Chapter 3
3
I am not my father.
I am not my father.
I am not my father.
I repeat the mantra every time I step into my office at Maddox Enterprises and take a seat in what used to be my father’s chair.
The look of the place is very old school, like I’ve just time-warped into a 1960s New York gentleman’s club. The office is huge and the expansive windows showcase views of both the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. Symbols, my father used to say, of the kind of power we strive for.
My assistant Esther encourages me on a daily basis to have the place redecorated, but I want the reminder of the legacy this company was built on. I need it. Because if it’s not in my face every fucking day, I might just walk out on a whim and go live a completely different life.
Inheriting a company from your tyrannical mogul of a father is one thing. Inheriting an entire empire that was founded by your great grandfather and then being expected to continue to make the family name proud every day of your life—according to their terms and only their terms—is another thing altogether.
All those voices in my head are dead and gone. But still I’m anchored here. Or chained. Some days it’s hard to tell.
There have always been heavy expectations on me, as the oldest son and heir to the throne as CEO. My father started training me on how to run the company on my seventh birthday. I remember it clearly. He brought me to this very office to sit in this very chair. He told me that, one day, all this would be mine. I was expected to act like the Maddox I was “and not fuck anything up.”
My brothers and I agreed a long time ago that we aren’t and never will be clones of our father. We would have all gone mad by now if we were.
The three of them have managed to remove themselves from under the heaviest of his burdens. For me, it was never going to be that easy.
Our father was a very successful man, but it came at a cost. He was more interested in making money than he was in nurturing any of the relationships in his life, even with his own children.
I respected my father. I still respect him. I recognize his genius. I look like him and I have his name. But I can’t honestly say that I loved him.
And I’ve never aspired to his style of doing business. I prefer not to raze everyone’s self-esteem to the ground in the process of making a buck.
But as much as I might hope that I’m not like my father, I sometimes feel like assholery is baked into my DNA.
Trying like hell not to turn into him while still growing the company at a respectable rate takes a lot of effort. Some days the legacy I’m mired in feels like a pressure cooker. I often think about throwing in the towel, leaving it for someone else to manage and skipping the country to go live anonymously on some secluded beach in the South Pacific.
Sure, this life has its rewards. I have more money than I could ever spend and so will my children. If there are children. I’m about to turn thirty and I can genuinely say I’ve never met anyone I would even consider having children with. Which makes me wonder if it’ll ever happen for me.
Maybe the whole assholery angle means I’m not made for the kind of relationships that would give me a family. Maybe I’m too much like him. Maybe I hate that part of myself so much that I end up self-sabotaging my love life. Who knows.
It’s a very depressing thought.
Which isn’t going to get any less depressing this weekend, I’m reminded by the pink note attached to a certain envelope that’s staring up at me from my great grandfather’s gigantic mahogany desk.
Esther put it there. The wedding invitation from Blake.
It came in the mail over a week ago. I’ve been avoiding it.
Esther has reshuffled my desk so the invitation is front and center. She’s scrawled on the pink note, READ AND REPLY TO THIS REGARDING YOUR PLUS ONE AND YOUR MENU OPTION ASAP!! Leah has called twice! So I can’t pretend I haven’t seen it.
Damn my very capable assistant and her determination to not let me go AWOL.
I tried to get out of the wedding when Blake first called me. Not because he’s not a good friend. He is. We met back at Harvard Business School and we’ve stayed in touch ever since.
He called me a while back and asked if I’d be his best man. I told him I was busy but he railroaded me into it and I finally relented.
As a general rule, I try to avoid obligatory formal social occasions. I live my life in a suit. Wearing a tux on the weekend is hardly my idea of a good time.
I also found out—after I’d already agreed to be in the wedding—that Margot Russo is the wedding planner.
I hate weddings on the best of days. I hate weddings planned by Margot with a feral fucking passion.
Margot happens to be one of the most sought-after wedding planners in New York. She’s also my ex. She’s also batshit crazy.
I have no idea why I “dated” her for almost six weeks. I’m usually more of a one-night stand kind of guy. It was almost more of a case of trying to placate a lunatic than it was about wanting to spend time with her.
I tried to feel something. I tried to make an effort, because it’s what people do. They date. They have relationships. They think about settling down when they’re staring down the barrel of turning thirty.
We met at one of Leah’s dinners, around nine or ten months ago. She asked for my number and I gave it to her. We had things in common. We understood each other’s grueling schedules.
The problem was, I never felt anything. No attachment. No excitement. No passion.
Nada. Zero. Zilch.
For me, the whole thing was tedious as fuck.
For her, it was a dream come true.
I waited for something—anyfuckingthing—to kick in. I expected my feelings would grow over time, if I just stuck with it for a while and gave it a chance to evolve. In the end I got tired of forcing something that just couldn’t be forced.
Her life revolves around making people believe that the only way to guarantee a happily ever after is by spending obscene amounts of money on floral arrangements and coordinated table linens. And of course, diamonds.
Everything about her is wired to show off. The restaurants she wanted me to take her to had to be trending. The jewelry she wanted me to buy her was worn by celebrities on their social media.
If we could have approached our relationship from a place of let’s-talk-about-how-we-both-feel instead of you’ve-wronged-me-on-a-million-levels-you-unfeeling-asshole, maybe we would have had a chance. As it was, everything I did offended her.
She started dropping hints about marriage. She half-joked she’d booked us into some ultra-exclusive hotel for our wedding, claiming there’d been a last-minute cancellation. I dodged the topic until I got an email from the event coordinator congratulating us on our engagement and asking when we were free to come in to discuss details.
I broke it off the next day.
Margot did not take the break-up well. To put it mildly. She cried for five minutes and she’s been screaming ever since, about how heartless I am, how I’m cold and indifferent and completely incapable of love.
Which, unfortunately, is all true.
She obsessively begged me to take her back, showing up at places she’d heard through the grapevine I might be. Calling. Generally acting unhinged and borderline psycho. Until I blocked her number and gave strict instructions to the doormen both in my apartment building and at work that she’s no longer welcome.
She knows I’m still single, which is part of her problem. She insisted in one of her notes, I’m better than nothing!!
Actually, no.
I suggested to Blake that he consider hiring a different wedding planner, but apparently his fiancée Leah’s mind was made up.
This wedding will be a test of my patience, at the very least. More likely it’ll be two days of pure hell. I’m expected not only to attend the wedding on Saturday, but also be at both the rehearsal dinner on Friday night and the send-off on Sunday morning.
It’s going to be a very long weekend.
As if confronting Margot wasn’t bad enough, she isn’t the only woman from my past who will be at this wedding.
Blake is a hedge fund manager and Leah is an interior designer who’s constantly trying to set me up with her very large circle of friends. They throw a lot of parties and events, inviting select members of the cream of the Manhattan glitterati crop, which they insist I’m part of.
Leah happens to thrive on match-making and she puts a lot of thought into her guest lists, hoping to entice me. She loves to joke about the Forbes article that named me and my brothers as “Manhattan’s hottest and most eligible bachelors.”
Occasionally I’ve gone with it.
Very rarely, I let my workaholic guard down and I surrender to my animal urges. I’m only human, after all. I’m not a fucking monk. But I have very strict rules. I provide the condoms to make sure they haven’t been tampered with. I tell the girls I’m unlikely to call them again and I always leave before morning.
See? Assholery is baked in. I know I’m an asshole and I’ve accepted that.
Blake’s wedding will be a minefield of women I’ve briefly hooked up with then never called again, eyeballing me coldly and/or trying their luck a second time, and new ones lining up. Women with visions of houses by the water in Connecticut and two point five kids who are probably already on the waiting lists of every exclusive daycare/prep school/college, even though they haven’t even been conceived yet.
It is what it is. Despite the asshole detail, women fucking love me.
In me they see their wildest dreams.
I have blue eyes and black hair. I’m six three and I work out a lot to relieve the sexual frustration that goes along with never really clicking with a single person I meet. So there’s that.
But most of all, they’re already practically in love with me for my name and—you guessed it—my money. Because of this, I have to be careful. I’m not joking when I say they try to get their hooks into me any way they can. If I give them an inch, they’ll take a country mile. Especially the heiresses and socialites, whose daddies expect them to marry up. Most of these girls have been around the block a few times and are starting to get desperate.
They all have dollar signs in their eyes and plastic pumped into their faces.
Maybe I should be grateful I’m in demand. But all I can think about is how shallow it all feels.
And how fucking lonely I am.
I’ve never, not even once, felt that magical spark you read about. The one where you just know. Like the connection is meant to be.
It’s hard to imagine.
I pull the card out of the unsealed envelope and read it. There’s a menu to choose from. And a space for a “Plus One.” Leah’s written, I can provide one if you want!!
It would make things a hell of a lot easier if I had a plus one, come to think of it. The problem is, I don’t. And I definitely don’t want Leah choosing one for me.
As I sit at my desk, thinking once again about that secluded beach on the other side of the planet, my phone rings.
“Hey, Noah.”
“Dude, don’t tell me you forgot we have a meeting here at IE. You’ve got fifteen minutes.”
“I had to come by my office first to deal with some paperwork.” I glance at my Rolex.
“Colton and I need big brotherly advice about something. Cash took the week off.”
“The whole week?” I’ve never known Cash to take even a day off in his life. Until he met Dusty, that is. I never thought I’d see the day that Cash the Cynic would fall in love, but the boy is whipped like nothing I’ve ever seen.
“Now that IE is free and clear of the SEC’s watchdogs, he decided to take Dusty back to Hawaii,” Noah tells me.
I shake my head. “I always thought you were the romantic in the family.”
Things have finally quieted down for my brothers at their company, Invested Enterprises. One of their employees was suspected of insider trading and it caused some major headaches for them, but the problem has blown over. I’m a shareholder in the company, so I sit in on the occasional meeting with them.
Noah’s a genius at what he does, but he also has a few blind spots. Of all of us, he’s the one who managed to dodge the asshole gene almost entirely. It’s because of this that he occasionally lets his empathy get the better of him, which is never ideal in business. So he calls on me now and then.
“Turns out I’m just as cynical as the rest of you.” There’s a note of gloom in his reply. Noah is—or was, until Cash fell—the only one of us who actually believes in the concept of true love. But he’s having trouble finding it.
“I doubt that. I’ll see you in fifteen.”
We end the call and I get up to grab my jacket as I leave.
“Did you see my note?” Esther asks as I walk past her desk.
“It was pink, in the middle of my desk and written in underlined capital letters. No, I didn’t miss it, Esther. I filled it out and you may now call Leah with the information.”
“Would you like me to book a commuter flight for next Friday? Or will you be taking the Gulfstream? Or the helicopter?”
“I’ll take the helicopter. Tell Marco to have it ready to leave at five p.m. on Friday.”
“And the plus one? If you’re bringing someone and they’ve got dietary restrictions?—”
“No plus one, Esther,” I say gruffly.
“Understood.”
“Thank you,” I add and she smiles, which helps me feel like less of a prick for snapping at her.
I’m not a total monster. I don’t make any unreasonable demands on her time and I make sure she gets a ludicrously generous bonus every year for putting up with my moods.
She’s obviously made of tough stuff. I inherited her when I took over as CEO, and she’s told me on at least two separate occasions that working for me is a cakewalk compared to working for my father.
By the time I get to Invested Enterprises, it’s a little after ten.
Noah’s assistant Cleo announces my arrival. Noah’s already waiting for me in one of their meeting rooms. He looks up when I walk in.
“Hey. You made it.” Noah’s tie is loosened, his hair slightly longer than it was last time I saw him. If I had to describe Noah’s style, it might be biker romantic meets hot-shot CFO. He’s hard to categorize.
He’s also the best person I know.
Noah manages to weave all of his broad, 6’3’’ frame around New York City on a Ducati and takes any opportunity he can to mock me for being driven around in a limo.
“Help yourself to brunch, if you’re hungry.” Noah gestures to the side table, which is overflowing with fruit, donuts and deli sandwiches. “Cleo got a little carried away.”
Colton walks in, grabbing a donut. “Hey, bro.” He slaps me on the back. Colton is the youngest of the four of us and acts like it. He’s the COO here at IE and, as the most social of all of us, is good at managing people. I think by now he’s slept with half of New York City—and has had the time of his life doing it. Unlike the rest of us, he never takes anything very seriously. “How’s it hanging?”
“It’s hanging just fine, thanks for asking. It looks like you guys have recovered from the almost-meltdown of IE.”
Noah takes a seat. “Yeah, it turns out the publicity actually did us some good in the end. We’ve grown more in the past month than in the six months before the incident.”
“That’s what happens when the three of you pose for the press like you’re in a goddamn boyband.”
Colton laughs. “It’s not our fault the camera loves us. Especially me.”
This almost makes me smile. Which is a mean feat these days. “As long as it translates into good business, go for it.”
“It does,” Noah says. “Share prices have sky-rocketed. Things are going well.”
I pull out a chair and sit. “So, what do you need my help with?”
If I know my brothers—and I do—they almost look guilty. “We may have called you here for a slightly different reason than I mentioned,” Noah admits.
“What reason?”
Colton takes a bite of his donut, grinning at me.
Noah pours me a cup of coffee, placing it in on the table. “It’s been too long since you emerged out of Dad’s office into broad daylight, bro. You’re working too hard.”
At first I assume this is some kind of joke. “Sure.”
“We thought you’d turned into a vampire,” Colton says. “We’ve hardly seen you in months.”
I glare at them both. “Wait. You called me over here to…check on me?”
Colton nods, stuffing the rest of his donut into his mouth.
My brothers are good at many things, but talking openly about their feelings is not one of them. Noah is more perceptive than the other two, but even he struggles sometimes to lay it all out on the table. A hangover, maybe, from our father’s influence. A.J. Benjamin Maddox II thought therapy of any kind or talking about feelings was for idiots and weaklings.
“You need to get out more,” Noah tells me. “Working this much and hiding from life in general isn’t healthy.”
I lean back in my chair, almost amused. “Jesus, Noah, just send me a text like a normal person.”
“I have, but you’re always in the gym or still at the office.”
“Because I have to be. And I’m not ‘hiding from life.’ I’m working.”
“You need a distraction. A day off. A night out. Something. If you keep working yourself into the ground like this, you’ll end up like?—”
“Wait. Let me guess. Dad?”
Noah pins me with a look. His eyes are the exact same color green as our mother’s were. “You just seem…dark.”
“Dark?” I shrug, exasperated. Problem is, he’s right. I’m in a tunnel because I’m about to vacate my twenties and I have nothing emotionally satisfying to show for any of it.
I guess it’s affecting me more than I realized.
I level a glare at Colton, then Noah. “Working out keeps me sane. At least I don’t spend my days smoking cigars and drinking my way through copious amounts of top shelf whiskey.” Which is what our father did. He was a heart attack waiting to happen for at least a decade before one finally caught up with him. “Working a lot comes with the territory of being CEO. Next question.”
“You haven’t dated anyone since Margot.”
I rub a hand roughly across my jaw. “Seriously? That’s what this is about? Margot? I broke it off, remember? Not only did I not love her, I didn’t even like her. It was over before it even started.”
“Then find someone else,” Colton suggests lightly, like it’s that easy.
“Trust me, I wish I could.”
“Do we need to call Esther and get her to book you a trip to, I don’t know, the singles resort at Club Med?” Noah asks.
“Club Med,” I scoff, like it’s a ridiculous idea. But I can almost admit the idea sounds tempting.
“It’s not a terrible idea,” Colton insists. “Maybe I’ll go.”
I’m going to regret telling them this, I can feel it. “I’m going out of town this weekend, actually.”
Noah raises an eyebrow. “You are?”
“Blake and Leah’s wedding, in the Hamptons. I’m the best man.” I run a hand through my hair, dreading the thought so much it feels heavier than usual. My brothers are right. I’m strung out as fuck. “Margot is the wedding planner,” I admit grumpily.
Noah laughs sympathetically. “Oh, shit.”
“So I’m going to spend the weekend on the receiving end of her gleeful little power trip, wishing I was dead.”
“Take a date,” Colton suggests. “Get all hot and heavy with some debutante on the dance floor. That would keep Margot at arm’s length.”
“Unfortunately, every ‘date’ I’ve had lately is just as grasping as Margot. Or even worse.”
“I could call someone.” Colton blinks at me.
I exhale something that’s not quite laughter. “Absolutely fucking not. I’d rather pay someone than help myself to your leftovers, little brother.”
Noah’s watching me. I can practically see the cogs whirring inside his brain. “That’s actually not a bad idea. You could hire someone.”
“Hire someone? Please.” I shake my head, pushing my chair back from the table. “Now that you’ve finished the Spanish Inquisition, am I free to go?”
But Noah’s on a roll. “That could actually work. Pay someone to go with you for the weekend as a front. It’ll keep Margot off your back. And, who knows, with the stress taken out of the Margot equation, you might even enjoy a weekend out of the city, poolside, among friends. People do occasionally enjoy weddings, you know.”
“Sure they do,” I grumble. Other people, maybe.
“You definitely need a buffer,” Colton agrees.
“I don’t need to hire someone to spend time with me. I’m not Dad.”
We all frown at the memories.
But Colton is just warming up. “Dude, you’re not paying her to have sex with you. You’re paying her to let Margot know that you’re no longer available.”
I sigh heavily. I hadn’t let myself think too much about the actual logistics of being at a wedding with Margot.
Knowing my luck, we’ll be sharing a goddamn room due to some mix up with the bookings—something that’s actually possible because she’s in charge. Everything with her is deliberate and calculated. And relentless. She’s like a fucking event planner terminator with one mission.
“The wedding’s this weekend?” Noah pulls out his phone and punches the call button. “Cleo, come in here for a minute, would you?”
I’ve had enough. I stand up, getting ready to leave. “I’m not taking Cleo as my fake fucking date.”
“I’m not setting you up with Cleo,” Noah laughs at the thought. “She’s engaged. But she does know literally half of New York City. She’ll know of someone who’d just love a weekend away in the Hamptons with a hot billionaire.”
Noah’s still smiling as Cleo opens the door, ten seconds later, her eyes bright with the kind of enthusiasm that’s going to spin this project into a nightmare I can’t escape from, I can just tell.
Cleo is probably 23 or 24 and is a hundred percent attitude. I don’t know how Noah puts up with her.
“Hi, Alexander,” she smiles. It’s annoying, how she calls me by my first name even though I never asked her to. Noah’s style is much more informal than mine.
“Cleo.”
Colton is enjoying this immensely. “Cleo, we have a little problem we were wondering if you could help us with.”
“Sure.” She glances at me, reading that the problem is mine. “What’s the problem?”
“Alexander has a wedding to go to in the Hamptons this weekend,” Colton explains. “But his crazy ex who won’t take no for an answer will be there and he needs a date to act as a…well, a shield. A front. To keep her off his back and to convince her it’s time to move on. Do you know anyone who’d agree to be his plus one at such short notice if he paid them extremely generously?”
“Two nights,” I add, hating that I’m suddenly considering going along with this. “And this is completely confidential.”
Cleo looks me up and down, like she’s trying to figure out if she knows anyone nuts enough to do this. “You’re that desperate, huh?”
“He is,” Noah confirms.
Cleo flashes white teeth. “Oh, I can definitely help you. I’ve got a hundred friends who would kill to get close to a Maddox brother. People ask me all the time if I can get them one of your numbers.”
“And now’s their chance.” Noah’s grin as he watches my face is making me want to strangle him.
“I just want to make sure I’m clear on all the details.” Cleo starts taking notes on a fucking notepad. “The payment you’re offering includes…staying in the same room with you?” She glances up at me.
Fuck. I hadn’t thought of that.
“Definitely,” Colton says. “The staging has to be convincing.”
“Maybe it could be a two-room suite or something,” I mumble. “I can?—”
“No, that would be too obvious,” Noah insists. “Especially since Margot is the event planner. She’ll zero in on that detail like a circling shark.”
“You mean the evil ex is the event planner? Oh, this is too good.” Cleo is enjoying my pain as much as Noah. “Okay, so definitely in the same room. Do you want your fake date to, like…lay it on? Like, sit on your lap, play with your hair, kiss you, that kind of thing? To really show the ex you’ve completely moved on?”
“Absolutely,” Colton answers before I get a chance to tell Cleo there’s no need for any of that. “It’s the only way to keep Margot at bay. The woman’s a nightmare. She thinks she still has a chance of winning him back.”
True enough, unfortunately.
Cleo scribbles a few more notes. “So, are you going to want your fake date to…you know…”
“To what?” I ask grouchily.
“To have sex with you?”
“What? No. Jesus,” I splutter. “Of course not.”
Noah is biting his lip, trying not to laugh.
I’m about to pull the plug on the entire idea. “It would be an act, only. She can have the bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
Cleo considers this. “If Margot is as savvy as she sounds, she’ll detect that something is off if you do that. I just think you should both sleep in the same bed. It needs to be as believable as possible.”
I eye her, considering this. “All right, then. But no sex,” I say again.
Colton muffles his laughter.
Cleo’s mouth quirks. “Right. Got it.”
I can’t tell what she’s thinking. I don’t know why I feel compelled to explain. “I mean, I like sex, a lot…not too much, like…the appropriate amount. But I don’t need to pay someone for it.”
Kill me now.
Not only am I going to be forced to share a bed with some air-headed barely-legal friend of Cleo’s, I also have to admit that I’m as desperate as I sound. To make matters worse, I haven’t been laid in months.
After the Margot disaster, then a few nightmarish “rebound” dates organized by Leah, I lost my urge to deal with women’s demands altogether, leading me into a dry spell of epic proportions.
What if I…when I’m sharing a bed with the girl…when I’m so pent up…what if I crack a…
Fuck.
Cleo looks at me, the arch of her eyebrow disappearing underneath her blond bangs like she’s reading my mind. “For a billionaire, you’re not exactly smooth.”
“Come on, Cleo,” Noah jokes. “If he was actually charming or decent company, do you think he’d be single?”
I glare at the brother who used to be one of my favorites, but his grin only widens. “You’re supposed to be helping me here.”
Cleo looks unfazed. “Don’t worry, Alexander. I know exactly what you’re like. Surly, serious, aloof. The brooding oldest brother with the weight of the world on his shoulders. I get it. But your company and your money…well, that makes you a catch, no matter how awful your personality is. So you’re still going to need someone pretty impressive to make this whole thing believable. She’ll need to be someone special. Someone who can make Margot wildly jealous.”
Noah and Colton are both nodding.
“Hey, I don’t have an awful personality?—”
Colton waves off my protest. “It’s irrelevant, Alexander. You’re paying. It’s not a real date. Who cares how uptight you are? So, Cleo, do you think you could find someone?”
“There are a few people that come to mind, yeah. One in particular.”
“Could you…uh,” I grab a fistful of my hair because it sounds like this might actually be happening. “Could you make sure she’s?—”
“Hot?” Cleo smiles sweetly. “Of course. I have lots of hot friends.”
“I, uh…and could you make sure she doesn’t have like a nut allergy or is a psychopath or anything like that.” I’m gun-shy at this point. “It’s just…”
Noah laughs. “Wow, we’re getting very specific here. A hot non-psychopath with no food allergies. You got any of those on your roster, Cleo?”
“Actually, I might.”
“And she can’t be afraid of a little PDA,” Noah adds.
“PDA?” I’m confused.
“Public displays of affection,” Cleo clarifies. “Oh, don’t worry about that. I have someone in mind and she’s a born performer. And seriously gorgeous. Talented, the works. But I’m not sure she’ll agree to it. She isn’t exactly desperate for the money. And she has very high standards.”
“Alexander’s willing to pay her extremely well.” More grinning from my brothers, who are enjoying this far too much.
“If she does a good job,” I say churlishly. “And no drama.” I’ve dealt with enough meltdowns from women to last me a lifetime. “She acts the part when we’re in public, she’s willing to sleep in the same bed—strictly platonically—and she agrees to sign an NDA. I don’t want any of this going public.”
“Of course,” Cleo says. “And she’ll do everything she can to convincingly pretend to be interested in you. Which will take some talent, and she has that in spades.”
Damn these overconfident Gen Z types. They’re tactless ball-breakers. “Thanks for your insights, Cleo. I knew there was a reason I don’t come by here more often.”
Cleo smiles sweetly. “I’ll do my best to find you a date, but she won’t come cheap, especially considering the parameters you’re describing.”
“Money isn’t an issue,” Noah takes the liberty of adding. “If she does a good job and keeps Margot out of his hair, she’ll be worth every penny.”
“What kind of numbers are we talking here?” Cleo blinks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’ve never had to make this kind of proposal before. What do you think?”
We all look at Cleo. She thinks for a few seconds. “A hundred?”
“That’s very…” I’m about to say it’s very reasonable when it occurs to me she means a hundred grand. “A hundred thousand?”
“At least. You could double that if she does an exceptionally convincing job. Let’s say one-fifty and you can always tip her if things go swimmingly.”
I can’t believe I’m considering this.
“Actually,” says Cleo, “I think you should offer two hundred up front. She’s more likely to agree to it if it’s an impressive, no-nonsense offer.”
Noah’s sympathetic but undeterred. “It’s worth it, bro. Margot will stop calling you, your fake date will finish her performance on Sunday afternoon and leave you in peace, and you can take a much-needed vacation on the tropical island of your choice knowing you stepped up for your best friend on the most important weekend of his life.”
He’s got a point. Fuck it. “Fine. I’ll do it. But she better be good.”
“And hot,” Colton clarifies.
“And you’ll be getting me coffee for the rest of the year if I can actually make this happen,” Cleo smiles at Noah, standing up and heading toward the door. “I’ll let you know once she confirms. If she confirms.”
I’ve never heard an assistant talk to their boss—or his brothers—the way Cleo sasses Noah, but he seems to actually enjoy her no-nonsense attitude.
Lord knows if Esther ever leaves me, I will not be poaching Cleo from Noah. I’m not sure I’d survive the week.
“If this goes wrong, you’ll be lucky to still be in one piece in order to get Cleo her fucking coffee,” I growl as the door closes behind Cleo.
Both my brothers are laughing.
Colton pats me on the back. “Lighten up, bro. Who knows, maybe she’s the girl of your dreams.”