Pretender (What Happens in Mayfair #2)

1. Pickle

CHAPTER ONE

pickle

LINNEA

I plaster on my Goldilocks smile. Not so small it reveals my disappointment. Not so big it says I don’t care. Lady Beauchamp reaches across the wooden table, narrowly avoiding my half-empty wine glass.

“I’m sorry, Linnea,” she says, squeezing my hand, and there’s a hint of remorse in her green eyes. Or it might be relief. Hard to say without staring at her, and this is enough eye contact for me while she’s clutching me like this.

Another potential client turning me down makes my stomach hurt. London is big, but the pool of opportunities for my maximalist interior design company isn’t.

She lets go of my hand. Finally.

It was getting awkward.

The group of suited men in the corner have been glancing over here. I think they’re waiting for one of us to cry.

I clear my throat. “May I ask why?” My voice comes out even. Phew.

Lady Beauchamp blinks at me.

“It’s my home away from home,” she answers after a beat. “It’s my sanctuary and highly personal to me.”

I nod.

“Absolutely,” I say. “And it would be in capable hands. My process involves getting to know you and considering all your needs.”

She scans the room—the interior design, I assume.

This is my work, after all. Two years ago, I transformed the whole look of this private members’ club, The Orion, and contributed to its roaring success.

We’re in the main members’ lounge, the more subdued of the many rooms with its dark carved woods, leafy greens, and velvet maroon upholstery.

I’m brimming with ideas for her Kingston-upon-Thames mansion, which is why I invited her here tonight.

I was going to take her to the Green Room to show how a faux-forest ceiling and wisteria canopy transport you to another world.

Or the Pink Room, where the contrast of bright blue and pink upholstery among wood and plants takes your breath away.

But I hold my hands in my lap, keeping my back straight.

‘Don’t be over the top. They don’t care that you’re enthusiastic about design. You’re being unprofessional.’

Lady Beauchamp breathes out. And continues to breathe out.

Okay, I’m worried about her now.

Please say something.

“You’re just not the right fit, darling.”

Ugh. Not that. What does she mean? I’m an accomplished professional. I’ve won awards for my work.

Although I need to remind myself of that these days.

My ex-husband managed to get half of LEAF Design Studio in our divorce settlement, and after paying him out, I’m in debt.

On top of that, half of my team and all my hospitality clients (except my main one, thankfully) left me in the last few months.

Lady Beauchamp is, so far, the only residential client who has agreed to meet with me, and here she is, turning me down with some vague reason.

Fuck, this is hard.

She turns in her seat, eyes searching the space. “Do you know if Aiden is here today?”

“He could be, but I haven’t seen him.” Not that I’ve tried to. I prefer to avoid him.

Sure, avoiding your main client isn’t the best strategy, but unless we have specific business to talk about, I’d prefer to keep contact to a minimum.

He might bring up Henry again. Aiden has seen more than anyone, thanks to my meltdown in front of him last year, and when he looks at me like he does, like he’s worried I’ll fall apart, the embarrassment of it all hits me again.

Fuck. Don’t think about it now.

Lady Beauchamp stands up, finished with me. “Must dash, thank you for the drink.”

She pops on her massive sunglasses, getting ready for the end-of-June evening sun or the paparazzi lurking outside, and drags a slender hand through her short grey cut.

Mirroring her move, I brush a hand over my long, blond waves, making sure they’re in place.

My ears burn, and I’m grateful she can’t see the bright red beacons of shame as I stand up to bid her farewell.

“Thank you, Lady Beauchamp, for coming to meet me here. I do hope you’ll reconsider.”

She faces me again, eyes hidden behind dark shades. For a second I wonder if she’s going to leave the proverbial door open, or at least give me something I can cling onto, but all I get is a close-lipped smile before she turns and exits the lounge in three long strides.

My phone buzzes on the table and the name DECLINE THIS CALL shows up on the screen. I grab it, but quickly press the red button, and plop down on the velvet banquette.

The phone vibrates in my hands, and I glance at the lock screen, wishing I hadn’t.

I hope you will answer one day. I want to hear how you are after the news.

The news. He wants to hear my voice crack as I say I’m fine. As I grit out a ‘congratulations’. I bite down so hard my jaw hurts.

“Shut up, you absolute arse-garbage,” I tell my phone.

“Now I know never to sneak up on you if I have my mother with me.”

The deep voice needs no introduction, but I’m startled and instinctively lift my gaze to find its source.

Aiden Aurellan.

The owner of The Orion and Aurellan Group, and my design studio’s biggest client.

Correction: only client.

“Sorry,” I say, but I’m not sure about what. Sorry he caught me nearly screaming at my phone? I twist it in my hands under the table as those steel-blue eyes scan my face.

He’s the one paying my employees’ wages. He practically holds Olga’s work visa, Daniel’s nursery bills, and Inez’s rent in his hands.

These people need me to succeed.

I need me to succeed.

And I hate having to rely on another man. In particular this man, who swans around, laughing his way through life. Now he’s wearing that easy smile of his, the one that most women swoon over without a second thought.

For me, it helps that his man-whore history is so unsexy that even his unnaturally good looks—that Italian tan, his dented chin, the thick, salt-and-pepper, tousled hair—have zero effect on me. Zilch. Nada.

I turn back to my phone for no other reason than refusing to give him the satisfaction of having my attention. He gets enough of that from everyone else.

And not looking at him directly makes it easier not to remember the worst event of my life.

I’m actually pretty good at not thinking about it.

See, he’s standing right there with his big hands in his pockets, and here I am not reliving the suffocating sensation of pure humiliation.

“Lighten up, Linny.”

I just cracked a tooth.

“Sure,” I mutter.

I square my shoulders, tipping my head back to meet his eyes again. There he is, watching me, and I put on my just-right mask again instead of correcting my name as I do every time he calls me that.

“Aren’t you going to tell me it’s Linn-eh-ah?

” he adds, as if he’s a mind reader. “I just wanted you to look back up.” His face bursts into that wide, uncontainable smile of his, and I bite the inside of my cheek so I don’t react.

I just stare back at him, but I’d prefer not to have his eyes on me like that.

He seems to force his grin down, tucking it away. A tiny dimple appears on the side of his chin when he does that. He huffs through his nose and shakes his head while I keep my face calm, eyes still on him, but I don’t know how to react.

“So,” he starts, breaking the silence. “Was that Lady Venetia Beauchamp who just walked out of here?”

I finally allow myself to shift my gaze onto something else. Anything but his face.

“Yes,” I say to his hair. “You know her?”

“She’s close with my mother.”

Of course he’s acquainted with the aristocrat.

“Ah. Sorry, she asked for you, but I wasn’t aware you were in.”

Aiden shrugs and leans against the wall next to him. “Could I ask what you’re meeting about? Her husband is my contact regarding Aurellan Group.”

“Oh, nothing related to your company, I promise. I’m pivoting into residential, and she has a new house.”

And I’ll hopefully avoid ever working with Henry … and his new fiancée.

I don’t say that. I’ve already said too much.

Sure, Aiden already knows most of what he could know about Henry and me after witnessing what he did on Halloween, but I’m not getting into it with him.

He laughs everything off, so I doubt he’ll take my troubles seriously.

I won’t waste my breath, or his billion-pound time.

“If you want to woo someone like Venetia, you should smile more.”

I squeeze the phone in my hands, glad it’s practically unbreakable, and lift the sides of my mouth. “Thank you for the advice.”

Of course that’s his solution to my problems. I rarely see him without a smile.

Like right now. His classic easy grin.

I want to ask what’s so fucking funny, but I know the answer.

Aiden finds everything amusing. And he seems incapable of having a conversation without making the other person ‘lighten up’, and it bothers me when I’m the recipient of it. Here I am, trying my best to be professional, but he makes it so difficult.

For two years, I’ve been his designer, and for two years, I’ve preferred to keep my distance from him.

I can’t entirely put my finger on why, but after seeing how he flirts and laughs so easily with women, I didn’t want anyone to perceive me as equally gullible. Especially for the last eight months…

No. Not thinking about it.

I press my lips together and shake my head at myself, and a small huff coming from Aiden makes me look back up, but he’s just smirking away over there.

“The place is coming together.” He nods towards the stairs leading to the first floor. “It’s better than I could have imagined, as always.”

The remaining members of my team have been working up there for the last month, dedicated to implementing the design for one of Aiden’s extravagant events.

This one is with his friend Mark’s gaming company.

They’re presenting Mark’s new game as an augmented reality experience, and this, of course, requires a luxury immersive, Elven fantasy forest.

“Glad to hear you like it,” I say. “I do too.”