Maverick Mogul
Enjoy the sizzling fake-date rom-com from Lila Monroe!
CHAPTER ONE: GRACE
There areplenty of great reasons to be frantically searching the drugstore aisles on a Friday night: A sudden Rocky Road craving… A last-minute face mask emergency… XXL condoms for a night of wild pleasure. But it says a lot about the sorry state of my life that those delicious, decadent pleasures are most definitely not on my list tonight.
“Removes grease,” I mutter, perusing the tiny letters on the back of the pet shampoo bottle. “Mud. But what about glitter?”
There’s a barking noise, and I look over to find the glitter-bombed beast shedding tiny twinkles all the way down the haircare aisle.
“We’ll fix it, buddy,” I promise, checking another bottle. “We have to, before your parents see you like this.”
Something tells me that my employers won’t be thrilled to find their prized poodle looking like a crazed My Little Pony. Apparently, the kids next door decided that a puppy makeover was part of their homeschooling experience, and it’s down to me to fix this mess. And all messes, in general. Such is the life of a personal assistant slash general dogsbody.
Pun sadly intended.
“Are you sure you don’t like the purple?” I muse, desperately searching the bottles. “It’s very cute on you.”
I get a growl in reply. “I guess that’s a ‘no’.”
The poodle’s name is Henri, pronounced as the French Awn-ree. My bosses, the Bassingers, love their annual trip to Paris—pronounced, of course, Pair-ee. They both work in banking jobs I do not understand, but I know they have very long hours and absolutely unfathomable amounts of money. I once looked up the property records for their Upper West Side townhouse. They paid four million dollars, twenty-five years ago. They were twenty-eight years old at the time.
I, meanwhile, am spending my twenty-eighth year in the Pet section of a Duane Reade drugstore, with zero husband, real estate, or pets to my name. I do have a Ficus tree, though, which is an achievement, considering how many basil plants I’ve cruelly murdered in my time.
“All right, bud,” I tell Henri, grabbing two bottles at random. “Let’s go.” I’m tugging him toward checkout, considering an extra-large bag of popcorn for my sins, when out of the corner of my eye, I spot a girl with glossy brown hair. She sweeps it back while studying a shelf of products.
I freeze in place because I know that hair swish, even though I haven’t seen it for a year.
Nadia, AKA my ex-best friend.
AAKA, the ex-best friend who started dating my ex-boyfriend one week after he dumped me.
AAAKA, you can guess how all those exes came to be.
My blood runs cold, seeing her again. Not to mention exactly where I’m seeing her: coming out of the sexual health section.
Oh God—is she pregnant?
Nope! I breathe a massive sigh of relief when I see that she’s actually holding a giant box of condoms. For all the sex she’s having with my ex-boyfriend.
Is that any better?
I gulp. A small part of me wants to warn her: By your second year together, he’ll get lazy in bed. Enjoy! But Nadia doesn’t deserve a warning. Seeing as, you know, she didn’t bother warning me about her plans to steal my man and detonate our friendship, all in one impressively competent swoop.
Nadia turns, and I leap behind a spinning display of greeting cards—but not fast enough. She sees me, and her face quickly goes through the three reactions of running into your ex-best friend: shock, horror, then finally pretend happiness.
“Oh my gosh, Grace!” she exclaims. “Hi! So funny meeting you here.”
“Oh my gosh!” I mimic. She’s in a perfectly tailored, dove gray suit, while my yoga pants have a smear of glitter across the hip. My heart sinks. Of course, the one time I bump into her, I’m looking like a walking laundry basket.
“How are you?” she coos. It’s as sugary and fake as wad of bubble gum.
“Fine,” I lie brightly. “How are you?”
Nadia looks great, which means me cursing her name every night for a month after the break-up has had exactly zero effect.
I’m not a perfect person, okay? Some betrayals deserve a couple of face boils, minimum.
“I’m so good!” Nadia trills. “Work is nutty, but it’s so worth it—and such a relief to finally do something after so much school.”
Oh, yeah—she’s a lawyer. A super-successful lawyer on partner track with her own office and an assistant to do all the crap I’m stuck doing as my actual job.
“That’s amazing,” I manage to reply.
“So,” Nadia says, gesturing at Henri. He wags his tail, even though I told him the entire story last summer. “You’re still… ?”
“Working as a personal assistant. Yep.”
“That’s great,” she says, in the exact tone of voice that someone would say, ‘Poor thing.’
I flinch. The problem with your boyfriend leaving you for your best friend is that both people know the worst of you. They both knew that I couldn’t seem to find my way out of this maze of never-ending PA jobs. They’d both seen me vent, cry, retrace the steps of how I ended up stuck here.
“So, listen,” Nadia says, at the same moment I say,
“Well, I better?—”
She’s adjusted her hands to discretely hide the condoms, and something glitters in the overhead light. A square-cut diamond, specifically.
They’re engaged?
The shampoo aisle starts to spin, and I’m hit with a sudden wave of gulping nausea.
He proposed. Miles, the man who told me that marriage was an archaic social construct. The man who took a full year to so much as clear me a sock drawer at his place. The man so cynical that he became a divorce lawyer—has asked Nadia to marry him. After less than a year?!
Nadia sees me gawking at the ring. “I know, right?” She gives a trilling laugh, waggling her fingers. “Miles surprised the heck out of me with this whole big to-do. My parents and brother flew in! They were waiting at the restaurant where we had our first official date, and… yeah! Whirlwind!”
I’ve been a personal assistant in Manhattan for six years. Believe me when I say my career has prepared me to poker face my way through some truly horrifying interactions. Still, it takes super-human effort for me to plaster a smile to my face. “I’m really happy for you,” I say through gritted teeth.
“That is so sweet. You know,” Nadia says. “One of my girlfriends told me you wouldn’t take the news well. And I was like… You don’t know Grace. She gets it.”
I get that the line between cheating and rebounding is paper thin, and I’m not convinced it wasn’t repeatedly crossed.
I get in the grand, whirlwind love story of their lives, I’m just roadkill on the side of the street.
“Oh, mhmm.” I swallow back the bile. “Definitely get it.”
“I know!” Nadia says, breezing past my sarcasm. “Like, clearly you and Miles weren’t a fit. But he and I both had so much in common that it led us to you, and then that led us together!”
I’m still amazed that after everything, this is really the story in Nadia’s mind. It’s probably on her wedding website. “Yeah.” I agree grimly. “You two are quite a pair.”
She presses one diamond-encrusted hand to her heart. “Thank you, Grace.”
If I have to stand here a moment longer, my fake-happy act will slip into full-on sobbing, so I start to back away. “I should get going. Places to go, people to see!”
Better hexes to devise.
“Have fun!” Nadia calls after me. “Let’s do lunch!”
Outside,I make a beeline toward the Bassingers’ place, trying to shake the horror of that surprise reunion. I mean, I understand that even in a city of millions, a meeting was inevitable one of these days, but did it really have to be tonight?
I’ve been telling myself I’ve moved on from Miles and Nadia, and I mostly have, but that doesn’t mean seeing that ring wasn’t salt in the wound. What I need right now is to shampoo a dog, drink half a bottle of wine, and ponder the state of my existence, but I’m right outside the townhouse when my phone buzzes. I check the caller and wince. Bret, the Bassingers’ miserable tech-bro son.
“Hello? I answer reluctantly.
“Yeah, I’m gonna need a cake delivered to my dinner tonight,” Bret says, instead of hello. “Gluten- and dairy-free. ‘Kay?”
Not ‘Kay.
Technically, I shouldn’t even work for Bret. But he moved back in with his parents after drinking his way through business school and set about treating everyone like his own personal staff. He has his laundry sent out, and then he complains about the way his shirts are starched. He eats meals from their personal chef and complains that the Tuscan Roast Pork doesn’t taste like it did in Tuscany.
The chef is Italian.
He’s been ordering me around for months, and for months, I’ve been trying to set boundaries with him. But faced with Bret’s aggressive tone, I fold every time.
Do I have problems asserting myself? Yes.
Do I tend to let people walk all over me rather than risk an uncomfortable conflict? Also yes.
Trust me, me and my motivational self-help podcasts are working on it, but in the meantime…
I take a deep breath, air filling my lungs till it almost hurts. “I don’t think I’ll be able to help tonight,” I tell him carefully. “I’ve got my hands full.”
With wallowing and wine, but still.
“And?”
“It’s almost seven o’clock.” I argue. “And most bakeries will be closed.”
“So?” he asks. “You’ll find one that isn’t. The restaurant’s in Tribeca, I need the cake for Letty’s birthday, I forgot about a gift so you need to make it special.”
I plant my feet, trying to hold firm. “I don’t think that’ll be possible.”
“I don’t pay you to think,” Bret says snidely. “And I don’t even have to pay you at all, if you can’t do the job…”
The threat dangles. His ultimate trump card. My pesky need to pay rent, buy groceries, and, you know, exist as a human adult in New York City without a trust-fund or mega-rich partner. Or any kind of partner at all.
Dammit.
“Fine.” I fold.
“No cutesy cupcakes or grocery store cakes, either. ‘Happy Birthday, Letty’ on the top. L-E-T-T-Y.”
The line goes dead.
O-K-A-Y.
I give myself one long sigh outside the Bassingers’ door, my shoulders slumping in defeat. Then I hand off the shampoo to the house manager. She takes Henri without question when I mutter, like a swearword, “Bret.”
She winces. “Good luck.”
No further explanation necessary.
It takes me one hour,three bakeries, and calling in a bunch of favors from my network of other assistant contacts to get the job done. But I hurry into the restaurant on time, panting but carrying a gorgeous confection with Happy birthday, Letty in dairy-free icing script. I’m flushed from a frantic hour but also, if I’m honest, glowing from the accomplishment, too. It has nothing to do with Bret, obviously. But I like a challenge: Pulling off the impossible when all the odds – and non-dairy requirements – are stacked against me.
And I like a job well done, even if it’s for the apex of human rudeness.
The hostess smiles prettily. “Name on the reservation?”
“Bassinger.”
“Hmm.” She leans into her tablet, pursing her lips. “It seems like both parties have already arrived. Are they expecting you?”
“I’m the family’s PA.” I lift the cake so she can see above the podium. “Just delivering a requested item.”
“Oh, um.” The hostess has a look on her face like I’ve held up a small rodent. “So, we don’t allow outside food at our establishment… Obviously…”
C’mon, Grace. Luckily, my name also serves as a reminder that this poor hostess may be having just as crappy a day as me. I tack a smile onto my face and try again. “Then perhaps you could deliver that message to Bret?”
The hostess’s eyes travel from my now-messy hair to my workout clothes. She sneers. “I’m sorry. I have to move to the next guests in line. If you could please step aside…”
Okay, now I’m pissed. There’s usually camaraderie between us service staff, united in our position way down the totem pole. But clearly, not with this girl tonight. I plant my feet more firmly. “I’m afraid I can’t leave without delivering the cake.”
“And I can’t allow you into the establishment without a reservation.”
We stare in a quiet standoff for another moment.
“Is this going to take a while?” A voice comes from behind me. An attractive, stylish couple is standing there, waiting for their turn. “We have a reservation,” the blonde woman adds. “And we’re on the clock for the babysitter. We could go take them the cake if you need,” she adds, shooting me a friendly smile.
“I have to check with my manager.” The hostess flounces off, and I sigh.
“Thanks all the same,” I tell the woman—and then stop dead when I see the guy behind her, scrolling on his phone.
Because I know that man.
Well, he was a boy when I saw him last, but it’s definitely him. Same tousled brown hair, same melting chocolate eyes. Same ability to make my heart lurch in my chest, damn him.
Charlie Fox.
I sat beside him for two years, as lab partners in the science classes he had to re-do for graduation. He was Mr. High School, and I was Literally No One, but he was always friendly enough, cracking jokes and asking about my weekend. Yes, technically, I made stuff up sometimes—Oh, I just hung out with my friends. (Who were fictional and on the CW.) But Charlie listened to my answers and told stories of his weekends, (with his real and actual friends), and was generally the dreamboat Mr. Popular who set all our hearts aflutter in unrequited longing.
Mine most definitely included.
And now here he is, ten feet away and ten years later. And of course, he looks unfairly, ridiculously good, while I’m standing here in my glitter-smeared laundry-day pants, with sprinted-through-the-city-humidity hair.
I stifle a silent groan. This would be funny—if it was happening to anyone else. I could have run into Charlie Fox last week, on my way to a first date (which was cringeworthy) in a fantastic black dress (which was crushworthy), but no. Nope! My life is not like that. My life is this: Dumped-by-a-BF-and-a-BFF personal assistant, wearing cleaning-the-house clothes and holding a ridiculous cake. Damn this chic, minimalist restaurant for not having a Grecian column or large Ficus that I can hide behind.
Then Charlie looks up. I feel an embarrassed heat rush over me, just like I’m back in bio lab. A more reliable part of my brain yells: Turn away! Instead, I blurt out, “Hey.”
He gives a nod and says, “Hey, how are ya?”
“Oh, fine. I had no idea you lived in the city! What have you been up to? I haven’t seen anyone around, although I’m guessing a bunch of people moved here. You know, the Big Apple, greatest city in the world!”
“Uhh…” Charlie looks confused, and not just because I’m babbling like a crazy person. “That’s… Great.”
And then I realize to my horror, he has no idea who I am. He met my eyes because I was staring at him. Hey, how are ya was a flat, rhetorical question to a stranger.
He doesn’t recognize me at all.
Of course he doesn’t. Who would? I was invisible in high school. Just like I am now.
My stomach sinks to the floor.
His date looks between us, just as confused. She has blond hair swept into a loose, elegant braid, wearing an amazing blue silk dress I’d kill to own. Of course Charlie has graduated from dating student theatre stars and cheerleaders to squiring plain old goddesses. “Do you two know each other?”
“No, no,” I lie, laughing at myself. My whole body is pulsing with embarrassment, the kind I thought I left in my teen years. “Sorry. You look like someone from my hometown.”
“Oh? Where are you from?” Charlie asks.
Indianapolis suburbs, pal. Same as you.
“Middle of nowhere,” I assure him. My heart is slamming against my chest. Every cell in my body is begging me to stop interacting with Charlie Fox. With every human in this city! Just go home and burrow.
Fortunately, the hostess returns with a curt nod. “Straight back and to the left.”
“Appreciate it,” I say, with all the dignity I can muster. Behind me, I hear the words, “Fox for two.”
Striding back toward Bret the Brat, I try to hold my head high. At least I’m ending my day with a win—if you can call my cake-wrangling that.
Which I’ll choose to do.
I spot Bret in the middle of the room, across from his gorgeous date. Here we go.
“Finally,” he greets me with a scowl.
“One cake, as promised,” I announce proudly, opening the box and lifting out the gorgeous dessert. “Special delivery. And it wasn’t easy to get.”
“What, you want a medal?” Bret smirks, as I reach to hand it over.
And then my elbow is thunked from behind—hard.
I feel the weight leave my hands, and it’s like slow motion, the perfect white disk hurtling through the air. The edible flowers are a blur of violet and yellow. My hands fly out but grip nothing.
SPLAT.
Every gluten-free, dairy-free molecule of cake lands on Bret’s lap, icing side down on black wool pants.
“What the fuck?” he shrieks, bolting upward. He pushes the cake off his lap, but it leaves smears of white icing down the crotch, looking exactly like…
Well, like Bret really, really loves this restaurant.
The crowd goes silent as everyone turns to stare, and I can’t help it: A strangled giggle escapes my throat.
“You IDIOT!” Bret screeches, turning red with fury. “Can you see what you’ve done?!”
We all can. He starts wiping at the frosting, but it only makes things look more… Enthusiastic.
My giggle turns into a full-on laugh, and even his po-faced date begins to smile.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” someone at my side is saying. Charlie Fox, teenage dream. The elbow bumper himself. He has a horrified look on his unfairly handsome face. “Totally my fault. I’m happy to pay for?—”
“No way!” Bret yells, thrusting one finger at me. “She can pay for it, for being incompetent! She lives off my family’s money, but can’t even do her basic job?”
I flush, embarrassed. “That’s not true!” I protest uselessly. I’m very, very good at my job. Please see: That beautiful cake dripping down his front.
But then I see the faces of all the fancy diners surrounding us. They’re not laughing at Bret—they’re laughing at me. After all, I’m the clumsy one who just made a fool of myself. He’s the victim here—of my incompetence.
I wish the ground would open and swallow me up.
“Let’s take a breath here,” Charlie Fox says to Bret, trying to calm him. Sure, he can be clear and firm. Why not? He’s Charlie Fox, prom king of Hayworth High and, apparently, all of Manhattan. “It’s not her fault that?—”
“I’m fine,” I mutter to him, though I feel like I could physically burst from embarrassment. “It’s fine.”
“Is it?” Bret’s face is beet red. “This cost you your job. Is that fine? The unemployment line’s fine?”
I want to say that it’ll be better than this, but there’s a lump in my throat. I’ve never felt so humiliated. Every gorgeous person in this gorgeous restaurant is smirking at me, like I’m the entertainment for the night.
A cautionary tale.
“Bret, let’s just go.” Letty says, clearly uncomfortable. Bret shoots me one last nasty look and flees after her, white-smeared crotch and all, going, “Babe. C’mon, babe!”
I watch them go, reality sinking in.
I’m fired. The job I’ve been swallowing my pride to keep these past months? It’s gone now. Which means all my bending over backwards and biting my lip to keep Bret happy has been in vain.
And I’m back where I started, all over again.
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Charlie says, as I turn, dejected. His ridiculously handsome face is smiling at me, like this is no big deal. “This is probably a blessing in disguise, if you think about it. I mean, working for that asshole can’t have been fun.”
“Fun?” I echo in disbelief. I stare at him, my anger and humiliation stinging sharper in my veins. “You think I took this job for fun?!”
He takes a step back, surprised. “OK, so I’ll make some calls and fix it for you.”
“Oh will you? Will you really?” I snap back. “Well thanks, but I don’t need a white knight galloping in. Especially one who doesn’t remember me because I’m so invisible that he literally tries to walk through me.”
He startles at this, the question in his eyes. Well, I’m this far in it now.
“Hayworth High—got you through bio labs? Grace Sommerville.” I sweep a hand down my general presence. Yes, I’m still wearing glitter-bombed yoga pants. In a restaurant so expensive that the prices aren’t listed on the menu. “Just peachy to see you again.”
“Grace,” he repeats, realization dawning.
“Yep. It’s a name and a lifestyle,” I say, heavy with sarcasm. “Although clearly my natural grace hasn’t helped me out so far. Maybe I should leave it off the resume for my next job – because yes, I’m going to have to find another humiliating PA position now.” I yell. “Not every person starts as the Prom King and only goes up from there! Like, ‘Most Popular’ in the HHS yearbook wasn’t enough? Let’s breezily shoot for ‘Most Popular’ in the country’s largest metropolitan area!”
Beside him, the blonde date tries not to laugh. I can’t even be mad at her. I’d laugh at me too right now.
I turn to go. The adrenaline is wearing off and I’m ten, maybe twelve seconds from bursting into tears. “Have a nice life, Charlie Fox! Go Hawks.”
And then I leave, safe in the knowledge I will never, ever see the man again.
At least, that’s what I think at the time…
TO BE CONTINUED…