2. Cassian
CASSIAN
The first time I hear it, it's from the pastry chef, and I assume I've misheard him.
"Congratulations, Mr. Rourke." Henri is plating something with tweezers and doesn't look up. "We're all very happy for you."
"For what."
"The engagement, sir."
I stop walking. The kitchen is loud — pans, ticket printer, someone shouting about a sauce that's broken — but my own silence is louder than all of it. Henri glances up, sees my face, and his hands stop moving.
"I — apologize, sir. I assumed — the staff has been?—"
"The staff has been what."
"Talking, sir."
"About my engagement."
"Yes, sir."
"To whom."
He has the decency to look uncomfortable. "To Miss Castellan, sir. From the front desk."
I'd like to say I do not know who Miss Castellan is.
I'd like to say it because it would be useful, in this moment, to be the kind of man who does not know the names of his concierge staff.
I am not that kind of man. I know exactly who Miss Castellan is.
Honey-colored hair pinned up with whatever's clipped to her badge lanyard.
Yellow cardigan in the winter. Laughs at the bellhops' jokes even when they aren't funny, which I consider a moral failing in a manager and a courtesy in a concierge.
I have, in three years, exchanged perhaps forty words with her.
"Thank you, Henri."
"Sir—"
"Carry on."
I take the service elevator up because I don't want to walk through the lobby and confirm whatever it is people think they're confirming when they look at me.
By the time I'm at my office, my assistant Reeve is already at her desk, and she clearly has been fielding questions she does not have answers to.
"How long," I ask.
"Since this morning, that I know of. It started at breakfast service. Front-of-house first, then catering, then I had a vendor ask me about the wedding date at ten."
"The wedding date."
"I told him I couldn't comment."
"Reeve."
"I'm not paid enough to comment, sir."
"Get her up here."
"Miss Castellan?"
"Yes."
"Now?"
"Now."
She picks up the phone and I close my office door harder than I mean to.
She arrives in eleven minutes, which I count, because I am the kind of man who counts things when he doesn't know what else to do with his hands.
She's in her uniform. Linen skirt, cream blouse, name tag pinned slightly off-center.
The blouse has a small crease near the collar like she dressed in a hurry, or like she's been pulling at it.
"Mr. Rourke."
"Sit down, Miss Castellan."
"I'd rather?—"
"Sit down."
She sits. Her hands go to her lap and stay there, fingers braided. Her eyes flick to the window, then to my desk, then to the small brass clock on the bookshelf, and finally — bravely, I'll give her that — to me.
"There's a rumor," I say, "that you and I are engaged."
"Yes, sir."
"You're not denying it."
"No, sir."
"Why."
Her mouth opens. Closes. She exhales — not a sigh, more a small surrender — and her shoulders drop an inch.
"Because I started it."
I lean back in my chair. I do not say anything. In my experience, silence does more work than questions, and people will fill it if you let them. She fills it.
"My family was at the chef's table last night.
They were — they do this thing where they—" She stops.
Starts again. "My mother was being herself.
My brother made partner. My sister has a column.
I have, apparently, a lifestyle, which is what they call it when you're twenty-six and you haven't done anything they can put on a Christmas card. "
"Miss Castellan."
"I panicked. I said I was engaged. They asked to whom. You — you walked through the lobby at the worst possible moment, sir, and your name came out of my mouth, and I have been trying to figure out how to undo it since last night."
"Have you, in fact, been trying."
"Sir?"
"Have you been trying to undo it? Or have you been hoping I wouldn't find out."
She looks at her hands. "Both. Honestly."
That, at least, is a clean answer. I respect a clean answer.
"Your family." I tilt my head. "They believed you."
"Immediately."
"That's interesting."
"It's humiliating."
"It's interesting. They believed, with no evidence, that a man they have never met would propose to their daughter. Not because it's plausible. Because they wanted it to be."
Her chin lifts. "Sir, with respect, I came up here to apologize, not to be analyzed."
"You came up here because I asked you to. The apology is a bonus." I steeple my fingers. "How long do you need it to be true?"
"I — what."
"The engagement. You said your family bought it. Are they leaving tomorrow, or?—"
"They — they want to meet you. Next week.
At your villa." She closes her eyes. "They booked a family vacation there months ago.
My mother has decided you're hosting a dinner the first night.
I told her I'd ask. I was planning to tell her you were unavailable.
I was planning, frankly, to invent a small business emergency that lasted eight days. "
I pick up the pen on my desk. Turn it once. Set it down.
There is a reason I am not, in fact, throwing her out of my office.
"The Vance group is coming through next Thursday."
She blinks. "I know, sir. I'm on the schedule."
"Do you know what they're coming for?"
"To tour the property. The expansion."
"To decide whether to fund the expansion.
They are, as a matter of policy, conservative.
They've passed on three of my competitors in the last eighteen months for what they call instability of leadership.
Which means, in practical terms, they don't like men who go to nightclubs and they don't like men who are between marriages. "
"Sir—"
"I am, as you may or may not know, between marriages."
"I — yes, sir. I'm aware. Everyone is aware."
She watches me. I watch her watching me. The math is happening behind her eyes; she is quick, I'll give her that — quicker than I expected, even, given the chaos of the situation she's walked into.
"You want to play along," she says slowly.
"I want to consider it."
"Why."
"Because a fiancée at the villa next week is, coincidentally, an excellent optic for a Vance dinner. Because a stable, settled CEO photographs better than a divorced one. Because the rumor is already in the building, and killing it now would draw more attention than letting it run its course."
"That's — Mr. Rourke, that's?—"
"Convenient. I know."
"I was going to say cold."
"Also true."
She laughs. It startles her more than it startles me — a single, surprised sound, gone almost before it's there. "Sir. I can't — you can't be serious."
"I'm always serious, Miss Castellan. It's one of my flaws. There would be conditions."
"Conditions."
"You report to me, not to the rumor mill.
You don't speak to the press. You don't speak to my staff about the arrangement, including your friend in events — Livian, is it — who I notice has already been giving me looks all morning.
You behave at the villa as though you mean it.
And when the Vance group is gone and your family has flown home, we end it cleanly, with a story we agree on in advance. "
"And in exchange."
"In exchange, your family leaves you alone for a week. Possibly longer. And I don't fire you for using my name without permission, which I would otherwise be entirely within my rights to do."
Her jaw works. "That's not really an exchange. That's a threat with a bow on it."
"It's a negotiation with a deadline. The deadline is whether I pick up that phone and call HR before you leave this room."
"Mr. Rourke?—"
"Cassian."
She stops. "What."
"If we're doing this, you'll need to stop calling me sir. It'll be the first thing your mother notices."
I stand. She stands too, automatically, the way staff do, and I come around the desk before she can think better of it.
From the inside pocket of my jacket I take the small velvet box I had Reeve pull from the safe twenty minutes ago — my grandmother's, nothing I'd give a real wife, which is precisely why it suits this — and I open it between us without ceremony.
"Hand."
"Cassian—"
"Left hand, Miss Castellan."
She gives it to me. Her fingers are cold. I take her ring finger between my thumb and forefinger and slide the band on slowly, and I do not let go right away. I hold her hand a beat past where I should. Long enough that her pulse jumps under my thumb. Long enough that she notices I notice.
"There," I say. "Resized."
"How did you?—"
"Your sister told the entire restaurant last night, Miss Castellan. The story was already written. I'm just signing it."
She pulls her hand back. Her cheeks are very pink.
"Maren," she says.
"What."
"My name. If we're doing this. It's Maren."
"Maren." I taste it. Set it down. "Be at the villa Sunday. Six p.m. Don't be late."
She nods once, turns, and walks out of my office without another word, and I watch her go, and I do not sit down for a while after.