6. Graham
GRAHAM
“You don’t look like the girlfriend of a billionaire,” I say to the windshield as we drive down Fifth Avenue. “You couldn’t have at least put on some makeup?”
She lets out a sob next to me.
I glance at her. Her face is splotchy, her eyes are big and dilated. She’s still at the disbelief stage. She looks like she hasn’t slept. Her hands twist in her lap.
She’d do anything for me.
Shut up, I tell that evil thing in me.
Just five hours, then...
Then what?
I’d have to kill her to keep her from talking. Or bribe her.
I’m letting her go after brunch.
Or you could keep her.
I’m letting her go.
“Smile,” I order her.
She gives me a scared look.
“I said smile. You have to be my girlfriend. You have to look like you…” I pause then force the words out. “Love me.”
She musters a teary smile.
I slam my hand on the dashboard. She shrieks and claps her hand over her mouth.
The screaming grates against my nerves. I flex my shoulder blades, relax them.
“I’m warning you.” My voice lowers to a dangerous pitch. “Keep fucking with me and I’ll throw your stupid little dog out into the middle of Fifth Avenue.”
“You wouldn’t,” she sobs.
I wouldn’t.
I’d rather jump off a building.
But brunch is in fifteen minutes, so ticktock.
She’s crying now—ugly sobs.
“Stop crying!” I scream at her. “Stop it! Look happy!”
She doesn’t look happy when we pull up at the valet, but at least she isn’t sobbing.
“Pull it together,” I whisper, snarling in her ear as I rest my hand on her waist and guide her through the lobby of the hotel to the Brasserie Saint-Montreval.
I’m the one who needs to pull it together. My mouth is dry, my heart’s racing, and I’m sick. I just want to drop to my knees in front of all these posh people in the hotel lobby, confess my sins, and beg forgiveness.
It’s one brunch.
Just get through brunch.
What if my parents don’t buy it? Frank is an ex-FBI agent. He worked kidnapping cases. He’s going to take one look at this girl and know. He’ll know what I did, and he’ll make me pay.
“Are you two here for the Donnelley party?” The hostess is chipper when she greets us. “You’re a family of early birds!”
“Yes, we like to get an early start.”
We follow the hostess to my impending execution. My parents and siblings are there. No Claire.
The chatter trails off as we approach the table.
“Found your straggler!” The hostess beams. “I’ll get you some waters.”
Beside me, the girl stiffens.
I keep my hand on her neck possessively. She stands very close to me.
I hold my breath, waiting for her to scream, Help, I’ve been kidnapped!
Instead she gives my family a wan smile.
My siblings, for once in their lives, are speechless. They sit there, mouths open.
Yeah, that’s right, motherfuckers. You thought I was lying. But I wasn’t. Look what I have—a girlfriend! I want to crow.
My hand slides down her back.
“Oh, um, wow—” My mom is shocked. She and Frank look at each other then back at me. “Wow. Kid. A girlfriend. Well, um—” My mom stands up and smooths her hands down her black jeans. “Wow,” she repeats.
“Well, Graham, aren’t you going to introduce us?” Frank demands.
Aren’t I going to… My brain screeches to a halt.
I do not know her name. I never asked her name. I never asked her anything about herself. Don’t know where she works, where she lives, food allergies, how old she is—nothing.
The girl is silent.
“Graham?”
Frank knows. I know he knows. His eyes are narrowed like he can smell the crime on me.
“Yeah, Graham.” The girl turns slowly, my arm still hooked around her waist. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
She says it innocently, but the smile—a real smile now—on her face says, Eat shit, motherfucker.
“I—” I stare down at her.
She lifts up on her toes. “You fucking suck at this,” she whispers. Her breath brushes my mouth.
“Hi!” she says brightly, holding out her hand to my mom.
“I’m Dani. I work at Svensson Investments as an associate financial analyst, and I’m afraid I’ve had to pull an all-nighter.
Graham”—the way she says it scratches the inside of my skull—“was a sweetheart and stayed up with me. Unfortunately, he’s not as great with late nights as I am—used to it, I’m afraid.
But I want to go to the Formula 1 race in Monaco next month, and Svensson really doesn’t like to give PTO, so I needed to bank some goodwill. ”
I’m stuck on the part where she said she works at Svensson Investments.
Yeah. Them.
Greg Svensson is going to shit a brick when he finds out I took one of his analysts.
Not because he cares about her as a person—he’s a sociopath—but because I cost him money.
He makes those analysts work on weekends.
He’s got trackers on those fucking laptops.
Shit, he probably already has his ex-marine brother Crawford ready to drone bomb my penthouse.
Cool. I’ll just have to enjoy myself at brunch since it’s the last meal I’m going to eat as a free man.
I resign myself to a life in prison and pull out a chair for Dani.
I’ve constantly been inundated with stuff from my parents about being respectful of women: No means no, only enthusiastic consent, and here are all the serial killers and kidnappers in the history of America, aren’t they horrible, terrible people?
Basically, without saying it: Don’t end up like dear old Dad, lest you end up in prison for life too.
They got nervous the one time in middle school I said I might like a girl, as if I wanted to keep her with me forever and ever.
That’s enough to turn my siblings back on.
“G-Doooogg!” Max cheers. “I knew you weren’t lying! Sit next to me, Dani!”
“No, me! You have to tell me everything.” Bridget grabs her hand. “Absolutely everything about Graham.”
“He’s your brother—you must know more than me.” The girl smiles at my half sister.
“Do drinks come with this free brunch?” Hannah asks me.
“They better,” Dani mumbles.
I nod dumbly and signal the waiter.
“Could you bring me a scotch please? The whole bottle.”
“Starting early, huh, kid?” Mom’s joke is tense. I know it’s a red flag—alcohol this early—but I’m done for anyway, so who cares?
“We can only do cognac by the bottle right now, sir.”
“Fine.”
If this is how I go out, I’m not going to be sober.
“Graham, scotch? It’s 8:15 in the morning.” Frank glares. “What has gotten into you?”
“He probably wanted to get laid this morning, and you made him come to a stupid brunch,” Max complains, not looking up from his phone game.
“No phones at the table, and watch your language.”
“Could you just make sure you keep the mimosas coming?” Dani asks the server.
My cognac comes first.
Dani grabs my glass and drains it before I can take a sip.
“I’m thirsty.” She hiccups.
“You could have drunk the tap water,” I hiss at her and grab my glass back. “I really picked the worst—”
My family is staring at us.
I swallow.
“The, uh—” My brain fires blanks.
I’m dead. I’m so dead.
“The worst time to introduce me to cognac,” Dani says brightly.
“At first, I didn’t really want to try it.
My dad drinks it—he brings it back from Saint-émilion when he goes in the fall for the art festival they have there.
I always thought it was stuffy, but then Graham made me try a sip of the 1922 Réserve Impériale bottle he won at a charity auction. And—hooked!”
“She has expensive taste,” I rasp.
“Sooo,” Hannah drawls, leaning on her hand. “How did you two meet?”
Dani takes a long swallow of her mimosa. “We, um, well, we—”
“There was a—”
We look quickly at each other. Then Dani turns away.
“Good morning! Sorry we’re late!”
Thank god for Claire.
“You’re actually on time.” Ryan kisses her. “We’re all early. Thanks, Dad.”
“Oh, is this the girlfriend everyone thought didn’t exist?” Claire’s father earnestly shakes Dani’s hand.
Ryan makes a face.
“Dad—” Claire hisses.
Claire’s dad is oblivious. “Ryan, I think you owe Claire a bit of money.” And then, shaking my hand: “And here’s the proud boyfriend. Graham Richmond.”
I see the recognition skitter across Dani’s face.
Yeah, I want to tell her. That Richmond.
She downs the rest of her mimosa then my scotch.
“Ryan’s paying for the brunch, Dad.” Claire tries to shove her father into a chair.
“Oh no,” Dani insists. “Graham’s paying—I think he and I are running up quite a tab.” She waves her glass. “Long night at the office. Financial analysis. Work hard, play hard. Such is corporate life.”
“Your parents must be proud!” Claire’s mom beams. “Seems like Graham got quite the catch.” She says this to my mom, Aurora.
My mom doesn’t smile. “I’m sure they’re really proud that their daughter makes rich men even richer.”
Bridget glares at Mom.
“Yeah, it’s really not that exciting.” Dani grimaces. “Mostly spreadsheets. We do get free food if we work after nine, which is nice.”
“Ooh, free food. That’s a fair exchange for your soul.”
“Mom!” Hannah hisses.
“What?”
“He is never bringing another woman around if you act like this.”
“Maybe that’s for the best,” Frank mutters behind his menu.
Claire’s dad opens up the menu. “Did you all already order?”
Aurora doesn’t even look down.
“No, Frank, we were waiting for the dramatic reveal of whether my son’s girlfriend was real or a very elaborate tax write-off.”
It’s weird that it stings that my mom doesn’t like my fake girlfriend.
This is a good thing. I don’t want her to like her.
Now I have an excuse to get rid of Dani.
Is it Stockholm syndrome?
Why is she cooperating?
Maybe she does care about you.
Shut up.
Dani—I have to give her credit—is great with my family. Well, my siblings and Claire’s family, to be exact. Funny, charming. Even when the jokes are at my expense. Who cares?
I did it.
I pulled it off.
I proved to them—proved to all of them—that I’m not completely defective. I do have a girlfriend, and she is normal.
Hell, forget normal.
Even though her clothes are poor quality—and thanks to Spencer I now have more knowledge about fabric grades than I ever needed to—she’s not some down-on-her-luck girl struggling to make it in the big city.
She doesn’t just have money from Svensson Investments. She comes from money.
The way she knows she can order caviar off-menu. The fact that she even knows how to eat it. The way she uses a knife and fork, continental style, like the French. How comfortable she seems in the opulent brunch spot.
Who is she?
Doesn’t matter. Clearly someone who people are going to be very upset about when they find out Stuart Richmond’s son kidnapped her off the street.
But it’s not enough for my parents.
I can’t read their expressions as they stare hard at her while she regales them with stories of her recent family Christmas trip to some chateau that her father’s friend owns in the Swiss Alps.
They don’t laugh when she tells them how her granny tried to crawl into bed with the elderly earl.
I drape my arm around the back of Dani’s chair.
They know it’s fake. Right? They have to.
I lean in toward her, try to make it look real, like we’re in love.
I’m not ready to go to prison yet. Will they put me with Dad? He’s going to be pissed when he finds out the girl I kidnapped looks like Dani.
Dani’s chair scoots back abruptly.
“Excuse me, please, for a moment. I need to run to the powder room.”
“Wait—” It’s too loud.
My family gives me odd looks.
“Don’t girls usually all go together?”
“Stop being weird—you’ll scare her off,” Hannah hisses at me. “God, what is wrong with this family.”
Before I can stop her, Dani is up and gone. I watch her disappear into the back of the restaurant.
Dani’s going to run. She’s going to call the police. There’s going to be a scene in the restaurant. My mom is going to hate-me hate-me, for real this time.
Should I go after her? Threaten her?
“You’re really obsessed with her, huh?” Ryan says to me, cocking his head. “I’ve never seen you like this.”
I rub my hands down the front of my pants.
The skin around Mom’s eyes is tense. Her lips with their dark lipstick are a thin line.
“Yes,” Frank says slowly. “Obsessed does seem to describe it, doesn’t it?”