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Chapter One
CAL
“The growth potential for this company is at least 20 percent year over year for the next five years if managed right, but the current management is a mess and?—”
“Make the offer then, Trident,” I interrupt my second in command.
“Just like that? You don’t want to see the P&L statements?”
I had pulled the public profit and loss reports when Trident first mentioned the company over lunch a couple months ago, but I liked that he was taking the initiative here. “I trust you. Make the offer.”
“Of course you do, because I’m brilliant. You’re welcome.” Trident hangs up, but I swear I hear his scream of pleasure even though he’s a mile uptown.
I check to see if my aunt has called. She’s late, which is expected, but usually she will call or text with some excuse about her hair dryer blowing up or her stockings having a run. She doesn’t do her own hair, and I don’t really know the state of her stocking drawer, but I suspect she has a few thousand. Our family is never short on money. I’ve been ducking her for a good month or I’d get up and leave. She wants to marry me off and has a new victim in mind. I call them victims because I’m not interested in marrying, and definitely none of these pallid society girls she parades in front of me with their art or music degrees which they have no interest in. Those were just topics that they took because their families told them that it was appropriate, not because they loved art or music. It was a ladylike, appropriate skill for a girl who would marry into a rich family and take care of the home and have little clones that would grow up to do the very same thing they’re doing.
In sum, boring. Tiresome. Unattractive. I run a hand through my hair. It’s getting long. I should get it cut. It’s another thing Aunt Gia will scold me about. I eye the door and contemplate leaving. It’s been ten minutes, surely?—
A shaft of light walks in. A shaft of light disguised as a girl no taller than my shoulders with pitch-black hair and sun-kissed skin. Curvy, very curvy in all the right places. She looks built to mold perfectly against my body with wide hips, a full chest, and a soft, round stomach. Delicious. I know what I want for lunch. I settle back into the padded chair. An earthquake couldn’t move me from my spot.
Her gaze scans the crowd, looking for someone. I turn and inspect the diners too, trying to pinpoint which man I’m going to have to beat up, ruin, or otherwise dispose of so I can have her. There’s one table with a lone man whose head is bent so far over his coffee cup the tip of his blue tie is about to get soaked. She pauses at his table and then keeps moving. When she looks my way, I catch her eyes and tilt my head in a welcoming fashion. A small, nervous smile touches her lips. She starts in my direction.
Without looking down, I text Trident:
Call Aunt G and tell her I had an emergency meeting. I’ll meet her for dinner instead. Pick up a gift for her. Something expensive.
The girl slides into the empty chair across from mine. Two seconds later, a waiter appears and fills her glass with Perrier.
“Hi.” Her voice doesn’t shake, but she’s nervous.
“Hello.”
She licks her lips. I bite back a groan. “I’m Harlow. I guess you already know that.” She points to the yellow plastic flower pin on her prim black suit coat that looks like it was bought at a dollar store. If I looked under the table, her shoes would be scuffed at the toe, and maybe her heels would have one or two scratches. She might’ve colored them in with black marker. I’ll buy her a dozen new pairs of shoes with the red bottoms and real tweed jackets with the weighted chains hand sewn in them. “You’re wearing the blue tie.” She points to her chest.
I’d forgotten. “Yes, the blue tie.” Just like the man staring at his phone three tables over that she passed by. I need to donate to a church or something to thank whatever deity guided my hand.
“Rick, right?”
“Calix,” I correct without thinking. “But friends call me Cal.”
“Oh? But in our messages you said you were Rick.”
“I never use my real name online,” I answer. This must be a blind date. Her last one and my first. How fortuitous.
“I see. That makes sense. You can’t be too careful.”
She rummages in her purse and then draws out a wad of papers, folded in thirds. “I brought the contract.”
“Yes.” My mind races frantically to guess what the contract is about. A blind date wouldn’t need a contract. Would it? I’ve never been on one before. Have spent my whole life actively avoiding them.
“I put down that you’re a writer.”
“That’s wrong.” If it’s a real contract, my identification will have to be real or it will be invalid. Whatever the contract is for, it’s important to her. This meeting is agonizing for her. Something is forcing her to be here.
“But that’s what you told me?—"
“I lied. About everything. Well, not everything. I do agree with this—” I tip my head toward the contract. “But my job, my name, all of that, I made it up. It’s the internet. I’m trying to be careful.”
She sits back and tries to take it all in, but in the end she’s desperate. “Beggars can’t be choosers. If you’re still in agreement, I’ll take you despite our—” She waves her hands.
