Thief of Hearts: A Rogue Billionaire Fake Fiance Romance

by Carter Blake

I need a fresh pair of shoes, too. I almost go for my Allen Edmonds cap toe Oxfords, but instead, I decide on a pair of Brooks Brothers penny loafers, maybe inspired by Madeline’s suit from earlier.

  And it’s still Lush Republic. I can’t go too fucking formal.

  I end up having to wait a solid twenty seconds for the elevator on my way out, and getting out onto Barclay, I jog over to Church Street so I can get a taxi going the right direction. Luckily, there’s a free cab just as I get to the corner, and six minutes later, I’m walking into Lush Republic.

  And I’m still almost an hour early.

  It’s a good thing Madeline’s apparently not here yet. It’s not that I would expect her to be, but who knows? It’s not like I ever got to know things about her, like how punctual she is.

  Our meetings were always just happenstance, both of us floating around Maui like uncaring and unhurried sea breezes.

  Those weren’t even meetings, though. Maybe in a literal sense, but not in the all-business sense of this early evening in Manhattan.

  Even an Alphabet City bar can’t escape the commercial soul of the city. The wait staff are bustling, preparing for the upcoming rush hour each evening brings.

  But right now, Lush Republic is a in a very easy-going state, just after six in the middle of the week. The bouncer’s not even on duty, and there are only a few stray regulars adrift throughout the floor and at the bar, leaving plenty of tables open.

  I sit down, unnoticed, at one of several booths, which is the only logical spot for a meeting like this.

  Logic’s just catching up with me now: I’ve still got forty-five minutes of sitting here, waiting for an important meeting that I decided to have at a bar—one that I frequent for decidedly non-business reasons all the damn time. Who knows what Maddie must be thinking.

  Madeline, I mean. Whatever.

  I take the side of the table facing the entrance, watching it for the moment Madeline walks in, whenever that’ll happen. It could be in fifteen minutes, it could be over an hour if she’s late.

  Clearly, I didn’t handle the planning the best I could, but all I can do is watch, wait, order a drink maybe, and avoid looking through the mess that is my personal phone.

  I’m tempted to take a peak at the phone, just to see if I missed a call from Madeline, when I see Stacia marching towards the table.

  Stacia’s a waitress at Lush Republic, originally from Poland, and a staunch stayer from the old Café Kiev days.

  “Yes, Ethan,” she greets me in a resigned way that is just magical, “what’ll it be to start?”

  “To start,” I respond, picking up on her intuitive dialog, “I’ll have two dry martinis.”

  They serve martinis in actual glasses here, and it seems like the most business-appropriate alcoholic beverage I can think of right now.

  Stacia writes down the simple order, which makes me like her even more, but I’m shaken and stirred out of pondering corporate crapulence by a bolt of emerald lightning from across the room.

  Maddie’s here early, but still not as early as me. I can’t articulate why, but seeing the glowing intensity of her eyes, the casual gracefulness of her walk, the way she nonchalantly notices me and starts her way over so smoothly—it’s really difficult to have to witness it all from my booth.

  If only I were half an hour early instead of almost a whole fucking hour, I wouldn’t have had to put myself through any of this shit.

  On the other hand, I don’t know how easy it would be for either one of us if she just showed up at a strange bar before me and didn’t even know what the hell to do.

  It doesn’t get any less taxing as I see the unreal sight of Madeline sliding into the spot across the table.

  “Mister Barrett,” she begins with a workplace-appropriate enthusiasm, “we meet outside your office at last.”

  Madeline’s smile is slight, but it carries so much reassurance somehow. She’s acknowledging that we both know we’ve done much more than met outside my firm’s offices, but that’s nothing to worry about right now—just let it be mildly amusing, if you’d like, but don’t let it trouble you on any level—all in a blink of an expression that’s over now, changed something calm, open, and serious.

  “Thanks for coming all the way up here.”

  Madeline shrugs hammily and looks off at nothing to her left side. “It’s a start, I figured, until your office during business hours becomes routine.”

  I don’t know how flexible she’s trying to be, but she’s trying to get me to take it more seriously.

  “What is this all about?” I begin earnestly. “Can we start there?”

  “Eager to get right down to brass tacks, I see. Well, we can work with that.”

  She’s matching, then besting, every bit of confidence I put out there. I’m remembering why there’s no one else in the world like Maddie.

  Stacia materializes suddenly with our two martini glasses, complete with olives.

  “Oh,” Maddie comments, amused, “a couple more of these and it’ll be a true business lunch. Or dinner.”

  “Yes,” states Stacia flatly before leaving.

  “Did you want dinner?” I ask. “They have an extensive menu here...”

  “We’ve been looking over your registration documents,” Maddie starts, wasting no time. “There are some omissions. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but it can become the start of something I can’t ignore.”

  Madeline’s talking about some clerical errors, but her words are meaning something else to me.

  “What’s the type of thing you’d usually ignore?”

  Madeline looks down at her glass as if she’s trying not to look at it. There’s no chance of her drinking from it any time soon.

  “Ethan, I know you’re not asking me about what’s acceptable. You should know by now; you’re a...an established hedge fund manager.”

  “Hearing it from you, Maddie, that solidifies it. I’m an established hedge fund manager. All my boyhood dreams really have become true.”

  “I don’t have the documents with me, but from what I’ve seen, none of your personal info is deficient.”

  “Oh, thank God.”

  “However, some of the partners at your firm, I’m not so sure about.”

  “Just some of them?”

  Madeline glances off to nowhere again. She’s not enjoying this, I don’t think.

  I’m not dealing with Maddie here. She’s there, in the same suit from this morning, she still looks amazing, and I saw just a tiny bit of that spark when she was talking to Stacia—but with me she’s investigating for the SEC.

  I realize, not for the first time, that it’s time to start acting like it.

  “Does that have anything to do with securities?” I ask, trying to start over.

  Madeline smiles again. It’s even more low key this time, but there’s something to it beyond just Don’t worry, although I could be imagining that.

  “What line of work are you in again, Ethan?”

  I laugh. I’m not sure if it’s polite, I’m not even sure if it’s genuine on my part, but I find myself laughing slightly—and I make myself stop. Madeline’s smile stays fixed where it is.

  “I get it, but what about the scope of the investigation?”

  “Oh, I’m getting to that. You’ll have to forgive me, I’m not used to jumping from one thing to another so quickly.”

  “I don’t mean to rush you. I’m sure we’ll get on the same page soon enough.”

  “I hope so, Mister Barrett. We’re on the same page about that, at least. Now, I assume your firm is sufficient in self-scrutiny...” This is the last moment that I expect a spark from Madeline’s eyes, but the realization of who I’m actually talking to distracts me just a tad from the meeting.

  “But, there are a number of red flags,” Madeline resumes assuredly. “Although none of them are very obvious, yes, but that’s one of the reasons it takes time. I hope you’re ready to take some time, Ethan.”

  “Take some
time,” I echo the incomplete yet meaningful sounding phrase. “I think I’m ready to take some time. With you, right?”

  Madeline’s smile grows, making her whole face appear subtly luminous. I’ve never seen her look quite the way she does now—not on this continent, at least.

  “I hope you know the answer to that,” she answers, thoughtfully pulling the cocktail pick out of her glass, “but if not, you’ll find out soon enough.”

  Madeline methodically frees one of the olives from the pick and devours it before getting up to disappear through the growing crowd and making her exit.

  Ethan

  I spend the first forty minutes of my Saturday walking up Broadway until the street stops at Union Square Park. Part of me wants to walk around the park and pick up Broadway where it continues, so I can keep walking uptown until I have some of this shit figured out.

  I don’t, though, because the last remnants of winter are still chilling the midday air, and Carina’s already spotted me from the north side of 14th Street. She’s waving me over like I need some last-minute encouragement to interact with my sister. As usual, she’s uncomfortably close to the truth.

  I walk straight across the two-way street in the middle of the block. Carina shakes her head maternally, which makes me think about the other sea of bullshit weighing on me this week.

  “What is wrong with you?” Carina huffs at me when I join her at the southern edge of the park.

  “I know you’re from here, Carina. How do you get around without being able to walk?”

  “I cross at the crosswalk, like...”

  “Like a tourist?”

  “Like a normal human being, I guess.”

  “Yep.” I absentmindedly start scrolling through my business phone, which is becoming more and more entangled with personal contacts. “Speaking of which, Ryan’s going to meet us.”

  “Ha! Speaking of normal human beings, this a different Ryan?”

  I put my phone away.

  “You know what it’s like for people like me, sis, in demand even on the weekends.”

  “Blech! Keep telling yourself that.”

  “It’ll be fun, we can get lunch at Max Brenner.”

  Carina looks in the direction of the restaurant. “That amount of chocolate might make the whole thing tolerable. I might just skip straight to dessert.”

  Maddie would love Max Brenner. I’m sure she’s been there, though. Who did she go with? Some bookish government employee dude with a massive crush who eventually worked up the courage to ask her out?

  I wave over at Ryan, who’s walking towards us from the uptown side of the park, carrying a giant fucking tray for some reason. I don’t have the energy to speculate further.

  I hope that shy, smitten coworker of Maddie’s, whoever he is, realizes what a rare gem of a person he’s been goddamn lucky to find. It’s small comfort that he surely realizes that. It would be a fucking travesty otherwise.

  Carina reluctantly turns around partway to see Ryan. I think she was planning to just take a quick glance, but when she spots him carrying his enormous round tray covered in paper and Styrofoam takeout containers, she turns around to face him completely and take in the presentation.

  “Dude, what are you doing?” Carina yells loud enough for half the neighborhood to hear.

  That doesn’t make me laugh, and I hate that it doesn’t. I’m feeling strangely sad for Carina.

  Why are both of us where we are in our lives now? What kind of patterns are we following that we don’t even understand?

  I hear Carina, her back to me now, actually let out a couple of disbelieving laughs. I guess she can pick up the slack for both of us right now.

  “I’ve got lunch right here,” Ryan announces loudly, since he’s still too far to talk like a normal person.

  I’m a bit impressed with the way he moves one hand out from under the tray while sliding the other into position to support it entirely. After all that work, he uses his free hand to bafflingly point to the top of the tray.

  “We see it, Ryan,” I shout at him over Carina. She turns around to give me a requisite look of embarrassment, but she doesn’t care enough for it to last more than a fraction of a second before we’re both watching Ryan balance the tray on one arm like he’s a busboy who got lost and wandered from a diner ten blocks away.

  This is what it must’ve looked like to Maddie and Lauren when I carried those two armfuls of hastily purchased souvenirs across the nightclub five years ago—except Ryan’s much more graceful, probably thanks to his post-college years in the restaurant game.

  I wonder what happened to all those gifts. I hope somebody at least ate those pounds of chocolate.

  Ryan makes, as far as I can tell, his first sensible decision all day by stopping at the two long, empty benches next to him and placing the tray down cautiously. Carina and I take the prompt to start walking over as Ryan sits down and examines his haul.

  “You’re not dumpster diving again, are you, Ry?” I ask when I get to a conversational distance.

  “Again? Have I ever?”

  I can’t accuse Ryan of not having a sense of humor, since mine’s probably off today.

  I take a spot on the bench next to Ryan, realizing that I’m even more tired than usual this weekend. I leave space for Carina to sit next to me, farther from Ryan, but she chooses to settle down on the other side of his gigantic tray.

  “Wherever you got it, I’m frigging starving.” Carina’s not shy about poking at the cardboard takeout box closest to her, although she’s still not opening it.

  “I spent the last twenty minutes building a smorgasbord of the best the Greenmarket has to offer. Although there are people who make a point of not letting food go to waste, and they know what they’re doing...Ethan.” Ryan glares at me with mock anger.

  “Freegans,” Carina comments. She’s opened the takeout box, at last, to reveal half a dozen deep-fried rice balls, and she probably missed Ryan’s sarcasm. No, she’s giving me her own mock-angry stare-down. “Ethan.”

  Well, I guess she’s in an okay mood, considering.

  “Those are from this place on Essex. They’re all different flavors. I’ve got spinach ricotta, Philly cheesesteak, roasted beets with goat cheese...most of them don’t have rice. I think that’s actually the Thanksgiving one you’re eating now.”

  As Ryan rambles about his rice balls and Carina digs in, I stare absently at the Metronome, a public art installation on the building across 14th, essentially a giant digital timepiece.

  “Oh, it’s delicious,” I hear Carina exclaim with her mouth full, which is strange for her. “That’s real cranberry sauce. Ethan’s always liked the canned stuff.”

  One-half of the display on the metronome—the clock—is counting upwards into the microseconds as the day wears on, while the other half is counting down, backwards, the time left in the day until midnight.

  “I find that hard to believe,” Ryan blathers on with his own mouth full. “You should try this pizza from Artichoke. Quick, before I eat both slices.”

  Is the countdown feeding into the clock as it greedily drains the time away from everything? Or is it feeding from the clock, a reminder of what those hours, minutes, and seconds actually mean?

  “You don’t really prefer that canned crap, do you, Ethan? Because I may prefer it myself.”

  “What would Thanksgiving be without it? Hey, I think this is the spinach one.” Carina’s still eating ravenously.

  Whatever. I have no clue what I’m talking about with this shit. All I know is that right now, it doesn’t seem to be getting easier for anyone as the Metronome ticks on.

  “Come on, Ethan, I’m buying lunch for once. If you’re too good for this stuff, could you at least stop staring and tell us what kind of fucking cranberry sauce you like?”

  “Oh,” I say, looking back at Ryan slowly, acting like he just snapped me out of some spacey meditation, which I guess is close to the truth. “Look...I’ve got a lot on my figurative
plate, so I’m not that hungry. Jeanette’s wedding is coming up soon.”

  I make eye contact with Carina, who stops chewing for a moment to give me an empathetic look.

  “You mean, your mother?” Ryan grabs one of the rice balls and eats half of it in one bite.

  “Yeah...our mom. She’s marrying again, now.”

  “So fucking what?” Ryan pulls a bottle of water from his jacket pocket and takes a gulp. “She’s an adult, and she’s happy, right?”

  I can’t help but look at Carina again. She’s suddenly lost her interest in lunch.

  “I hope so. I don’t know.” Carina’s voice is cracking a little. She’s carrying the full weight of this, and I can see how heavy it is for her.

  Ryan shakes his head. This subject is messier than he thought it would be.

  “It’s her decision, though. Isn’t it?” Ryan looks questioningly at Carina, then at me, as if he won an argument and we should realize that everything is fine now.

  I change my posture on the bench to address both my best friend and my sister more directly. Just like Carina, its weight is holding me down today, and I need to express why for them and for me.

  “I always thought that getting older, problematic as it is, would also make things easier—that it would bring rationality and wisdom—that you could break out of your patterns. Now that I’m feeling...I don’t know…I just don’t see it happening.”

  “Is your mom not acting wise?”

  “It doesn’t seem that way,” Carina answers, prompting Ryan to turn towards her. “I don’t think I’ve seen her make a decision like this. I mean...Gerald. Jesus.”

  Ryan looks to me for confirmation.

  “Is it really that bad?” he asks.

  “Gerald is...it could be worse, always. But...”

  “He’s kind of a prick.” Carina snatches the other slice of pizza after finishing my thought.

  Ethan

  I swear I feel the air conditioning kick on for a few seconds while walking down the Monday morning corridor to my office.

  “Are you fucking serious?” Phil, one of the senior partners, is audibly complaining from behind his office door. “It’s still, like, sixty fucking degrees outside.”