Heartbreak Brings Mr. Right novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Date for Hire

Hollister offers to forgive her if the engagement party goes ahead. Thora smiles, says yes, and books a man to wreck it. The agent says he will meet her in a garage at midnight.

Hollister was waiting for me in the breakfast room, with the photograph printed out and propped against the toast rack.

He had showered and changed, and he wore the face of a man who had been wronged.

Sherilyn sat beside him with her hand on his sleeve.

She had always been quick at claiming the seat next to a victim.

"Explain it," Hollister said. "Please. I'd love to hear how it looks different in person."

My head still felt packed with wool, and the taste of plums hung at the back of my tongue.

I had two choices, and I could see them both as clearly as cards on a table.

I could say I had been drugged, and they would deny it.

They would also learn I suspected, and by tonight my phone would be in a river.

Or I could let them think they had won.

"I don't remember much," I said, and let my voice shake. "I'm so sorry."

Sherilyn's eyes brightened for a second, and she covered it with a sigh.

"Oh, Thora. Oh, darling."

"Eight months," Hollister said. "I put a ring on your hand, and you were in a hotel with a stranger."

He had been in my father's study twelve hours earlier with his mouth on my stepmother's throat.

"I don't know what I was thinking," I said.

"You weren't," he said. "That's the problem with you."

He let that settle, and then he did something that I would have admired if it were not aimed at me.

He sighed, took my left hand, and turned my ring on my finger.

"I'm hurt," he said. "I'm angrier than I've ever been. But I love you, and I'm going to be the bigger person."

"That's very generous," I said.

"The party goes ahead a week from Saturday," he said. "Everyone comes, the photographer comes, and we smile. Nobody ever hears about this."

Sherilyn squeezed his arm.

"And as a gesture of good faith," she said, so gently, "your father will want to give you both something. Hollister's lawyer has drawn up a little paper. Your father's voting shares, as a wedding gift."

She waited for me to flinch.

I was thinking about nine seconds of video in the bottom of my bag.

"Of course," I said. "Whatever Dad wants."

Hollister kissed my forehead.

His lips were dry and pleased.

"That's my girl."

I went upstairs, locked my bedroom door and sat down on the floor with my back against the bed.

Then I let myself shake for a few minutes with my head on my knees.

After that I stopped, wiped my face and opened my laptop.

I could take the video to the police.

Nine seconds of two adults kissing, and a word about shares.

Sherilyn would call it a joke, and my father would be dragged into it while he lay in a hospital bed with a weak heart.

I needed it to stop in front of people who counted, on the one night every person who mattered would be standing in the same room.

I needed Hollister to be humiliated at his own engagement party.

And I knew exactly one thing he was afraid of, which was being laughed at.

I sat on the bedroom floor and searched for what I needed.

Most of the results were nonsense, and one was a plain grey website called Plus One Private.

The tagline read, "Discreet companions for any occasion."

I clicked on it before I could talk myself out of it.

A woman's voice answered the phone on the second ring.

"Plus One, how can I help you?"

"I need a man for a Saturday evening," I said. "For a party."

"Date, dinner or event?"

"An engagement party. Mine."

The line went quiet.

"Ah," she said. "And the groom?"

"The groom is the problem."

She laughed, a short real laugh, and I decided I liked her.

"What kind of man do you want?"

I thought about it.

"Someone who can walk into a room full of rich people and look like he owns it," I said. "Someone who won't blink if I put my hand on his chest in front of my fiance."

"Let me check who's free." Keys clicked in the background. "I've got one who's had a cancellation. Very good. Calm. He hasn't taken a booking in a while, but he asked for this one."

"He asked for it? Why?"

"He says he likes a challenge," she said. "I'll be honest, he's a little unusual. He doesn't take cash and he doesn't give his surname, and he only meets clients at night."

"Does he have a name?"

"Not one he's told me."

That should have scared me.

It would have scared me a week earlier, but I had been drugged and photographed in a stranger's shirt and told to forgive a man who was sleeping with my stepmother.

A man without a name sounded restful.

"What do I pay?" I asked.

"We'll settle that with him. He wants to meet first." She read me an address. "The parking garage on Fifth, level three, at midnight tonight. Come alone, and park under the blue light."

I wrote it on my palm with an eyeliner pencil.

"Is he safe?"

"He's the best-behaved man on my books," she said. "That's the only reason I'm saying yes."

I hung up and stared at my hand.

It was Friday, and the party was eight days away.

By midnight I would have a man to hire and no idea what his face looked like.

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