by Sierra Rose
“There’s a car waiting out front,” I muttered under the cover of applause. “Get your ass out of the fountain, Nick. I’m taking you home.”
He waved to his adoring fans, tilting precariously as the water sloshed up around his ankles. “That might be a little difficult, as I’m not entirely sure I can stand.” His eyes flickered guiltily to the four empty bottles of champagne sitting on his abandoned table. “You’re going to have to come in here and get me.”
Go in there?!
“Nick,” I hissed between my teeth, “I’m wearing new shoes.”
“So take off your shoes.”
“And a new dress.”
His eyes sparkled with a devilish wink.
“Well, you know what I’m going to say to that.”
My blood boiled as I gauged my rather limited options. The applause was already starting to die down, and the police were only a stone’s throw away. It also had to be said, that Nick didn’t look very capable of supporting his own weight right now.
He looked handsome. And wet. And very, very drunk.
“You’re serious right now?” I stalled. “You’re really going to make me come in there?”
He didn’t answer. Just blinked at me and stepped further into the fountain.
Of for the love of—
A bitter sigh slipped past my teeth as I kicked off my shoes, hiked up my designer dress, and waded tentatively into the fountain.
“You might be worried about the cops, but you should know that I’m going strangle you myself in the car on the way home,” I warned, stepping carefully over a hundred well-wishers’ coins. “I’m going to do what the nannies couldn’t.”
“Abby—you came!” he exclaimed, delighted that I’d joined him.
I rolled my eyes and draped his arm heavily over my shoulder.
Get a job in public relations, they said. It will be easy, they said.
Remind me to hunt those people down and choke them with a lobster.
“Just don’t get met wet,” I commanded, as we navigated our way slowly to the rim. “If I’m really lucky, I think I can still salvage this—”
FUCK!
His foot caught on the edge of a statue, and the two of us went down—landing on our backs in the freezing water, drawing yet another round of delighted cheering from the crowd.
I closed my eyes in complete mortification, feeling as the clouds of billowing chiffon filled slowly with water and sank like designer kelp to the bottom of the pool. The miniature crystals sewn into the skirt were soon to follow—loosening themselves one by one and sinking down to a watery grave.
A burst of sparkling laughter brought me back to the present.
“Abby!” Nick yanked the soggy slip of paper off my dress with a drunken grin, “you left the price tag on!”
“NO—IT’S not funny! It’s actually not funny at all! And if you keep laughing, I’m going to shank you with my stiletto!” I shoved him into the town car and clambered in behind—my wet dress clinging to my legs. “Straight home—Bobby.”
The driver glanced back with a professionally restrained smile, and pulled away from the curb. When Nick started talking again, he discreetly rolled up the partition.
“You’re going to shank me?!” he asked with a dripping smile.
“I’m from Brooklyn,” I replied flatly. “Why? What do they do at boarding school?”
“We stab, Abby. We stab.”
I shot him a withering look.
“Well not everyone can be as pretentiously poetic as you.”
With another word, I swiveled away from him, looking down in dismay at my once-perfect ensemble. Not only had my princess dress become some kind of body-suit, hugging onto me like a second skin, but my perfectly coifed curls hung in limp tendrils down my chest. I was Cinderella alright. If Cinderella had gotten dunked in a mountain stream.
“Sorry about the car, Bobby,” I called through the partition. “I’ll get it serviced for you in the morning.” My voice dropped several accusatory octaves. “Right after I write the Reverie a rather exorbitant check...”
“You can just say it, Abby.” Nick took off each of his shoes and emptied them into the car with a look of supreme patience. “No need to be passive aggressive.”
Oh yeah? Then I’d show him ACTUALLY aggressive!
“You EAT lobster!” I cried. “You eat lobster ALL THE TIME!”
“But I never had to actually SEE them before, Abby!” Nick’s voice rose with self-righteous indignation to be just as loud as mine. “Not their FACES!”
His eyes grew wide as he remembered. A drunken shudder ran through his body.
“It was like they were screaming,” he concluded darkly. A look of absurd seriousness shadowing his face. “And only I could hear the screams.”
I glared at him for a moment, before crossing my arms and turning back to the window in a sulk. “You could not hear the screams.”
“I could hear them.”
On the other side of the car, Nick was glaring out his own window—just like me.
“Oh yeah?” I countered petulantly. “What did they sound like?”
“...you wouldn’t understand.”
Chapter 4
BY THE TIME WE GOT back to Nick’s penthouse on the Upper East Side, he was passed out on my lap. He’d tried several times to undress himself—seized with the sudden intoxicated fear that he’d ‘catch his death of cold’ in the heated luxury vehicle. But thankfully (and with a little impromptu help from our driver), those fears had been put to bed.
I played absentmindedly with his wet curls as we pulled up against the curb.
This was another place that had shocked me the first time I saw it. Yet another glimpse into the world of the rich and powerful that had stopped me in my tracks.
Now? I knew the name of every bell-boy and receptionist. I knew which days to get the mail so that Nick wouldn’t have to see the more disparaging headlines about himself. I knew which things he was allergic to, and which chefs he preferred in the kitchen. I even knew the employee passcode to the service elevator to sneak out his various overnight guests so they wouldn’t run into one another on the stairs.
Yes—this place no longer had any secrets from me.
In a strange way, it almost felt like home.
“Max,” I rolled down the window a crack when I spotted Nick’s bodyguard, “can you help me over here?”
The man hurried over. Tall. Italian. And concerned.
We had discovered Max on a last-minute trip to Rome. Nick had promised some barista he’d met online that he would pick her up at the end of her shift (at the time, he may have also been pretending to be Italian). At any rate, it was a good thing we were in Germany at the time, because against all the odds, we actually made it to the café where she worked just as it reached closing. Unfortunately, we had not counted on the presence of her body-building Italian husband.
Max had swooped in to save the day. He’d been sitting outside, drinking with friends, and had taken pity on Nick’s half-hearted attempts to explain himself in broken Italian. Educated in the States, Max understood his English perfectly—whereas the husband did not—and stepped in just in time to stop him from getting his ass kicked by a band of Italian thugs.
He’d been an indispensable member of our team ever since. Ironically, his daily tasks hadn’t varied much from that first day.
“I thought you were supposed to be on your big date tonight,” he ventured, as he opened the door and helped me lift Nick out of the car.
The guy was class act—didn’t look once at my increasingly revealing ensemble. Didn’t even mention the fact that we were both soaking wet.
“Yeah,” I gritted my teeth as we stumbled towards the revolving door, “so did I.”
Together, we managed to get Nick to the penthouse elevator and lower him down to the floor. Insisting on a private elevator for Nick’s exclusive use, was one of the first changes I made when appointed head of his PR team. There were simpl
y too many wild variables in his life to risk mixing him with the rest of the population.
The doors dinged opon on the top floor, and Max offered me a sympathetic smile.
“You want me to carry him the rest of the way in?”
Nick snored obliviously on the ground beneath us—his face pressed up against a piece of Ethiopian marble that cost more than my whole apartment.
I nudged him tentatively with my shoe and shook my head.
“Naw—we’ll manage. Thanks, Max.”
With the practiced skill of someone who had done it far too many times, I draped Nick’s arm once more over my shoulder and half-carried him into the foyer. As the door dinged shut behind us, Max bid me a typical goodnight.
“Sorry about your date.”
I waved over my head with a quiet sigh.
“Me too.”
The door closed, and the two of us limped across the tile towards the bedroom.
Nick was in that hazy drunken state between consciousness and sleep, and although he tried his best to help me, it was an arduous journey at best. When we finally made it inside, he made a bee-line for the bed—only to get stopped by me.
“Not so fast.”
He stood there obediently as I took off first his suit jacket, then the white collared shirt just below. Both of them peeled off his skin, before landing in a wet pile on the floor.
“Louise will kill me if you ruin another pair of sheets,” I murmured, working as quickly as I could. Louise, the Bavarian housekeeper, had proven even more terrifying than myself.
Nick said not a word as I worked. Lifting his arms when indicated, and stepping meekly out of his soaking pants.
They were strange—these behind-the-scenes kind of moments.
As the person whose job it was to create the narrative spin, there were times I almost believed it myself. Times when I forgot that my clients were people, just like the rest of us.
But as globally publicized as Nicholas Hunter was, no one ever saw this side of him.
Vulnerable. Quiet. Almost childlike. Wet hair still dripping down the sides of his neck.
When he started shivering, I hurried to the bathroom and returned with a towel, sponging up his curls before pointing him in the direction of the bed.
“Don’t fall asleep yet,” I instructed as I returned to the bathroom once more, “you need to drink some water first. You’ll be starting a foundation for scallops in the morning...”
“Scallops?” he repeated in confusion. “Will I?”
“That’s if the media doesn’t crucify you first.”
At this, he snorted with laughter—pressing a smile into his pillow.
“Never. They love me.” He twisted around in the blankets, cocooning himself in the center as his eyes fluttered open and shut. “Besides, we have a deal: no crucifixions.”
I returned with a glass of water, and perched on the edge of the bed.
“Sit up.” He did as I asked. “Now drink.” I watched him thoughtfully for a moment, my own hair dripping little streams of water down my chest. “And for the record, I’m the one who made that deal. I can revoke it at any time.”
He flashed me an adorable grin.
“But you won’t do that either. You love me too.”
I pressed an Advil into his hand and gestured to the cup.
“We’ll see.”
As he swallowed the pill, I wanted to lecture him. Wanted to give him my standard speech. The ‘fame is a fickle friend’ speech, and tell him to keep his damn head down for once.
But such speeches had never really worked on Nick. And to be honest, he was right.
The press did love him. They always had. They probably always would. He was their dream—a man who knew no limits. No boundaries. Every page—an open book.
Over the years, he’d become something of a folk hero. The crown prince of mayhem who couldn’t be tamed. A source of constant entertainment and levity for the masses.
But even by celebrity standards, Nick was a rare breed.
Because beneath that careless playboy persona, beneath all the money, and mischief, and that unquenchable sense of adventure...he had a genuinely good heart.
It was this ‘good heart’ his father’s company had hired me to promote. To protect. To shine a spotlight on all the good things—half to highlight them, half to keep that same spotlight off everything bad. By protecting his image, I was protecting their shareholders, and thus—doing my not inconsiderable part to contribute to the massive global conglomeration that was his father’s company. The Hunter Corporation. The family’s crowning achievement.
He handed back the empty glass and lay down on the pillows, gazing up in sleepy disorientation as I pulled the decadent comforter up to his chin. I was just tucking it around his shoulders, when he shot back up in sudden surprise—propping himself up on his elbows.
“Fuck Abby—you look really good tonight.”
My perfect coif might have spoiled, but the look had shifted in other ways. Wet hair sticking to my shoulders. Equally wet dress clinging to my slender frame. Bright red lips, puffy from me biting them so many times in frustration.
“Oh yeah?” I asked, leaning over to push him back down. “And why is that?”
He faltered, blinking several times as my hair dripped onto his cheeks.
“Is this a trick question?”
“Think, Nick. Break the stereotype.”
It took him a second. Then it all came rushing back.
“Your date!”
Bingo.
“That’s right,” I said dryly. “My date.”
He leaned back with a bright smile.
“How did it go?”
I considered punching him. No one would know. He wouldn’t remember in the morning.
“Well, it ended in your apartment—
“As all dates should.”
“—so what does that tell you?”
He paused a second, before shooting back up to give me a sudden kiss on the cheek.
“I’m sorry about your date, Abby.” He dropped back down on the bed, twisting the covers around himself once more. “It’ll never happen again. I swear.”
“What?” I couldn’t help but smile. “My date? Or you interrupting?”
His eyes fluttered open then closed.
“...that’s the spirit...”
Without another word, he drifted away. Dreaming about lobsters, no doubt, and the things he could do to save them. The same things that would surely make my life a living hell.
I grabbed a spare blanket out of the closet, and curled up on a chair by the base of his bed to sleep. Kicking off my wet heels onto the floor.
Just another uneventful day in the world of Nicholas Hunter...
Chapter 5
IF I WAS HOPING FOR a better day tomorrow, the next morning didn’t bode well.
A throat cleared. The floor shifted. A sudden stab of light burned the backs of my eyes.
I swear, if this has anything to do with lobsters...
But it was something far, far worse. I opened my eyes to find myself in a room with not one man in the Hunter family. But with two.
“Mitchell!” I leapt to my feet in alarm, relieved as hell that, while an impromptu visit from the head of the company was never a good thing, at least my dress had finally dried. “I’m so sorry—I wasn’t expecting you!”
A pair of dark eyes swept me up and down. There was no hint of a smile.
“Clearly.”
Mitchell Hunter may have been Nick’s biological father, but the similarity between the two men stopped there. One was all light and whimsy. The other was dark. Frighteningly so.
The first time I’d been summoned to corporate headquarters (yes, summoned), I’d waited a full two hours in the lobby as a meeting ran into over-time. It wasn’t until I heard muffled crying from the conference room, that I ventured cautiously down the hall. The door was open, and against all my better instincts, I leaned forward to peek inside.
&n
bsp; After years of shuddering at the covers of magazines and walking subconsciously quicker every time I passed by a news stand—I finally saw Mitchell Hunter in person.
It was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.
He was sitting in a chair at the end of a long table, only, it wasn’t a chair the way he sat in it. It was a throne. And it had to be said, he looked the part. Tall. Compact. Silver-grey hair slicked back with expert precision. Eyes dilated so wide that they appeared almost black, and a rigid set to his jaw that spoke of a man who could never be moved enough to smile.
On the other side of the room, a group of seventeen families were huddled together—like passengers on a sinking ship, staring at the one man in charge of the life boats.
“Mitchell, please.”
It was one of the strangest things about him. That a man so cold and far removed from the rest of society, insisted that people still call him by his first name.
The man who had stepped forward tried again.
“If you give us one more quarter—just one more quarter,” a shattered breath caught in his throat, “I know we can make this right!”
A chair creaked as Mitchell leaned forward, folding his hands upon the gleaming table with a sinister smile. “You know you can make this right,” he repeated slowly, emphasizing each word with terrifying clarity. “But what makes you think I would believe that, Rick? When you’ve already proved that you’re of no more use than that empty chair?”
It was then that a frazzled secretary found me, and tried to tug me back down the hall. I wanted to follow, wanted to get away. But my feet didn’t move.
“Why are their families here too?” I asked quietly, eyes fixed in morbid fascination.
She followed my gaze for a nervous second as well, before digging in her claws.
“He always invites the families down before announcing big news. Often times, it’s a promotion—so the wives and children always come. The other times...it’s for a firing. You never know which one it’s going to be. I don’t think they expected this at all.”