My Bride Chose Her Publicity Stunt novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Drive

Maura shows Wayne the license application filed twenty-three days ago and Lena's Tahiti honeymoon booking, and a log proving the press was tipped about him seventeen minutes after the pajama post; she still has a badge for tonight's launch.

Maura Flaherty was already in a back booth when I walked into the diner, with a laptop open and two black coffees on the table.

She had taken off the blazer.

Without it she looked less like a guard and more like a woman who hadn't slept.

"Sit," she said. "Don't touch anything until I say so."

I sat.

She slid one of the coffees across to me and pointed at the envelope under my arm.

"Give me the settlement."

I handed it over, and she read the first page in about four seconds.

"Fifty thousand," she said. "That's cheap."

"It's a lot of money."

"For you it's a lot. For her it's what she spends on the roses." Maura dropped the envelope in the empty seat beside her. "You don't sign that. Signing means you never say her name again."

"I wasn't going to sign it."

"I know," she said. "I watched you kick her roses into the gutter on the livestream."

I stared at her.

"My cousin sent me the clip," Maura said. "It's got six million views. You come off fine, by the way."

"Her clip has four million and says I'm a stalker."

"Her clip is cut to hide the clerk. Yours is uncut, and it shows you telling the truth." She tapped the laptop. "I'm going to show you a few things. Then you decide if you want to keep going."

She turned the screen to me.

The first page was a county form with two names in the top box.

*Lena Montague. Brandon Pendleton.*

The date in the corner was twenty-three days ago.

"Application for the license," Maura said. "Lena's lawyer filed it. I drove her to the lawyer's office myself."

"Twenty-three days."

"Three days after she picked out your suit."

I looked at the date for a long time.

Then she clicked again.

A booking confirmation filled the screen. Two seats, first class, Los Angeles to Papeete.

*Passengers: Montague, Lena. Pendleton, Brandon.*

"Tahiti," Maura said. "They leave five days from now. She's calling it a working trip."

"A honeymoon," I said.

"A honeymoon."

A waitress came and refilled our cups, and I realized my hand was shaking so hard that coffee jumped over the rim.

Maura reached across the table and held my wrist flat against the table until it stopped.

Her hand was warm and rough and very steady.

She let go and went back to the keyboard like she hadn't done it.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked.

"Doing what?"

"You work for her. You've worked for her for four years. You could have just watched me go."

"I got fired at six this morning," Maura said. "Lena's lawyer called me. She said I'd put something in your pocket, and she'd seen it on the lobby camera."

"Did she tell you to stay quiet?"

"She reminded me of the agreement I signed." Maura looked at her coffee. "So I can't tell you everything. I can show you schedules and logs, and I can drive you places, but I can't tell you what's in my head."

"That's a strange rule."

"It's a lawyer's rule." She pulled a small black drive out of her jacket and set it by my cup. "This is every event Lena's team ever staged with Brandon. Seven years. Times, locations, who posted what and when."

I picked the drive up.

It was lighter than I expected.

"The night the photographers caught you walking into her house," Maura said. "The matching pajama photos went up at 10:14 p.m."

"Right."

"The photographers showed up at 10:31."

I looked up.

"The photos were posted seventeen minutes before anyone saw you," Maura said. "Somebody told the press you'd be at that gate, and somebody wrote the pajama post first."

"Why would she tip off the photographers about me?"

"I don't know," Maura said, in a very even voice. "I only logged it."

I leaned back against the booth.

Seven years of her telling me the stand-in was what kept me safe.

Seven years of her crying in the car after, saying how sorry she was that we couldn't be seen.

Maura watched me do the math and didn't say a word.

"That could be a mistake," I said. "Somebody's clock could be wrong."

"Could be."

"But you don't think so."

"I think a person who gets fired at six a.m. should stop guessing," Maura said, "and show you the next thing instead."

She closed the laptop.

"Tonight is Meridian's album launch. Lena's singing three songs live, and the whole thing is streamed on every platform. Eight hundred people, a red carpet, a stage."

"I'm not allowed within five hundred feet of her."

"I know."

She reached into her jacket again and set a staff badge on the table with her photo on it.

*N. FLAHERTY, SECURITY. EVENT ACCESS.*

"They fired me," Maura said. "They didn't take my badge."

"They will by tonight."

"Not before I use it."

I looked at the badge, then at the drive in my hand.

Six million people had watched me stand in a lobby and say my name.

A thousand roses, and they had still laughed at me.

"Tell me what to wear," I said.

Maura almost smiled.

"Not the gray suit," she said. "Everyone has already seen that one."

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