You've Got Male novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Service Corridor
Minutes after her wedding, Cassidy overhears her husband and his mother planning to drain her accounts, then hires a stranger in the hotel bar to be her date.
I had been married for ninety minutes when I learned my husband had married me to rob me.
I was in the service corridor behind the ballroom at the Palmetto Hotel, holding my shoes.
My feet hurt, and I had slipped out for ten minutes of quiet.
The band was playing something slow for the guests.
A hundred and eighty people were drinking my father's favorite bourbon in his memory.
Through a door that did not quite close, I heard my new mother-in-law laugh.
"Monday, nine o'clock," Francine said. "The bank opens, and the wires go out."
"The power of attorney is in the folder she signed?" Lyle asked.
That was my husband's voice.
I had heard it say "I do" an hour and a half earlier.
"Buried in the honeymoon authorization, between the dinner reservation and the spa form," Francine said. "She didn't read past the first page. They never do."
I stood very still.
The folder was real.
A woman from Lyle's office had handed it to me at the altar.
I had signed it with my father's pen.
"And the marina?" Lyle said.
"The deed comes second. Give her a month of being adored, and she will sign over the dock herself."
"A month is a long time to play the husband."
"You've done longer," his mother said.
I put my hand flat against the wall.
Lyle sighed.
"She keeps talking about a baby. Last night she cried over a baby name."
"Then stop her."
"I will. No baby, Mother. I am not doing a baby."
Something in my chest went quiet and cold.
I had asked him one thing before the wedding.
I had asked if he wanted children, and he had told me he wanted four.
I had picked out a name on a napkin in a restaurant, and he had smiled at it.
I did not cry in the corridor.
I want that written down.
I took out my phone and photographed the doorframe, the hallway, and the clock above it, so I would remember exactly where I stood.
Then I texted my money manager, who would not answer until Monday morning.
"Do not move anything. Do not take any calls from my husband. I will explain."
I put my shoes back on and walked into the ballroom.
Every head turned.
I smiled at them.
Lyle found me by the cake and took both my hands.
His were warm and dry.
"There you are, Mrs. Manigault," he said. "I was about to send out a search party."
"I needed some air."
"Dance with me."
I danced with him.
I let him spin me under the chandeliers.
I laughed in all the right places.
I memorized where his hand rested on my back.
When the song ended, I told him I needed to fix my hair.
I walked straight out of the ballroom and into the hotel bar.
It was nearly empty.
The bartender was drying glasses, and a single man sat at the far end with a club soda.
He wore a black tuxedo that fit him.
A small gold pin on the lapel read HARBOR LIGHTS.
I knew the name from the club.
Women there whispered about it.
It was an agency that rented out good company for dinners and galas.
I sat down two stools away and put my shoes on the bar.
"Rough night?" he said.
He had a low voice with a soft Lowcountry drawl.
His green eyes went to my wedding ring and politely away.
"I got married today," I said.
"Congratulations."
"Don't. What exactly do you do?"
"I show up," he said. "Dinners, weddings, any party where you need someone good at conversation."
"I wait for the evening to end, and I go home," he said. "That is the whole job. Nothing else is for sale."
"Are you available tonight?"
He looked at me for a long moment.
"My client cancelled an hour ago," he said. "I'm just finishing my drink."
"Then you're hired. Nine hundred dollars?"
"That's the rate."
I handed him my card, and he ran it on the little reader.
"What's the job?" he asked.
"My wedding reception is down the hall. Be my date."
He did not laugh.
That was the first thing I noticed about him.
"Whose wedding is it?" he asked.
"Mine."
"I mean, who did you marry?"
Before I could answer, the bar door swung open behind me.
"Cassidy," Lyle called, in his warm, easy voice. "There you are. Who is this?"
The man beside me stood up slowly.
He took my hand off the bar and kissed my temple.
"Her date," he said, to my husband's face.
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