Chapter 4
LILA
If the news that the firehouse was being purchased by billionaires lit a match inside me, then seeing them waltz into the Ritz clad in thousand-dollar tuxes and priceless diamond necklaces poured gasoline on the flames.
“Smug bunch of rich assholes,” Zane seethes beside me as he takes one last puff of his clove cigarette, then tosses the end on the sidewalk and grinds it beneath his boot. Usually, I’d lecture him about littering. Smoking too; that shit’s so bad for you. But I’m too defeated to bother.
Serves me right for trusting what an attractive stranger told me—especially because I first learned my lesson about handsome strangers a whole lifetime ago.
“You can say that again.” I slump against the wall of the Ritz-Carlton hotel, where the Fisher Group—the corporation buying the firehouse—is holding their gala tonight.
Ironic, as the San Francisco Ritz is in a heritage building with protected status…
I guess historic landmark buildings mean more to the city when they’re occupied by five star hotel chains, and not rag tag groups of artists.
“Did you see how they looked at us?” Alastair scowls. “Like we’re shit they were trying not to step in.”
“We just have to keep trying. So tonight was a bust, but we’ll keep showing up until someone takes notice. We can petition the city planning office, or alert the media, or someone who works in the mayor’s office, or…” I trail off as desperation clutches at my throat, making it difficult to breathe.
Masha runs a hand through her cropped black curls, worry lining her features as she studies me. “We’ll find a way, Lilabug. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day,” she says softly, ever the voice of reason.
But I don’t want reason right now.
I want karma.
“Shall we go get some food?” Masha offers. “Siam House?” She dangles the name of my favorite Thai restaurant as bait, clearly trying to cheer me up.
“I could eat,” I tell her as I force a smile.
If I can’t have karma for greedy billionaires tonight, at least I can have khao soi.
It’s a curried noodle soup native to the northern provinces of Thailand where my mom’s family comes from, and while not quite comparable to my mom’s home cooking, the version at Siam House is pretty damn delicious.
“Think I could sneak in to pee before we go?” Alastair says as he nods towards the front door of the hotel, which is flanked by two doormen dressed in matching tailed coats and top hats.
“Good luck getting past the penguins,” Zane replies with a snort, just as the door flies open and a man in a tux strides out.
“Ooh look, there’s one of the rich assholes now!” Angel says, then she sucks in a sharp breath. “Good Lord…rich asshole or not, he’s gorgeous.”
I look up, and my stomach twists in a tight knot as Hercules himself jogs down the stairs.
His cheeks are flushed and the top button of his shirt is undone; his bowtie loose and draped around his neck.
His glowing green eyes are fixed on me. Intently.
The whole thing would be hot as all hell… if he wasn’t one of them.
The guy played me like a violin, and I only have myself to blame.
I should have guessed. Last night, or when I googled Fisher Group today and read the profiles of the executives there, I should have noticed the resemblance.
Should have realized someone like that doesn’t show up on your doorstep unannounced because of damn serendipity.
I narrow my eyes at the beautiful man who’s probably richer than God. “Let’s get out of here, guys,” I say, and we all turn to leave.
“Hey!” the man calls.
We start walking.
“Hey,” he yells again. “Wait up.”
Lenni, a glass blower with rainbow-striped hair and a septum piercing, frowns. “Is he talking to us?”
“No,” I say, sounding a lot more sure than I am.
“Hey, you! The girl in the cream dress with the combat boots.”
“I think he is talking to us.” Zane looks at me, suspicion clouding his expression as he looks me up and down, taking in the crocheted off-white babydoll mini dress that I decided to pair with my favorite leather boots today. “In fact, I think he’s talking specifically to you, Lil.”
Hercules jogs over, reaching us surprisingly fast for someone sporting pointy dress shoes so shiny I can see my reflection in them. Everyone stops walking, turning to look at him instead. I sigh, left with no choice but to spin and face the guy.
He’s standing so close, I catch notes of warm vanilla, sweet tobacco, and wealth from his cologne.
I place my hands on my hips. “What do you want?”
“I wanted to talk to you.” He smiles, a lopsided, bashfully charming smile I’m sure he’s perfected over the years and wielded as a weapon on thousands of unsuspecting women. But how dare he smile at me right now?
“I have nothing to say to you,” I retort. Maybe I thought he was gorgeous last night, but that was before I knew the ugly truth about who he is. And there’s nothing pretty about men so rich and attractive they always get what they want and don’t care who they have to knock down to get it.
Zane looks from me to Hercules and back again. “Wait, do you know this guy or something, Lila?”
“No!” I cry, just as he smirks and says, “We’re acquainted.”
I glare at him, and in response, he raises a challenging brow. “Don’t pretend like I didn’t give you the idea to protest for a ‘no demolition’ status for the firehouse.”
Angel gasps. Alastair swears. I start to feel a bit nauseous.
“Is this true, Lila?” Masha asks.
“Yes.” I look around at my friends, flushing as I explain, “He showed up at the firehouse last night after everyone else left; I had no clue who he was. He pretended he was lost.”
“I thought I might be lost,” Hercules corrects me. The absolute gall of this man.
I look at him and shake my head. “But you weren’t, were you?”
He has the decency to flush. “No,” he admits.
“Were you there to spy on us?” I bite my lip to stop it from trembling. I feel terrible at the very thought that I might’ve dragged all my friends out here tonight, giving them false hope for nothing.“Or was this part of some twisted game?”
He aims that stupid dimpled grin at me. “Like Twister?”
I ignore his joke—and his dimples. “Did you plant those ideas in my head so we’d come and protest here tonight for your entertainment? So you and your rich friends could laugh at us?” I swallow, mortification seeping through me like wet paint. “At me, for being dumb enough to fall for it?”
“No!” Hercules’s golden brows scrunch together, the smirk vanishing from his face. “I was there because I don’t agree with what we—uh, the Fisher Group—are planning to do. I want them to leave the firehouse alone, and I was trying to help.”
I cross my arms. I don’t miss the way he trips over his “we” correction, confirming I can’t trust this guy as far as I could throw him. “Okay, then answer me one thing.”
“Sure.” His green eyes lock on mine again, and they look so genuinely sincere I shudder.
“Is your last name Fisher?”
He hesitates, looking unsure for the first time since he came out here.
Finally, he nods. “It is.”
Probably the first honest thing that’s come out of his mouth since I met him.
I nod at him. “Then we have nothing more to say to each other. Goodnight—” I pause, realizing that I don’t actually know his first name.
“Hercules?” he prompts with a little smile.
“You’re no hero.”
The guy looks almost sad for a moment. Which is impossible; he’s a monster. I tell myself I must’ve imagined the sad look on his face as his smile quickly moves back in place. “Then just call me Fisher.”
“What’s your actual name?” I ask so I can look this guy up later when I get home.
I didn’t see him listed as an exec on the Fisher Group website, and I’m curious to find out what his role is there so I can work out why, exactly, he gave me the information he did last night—because there’s no way he’s actually trying to help me.
Who knows, maybe he’s fresh out of college, and destroying the firehouse is his first project for the family business.
He rubs the back of his neck. “It’s Archibald.”
My brows fly up. Who the hell calls a baby Archibald? He may be one of the bad guys, but even I have to admit, Hercules suits him much better.
“Archibald?!” Zane hoots. “Of course your first name is Archibald.”
He gives Zane a withering look. “Got a problem there, pal?”
Zane bristles, then takes a step forward so he’s standing just in front of me, almost protectively, and the two men enter one of those bizarre alpha male stare-offs.
Archibald Fisher might have the demeanor of a golden retriever who’s been cooped up inside all day, but the man has a good ten inches on Zane, and probably about fifty pounds of muscle as well…
art doesn’t really bulk one up like whatever Hercules here must do at the gym.
Before tonight, I would have bet money he did something involving physical work as a full-time job, but clearly I was wrong—instead, he probably goes to the gym every night to decompress after spending his days in a humongous glass-walled corner office on the eighty-seventh floor of some high-rise monstrosity, yelling at people on the phone in between hooking up with his secretary.
I wrinkle my nose in disgust at the thought as the two men face off like they’re a pair of damn peacocks.
“Yeah, I have a problem,” Zane says. “You and your family are my problem.”
Fisher stares at him. “You did just hear me saying I’m trying to help you guys, right?”
He looks so perplexed, it’s almost hard to believe he’s a lying dickhead.
The only other person I know who was this good of an actor is my dad.
I’ve never met the man, but I’ve heard enough cautionary tales about him over the years to be smarter than to believe whatever this guy is saying right now.
I study Fisher, trying to work out his angle. I’m confused—if he was playing a game, toying with us, why wouldn’t he admit it now? He’s got nothing to lose and everything to gain by letting us know that in reality, we don’t actually have a hope of saving the firehouse.
“We don’t need your help, Archibald!” Zane insists.
“Clearly, you do. And like I said, I go by Fisher.”
“I don’t give a shit if you go by Norman Rockwell.”
Fisher rolls his eyes. “As if I’d opt for anything that cliché.”
“What do you know about Rockwell, or any other artist for that matter?” Zane growls.
“More than you might think,” Fisher snaps back.
“Men,” Masha mutters under her breath.
Angel nods, twirling a long lock of white-blond hair around her finger. “Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.”
“Right now, I’d happily take my chances without,” I say.
“Do you think he could really be trying to help us?” Lenni asks, her voice heavy with hope, and a wave of exhaustion crashes over me. All I want to do right now is eat my body weight in noodles, then crawl into my bed and hibernate for the next three to five business days.
My eyes return to the enigma that is Archibald Fisher, and I shake my head with a sigh. “I doubt it.”
He opens his mouth to speak, but flashing lights create a red shadow across his handsome features.
A wail of sirens cuts through the night air, and an ambulance appears behind Fisher, flying down the street towards the Ritz.
It screeches to a halt a few feet away from the front doors, and a team of paramedics leap out and begin unloading a stretcher.
A second ambulance pulls up a moment later, and as the paramedics all jog towards the front door of the hotel, it swings open, and a red-faced man strides out, his cellphone to his ear.
He looks like a middle-aged version of Fisher, but his green eyes are cold and his mouth has a calculating, almost cruel, tilt to it.
“Father?” Fisher’s voice croaks, his face has gone pale under his tan. “What happened?”
The older man shoots a panicked look in our direction, and when he sees his son standing with us, he does a double take. “Archibald, what are you doing out here? Your mother’s been looking everywhere for you.”
“I was just—” Fisher starts, then stops. Shaking his head, he begins walking towards his dad…er, father. The fact that he even refers to him as “Father” is enough to tell me everything I need to know about the older man. “I just stepped out for some air. What’s going on?”
Mr. Fisher looks at his son, for a long, loaded moment, his eyes stony. Then he swallows and says, “It’s your granddad.”