The Plus One

Chapter 1

Eve Morrison’s normally pristine bedroom was an absolute disaster, but she was too stressed to care as she wandered out of her closet with a sleek emerald green cocktail dress. It was among her favorites, with a daring neckline that was just a touch inappropriate and a hemline to match, and she pursed her lips as she looked from the dress to her half-full suitcase. It was a great dress, and she knew she wore the absolute shit out of it, but was it the right dress for the occasion?

She swore under her breath as her ringing phone snapped her from her thoughts, and she tossed the dress toward her suitcase as she scrambled to answer. “Sorry. I’m almost ready,” she lied. She needed at least another twenty minutes. “I just—”

“Eve,” her best friend Michael Collier interrupted her. He sounded stressed as he added in a rush, “I’m stuck at the hospital.”

Eve’s stomach dropped. “I’m sorry, what?!”

“I know,” he said regretfully. “But three more attendings have come down with COVID, and I gotta stay to cover.”

“Oh, for fuck’s…” Eve dragged a hand through her long, strawberry blonde hair as she spun to watch the flurries falling beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows of her SoHo penthouse. The flakes blurred for a moment behind her pale reflection, the fragile fractals lost to the worry that pinched and dulled her normally bright blue eyes. Michael being her plus-one had been literally the only thing that made the idea of the next five days even remotely bearable. She wasn’t a fan of big holiday galas to begin with—December was hectic enough without a multi-day affair that required serious travel to and from the event—and when she added in the fact that this one meant she’d have to play nice with Nolan- fucking -McCarthy, her father’s protégée who’d left her six months ago for a freshly-minted Yale associate, this one was going to be especially horrific. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“I wish I was. But it’ll be fine. I’ve lined up a replacement.”

The furrow in Eve’s brow deepened as she echoed, “A replacement?”

“Yeah. My cousin Aspen has a heli-tour company there,” Michael said, his words running into each other.

Eve snorted. “You seriously have a cousin named Aspen who owns a helicopter tour company in Aspen?”

“My Aunt Fern decided to run with the botany theme. That’s irrelevant. What’s important is—” He groaned as, in the background, a professionally panicked nurse announced a code blue over the intercom. “Look. Aspen will meet you at the airport and fill in for me for everything. You’ll be in good hands, I promise. Aspen can rock the fuck out of a suit and knows how to handle shit like this better than I do.”

Eve arched a brow. That was a high bar to clear. Michael glad-handed so well that her father, an accomplished lawyer with decades spent in DC, had even complimented him on his skills after he’d watched him masterfully handle the notoriously difficult US Ambassador to the UK, Phyllis Sloan.

“But I gotta—”

“It’s fine,” Eve cut him off. And then, in a softer tone, said, “I understand. Go be a hero.”

“I’ll make it up to you when you get back!” Michael promised as he disconnected, no doubt already sprinting toward whatever emergency had prompted the code.

Eve blew out a long, heavy breath as she turned back to her suitcase. “Well, fuck.” She resisted the urge to hurl her phone across the room and settled for tossing it onto the bed, instead. Part of her was tempted to lay low and just not make the trip, but she knew that wasn’t really a possibility. She might have avoided joining the family ‘business’ by venturing out on her own, but certain expectations around it still ruled her life. And, like it or not, her parents’ holiday gala fell under the category of ‘all hands on deck, whether you like it or not’. Her gaze settled on the dress hanging half-in, half-out of the suitcase, and she sighed as she turned back to her closet.

One dress was a good start, but she needed four nights’ worth. And she had exactly fifteen minutes to leave for the airport before she was all but guaranteed to miss her flight.

“This is going to be a disaster.”