Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
“If I turn up with a date…” I pause, pushing my fingers through my hair. “It means I haven’t found the one—haven’t met anyone as important as Caroline, since Caroline. I’m not prepared to see her in those circumstances.”
“Better that than you get found out as a man who has to hire someone to be his fiancée.”
I groan. He’s right. If anyone was to find out, it would be humiliating.
“Then I can’t go. I won’t accept the award,” I say. “Because there is no other solution.”
Silence echoes at the other end of the phone.
Fuck. Why did Caroline have to come back to town now? Why couldn’t she stay in California and run the business from there? I can hear her saying “darling!” like it was yesterday. She had this effected, condescending tone that I thought at first was sophisticated, but hindsight makes clear that it was just fucking rude. “Darling, of course I can’t actually marry you. You know we were never going to be a long-term thing. I’m a Hammond.”
It had taken a while for her words to sink in, to understand that I was just a ball of wool to her kitten—something to be toyed with. I was nothing to her.
“I’m just trying to protect you,” Worth says.
“I get it. But I want to go and accept this award. The fact that Hammonds is fucking sponsoring it makes me want to go more. I want to stand up there in front of the hotshots of a city where I used to deliver bread and look at everyone who wants to do business with me, wants a little piece of what I have, and have a chance to soak it all in.”
“You deserve that, my friend,” Worth says.
I swallow, ignoring the way my throat tightens.
“Maybe the answer is to double down,” he says. “Maybe you just need to go harder, rather than retreat.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but… maybe you need to get your engagement announcement in The New York Times. Go full throttle. Why would you risk doing that if it was fake?”
“Because I was losing my grip on reality? And it doesn’t solve the problem of a relative stranger knowing a powerful secret about me.”
He sighs. It’s still a problem.
“Do you know anyone in the UK? What about a friend of Efa’s or Eira’s? There’s a bit of distance there. Less chance of crossover. Less chance of anyone finding out the engagement’s not actually real.”
“I’ll bring it up tonight.”
It’s Monday, our regular meet-up night. I could get five opinions for the price of one.
“Look, I have a meeting starting in about two minutes.” I don’t tell him it’s with a potential fiancée, but even so, this meeting suddenly feels like the wrong thing to do.
I hang up and bellow at Jules to come in.
She sticks her head around the door. She’s only been working with me for a few months, but I’m impressed at how quickly she’s picked things up. She’s smart and resourceful and the plan she worked up for The Mayfair was impressive. If I didn’t need a good assistant so badly, I’d be tempted to try her out in place of Louis. But I don’t want to rock the boat. She’s right, Louis isn’t great at his job, but better the devil you know as far as I’m concerned.
“This woman you’ve lined up,” I say. “Where does she work?”
“Saks,” she says. “She has a boyfriend down in Florida, so you don’t even have to worry about her getting expectations or anything. She’s my roommate. She totally gets it.”
“I’m going to have to cancel. Or press pause at least. I’ve got a small-scale crisis at New River to worry about.”
She sighs like I’m an exasperating little brother and not her boss. I don’t know if she’s like this with everyone, but it appears she’s borderline annoyed with me at least half the time I’m interacting with her. Lucky for me it doesn’t seem to impact her job performance.
“What crisis?” she asks suspiciously.
“I’m dealing with it. Don’t worry about it.”
“So basically you’re rejecting her because she works at Saks. I’m officially out. I’m not finding you a fiancée. Find your own future wife.”
It’s like I’ve tripped a hidden switch. Sometimes, Jules can be the most helpful woman on the planet, dedicated to making my office the very best it can be. At other times, she’s completely inappropriate and, frankly, rude. She’s lucky she’s good at her job.
She storms out of the office and closes the door behind her. She’s probably frustrated at her wasted efforts trying to find me someone to take to the awards.
I turn back to my emails to find Louis, manager of The Mayfair, has messaged. Since Jules started, he’s always gone through her, so his correspondence is completely unexpected.