Chapter 6
Gallant hated coming home. In the nine months since Lena had moved out, he hadn’t grown used to the silence that greeted him
when he opened the front door, or the way his keys jangled into the bowl like the saddest welcome imaginable.
Tonight, he tried to avoid the stillness by going straight to the living room, where he flicked on the gas fireplace and poured
himself a bourbon. Maybe he should just bite the bullet and get a dog, but that seemed extreme. He was rich. Successful. He
shouldn’t have to resort to an animal for company.
He flopped onto the couch and punched the remote to bring his 150-inch flat-screen to life. A football game came on, which
didn’t interest him much, considering he wasn’t the one playing. But if he closed his eyes, he could pretend the cheering
crowd was here, filling the polished rooms with their excitement, and for a moment, he was in high school again. The life
of the party. The football star, the prom king, all the clichéd honorifics other people only made fun of because they hadn’t
gotten to enjoy those titles themselves.
Man, he missed those days. Tonight, they’d come to the forefront of his mind, thanks to Aubrey MacLean. Back in high school, she’d been pretty, but now? She was a knockout. Polished and put together and clearly on the same page as him about what mattered in life.
Which was to say, leagues ahead of any woman in Henderson.
He swirled his glass. God, he needed to do something with all this keyed-up energy she’d left him with. He pulled out his
phone, then thumbed through his contacts, filtered to show only the entries he’d starred.
Marissa? He sipped his bourbon. Nah. Last time, she’d cried afterward. Awkward.
Nicole? Nope. Married to one of the foremen at the mill. He’d indulged a couple times anyway but had no desire to push his
luck.
Pauline. He considered, then grimaced and tossed the phone aside. Who was he kidding? He was done playing with these girls.
Lately, all the meaningless sex had started to feel like just that. Meaningless. He needed a real woman. A powerhouse. Someone
who was going places. Someone headed for New York, like him.
He sipped again and congratulated himself on doing so well with Aubrey today. Back in high school, he hadn’t yet learned the
subtleties of salesmanship and had pushed his agenda way too hard. That she’d chosen Nick Thacker over him still stuck in his craw.
But a career selling houses had taught him restraint. He now knew when to apply pressure and when to play it cool. How to
read someone’s hesitations and secret desires. How to tell the difference between someone who wanted to be convinced and someone
who actually needed convincing, because they weren’t at all the same thing.
And Aubrey was the type who needed convincing. She always had been. He just hadn’t understood that distinction at eighteen.
Gallant drained his glass. Not that this would be easy, of course. She’d probably be the most difficult sale he’d ever made, but he’d planted the seeds already, and Aubrey had laid out the next step herself.
I always thought I’d find another guy who’d write me letters like that, someday.
He chuckled and carried a fresh drink to his office, where he sat before his double monitors. He didn’t presume to think he could write a decent love letter, but apparently Nick Thacker could. Which came as a surprise.
The guy worked at the steel mill like every other grunt in town, and had never seemed like the literary type. But maybe Nick
had published or posted something online that would give Gallant an idea of what Aubrey was looking for.
He typed the guy’s name into Google.
And nearly sprayed bourbon across the screen.
Nick Thacker’s Love-Letter-Writing Service
The words burned black and crisp, as if the universe had presented him the key to Aubrey’s heart, tied up neatly with a bow.
Gallant clicked the link, his nerves humming. The details proved even better than he’d hoped. A set of personalized letters
would cost him four hundred dollars, but what was that, in the scheme of things? He’d gladly fork over thousands for a slam
dunk like this.
He registered with a fake screen name—MontanaBirder81, to keep Nick oblivious—then created an alias PayPal account that linked
back to his credit card. When he got to the checkout page, he hesitated. The ethics behind what he was about to do were thorny,
at best.
But any worthy salesman used every tool at his disposal. And that was all this was: a tool. It would still be him taking Aubrey out to dinner, wooing and seducing her. Moving to New York when she did.
Not Nick.
Satisfied he’d done his due diligence, Gallant clicked, then raised his glass when the confirmation filled his screen.
Here I come, Aubrey.
She wouldn’t even know what’d hit her.