One Night Wife (Confidence Game)

by Ainslie Paton

  “But you do remember me.” It was physically difficult to get those words out because she was smiling so hard.

  “You’re the groomer calling to tell me Fido is ready to collect. No, wait, I know this one, you’re from the clinic, and I’m not pregnant.”

  Oh, he could be so freaking wry. “You have a dog?”

  “No, Fin. No dog.”

  “I’d like to see you.” Ergh, that came out wrong. “I mean, I’d like to see you, but I’d like to see what you can do for me.” Christ on a cracker. “You know what I mean.”

  He laughed, and he might as well have goosed her. “I’m not sure I do. Most fun I’ve had all day.”

  “Don’t like Mondays?”

  “This particular one has been a challenge.”

  “Wanna run away with me?” Oh shit. If she couldn’t stick to her script, she had to up her phone flirting game.

  His sigh had the weight of a skyscraper tower made of dumpsters. It sagged and wobbled and would surely topple and spill foulness everywhere. “I would love to run away with you, but I have responsibilities and so do you.”

  And apparently, trouble remembering that. “I would like to see you. You said you’d help me with my pitch for Dollars for Daughters. Was that just to get me into the bed you never bothered with?”

  “Yes, it was exactly that.”

  She laughed. She’d flirted herself into a knot. Something about Cal, even on the phone, made her feel delighted and dizzy. “So, will you?”

  “Get into bed with you?” She sucked in a breath and held it. Was he going there on the phone? This was almost phone sex with a VC. “No, Fin, there are no shared beds in our future if you want me to help with your charity.”

  Oh hell. There were times when exclusivity was the perfect choice. Like when your partner slept with you exclusively instead of you and his new fiancée at the same time, meaning you had to have every sexual health check there was. And then there was the exclusivity that was making you pick between a fast-and-furious fling with an intriguing, sexy man or the help you needed to be less of a flake and do some good in the world.

  “You’re making me choose?”

  “I am a bad, bad person.”

  Why was that statement a virtual invitation to get hot and bothered? “Stop helping me make wrong choices.”

  “Like the one you made as Marilyn Monroe?”

  Her heart seized. “How do you know about that?”

  “My brother, Zeke, was at the Blarney. Mentioned a certain entertaining interlude.”

  “That could be anyone?”

  “Right up until you said how do you know about that.”

  Dang. “You’re tricksy.” He was one of those scary listeners who connected the dots in conversations, instead of letting them float past like dust motes.

  “You have no idea.”

  The right choice here was to be professional. Divorce the lust from the need to get good advice, be a better person. “Are you still willing to help me on my pitch?”

  “Ready, willing, and able to acknowledge you made a good choice.”

  She smiled at Scungy, who was taking up space on the rug at her feet. Why did Cal Sherwood’s approval feel like her girl parts being stimulated? “When can I come—I mean in, when can I come in?” Cool, like ice, baby. Not. Shit. “I don’t know why you make me nervous.”

  What he made her feel was a kind of stage fright. He lit her up, sharpened all her senses, and made her feel like someone new.

  “Save the nerves for giving your pitch.”

  She could do that. Anticipation was stage fright’s first cousin.

  She made a time to see Cal the next morning. Arriving at the glossy, ultra-modern offices of Sherwood Venture Capital early, which felt like the smart thing to do, a chance to get familiar with the stage for her next performance. Calling the fizzy feeling she had inside nerves was the understatement of the century.

  Caleb Sherwood was a big deal. The kind of fat cat she’d served fine wine to at toffy fundraisers. It’d been different when he was a grumpy man on a bar stool, whose body she’d handled. She’d been frustrated, desperate, excited. Now she was sober and flat-out terrified.

  This time she was on a mission. No bantering with Cal, no letting him derail her. She’d nailed dressing the part, wearing her black pants suit, classy mid-high heels, and a white cami. No one need know they were designer knock-offs. And her pitch, she had it down, ready to rock, which was weird because she was here to improve her pitch.

  Craving approval had led her to acting and then back out of it. And there was no reason to think Cal cared enough about her performance to be let down if she was awful. That would imply he cared about her more than was sensible to dwell on.

  Being in lust with your professional mentor made for some exhausting shifts of logic. On the one hand, Cal was her ticket to a winning sales pitch and introductions to people she could pitch to. On the other, he was the night to remember that got away.

  “Fin.” He stood in front of her with his hand outstretched.

  She blinked at him. Wished he was uglier than she remembered. Shorter, stouter, balding, hair growing out of his ears and bad teeth, with a voice that grated like an engine without oil and claws for fingers. God sunbathing, if only that were true. She stood and took his hand. “Thank you for seeing me.”

  “My pleasure.”

  She flushed, her face going hot, her hand still inside Cal’s much bigger one. How were those words considered suitable for business? Why did they allow hand-holding in a work environment? It was just wrong. Too intimate. Socially acceptable madness. How did people do this all day and not disintegrate?

  “You have an impressive office.” Since she’d last seen him, his eyes were bluer, his hair thicker, his whole self more, more somehow.

  He cast a look over his shoulder and released her hand. “That’s the plan.”

  “That it’s impressive?”

  “With what we spent on it, yes. If impressive didn’t matter, we could all be working from the back of a pickup en route to the state fair.”

  Okay. It felt like there was a lesson there. Be impressive no matter the cost. Bonus points if you could do it effortlessly like Cal.

  “Come through.” He made a sweeping gesture that encompassed a hallway and a series of doorways beyond.

  Fin’s heels clicked loudly on the marble floor as she went with him to a meeting room filled with all manner of electrical gadgetry. She sank into a soft leather chair you could conceivably live in and ran her hand over a table made from cool white stone. When she looked up, Cal was watching her, along with another man who shared his dark good looks, only taller, with longer hair and a rakish scruff.

  “Fin, this is my brother Zeke.”

  She shot to her feet, extended her hand to Zeke.

  He took it and they shook. “Nice to meet you, Fin. You give good Marilyn.”

  Zeke had Cal’s smile. On Cal, that smile said anything could happen, trust me, but on Zeke, it looked more like I’ve done a wicked thing; let me tell you about it in delicious detail.

  “Fin has a microfinance charity,” Cal said to Zeke. He pressed a button on a center console of the table. “Camille. Would you bring coffee, please?”

  “About this charity,” said Zeke.

  “I thought we could help Fin with her pitch so she doesn’t need to be Marilyn anymore,” Cal said. He shrugged. A lazy move that might make you think he was a lazy man. It made her think of him shrugging off his suit coat, mounting the table, and crawling across it to kiss her, which was really, really unhelpful.

  “Give us your pitch, Fin.” said Zeke.

  She took a breath and steadied herself. This was it. “W—”

  The door opened and the receptionist, Camille, came in with a coffee pot, cups and saucers, milk, lemon, and sugar.

  After she left, Fin said, “W—”

  And Cal said, “See? She needs help.”

  “All I said was—”

&nbs
p; “A W word,” said Zeke. “When, where, what, why.”

  “Whoa.” Fin put her hand up. This wasn’t fair.

  “Yes, that, too,” said Zeke. “All very bad words to start with.”

  “I was about to say—” She blanked. What was a good W word to start with? She hadn’t known there was a morality to W words. “Welfare.”

  Zeke palmed his eyes. “Terrible word.”

  “Worried.”

  “Give us the pitch starting with the word worried,” Cal said.

  “Worried that your charitable donations aren’t effective?”

  Zeke groaned. “You sound like a late-night TV premature ejaculation commercial.”

  She wanted to laugh. “I do not.”

  Cal put his cup in his saucer very firmly. “You used the word charitable, and it’s a closed question. One minute, I’m thinking about how hot you are, and the next I’m thinking about albatrosses.”

  “Albatrosses?”

  “Albatrosses mistaking bottle caps for squid, how much plastic waste is swirling around in the Pacific Ocean, and what it will cost to clean it up. Anything else but what you just said.”

  Cal thought she was hot. Imaginary fist pump. Yes!

  “This is a professional thing. It’s not about what I look like.” And was fantasizing about having sex on the table.

  “There’s a reason we say a picture paints a thousand words. Unfortunately, every heterosexual man with a functioning libido is going to pay more attention initially to how you look and move than what you say,” said Cal. Despite still wearing his coat and being all the way across the white expanse, he sucked all the moisture out of her mouth. “If your target hasn’t spared a few brain cells to wonder if he can get you into bed, he’s a better man than me.”

  It wasn’t the time to point out he had already gotten her willingly into a room with a bed. “This isn’t about me. It’s about Dollars for Daughters.”

  Zeke wrinkled his nose. “That’s the name of it?”

  Oh, hold on. She didn’t come here to be insulted. She and Lenny had worked hard on that name. It was clear it was about women and families, and there was the sense of generational ambition—mothers passing on their skills to daughters and the standard of living improving over time. And it was catchy. Memorable. “Dollars for Sons didn’t have the same ring to it.”

  Cal did a sideways thing with his lips, part smile, part stifling of some expression he didn’t want to show. It was idiotically adorable. “It’s workable.”

  “It’s sexist,” said Zeke.

  “It’s meant to be,” she snapped. She appealed to Cal, pointing at Zeke. “Does he have to be here?”

  Cal lowered his chin. If he wore glasses, he’d be looking over the top of them at her. Distractingly adorable. “He’s here so you don’t hate me.” Aww. Except this was all, W word wrong.

  Zeke looked at the ceiling. “Okay then. Back to the pitch. Let’s start again without the W word.”

  “I’m confused.” What made them want to help anyway? “Why do you even care?”

  “That was a W word.” Zeke shook his head.

  What was another word for why? “Um.” Oh my God, there was no other word for why in the whole English language. How did she not know that before?

  “Sherwoods care because we can. And helping you and D4D makes us look good,” said Cal. “It’s not anything more sinister than that.”

  “But you could simply donate, and then we’d all be less miserable.” And then maybe she could be in an altered dimension with Cal, in a bed, and this time, he wouldn’t run off.

  “Dollars for Daughters isn’t about handouts. It’s about helping women help themselves and their families, so they’re not dependent on charity. Or do I have that wrong?” he said.

  Stealth-level listener. “You know you’re not wrong, Cal Sherwood.”

  “Let’s work on your pitch, so you’re not dependent on anyone.”

  “Don’t push me around.” Unless it’s up against a wall, a table…

  “Zeke was mean to you,” Cal said. “Me, on the other hand, I’m just making sure you’re aware it’s a tough world, there’s no such thing as fair, and you have to fight for what you believe in.” He leaned forward, and his eyes were full of shadows. “Don’t let someone with an attitude, a bigger wallet, or a louder mouth push you off course. Because they will.” His voice got hard, and it made Fin instantly tense. “Any sniff of weakness, any sign of softness, and you’re prey. What you want most becomes a thing someone else will use against you.”

  “Cal, now you’re frightening her.”

  Oh yes. That was a Cal she hadn’t yet met. Not the grump in the bar, not the polished master of the universe who’d gotten them a hotel room, or the man who’d wanted her and denied himself. This new Cal was stressed, weary, and punchy.

  And then he dropped out of that dystopia and rubbed his eyes. “I mean to say, we’re experts at the art of the pitch, but we don’t often share that expertise.”

  “We never share it,” said Zeke. “And at some point before he dies, Cal is going to enlighten me as to what he proposes we share now.”

  Cal looked at Zeke. “The whole confidence game in a way Fin can use it.”

  Zeke stiffened as if he’d been poked hard in a private place. “You want to bring Fin in on our special freaking sauce? Did you get brain damage all of a sudden?”

  “The theory, Zeke,” Cal said with impatience that crackled. “We show Fin the ingredients and help her put them together and use the techniques for her charity.”

  Zeke stood. He pointed out to the corridor and in a fake polite voice said, “Can I see you outside a moment?”

  Cal breathed out through his nose. “Excuse me while I go and pound some sense into my brother.”

  Fin swiveled her chair to watch the two of them leave the room. The mood shift was a climate change. Zeke closed the sliding glass door, and their voices were underwater bubbles. She could see their mouths moving and hear the burble, but not make out any words. At one point, Zeke slapped a hand on the glass, and then there was laughter; it was definitely laughter because they were still laughing when they came back inside.

  “We’re going to teach you the game. In a way that doesn’t cause anyone any trouble,” said Zeke.

  “And,” Cal prompted.

  “And”—Zeke did jazz hands—“you’re going to be a star.”

  Chapter Six

  Fin was the perfect student. Not only was she captivating, she could act—plus there was that hint of insecurity, the self-doubt that she pushed through, which made her instantly likable. Cal liked her a little too much. A lot too much. He liked the shape of her, the taste of her. He liked that she was restless and impulsive and still wide-eyed about the world. He liked she wasn’t afraid of calling him out.

  Zeke liked her, too, once he’d realized Cal wasn’t about to share all their secrets with an outsider. “It’s a long way around to get in a woman’s pants,” he’d said, when they were in the corridor.

  “It’s not about that,” Cal had snapped. Regrettably. He wasn’t ready to tell Zeke his ambitions for Fin stretched beyond the obvious challenge of getting her ready to crush her pitch and teaching her the techniques of the confidence game.

  He wasn’t ready to admit he might need Fin more than she needed him, or how it had made him feel to get her phone call and then find her waiting in reception, one heel dancing as she tried not to show she felt intimidated.

  He didn’t want to intimidate her, he wanted to sprawl on a bed and eat pizza with her, argue over sport, or debate the merits of action movies. And those were the thoughts that were safe to have in the office.

  “We need to talk about who you’re going to target,” he said, trying to get his head back on task.

  “Anyone with money,” Fin said. “We have a list.”

  “Cola isn’t consumed by anyone with a mouth,” Cal said. “Targeting takes work.”

  “Cola is mostly drunk by men who drin
k it out of habit for the sugar high,” said Zeke.

  Fin nodded. “I need people with money who already donate to charity so it’s not a big leap to get them to donate to mine. People who want to feel good about themselves when they donate, who know about D4D, and like what we do and…” She ran out of steam and her mouth twisted in obvious annoyance.

  “That’s one way to think about it,” Cal said.

  “What’s the other way?”

  “The Sherwood way. Your best prospect is someone whose ego you can stroke. On a global scale, very few people give to charity. Surprising, huh,” he said, when Fin’s eyes goggled. “Most charities struggle unless they’re attached to someone high profile like a Bill Gates or a Bono or have a long history like The Red Cross. More to the point, wealthy people establish their own charities, so they can collect tax breaks and avoid being asked to give constantly. Some of it’s legit. Some of it’s a dodge. A lot of it’s about ego.”

  “So rich people aren’t my target?”

  “They are. You have to find the right rich people.” He stood and slipped his suit coat off and threw it over the next chair, unbuttoned his sleeves and flipped the cuffs back, and then took off his tie and undid the first couple of buttons on his shirt. Fin watched intently and when he sat again, she crossed her eyes and poked her tongue out at him; it made him laugh.

  He regretted not taking her to bed, but he needed to keep the lines between them clear. What happened with Rory had reeducated him on the merits of that.

  “The right rich people are the ones with money and not-so-obvious imposter syndrome,” he said.

  “Imposter syndrome, meaning they’re acting a part?” she said. “Do you mean appearances are deceiving?”

  That was a useful interpretation. “We all think we’re unique, and because we know our own inner fears and faults, we tend to think we’re the only one who’s flawed. But we’re all flawed. We’re all uncertain, confused, and afraid.”

  “We all have heartaches, secrets, doubts, misgivings.” Zeke looked at Cal and then popped a brow at Fin and said, “Kinks,” making her grin. “We’re programmed from birth to think we’re the only ones who feel unworthy and everyone else is in on the secret to life.”