by Ryli Jordan
Elaine picked up her menu and began to peruse the offerings. “Quite the contrary, I'm afraid,” she said. “As the Successor Trustee of the fund following the untimely demise of your parents, and given the stipulations that they made when setting up the fund—well, you'll find I'm well within my rights to decide such a thing. Judge Matthews agrees with me.” She sounded smug.
I gripped the edge of the table hard. “But I have been responsible,” I protested, trying a new tactic. I glanced down at the photo and winced. “Maybe not as responsible as I should be, but I'm trying—you have to believe me. I finished out university and worked my way up through the marketing firm, didn't I? And sure, there might have been...drunken bar antics last night, but I didn't go home with either of those girls.” I was certain of that, at least. I was pretty sure whoever it had been was brunette.
Aunt Elaine snorted. “Be that as it may, until I see some solid improvement in your behavior–“
“I have a girlfriend!” I announced desperately. “Her name is”—I cast about for the first name that came to mind—“Charlotte.” I smiled, trying to seem more confident. “I didn't think things were going to work out between us at first, which is why I haven't mentioned her before. But she's been really helping me work through some things lately. We've figured out a plan for me. See, first step was to cut back on the sleeping around bit. Then we're going to slowly help me severely cut back on drinking. We've already made some progress there; I'm not going out as much as I used to be.”
Elaine was starting to look convinced. “I'll have to meet the girl before I decide anything,” she finally allowed.
“I've already invited her to Crystal's wedding as my plus one,” I lied.
“Lovely,” Elaine said, although from the tone of her voice, I could tell she didn't think I was actually going to be able to pull this off.
Just watch me try, I thought. Just watch me try.
Chapter Two
Now the challenge was getting the girl, Charlotte, to go along with it. I really shouldn't have used her name when I was talking to my aunt, but it had been the first one to come to mind, no doubt because of our interaction that morning. I was sure I could find another girl I could pay to pretend to be a Charlotte, but I figured I might as well start with the inspiration for my plan. She was pretty attractive, anyway, despite being such a bitch.
I swung back home on the way to the coffeeshop, just in case I needed to buy something this time.
When I got to the coffeeshop, I was in luck: not only was there no line like there had been that morning, but Charlotte was out from behind the counters and wiping down tables.
I caught her arm lightly. “Hey,” I said. “Can I talk to you?”
Charlotte turned to look at me, her lip curling in disgust. “You again,” she muttered. She pointed towards the counter. “You can order over there. Same thing as this morning. You don't need to talk to me.”
I smiled a little. “I know,” I said. “But I actually wanted to talk to you. First of all, I wanted to apologize for this morning. I can't think straight before I've got coffee into me, and I think I was a bit rude.” I pulled out my wallet and waved it around a little. “I really did forget this, you know.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Look, I don't care, okay? I have other things to think about than that rude asshole who was in here this morning during the coffee rush. Now if you don't mind...” She gestured for me to move out of her way so she could move to the next table.
“I want to make it up to you,” I said earnestly, lightly touching her arm.
She yanked her arm back as though she'd been burnt. “I saw you get that other girl's number this morning,” she said acidly. “I'm not going to be just another in your long line of conquests.” She gave me an obvious once-over. “You're not even that attractive.”
Curiously, I felt a bit of a blush come over my pale features. “Okay,” I said. Time for Plan B. “How about this? You obviously need money, right? That's why you're working here. Maybe you're a student or...whatever it is. I need someone to come with me to this cousin's wedding that I have not this upcoming Sunday but the one after that. I'd pay you...let's say $50 an hour, plus there'll be food and a free bar and whatever else.”
Charlotte scowled darkly. “Hire a prostitute,” she said.
“I'm not looking for someone to fuck. I seriously just need someone to go and make nice-nice with my relatives for a little bit. Someone who doesn't look like a skank.”
Charlotte looked for a second like she wanted to hit me. “Well, I'm not interested,” she said, turning away and getting started on another table, scrubbing with much more force than was really necessary.
“What if I upped it to $100 an hour?” I asked, not sure why I was so desperate to convince her. There were hundreds of girls in that city alone named Charlotte, and plenty of them would have jumped at the chance to do this sort of easy work. “The ceremony should last about an hour, plus there will be prep time for about an hour before. Then there will be an hour's break between the ceremony and the reception, and the reception will probably run about five hours. That's $800 you could make in an afternoon's work.”
Charlotte's hand stilled for a second—long enough that I knew she was considering it. “I wouldn't have anything to wear,” she finally said.
I sighed. “Fine. $100 an hour for attending, plus $200 to buy a dress and shoes. Let's call it a round $1000—is that fair?” I felt a flare of frustration at the way she was still debating. It wasn't that $1000 was that much money for me, but I knew it had to be for an average person like her. And I was sure I could have found someone who asked for much less money, yet here she was still debating whether $1000 was enough.
She finally stopped wiping at the table and turned to face me, something guarded in her expression. “You'd have to pay me upfront, though,” she said. “I don't want a repeat of this morning where suddenly you 'have no money'.” She put the last in air quotes.
I growled wordlessly. “I didn't have my wallet with me,” I insisted for the umpteenth time. I flipped open said object now and pulled out two crisp hundred dollar bills. “Of course I'm not carrying more than this with me at the moment, but how about you take these now and I'll pay you the rest upon successful completion of the day?”
Charlotte reached out a hand, looked back towards her coworkers, and then snatched her hand back. “Not here,” she hissed finally. “They'll think I'm, I don't know, dealing drugs or something. Pay me the first half of it when you pick me up. And the second half at the end of the day.”
“Fine,” I said easily, shrugging at her. “I'm going to need your address, and probably your phone number as well.”
Charlotte grabbed a napkin and pulled a pen out of her apron. “You better not abuse this number,” she muttered under her breath. “I swear, one drunken booty call and the deal's off.”
I snorted. “Don't worry about it, darling. You might be cute, but I can get plenty of tail in other ways.” I'd just have to be more discreet about it now Aunt Elaine thought I had this girlfriend and wanted to see me cleaning up my act.
Charlotte's hand clenched into a fist momentarily, but she wrote out her number. “I'll text you my address when we get closer to the day.”
“Whatever you want,” I said, tucking the napkin in my pocket.
“Now go buy a coffee so my coworkers don't think you just came in here to flirt with me,” Charlotte ordered. “The last thing I need is them all gossiping about whether I'm going to sleep with you—because I'm not.”
“So you've said.” It was almost like a challenge the way she kept saying it, honestly. The more she insisted she wasn't going to sleep with me, the more I wanted to make her desperate to sleep with me. With that thought in mind, I brushed some of her hair gently back, letting my fingers linger on the back of her neck for a moment. I watched as her eyes softened momentarily, as her chest heaved with a small sigh. Then she turned away.
She was an interesting girl. N
ot as transparent as the ones I usually went home with. I wondered what it would be like to get her into bed with me, wondered how she's arch against me, breathily calling out my name. I wondered idly how much that curvy form of her could take. I bet she would look beautiful, with her pale limbs all spread over my grey satin sheets.
“We should go for a drink sometime before I take you to meet the family,” I said suddenly. “I don't want to throw you off the deep end straight away.” And I'd need to make sure our stories as boyfriend and girlfriend lined up. I'd probably also need to explain to her exactly what I was doing as well. Maybe have her sign a contract to go along with it. The last thing I needed was for her to back out at the last minute.
Charlotte frowned a little and then finally sighed. “You're probably right. I need to make sure you're not really a total lunatic. But you're buying my drinks. And the only day I'd have available would be next Tuesday.”
“Tuesday's a weird night to go out,” I said, shaking my head. “Couldn't we at least do Thursday or something of next week?”
“I have classes,” Charlotte said. “It's Tuesday or nothing—your choice. Text me. Now go order something and get out of here before you get me fired!”
Chapter Three
I have to admit I was a bit surprised to see Charlotte on Tuesday night. Not that I thought she would bail on me, but she looked… I couldn't help staring for a long time, watching the way her tanned legs disappeared beneath the hem of her short black dress. I never would've imagined the woman from the coffeeshop with the ugly polyester uniform and blonde hair pulled into a messy bun could turn out to be such an absolute babe—but a classy one, too, with modest heels and tasteful jewelry. She was hardly wearing any makeup, even, and she still looked dressed to kill.
She jumped into the passenger's seat of my car and carefully adjusted her legs and buckled her seatbelt. “So where are we going?” she asked.
I glanced over at her as I put the car into drive, carefully backing out of her driveway. (It had to be her parents' place; there was no way she could afford the mortgage on this place with her meager coffeeshop earnings.) Initially, I had thought of taking her to one of the places that I frequented, just a nondescript bar in downtown. But for some reason, I actually wanted to impress her. “There's this neat little coffeeshop/bar/literary haven near where I live,” I told her. “You might like it.”
Charlotte wrinkled her nose. “Is everyone there going to be drinking wine and talking philosophy?” she asked.
I snorted out a laugh; so much for that idea. “On second thought, maybe that's not your scene.” I shook my head. “So what are you in to anyway?”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Probably a good thing we're getting the awkward 20 Questions game out of the way before the wedding,” she muttered, reaching over to grab my phone, which I was using as a GPS. “Let me pick the place.”
Twenty minutes later, we pulled up outside the garish pink Sugaria and I fought back a groan. Charlotte laughed. “Come on, I bet you've never been here before,” she said. “In fact, I bet you don't even know what this place is.”
“It's a place people go on dates,” I complained. “Which this is not.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “I know that. But they do great coffee-flavored cocktails, and they have a great selection of cakes to pair them with. And on my only night out this week, this is what I want to do with my time, whether you're here with me or not.” She slipped out of the car, and I had no choice but to follow those toned, tanned legs inside.
The place actually looked nicer from the inside than it did from the outside, but there was no denying that it was a female-dominated place. In fact, looking around, I was pretty sure I was the only male in there at the moment. There were a couple groups of girls all out with their friends, but I didn't see any couples like I'd expected. Meaning, it was even grimmer than I'd thought it would be.
Charlotte giggled at my expression. “Come on, you'll enjoy it,” she said, tugging me over to a cozy booth at the back. She sat on one side and I sat on the other, still eyeing the place as though I expected someone I knew to recognize me. But no one I knew would be there.
Charlotte tapped my hand and then pushed a menu at me. “Come on, humor me. Just get something to drink and something to eat. Then I'll let you leave.”
I scanned my options, but when the bubbly, pink-hair waitress bounced up, I threw all of that out the window. “What's your most alcoholic drink?” I asked plaintively.
The waitress shook her head at Charlotte. “Never have I ever been able to get my boyfriend in here,” she said, a laugh in her voice. “Congrats!” She turned back to me. “I'm guessing what you're asking is, which drink can you get that will allow you to walk out of here with your manhood still intact. In which case, I'd go with the Coffee White Russian. It's basically a white Russian—vodka and cream—but we add a shot of coffee liqueur as well, plus a dose of espresso.”
“Great,” I said.
“And to eat?” Charlotte prompted.
I flipped the menu towards the desserts and pointed to one at random. “Chocolate brownie à la mode.”
“Mmm, good choice,” Charlotte said, although there was a sarcastic note to her voice that told me she knew just as well as I did that I hadn't actually planned that decision. She turned to the waitress. “As for me, it'll be an espresso martini and a slice of the black forest cake.” She snapped her menu shut and handed both the menus to the waitress.
Then, she turned to me, laying both palms flat on the table. “So tell me why I'm going to this family wedding as your plus-one,” she said. “Are your family betting that you're going to be lonely forever or…?”
I half-smiled. “I like how blunt you are,” I said sincerely. “Actually, it's...” I shrugged. “As I'm sure you can tell, I'm a bit of a player.”
Charlotte snorted. “So I'm helping you appear to have cleaned up your act a little bit?”
I blinked at her. “That's...exactly it.” I took a deep breath, wondering how much I should actually share. If she knew how much money I was aiming to get out of this, there was the possibility that she'd want me to pay her even more so I probably should leave out the trust fund bit. “The thing is, my Aunt Elaine is really worried about family appearances—and about the appearances of my advertising firm. So I just need her to think I've settled down a bit.”
“But you don't want to actually settle down a bit?” Charlotte asked, a note of disgust in her voice.
I gave a wide shrug. “I'm twenty-six years old,” I said. “These are meant to be the best years of my life. There's no reason for me to be settling down and starting a family yet. When I'm thirty, thirty-five—maybe. But now?” I snorted.
Charlotte gave me an unreadable look. “So why me?” she asked. “Why not one of your floozies? Or that girl at the coffeeshop who bought your coffee?”
I raked my eyes over Charlotte. “You're more...wholesome,” I said. “More like what my aunt would want me to be dating. Hardly a hint of cleavage and not a ton of makeup. And you work at a coffeeshop, so I assume you're, I don't know, some sort of literary-hipster-art sort or something. You'd have things to talk about if I dragged you off to meet my family.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I guess a brain isn't usually a prerequisite in the people you're sleeping with, is it?”
“Of course not. In fact, the dumber they are, the better—then I know they're not going to be looking for long-term commitments or anything like that.”
“And you're afraid of commitment,” Charlotte surmised.
I was silent for a long moment; fortunately, our drinks arrived and saved me from responding to her. I took a long sip of my white Russian.
“You work in advertising?” Charlotte finally said.
I breathed a sigh of relief—this, I could talk about. “Yeah,” I said. “I actually am the head of one of the largest advertising firms in the country. It's just always been interesting to me, sussing out the way people th
ink and coming up with creative ways to get them interested in what you're selling. I don't know, it's like solving a puzzle. And I'm good at it, too.” I grinned cheekily at her. “I've actually been voted the hottest young bachelor in the city, you know. Any girl would be lucky to have a date with me.”
“Well, I'm not 'any girl',” Charlotte said, shaking her head. She took a sip of her martini. “You seem like an arrogant, self-absorbed asshole,” she said succinctly.
I sputtered at her. “Hey!” The initial indignation began to wear off and I could feel anger setting in. “I'm not paying you to hear what you think of my morals or anything else,” I warned her.
“The hazards of hiring someone who actually has a brain,” Charlotte said unconcernedly.
I scowled at her. “I could find someone else.”
“But you don't want to,” Charlotte guessed, smiling serenely at me. “For whatever reason, you think I'm interesting, and I'm the person you want to take home to your family. The first person you want to take home to your family, I take it—if they've met your floozies in the past, it was only in passing as the girls did their walk of shame in the morning. Am I right?”