by Sierra Rose
As much as I loved Nick, I would not openly go against his father. And while I had, on occasion, secretly gone against his father, in this particular situation—his father was right.
The lobster debacle was just the tip of the iceberg. In the last month alone, there had been enough work to keep an entire PR team sleepless and jumping for five years.
First there was the morning he tried to repel down the Eiffel Tower on a whim. Then there was the afternoon he was determined to climb the Empire State Building with his bare hands. The only way I talked him out of swimming the English Channel was by showing him enough shark attack videos to make myself afraid to even shower for at least a week.
The worst by far was when he conned the night manager in charge of the ice rink at Rockefeller Center into melting said ice, and letting Nick replace it with frozen champagne. At first, it actually looked like it might have been the social extravaganza of the season. Then some lunatic Grinch accused him of trying to serve alcohol to minors, and we were off to the races.
Point being, Nick was feeling a little more restless than usual this month. And if this coming merger was really as important as his father said, it was time to pull in the reins a bit.
But what could I do? What could I offer the man who had everything to make him see things my way? How could I bend the all-powerful to my own will...?
A scalding drop of coffee sizzled suddenly on my skin, and I pulled back my hand with a gasp. The entire coffee ceremony had been performed by muscle memory, and by the time Nick walked downstairs—wearing nothing but a towel—I was ready with the first cup.
“That’s the problem with these coffee makers,” he gestured to the burn with a teasing grin, raising the rim of the mug to his lips, “you’ve got to watch them every second.”
I was less amused.
“Coming from the man wrapped in a jellyfish towel.”
He looked down curiously, his wet hair dripping onto the kitchen tile.
Sure enough, the plush contours of the towel were splashed with an infantile display of smiling sea creatures. The jellyfish in question, was using three of its hands to wave.
“There does seem to be a strange theme developing in my life,” he murmured with a small frown.
Chapter 7
I POURED MYSELF A CUP of coffee as well, and the two of us drank in thoughtful silence.
Him—contemplating the ocean and all its wonders.
Me—contemplating how in the world I was going to get him to agree to a fake girlfriend.
In the end, I decided that unrelenting persistence would be my best shot. Nick was as stubborn as could be, but he also got bored by things incredibly quickly. If I continued to bring up the conversation, when all he wanted to do was get on with his day, there was a chance—not a good chance, but at least a chance—that he might cave and give me what I wanted.
(That part of the plan was absolutely vital. That I phrased it in such a way, where it would be a favor he was doing for me, rather than a command from his father.)
“You know,” I began innocently, kicking my bare feet against the counter, “before I had to go tearing out of the restaurant last night to help you and your lobsters, I was actually having a pretty good time on my date.”
“Oh yeah?” Nick hopped lightly onto the counter and settled comfortably, waking up before my very eyes as the caffeine entered his system. “Better than that Swedish guy? The one with the moustache that made him look like a pedophile?”
I snorted in my coffee and took a second to settle myself.
“Yeah—much better than that.” I blew away a cloud of stream. “I think you’d probably like him. First thing he did was order a bottle of Margaux.”
This peeked a bit of interest.
“What year?”
I avoided the question and moved swiftly forward.
“Good conversation, nice smile...speaks about nine different languages.” At this point, I was just making things up. Filling in the gaps as I built up momentum. “Drives a Maserati.”
This time, it was Nick’s turn to laugh.
I had a well-known habit of judging people badly for driving exorbitantly over-priced cars. It had made one of our first outings in his own Aston Martin rather memorable.
“Does this Romeo have a name? Or did you already forget?” His eyes twinkled playfully as he took another swig of coffee. “You didn’t write it on your hand, did you?”
I hesitated, then shook my head with a self-righteous sneer. No—I most certainly had not written his name on my hand. I only thought I had. Instead, I’d written the name of this Ryan...
“He has a name. I did not write it on my hand.”
Nick lowered his mug, forcing me to make eye contact.
“What is it then? Fast—don’t think.”
I panicked. Whenever he did this—I panicked. He had a piercing focus and commanding intensity (curtesy of the Oxford debate team) that was specifically designed to off-balance his opponent. In a different life, he would have made an incredible lawyer.
“His NAME, Wilder.”
“Ryan!” I blurted. Then blanched. “Wait—Cameron! No, Ryan!”
Son of a bitch.
His lips curled up in a victorious smirk, a clear winner once again.
“Ryan, was it?” He cocked his head condescendingly. “Was his name really Ryan?”
Please don’t talk about him in the past tense already, it doesn’t bode well for my love life.
I held his gaze only for a moment, before dropping my eyes with a scowl.
“No, it was Cameron.”
He returned to his coffee in triumph, as I stewed in defeat.
“Ryan’s my new brother’s name,” I added petulantly.
His mug came down.
“What was that?”
Fortunately, at that moment, we were interrupted by Louise—Nick’s housekeeper. Aside from myself and Max, she was the only person in the world with the elevator access code to get up to the penthouse. Originally, these things were supposed to be monitored carefully, and in all likelihood—they would probably all go through me. But after the second week of her buzzing my phone every ten minutes, I had surrendered the information without a moment’s pause.
It was a good thing too. If I hadn’t given up the numbers, there was a good chance she would have simply taken them for herself.
Of all the people that flitted in and out of Nick’s world, she was hands-down the most formidable. On her bad days, she might even give dear old Mitchell a run for his money.
Louise Müller had been a supply-runner and French patriot before marrying her fourth husband after the Second World War. The rigid stringencies of the reconstruction had found a permanent and willing host in dear Louise. Upon moving to Bavaria, she campaigned long and hard against the wearing of brightly colored fabric and the performance of lively music. She was a devout believer in hard work, and fiercely detested any of the superfluous frills society had to offer. (In Louise’s opinion, these ‘frills’ included consistent electricity and heated water. After facing jail the third time for performing a citizen’s arrest at Oktoberfest (her favorite annual tradition), Mitchell Hunter had scooped her up and sent her here—to reform his wayward son.
At a first glance, you might think that two such extreme opposites would have destroyed each other sometime within the first week, but strangely enough—Louise and Nick had found an odd sort of balance. She was the authoritative female presence he’d never had, and I think she saw him as her life’s greatest challenge. Over the years, they’d developed a precarious truce.
If she was surprised to see us up and about at such an early hour, she certainly didn’t say so. She merely stared pointedly at Nick’s feet, until he lowered them slowly off the counter.
I hid my grin in my coffee. The bastard might be able to best me at a cross-examination, but at least I wasn’t the one taking subliminal orders from their own house staff.
“Did you make a pile of all clothes for the dry cleaners li
ke I asked you?” she snapped in a thick accept, her eyebrows congealing into a single, threatening point.
My head swiveled to Nick with a wide smile.
Apparently, he was taking direct orders now too.
He flushed slightly and avoided my gaze.
“Not yet, I had a really busy...” He faltered under the force of her glare. “I was planning on going to...” Faltered again. “I was actually planning on doing it right now.”
With that, he downed the rest of his coffee in a single swig and hurried upstairs. After placing both our mugs carefully in the sink (under Louise’s watchful eye), I skipped up after him, ready to put my plan into action. I found him in the linen closet.
“So you know what’s so great about this guy? Cameron?”
I leaned against the doorway, watching as he haphazardly threw things into two separate piles on the floor. He seemed to have a system, but there was no rhyme or reason to it.
“The fact that you’ve finally remembered his name?”
I ignored this.
“The fact that I actually want to see him again.” Not exactly true, but it would work for now. “He’s not like all the rest—I think there might actually be something there.”
Nick picked up a sweater, glanced between the piles uncertainly, and ended up simply throwing it in the trash. I fished it out calmly, and he glanced up for the first time.
“Really.” He didn’t even phrase it as a question. “You named the guy after, who I’m only assuming is a fictitious brother, but you think this one’s got relationship potential.”
I nodded with wide, innocent eyes.
“There’s only one problem...he wants to double date.”
Nick paused a moment, then burst out laughing. A tuxedo vest fell from his hands as he turned to me with a rueful smile. “You’re really subtle today, you know that?”
I shrugged my shoulders helplessly, eyes as wide as saucers.
“It’s true! So what am I supposed to do here, Nick?” My self-righteous act dropped for a moment as a muscle flared in the back of my neck. Served me right for falling asleep in a hard-backed chair. “Should I just break it off? Walk away from my future happiness?”
Another spasm of pain, and I rolled my head from side to side, trying to stretch it out.
“What are you doing?” Nick asked curiously.
“Or maybe there’s another way,” I continued, kneading the base of my skull with my fingers. “Maybe I can find another couple to come with us. People I know. People I trust. People who owe me for a little incident involving a lobster.”
“Okay, come here.” He laughed, dropping his clothes and pulling me towards him. “This ploy is getting you nowhere, and you look like you’re having a fit or something.” Before I could stop him, he spun me around and starting working on my neck with a set of skilled hands.
My body stiffened up and words failed me, as all of a sudden, we were a lot closer than we usually were. Ironic, I know. Seeing as he’d fallen asleep on my shoulder just a night before.
But somehow...this wasn’t really the same.
“You can try to relax, you know,” he teased softly, fingers rubbing in gentle circles over my skin. “It kind of defies the point when you tense up.”
My cheeks flushed, and I was suddenly relieved we weren’t facing so he couldn’t see.
“Sorry, it’s just...” I tried to squirm away. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Nonsense.” He caught me by the shoulders and pulled me back, slapping away my hand when I tried to intervene. “Now I’m serious—relax.”
I tried. It wasn’t the easiest thing.
“Relax,” he commanded again, using that same authoritative tone.
A moment later, I didn’t have a choice.
A warm tingling sensation radiated out from my neck, shivering down the rest of my skin. Like there were little magical lights coming out of his hands. His body—much warmer than mine, and still only wearing a towel from his shower—hovered just an inch or two behind my back. I could feel the heat from it on my bare shoulders as he leaned in to press harder.
“Oh my gosh,” a little moan escaped my lips as my head fell forward, “how the hell are you doing this? Did you take a class or something I don’t know about?”
His fingers laced up through my hair and I could practically hear the smile.
“Anya.”
Of course. His flawless, visa-less, statuesque ‘Pilates’ instructor. The one who’d showed up out of nowhere on his doorstep—hailing from somewhere in Eastern Ukraine. Her accent was so thick, that for the life of me, I couldn’t understand what she was saying. But she and Nick had always found a way to see...eye to eye. A minute after meeting her, he put her on the payroll.
“Ah yes, Anya.” A little smile snaked up my face as his hands continued working. “Is this one of those Pilates moves you two have been working on? Taking the hands-on approach?”
“Practice makes perfect. I intend to be a Pilates master one day.”
I snorted. “I’m sure you do.”
We didn’t talk for a while, simply stood there in silence as his skillful hands effectively erased all the tension from my fretful neck. An occasional shiver would rocket down my spine whenever he leaned in too close, but other than that, it was remarkably soothing.
But no matter how skilled his magical fingers might be...there was some tension they couldn’t coax away.
“Nick...we really do have to talk about what your dad said.”
Still standing behind me, I felt him sigh. His voice tightened with a hint of frustration, but his hands never lost their rhythm.
“We really don’t.”
“It’s just...he has a good point.” I stepped free of his hands and turned around to face him. In the close confines of the linen closet, we were both remarkably close. Close enough that I could see every dot of water still clinging to his lashes from the shower. Every cloud of steam that rose off his bare chest. “There’s a lot riding on this merger for the company.”
His eyes narrowed, but I knew him well enough by now, to know that none of the anger was directed at me. It was rarely, if ever, directed at me.
“And why should my social life have anything to do with my father’s company?”
It was a naïve question. One that both of us knew he didn’t really mean.
To start, it wasn’t his father’s company—it was the family’s company. Meaning that one day, like it or not, it was going to be his.
On that note—image and perception were everything. Nick had grown up in the spotlight long enough to have learned that lesson better than anyone. Long enough to see the wisdom in what his father was saying now.
Of course, that didn’t mean he had to like it.
“How are you not on my side with this?” he demanded quietly. “A fake relationship? He really wants to bank his big merger on me having a fake relationship with some random—”
“I’ve snuck you into palaces pretending to be a foreign prince. Last summer, you claimed to have ‘unique diving experience’ just so an insurance company would let you explore those underwater caves. You once snuck into a royal polo match under the guise of being the Duke of Sorbinshire—which I swear, Nick—I think is a completely made-up place.”
“...you wouldn’t be wrong.”
“The point is, this isn’t about the truth of the matter. You’ve played so many parts in the past, I know for a fact this doesn’t bother you now.” I hesitated, knowing I was approaching a line that even I was not permitted to cross. “This is about your father.”
His eyes flashed, and another chill ran down my spine. One that felt entirely different from the warm, tingly ones that had done so before.
“Listen to me very closely Abigail, you may have worked for my family a few years now, and for families like mine before. But that does not mean, even for a moment, that you have any idea what it’s like to be a part of one.”
I flinched back, stung by every wo
rd. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d called me Abigail. But he wasn’t finished yet.
“This part of my life—this one part—should have nothing do to with my father, or his company, or his damn board of directors. This one part should belong to me.”
A chilling silence rang out between us. One that was broken only by the sounds of Louise bustling around in the kitchen, putting our old dishes away.
But as moving a speech as it was, as much as I believed he wanted to mean it, as much as the words cut to my core...I was Abigail fucking Wilder.
“That’s bullshit.”
His eyebrows lifted dangerously, and he opened his mouth to speak, but I beat him to the punch. His turn to lecture me had passed. It was my turn now.
“We’re talking about you fucking a beautiful girl for the next four months, and letting the press take pictures of you eating breakfast together afterwards. Face it, Nick, it’s probably exactly what you would have been doing anyway. The only difference now is, one: you’re going to have to hide the rest of the girls you’re fucking at the same time; and two: your father is actually going to approve.”
Despite the massive height difference between us, I pulled myself up as tall as I could.
“And let’s be honest here, you’re not worried about trying to secretly balance your different women—you’ve had more practice than anyone I’ve ever seen. What’s really going on here is that you don’t want your father to approve—even if you know it’s the right thing to do.”
This was why I was at the top of the PR game. This was why his family had hired me.
“But like it or not, this company is about more than just you, Nick. There are thousands of people working in dozens of different countries all around the world who rely upon the Hunter Corporation to make their living. You’re looking at one of them now. It may be all fine and good for you if this merger goes up in smoke—but it won’t be that way for the rest of us.”
My voice rose in volume as I stretched on the tips of my toes.
“So why don’t you get over yourself, pull it together, and use that insatiable libido of yours to do something good for a change!”