Hold the Horses (Romance Expected Dating Service #4)

Chapter 1

Lindsay

“The Monet reproduction is completely ruined.” I stare at the torn canvas hanging askew on my living room wall, paint flaking onto the hardwood floor like confetti from hell. “And the Rothko. God, the Rothko.”

My housekeeper Stella clicks her tongue sympathetically while sweeping glass into a dustpan.

She’s worked for me long enough to know better than comment on the destruction boyfriends leave behind, and this particular disaster is courtesy of Preston Whitmore III, heir to a pharmaceutical fortune and apparently incapable of expressing passion without destroying a priceless glass sculpture.

Stella straightens, brushing a strand of gray hair from her forehead as she surveys the damage. “I can call the restoration service, Miss Lindsay. They fixed the Picasso after the incident with Mr. Conner.”

Right. The incident. That’s what we’re calling it now when my dates reveal themselves to be spineless yes-men who think agreeing with everything I say counts as devotion.

And Preston spent twenty minutes yesterday ranting about his mother’s passive-aggressive comments at Sunday brunch, which would’ve been refreshing if he hadn’t been hurling my coffee table books at the wall to punctuate each point.

“Passionate support,” he’d called it, his chest puffed out like he’d just conquered Mount Everest instead of vandalized my apartment. Like destruction somehow proved he was on my side rather than revealing his complete inability to handle conflict like a rational adult.

I sink onto my leather sofa, surveying the carnage that represents three relationships this year and three spectacular failures.

My penthouse apartment looks like a tornado hit a museum gift shop, and the pattern is becoming embarrassingly predictable.

Meet charming man at charity gala or business function, enjoy witty banter over expensive wine, begin dating, introduce increasingly elaborate tests to determine his true character, and then watch relationship implode in spectacular fashion.

The testing protocol evolved over time, becoming more sophisticated as men failed them in creative ways that would’ve been amusing if they weren’t so depressing.

It’s like a manual for the dating-challenged.

I stage minor emergencies to see if they’d drop everything to help, mention fake allergies to gauge their accommodation level, disagree with their political opinions to test their respect for different viewpoints, and create scenarios where they have to choose between me and their comfort zone.

Preston’s final test involved me criticizing his mother’s habit of making backhanded compliments about my career.

“Your mother called my business ‘cute’ again yesterday,” I’d mentioned casually over breakfast while buttering my croissant.

“Right after she suggested I might want to think about scaling back once we get serious.”

Any decent boyfriend would either defend me or acknowledge the problem but instead, Preston launched into his own tirade while systematically destroying my book collection, apparently thinking property damage was an appropriate way to show solidarity rather than actually addressing the issue at hand.

Stella dumps another dustpan full of debris into her trash bag, and the sound of glass hitting plastic makes me wince because it sounds too much like my romantic life shattering into pieces. “Maybe no more art books on display?”

“Maybe no more dating.” I rub my temples where a headache is forming, the familiar throb that accompanies romantic disasters and public humiliation. “I’m clearly terrible at this.”

Stella pauses in her cleaning, fixing me with the look she’s perfected over fifteen years of employment. She wore the same expression when I was twelve and insisted I could handle riding my horse bareback, right before I fell into the mud and learned confidence doesn’t replace competence.

“Miss Lindsay, perhaps the problem isn’t you,” she says, and something gentle but firm in her voice makes me pay attention.

“No, it’s definitely me.” I gesture at the destruction around us, at the torn canvas and scattered glass, the coffee table books with their pages splayed open like broken birds. “Normal people don’t drive men to destroy priceless artwork.”

Stella sets down her dustpan and crosses her arms, studying me with a level of scrutiny that makes me feel like I’m being dissected. “Normal people don’t test their boyfriends like they’re auditioning for a Broadway show either.”

The observation makes me wince, and I shift on the sofa, suddenly uncomfortable with how the leather squeaks under me and how exposed I feel. “The testing works because it reveals character.”

“It reveals you don’t trust anyone.” Stella picks up a shard of glass from my coffee table, examining it in the light through my panoramic windows. “When did that start?”

I don’t answer because we both know exactly when it started, and talking about Dalton still makes my stomach clench with remembered humiliation.

Three years ago, when I caught my fiancé in bed with my maid of honor two weeks before our wedding, and not just any bed but the bed in our shared penthouse, the one with the Italian sheets I’d special-ordered for our future married life.

The scene replays in my mind with unwelcome clarity that time hasn’t managed to fade.

Dalton’s surprised face above Jessica’s perfectly sculpted shoulders, the champagne bottle on the nightstand that was the same vintage we’d chosen for our reception, and her engagement ring on the dresser that he’d apparently asked her to remove so he could pretend she was someone else entirely.

Or maybe she’d done that voluntarily, not able to wear it to screw Dalton (literally), and me, and her own fiancé Kenworth (figuratively) with it on her finger.

It turned out he’d been using me as a steppingstone to social connections while screwing half my social circle behind my back, and the wedding was canceled. I couldn’t get a refund on deposits, and the humiliation lingered for months, whispered about at every society function I attended.

That’s when I learned money makes people perform because they’ll say anything, do anything, and become anyone they think you want them to be as long as there’s a sufficient payoff at the end.

The testing is just my way of cutting through the performance to find out who they really are underneath the charm offensive, except lately, all I’m finding is chaos and damaged artwork.

My phone buzzes against the coffee table, vibrating against the wood with insistent energy that cuts through my brooding.

Ellen’s name flashes on the screen, and I grab it gratefully because Ellen Hartwell is one of my few friends who knew me back when my biggest worry was passing organic chemistry, and my greatest relationship challenge was figuring out if the cute guy in my statistics class actually liked me or just wanted help with his homework.

“Please tell me you saw the news about Preston,” Ellen says without preamble, and her voice carries that particular blend of sympathy and barely contained amusement she reserves for my romantic disasters.

“They got photos?” I close my eyes, already knowing the answer because in Manhattan, privacy is a luxury even money can’t always buy.

“Oh, honey, they got video,” Ellen says, and I can practically hear her cringing on my behalf. “Someone in the building across the street filmed the whole thing through your window, and it’s already gone viral.”

Of course it has. I can picture it now, trending on social media with hashtags like #ArtAttack and #RichPeopleProblems while my father adds another Caldwell family scandal to his collection.

Perfect. Another romantic disaster immortalized for public consumption, and I slide deeper into the sofa cushions, wishing I could disappear entirely into the expensive leather.

“I’m done,” I announce, and the words come out flat and defeated in a way that surprises even me. “Officially retired from dating. I’ll buy a mansion in the countryside, adopt seventeen cats, and become one of those eccentric spinsters who collects vintage teaspoons.”

Ellen’s laugh bubbles through the phone speaker, warm and familiar and exactly why I answered her call instead of wallowing alone in my destroyed apartment. “You’re allergic to cats.”

“I’ll take allergy medication.” I’m already envisioning my future as a recluse, complete with flowing scarves and an attitude problem that would make my mother roll over in her grave.

“You hate the countryside,” Ellen says with logic that makes her an excellent friend and a terrible enabler of my dramatic tendencies.

“I’ll develop an appreciation for pastoral tranquility.”

“Also, you already collect vintage teaspoons,” she says relentlessly. “Your kitchen has three full drawers of them.”

Damn. She’s right about that too. The silver collection was one of my mother’s few domestic interests, passed down to me along with her jewelry and her apparent talent for romantic disasters.

“Fine, I’ll collect something else. Vintage thimbles.

Snow globes. Garden gnomes with inappropriate facial expressions. ”

Her tone shifts, suggesting she’s about to say something I won’t like. She used the same voice to convince me to take advanced calculus our senior year, which nearly destroyed my GPA and my sanity in equal measure. “Or you could try dating someone who doesn’t know about your money.”

The suggestion makes me laugh, but there’s no humor in it because the idea is so fundamentally na?ve. “Everyone in Manhattan knows about my money. It comes with the territory of being daughter and heir apparent to the Caldwell Industries’ CEO.”

“Not everyone,” she says with cheery optimism that makes me wonder if her new relationship has affected her brain chemistry. “There are normal people in this city who don’t read Forbes or follow society pages.”