, too, but this isn’t so straightforward, and it’s one of those times to quit while you’re ahead.”

  The finger she ran up his stomach and chest made that resolve difficult to keep. “I was hoping to, you know”—she traced that finger over his bottom lip—“get some head.”

  Cal groaned. It was theatrical, and he meant it to be, because this had been a strange night for a man who orchestrated strange occasions for a living. “I’m not a man who walks away from a willing woman with more going for her than her more than adequate tits, but I hate to admit that in this instance, that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “You roll with it, do the whole dark alley make-out session, pay for this room, feed me thing, and you don’t want to get laid.” She thumped her head on his chest. “And I’m the one who lacks commitment. It wasn’t possible for me to have thrown myself at you harder.”

  “I do want to get laid. I very much want to lay you out on that obscenely large bed and prove to you that every director who didn’t cast you needs their eyes tested and their sense of adventure retuned. You’re a captivating woman, Fin.”

  “But… And here comes the brush off.”

  Not a brush off. A test. “I want to help you more, and that’s what you really want, and if I take you to bed now, that complicates things.” He said that to the mass of her hair, and when she lifted her face, he brought their foreheads together. “You get to keep the room, order breakfast, live it up. And then come and see me at my office, and we’ll work on your pitch.”

  “You mean that? You’re a fancy, venture cap guy, and I’m a failed-pretty-much-everything, including but not limited to seduction.”

  “You gave good barstool and excellent alley.” He kissed her again, forehead, cheek, lips; lingered there as she wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back, enjoyed the thrill that rippled through him.

  This was probably a mistake, not fucking Fin, not finishing with her and inviting her into his world. Not that she’d see it for what it was. But he’d get to see what he could make happen for her.

  And he was an expert at helping people get what they wanted, even when what they wanted most desperately was millions of their own cash transferring legally to Sherwood with nothing to show for it.

  Chapter Three

  It wasn’t easy to feel like a flaky little wannabe when she slept in a bed so big she could starfish without touching the edge. In a few minutes, Fin would put on a big fluffy robe and open the door to big fluffy room service waffles, which she’d enjoy with special, hotel-quality maple syrup and out-of-season fruit and a chocolate milkshake from the kid’s menu.

  But she still felt like a flaky little wannabe, because she’d gone to bed alone instead of with Mr. Kiss-Like-Fire-’n-Run-like-a-Thief, Caleb Sherwood.

  “Flaky little wannabe should be the name of my next band,” she told the ceiling moldings.

  A former boyfriend had called her that. His breakup gift. And here she was, years later, still a flaky little wannabe who couldn’t get a man she’d surprised into getting hard into a bed he’d paid for.

  God in a wheelbarrow, that was depressing.

  But Holy Toledo, Cal could kiss, and he’d smelled nice and he felt good with his suit coat off and ah, the kissing. It was the height of bad manners for him to lead her on with a steak sandwich and million-thread-count sheets and then hug her chastely goodnight.

  It wasn’t even late when he’d left. She’d watched a movie, surfed the porn channel, bounced on the bed, had a long bubble bath, and rinsed out her underwear. Housekeeping had brought her a toothbrush and paste and a plastic comb that helped take the tangles out of her hair. Lord knows where her brush had gone.

  Last thing she’d done before getting rid of a bunch of pillows off the bed was check the bank account. It was a whole four dollars richer. Four miserable bastards from the pub had yucked it up donating a dollar each.

  Four dollars.

  She wouldn’t have to quit on D4D because it was going to quit on her.

  Except for that one email she’d received. It had to be a hoax. Someone’s idea of a joke. But the promise of a thousand dollars wasn’t something she could dismiss easily, even if it did have genuinely trolling you written all over it.

  To: inquiries@D4Dcharity.com

  From: anonymous donor

  Will pay one thousand dollars to Dollars for Daughters if the person who stood on a barstool at the Blarney to ask for donations on Friday night will impersonate Marilyn Monroe singing at JFK’s birthday at the pub tonight, Saturday. One time only. Genuine offer. No correspondence will be entered into.

  She thought about it while she ate her waffles. Caleb Sherwood wouldn’t have sent that email. He’d have addressed her by name, and he’d given her a hotel room without a qualm. He wouldn’t make her perform for the thousand dollars he would’ve given her to go away when she’d badgered him. Not at the same time as trying to talk her into making an appointment to work on her pitch.

  It had to be someone who’d seen her Friday night, someone who’d visited the website and found the email link and then decided on a cruel prank.

  That’s what this was. But no one out there would know she was being jerked around for someone’s amusement, so really, the only thing at risk was her pride.

  And the chance to raise a thousand dollars couldn’t be thrown away on the basis of a red face. It wouldn’t be the first or last time she had one of those.

  It was the best plan she had.

  She’d need a wig. Typical, her only acknowledged asset covered up. She’d need a push-up bra; at least she had that covered.

  When Lenny answered her phone with the sound of raised voices as a backdrop, Fin gave up the idea of asking for advice. “Just checking in. Everything okay?”

  “Ah, not a good time, Fin. What do you need?”

  True grit and a slinky dress. Her best friend’s problems magically solved. Ongoing rent money, new website jailbreak money.

  “Nothing.” There was a sound you could only interpret as a scream and a door slam. “You go. Take what time you need. I’ve got this.”

  “Fin, it’s—”

  “My turn to make stuff happen.” Which would mean another barstool performance was definitely on. “I’ve got a plan. I met a venture cap guy last night, and he offered to help me with our pitch.”

  “A VC at the Blarney. Are you sure he’s not trying to get in your pants?”

  “He gave me his card.” Hotel room, romantic angst, and spit. No specific pants action. “His name is Caleb Sherwood, and he gave me a hard time”—and she returned the favor—“invited me to his office. I guess if it’s a derelict address, I’ve been had.”

  “Or a W
all Street address.”

  Hell. It was difficult to adjust to the Bradshaw family’s fall from grace. “I’ll be careful, and it’s not like we have anything to rip off.” It’d gone quiet at Lenny’s end. “Are you okay?”

  “Not really.”

  “I wish I knew how to help.”

  “Don’t sign anything or commit to anything or spend anything or do anything illegal.”

  “I got it.”

  “I’m sorry that was—”

  “Rude, while being totally reasonable. Do what you have to do, Len.”

  Lenny might’ve whimpered before she said, “I gotta go. I’ll call you.”

  Fin felt guilty singing in the shower with its many strategically placed jets. When she checked out, it was to return home to known consequences she’d ignored for a night of surprises.

  There were a bunch of things knocked over on the table, a broken candleholder on the floor, and a tear in an old cushion. It smelled worse than the airspace between two dumpsters.

  “It was one night. One. You’d think I left you to starve for a week. I know you have abandonment issues, but there was kibble and water, and you weren’t in any danger. I’m here now, come out and face me like a man.”

  Nothing.

  “Scungy. Show yourself, you evil moggy.”

  Nothing.

  A feline scorned is a cat bent on destruction.

  Not a peep, not even when she bashed about in the kitchen, cleaned out the litter tray, and opened a can of sardines. “It’s the good cheap stuff. Your favorite.” Nothing. She could stitch up the cushion, but the candlestick was trash. “Be like that, then.”

  She had things to do. YouTube videos to watch, a costume to assemble, makeup to practice. Then there was the walk, the posture, the way she needed to move her head and shoulders, the hand gestures, and the voice—breathy, lazy, sexy, sexy, sexy. The voice was the hardest thing to get right. And without the voice this would be a bad parody.