Chapter 4
VICTORIA
The sommelier had refilled my glass twice. The wine was excellent. The company was not. But I felt like I was finally getting somewhere.
It had taken forty minutes of navigating around Jack Montana’s ego to get him to the actual point of the evening.
Forty minutes of listening to him talk about his last film, his upcoming film, his trainer, his nutritionist, and the documentary thing that had run long.
This guy really loved to hear himself talk.
I decided I was not the one to do this kind of thing.
I wasn’t very good at soliciting charitable donations.
I smiled through all of it. Nodded when appropriate. I asked follow-up questions I didn’t care about the answers to because that was how you did this. You made people feel interesting until they felt generous. In my mind, I pictured myself stroking his ego. Like patting him on the head.
It was exhausting, draining me like I was running a marathon. The will to live was being sucked out of me. He was exactly the kind of person I had left behind in my former life. Soul suckers.
But somewhere between the entrées arriving and the second pour of wine, he chilled.
He’d asked a real question. How many people did the charity serve annually?
I told him and watched it register behind those famous eyes.
He’d put his phone face down on the table, which felt like a minor miracle, and actually looked at me.
Progress.
“So the auction item is just dinner with me,” he said, leaning back in his chair. He was still skeptical. I could see it in his eyes, like he was chewing on the idea and finding it distasteful. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” I confirmed. “A nice restaurant, your choice of venue, two hours maximum. We handle all the coordination. You show up, have a meal, smile for one photo at the end of the night, and you’re done.”
“And you randomly select the winner?”
“No, no. It’s an auction.” I paused. “It will be good people bidding, Jack. Philanthropists.”
He turned his wine glass slowly on the tablecloth. Around and around. Thinking. I was under the impression this was already a done deal. We were just ironing out the details before he said yes. Now, I realized he was ready to bolt.
“Still sounds like a pain in the ass,” he said.
“We’re happy to accommodate you,” I said. “Whatever you need. Whatever makes you comfortable.”
“I’d need security.”
“Of course. Absolutely.”
He tilted his head. “You’d arrange that?”
“We’d arrange everything. All you have to do is show up.
” I kept my voice pleasant, even though what I wanted to say was considerably less pleasant.
What a pompous ass. That’s what I wanted to say.
“Although, if it would make you feel more comfortable, you’re certainly welcome to bring your own team.
Some people prefer that.” Please let him hire his own security.
“I just want to make sure you feel safe sitting across from one dinner guest at a restaurant of your choosing.”
One. Probably a woman. This guy did action movies. Wasn’t he supposed to be a badass? He was afraid of one little woman. What a joke.
He looked at me. I looked back at him with the most serene expression I could manage. I smiled and resisted batting my eyelashes.
“Are you suggesting I can’t handle myself?”
That’s exactly what I’m suggesting. “I’m suggesting you have options,” I said. “It’s two hours, Jack. Dinner. Conversation. One photo. But if you need a security detail to get through an evening like that, we will absolutely make it happen. No judgment whatsoever.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. Good. I’d poked the bear just enough. Men like Jack Montana couldn’t resist the implication that they weren’t up to something. It was the most reliable tool in the box and I wasn’t above using it. I was a heartbeat away from double dog daring him.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” he said.
“No, of course not.”
He picked up his wine. Drank. Set it back down. He exhaled through his nose, slow and considering. “And the press angle?”
This was the part where he actually started to care. Stroke, stroke, stroke.
“We issue a press release two weeks before the auction goes live,” I said.
“Your name is featured prominently. We tag your team on everything. You approve the language before anything goes out. Your publicist controls the narrative entirely on your end.” I leaned forward slightly.
“Your fans will love this, Jack. This is exactly the kind of thing they want to see from you. It’s generous, it’s visible, and it costs you one evening.
The return on that is enormous. The press alone is going to be a huge boost.”
“I know how press works,” he said.
“Then you know this is a good deal. People like to see goodwill. Public perception matters. I’m sure your PR person told you that.”
He scoffed like it was ridiculous. And then he went silent. He wants me to talk. I’m not going to. I know how to wait someone out. Let him sit with it. I don’t understand why there’s a difficult choice. Be a good human.
“Send the details to my publicist,” he finally said.
It wasn’t a yes. But it wasn’t a no, either. I would absolutely take it.
“I’ll have everything over to her by tomorrow morning,” I said. I kept my voice even. I did not allow myself to exhale with relief. Not yet. Not in front of him.
He nodded once and picked up his fork, apparently deciding the conversation portion of the evening had concluded. Back to the salmon he was taking a chance on.
I reached for my water glass and took a long, slow sip. I didn’t want to get drunk. Had to keep things sober.
Betty was going to be so relieved if he said yes.
He swallowed his fish down with a large gulp of wine. “Don’t you ever wish the universe would just give you a sign, either yes or no?” he asked.
The answer came immediately.
The fire alarm screamed to life and every sprinkler head in the ceiling burst open at once, unleashing a wall of icy water that dumped over me before I even had time to register what was happening.
The dining room exploded into chaos.
Women shrieked. Men swore. Chairs scraped and tipped.
Glass shattered on the floor. And then it was a stampede toward the door.
I grabbed my bag off the back of my chair and ducked my head against the spray.
My hair was clinging to my face. I was soaked through in seconds, the fabric of my dress heavy against my skin.
Jack Montana was gone.
He simply wasn’t there anymore. He had evaporated like he’d never been there at all. I didn’t even see him leave. He bailed without a second thought about what might be happening with me.
What a gentleman.
The doors became a bottleneck. People shrieking and shoving in an attempt to get out. A woman with a soaked fur stole nearly knocked me sideways trying to get past. The alarm was so loud it was inside my skull.
I turned and went in the other direction. Every restaurant had a back door. I put my head down and moved against the tide, pushing through the swinging kitchen door. No one was there to stop me.
The kitchen had already emptied out. I was looking for the door and found it.
I pushed it open and stepped outside. The narrow alley that ran along the back of the building was filled with cooks and waitstaff.
Some of them were clearly trying to figure out what had happened.
Others were laughing it off and lighting up cigarettes.
I pushed my soaked hair out of my face and looked around, trying to orient myself.
Jack Montana was gone. The dinner was over.
The conversation with his publicist was now entirely dependent on whether he was the kind of man who honored vague agreements.
I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he’d orchestrated the fire alarm to get out of giving me a definitive answer.
Based on everything I knew about him after less than an hour in his company, I was certain it was something he’d do.
I was completely drenched. My dress was clinging to me in a way that was probably illegal.
Or indecent at the very least. Now that I was out of the direct water spray, my curls were springing to life.
My shoes were ruined. They were consignment shop shoes but they were good ones and they were toast.
And even though our meals were interrupted, I was certain there was a bill with my name on it. A bill with Jack Montana’s wine order on it.
I pressed my back against the building and closed my eyes. Shit, shit, shit.
I opened my eyes and pulled out my phone to check for damage. The screen lit up. Waterproof case. Best twelve dollars I’d ever spent.
I was composing a text to Betty in my head.
I needed to prepare her without panicking her.
All was not lost. I did mostly get an okay from our celebrity pick.
We could still talk to his publicist. I had a feeling I knew what was going to happen.
Jack would tell his publicist to tell us no because that was the kind of coward he was.
Laughter caught my attention. It felt off. Wrong. Not like the staff laughter. I looked up and scanned the area in search of the culprits.
They were standing maybe fifteen feet away near the edge of the dumpsters, two of them.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out they were related.
Brothers likely. Same height, same build, same dark hair, same jaw.
One of them was animated, gesturing with his hands, telling a story that the other one was finding genuinely hilarious.
It was the bulldozer who had knocked me on my ass earlier.
He was soaked through, same as everyone else, but he’d stripped off his jacket and was holding it in one hand.
The white button-down shirt was absolutely plastered to him in a way that left very little to the imagination.
The fabric had gone completely translucent across his shoulders.
His chest was on full display. Of course, he was all hard muscle.
Flat stomach. Defined pecs. No wonder I bounced off him. He was a wall of muscle.
He slicked his hair back from his forehead, and my God, it looked like an ad that should be on a billboard. Or a porn site.
The sound of his laughter carried all the way to where I was standing, wet and furious.
It made my blood pressure spike. He thought it was funny.
Of course he did. Men like that always thought everything was funny when it wasn’t happening to them.
Or in his case, even when it was. He was soaked to the bone and still laughing like he’d won something.
I hated him a little for that.
I pushed off the wall and went around the side of the building, squishing with every step in my ruined shoes, hoping against all hope that Jack Montana had somehow waited for me out front.
Maybe he’d had a moment of basic human decency.
Maybe he’d looked around, noticed I wasn’t behind him, and thought he should maybe check on me.
He had not.
The front of the restaurant was still a circus.
Drenched people clustered on the sidewalk.
Staff propping open the main doors. A couple arguing loudly about whose fault it was that the wife’s bag was ruined.
A woman crying into her phone like there had been an actual fire, which I had seen no evidence of.
There was a black SUV pulling away from the valet stand.
“Asshole,” I muttered.
I stood on the sidewalk in my sopping dress and looked up at the sky. The universe hated me.
I flagged down a cab. The driver looked at me in the rearview mirror when I got in.
He didn’t comment on the fact that I was leaving a small lake on his back seat.
He just pulled out into traffic and asked where I was going.
I gave him my address and then sat back and debated what I would tell Betty.
She was going to panic. I knew that and I wasn’t sure how to avoid it.
The cab pulled up outside my building twenty minutes later. I peeled myself off the seat, overtipped the driver by enough to cover the cleanup, and went inside.
First thing in the morning, I would go on the hunt for more people to auction off or else we weren’t going to raise the money we needed.