She Played His Perfect Girlfriend, He Couldn't Let Her Go novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Luckiest Girl in the City
At the Harbor Ball Cain pulls out Mara's chair and silences a rival on her behalf, then ends their contract in the car and Mara thanks him with a smile; his driver texts that he's been sitting in the garage for an hour.
Cain Rourke pulled out my chair at the Harbor Ball, and every table within thirty feet stopped talking to watch him do it.
I sat. He slid the chair in and left one hand on my shoulder a moment longer than necessary.
"There you go, Mara," he said, in the voice he uses when people are listening.
Across from me, the harbor commissioner's wife pressed her pearls against her collarbone.
"You are the luckiest girl in Baltimore," she said.
"I know," I said. "I think about it every day."
That is true. I think about it every day.
I am paid fifteen thousand dollars a month to be the devoted girlfriend of the scariest man in the city.
It is a good job, and I am very good at it.
The man beside the commissioner's wife leaned in with his glass.
"I heard he made the steakhouse on Pratt Street repaint its dining room because you said it felt sad."
"It was beige," I said. "It was a mercy."
Cain's thumb moved once on my shoulder. Nobody else could have seen it. Nobody ever does.
Then a young man in a rented tuxedo came over with the mayor's aide to be introduced.
He shook Cain's hand and forgot his own name.
"Easy," Cain said. "Take your time."
"Thank you, sir," the young man said. "I'm so sorry, sir. Thank you."
He backed away, still holding his own hand out in front of him.
The waiter arrived with the dessert plates and set mine down with a little bow.
Lemon pound cake. Two slices, with a sprig of mint.
"Your favorite," Cain said, loud enough for the table.
Everyone sighed.
I do not like lemon pound cake.
Clause three of my contract says I eat what is served.
So I picked up my fork and ate it, smiling the whole time.
Frank Dolan leaned across the table.
He runs the Dolan docks and has never forgiven Cain for Pier 9.
"Mara, I was telling the commissioner that when my girl got married, I..."
He kept talking. I had been in the middle of a sentence about the centerpieces.
"Frank," Cain said.
He didn't raise his voice. He never does.
"She's talking."
The table went quiet. Dolan's neck turned pink above his collar.
"Of course," Dolan said. "Sorry, Mara. Please. Go on."
"I was only saying I love the centerpieces," I said.
"They're the best I've seen," said the commissioner's wife, who had not seen any others.
Cain's hand came up to the small of my back, warm through the green silk.
That was when his hand stopped.
I felt it stop. He was looking past my shoulder at the ballroom doors, where a woman in a dark red dress stood with her coat still on her arm.
She had auburn hair and a face that went very still when it found his.
His hand lifted off my back.
In fourteen months of public events, it had never done that.
I turned my head and looked at the woman, then back at him.
"Cain?" I said, sweetly, for the table.
"Excuse me," he said. "Mara. We're leaving."
Gus held the car door for me, and I climbed into the back seat.
The door shut. The partition was already up, which meant Gus couldn't hear us and the show was over.
His old black umbrella lay on the floor of the car, one rib bent. He has refused to replace it for as long as I have known him.
Cain pulled a folder from the seat pocket. He didn't look at me.
"Ms. Bell."
"Mr. Rourke."
"Lydia Shaw is back in the city. You'll have noticed her."
"The red dress," I said. "She looks lovely."
"I'm giving you notice under clause twelve. Thirty days." He held out the folder. "Six months' pay as severance. That's ninety thousand dollars."
I took it. It was heavier than a folder should be.
"I'd like the arrangement to end quietly," he said. "No scene. No announcement."
"Okay," I said.
He turned his head then.
"Okay?"
"Okay! Congratulations, I think. Thank you. That's very generous."
I meant it. I opened my bag and took out the little notebook where I write down everything that isn't in the contract.
I wrote: Ninety thousand. Paid in full. Then, underneath: Lemon pound cake. Fourteen months. Owed.
"What is that?" Cain said.
"It's not in the contract," I said.
He looked at the page. He looked at me.
"You're not going to ask why."
"Is it in the contract?"
"No."
"Then it's none of my business."
His jaw moved. I had been watching that jaw for fourteen months and I couldn't read it.
"That's it?" he said.
"You've been a very good boss," I said. "Thank you for all of it."
He said nothing.
Gus pulled up to my building in Highlandtown, and I got out without waiting for the door.
I climbed the steps and let myself in.
I took my shoes off in the dark hallway.
My sister June was on a hospital night shift, so I ate cereal over the sink in my evening gown.
An hour later my phone buzzed on the counter.
It was Gus.
He's been sitting in the garage for an hour. Not that it's in the contract.
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