Faking It With The Damaged Daddy (Kings of Manhattan #4)

1. Mia

Mia

The cake boxes are not going to survive this.

I know it the way I know most disasters, too late to stop it, just in time to watch.

I’m cutting through the Deleon’s service corridor at a near-sprint, both boxes stacked and tilting, the taller one threatening to slide left every time I take a corner.

My heels are wrong for running. Everything about tonight is wrong for running.

But the caterer, the actual caterer, the one contracted to deliver the Hawthorne Charity Gala centerpiece cake, texted me at six forty-three.

Not going to make it, sorry. Six words. I stared at the message long enough to feel my stomach drop and then grabbed my van keys, because the alternative was watching a job this size evaporate into someone else’s missed opportunity.

This is the Hawthorne Gala. Donors, cameras, people who make one phone call and change what the next year looks like for a small business.

If I get these cakes to that table and the right person asks who made them, Calder Bakes might actually cover rent in May without me shuffling money between accounts at midnight hoping nobody checks the float.

So. Sprinting. In heels. With cake.

The service corridor opens into the kitchen, a vast stainless-steel operation humming under strip lighting, packed with people who look far too composed for the chaos they’re managing.

I drop to a brisk walk because running in a commercial kitchen is how you die, sidestep a line cook moving backward with a sheet tray, and scan for someone in charge.

I find a woman near the pass, black earpiece, clipboard, expression of someone who hit her limit around four o’clock and has been faking competence ever since.

“Calder Bakes,” I say, catching my breath. “Centerpiece delivery, two-tier, almond champagne and vanilla fig. I have a slip.”

She glances up from her clipboard, eyes the boxes, reads my face, and goes back to her clipboard. “This entrance is staff only. Event guests use the main lobby.”

“I’m not a guest, I’m the baker.” I shift both boxes to one arm, a genuinely terrible idea, and fish the folded delivery slip from my jacket pocket. “The contracted caterer canceled. I’m the replacement. See? Calder Bakes, delivery window seven to seven-thirty, it’s all on there.”

She opens her mouth and then closes it, because a hand closes around my elbow from behind.

I turn. Two men in black suits, both built like they were assembled specifically to fill doorways. The kind of men paid to make problems disappear quietly and go home for dinner.

“Ma’am,” the closer one says. “You’ll need to come with us.”

“I have a delivery slip.” I hold it up between us.

“Yes, ma’am.” He says it the way people say sure you do. “You’ll still need to come with us.”

“I’m contracted to be here. I drove forty minutes. I have two tiers of cake—”

“Ma’am.” His grip on my elbow doesn’t tighten. It doesn’t need to. He just holds on, pleasant as anything, and steers.

They walk me out of the kitchen and through entirely the wrong door, directly into the carpeted edge of the event space. Heat climbs my neck because now we’re moving through the gala.

The string quartet is playing something I couldn’t afford a ticket to hear.

Champagne flutes are making the rounds. These people don’t notice the catering staff, the coat check girls, the invisible machinery keeping their evening running, but they notice me, the woman in heels being walked through their party by two men in suits.

It ripples outward, face by face, table by table.

I smile. Big and warm and totally fine, because if I let my face do what it actually wants to do right now I’ll never work in this city again.

“The delivery entrance is that way,” I say, struggling to keep my voice even. “Back through the kitchen, down the—”

“We’re aware of the layout,” the one on my left says.

“Then why are we going through the—”

“Because,” says a voice behind me, “I’d like to see the delivery slip myself.”

Everyone stops. I turn around.

Reed Hawthorne.

I know the face from the papers, the divorce coverage, the board shake-up, the Forbes profile.

The photos got the jaw right, the dark hair going silver at the temples, the ice-gray eyes.

What they didn’t get is the stillness. The man doesn’t need to do anything.

He just stands there and the room adjusts.

He’s in a tuxedo that probably has its own tailor and its own zip code. I’m in heels I can’t run in with buttercream on my left wrist and a delivery slip I’m gripping hard enough to crease.

I hold it out to him.

He takes it, opens it, and reads it. I might as well have handed him a dry-cleaning receipt.

“The contracted caterer canceled,” I say, because apparently I’m explaining myself in the middle of a charity gala to a man who owns the room.

“Your event coordinator called the agency and the agency called me. I drove from Brooklyn with two tiers of cake so your catering table doesn’t have a gap in it all night. ”

I keep my chin high. “Escort me out if you want to. But the space by the east window is going to look like a missing tooth in every photo.”

His jaw tightens a fraction and he folds the slip.

“The delivery slip isn’t in our verified vendor system,” he says.

“It was confirmed at four o’clock—”

“Not in our system.” He holds the slip back out to me. “We don’t accept unverified deliveries at private events.”

“I’m verified, the slip—”

“Thank you for coming.” He says it to the security team, not to me. “Please see her out.”

The hand is back on my elbow, firmer now. Reed Hawthorne looks at me like I’m already gone. He’s already scanning the room over my shoulder, already onto the next thing, already done. I haven’t even left yet and he’s forgotten me.

“You’re making a mistake,” I say.

“Enjoy your evening.” He doesn’t even look at me when he says it.

They walk me out through the front.

Of course they do. Back through the gala, past the string quartet, past the champagne flutes, past every single face that already clocked me on the way in.

The second loop is worse than the first. At least on the way in I had the boxes and a destination.

Now I have nothing but the walk of shame and all that space around me.

Nobody says anything. They don’t need to. I smile anyway, keeping the corners of my mouth lifted all the way to the door.

They don’t let go of my elbow until we’re through the main entrance and out onto the front steps. One of them holds the door. The other one nods at me, courteous as anything, like they’ve just helped me with my coat.

“Have a good night, ma’am,” he says, and then the door closes.

I stand on the steps with nothing but a delivery slip, put my hands on my hips, and stare at the street.

Four counts in. Four counts out. The breathing exercise Juno taught me for when I want to say something I can’t take back.

I’m on the second breath when the flash hits.

It’s not one flash. It’s a rapid-fire burst of them, white light strobing off the wet pavement. I blink against it, turn toward the source, and find a paparazzo on the far side of the entrance with his camera already up and his feet already moving toward me.

“Reed!” The shout is aimed past me. I turn.

Reed Hawthorne is in the doorway behind me.

He came out. I don’t know why, don’t know if he wanted air or was checking I’d actually gone or just happened to follow the same route, but he’s there, standing in the open door with his gray eyes locked on my face while the camera is firing at both of us.

“Reed, over here! Did you just throw out your girlfriend?”

The flash keeps going. Reed stares at me. I stare back. Neither of us moves. The photo is already taken. Whatever story it tells, I’m in it now.