Epilogue #2
I check on Eliza—passed out, still hugging the mixing bowl.
I toss a spare tablecloth over her waist for modesty purposes, grab an unopened bottle of champagne and a clean flute, and collapse into a chair at one of the bistro tables, kicking off my heels as I pour myself a drink.
The catering staff bustles around me, cleaning up; one of them, an older woman, puts some leftover food onto a plate and brings it to me.
"Oh god, thank you!" I say. "I haven’t had a chance to eat."
She just smiles, nods, and carries a tray of empty flutes into the kitchen.
I pick and sip, and slowly, the courtyard empties, except for me, my bottle, my flute, and my food.
"Excuse me?" A female voice startles me out of my thoughts—a disjointed jumble of to-do list items for tomorrow.
The owner of the voice is a stunning woman, a few years older than me, with dark reddish-auburn hair and piercing blue eyes.
She's dressed in an understated Little Black Dress that fits her curvy body so perfectly it has to be a custom piece—the kind of fashion statement you can only make with the kind of extreme wealth that means you never have to think about the cost of anything.
I peer up at her, exhausted; I've been up for over twenty-four hours now. "You sort of missed the event."
She laughs. "I know. We were invited to several events this evening and couldn't make it to all of them, but my husband is passionate about this cause. We were hoping we could still make a donation."
"Of course!" I push away the exhaustion and force myself into Businesswoman Mode.
The event tonight was a fundraiser for a nonprofit specializing in rescuing victims of human trafficking—the nonprofit in question is a newcomer to the SoCal fundraising scene, which is probably why they hired us instead of one of the bigger, more well-known event planners.
"Come this way, if you please." I wrench my feet into the torture devices formerly known as shoes and get to my feet. "I'm Demi Kaplan."
She takes my outstretched hand and shakes it. "Delia." Something in the way she didn't add her last name tells me the omission was on purpose.
I lead her back into the restaurant to where Nathaniel, our numbers guy, is still tabulating. "Nathaniel? We have a last-minute donation."
Nathaniel doesn't look up, but slides toward me the information sheet explaining the various ways to transfer funds; his fingers fly on the calculator in front of him as he sorts through handwritten checks— most of our donations are digital these days, but a few old-school donors still like the act of writing a physical check.
"I feel bad," I tell her. "We ran out of gift bags a long time ago. I don't even have any food to offer you." I spy a box of champagne and grab a bottle. "Drink?"
Delia smiles as she eyes the information sheet and then scans the QR code with her phone. "I wouldn't say no to a glass of champagne. It's been a long day."
"Tell me about it," I mutter, grabbing the bottle; I scan the nearly empty kitchen, but can't find any flutes. "Good lord. This is pathetic. I don't have any glasses."
Delia taps her phone. "There."
Nathaniel's tablet chimes as the donation appears on his end. He pauses his check tabulation, taking a sip from a plastic water bottle. Whatever he sees makes him spew the mouthful of water halfway across the room.
Whirling so fast his chair topples over, he stares at Delia. "Is that a mistake?"
With a prim, confident smile, she shakes her head. "Not at all."
He gives me an incredulous, urgent come see this look. So I take a glance at the screen—fifteen grand here, forty there, a hundred here, twenty. The last donation recorded is…
Five hundred thousand dollars?
My head whips up, and I find her eyes. "That's…insanely generous of you, Delia."
She shrugs. "My husband and I are firm believers that wealth is meant to be used for the betterment of all, not just us."
"Hello? DeeDee?" A deep male voice echoes from the courtyard.
"In here, babe!" Delia calls.
A moment later, a tall man with absurdly broad shoulders swaggers into the back area.
He’s dressed in a bespoke tux, a watch glittering on his left wrist—a thing properly called a timepiece that likely cost as much as the building we're in.
His hair is dark blonde and a little too long; his jaw is shadowed with stubble.
His face is one just about everyone knows—Hunter Hawkins.
Which makes the woman, Delia Hawkins-Badd, his wife.
Which makes further sense of how she could casually drop a half-mil donation from her phone without batting an eye.
Holy shit.
Holy shit.
Holy shit.
I glance at her; she's smirking, likely because she knows exactly the effect her husband has on people.
The holy shit effect worsens as he approaches.
His personal presence is overpowering and intense, his brown-green gaze sharp and predatory—like an animal, not a skeezy human.
He's massive, his arms stretching the sleeves of his bespoke tuxedo, his shoulders so broad you could land a Piper Cub on them.
"You're the hostess of the event tonight?" he asks, in that recognizable growl.
"Yes, sir, Mr. Hawkins." I extend my hand. "Demi Kaplan, co-owner of Demiza Event Planning. My partner is…otherwise occupied. But on behalf of Demiza Events, and more importantly, The Autonomy Project, I just wanted to thank you both for your incredibly generous donation."
He shakes my hand, his grip firm but gentle. "Yeah, sure." He glances at his wife. "You ask her yet?"
Delia shakes her head. "Not yet. I was about to when you barged in."
"I was hoping they had food,” he grumbles. “That micro gastronomy bullshit is about as filling as eating grass. I even had Luis drive around the block, but everything is closed, and if I eat fast food, we'll both die."
"Ahhh, well?" I wince, my mind racing for solutions that will impress one of the most famous, wealthy, and influential human beings on the planet. "I live four blocks from here, and I know a pizza place that delivers late."
"At…" he checks that dazzling timepiece. "One in the morning?"
I grin, shrug. "I'm friends with the owner. She knows I have an event tonight. She always sends me a cheese pizza and a two-liter of diet."
"I'll drop another half-mil for the cause if you feed me, Miss Kaplan." His face remains impassive—he isn't joking.
"I think that may be a slight overpayment for some pizza. How about you help me get my partner home and we'll call it even." I indicate my passed-out BFF, one foot hanging out the end of the booth.
"Too much champagne?" Delia says.
"Just a little." I tap her foot. "Eliza?"
"Mmmm."
"Time to go home."
"G-way. Sleep'n."
"Time go home, Elz."
“ ’M fine."
"No, you're not. You can't stay here."
"Broken. No walkies."
Hunter taps my shoulder, and I slide out of the way. He shakes Eliza's foot. "Miss? I'm going to pick you up now. Okay?"
"Kay. Hands off my bungus, though, mister."
He chuckles. "I promise, I won't be touching your bungus."
I push in, open the tablecloth, and wrap it more tightly around her lower half. "There."
With easy strength, Hunter leans in and scoops Eliza out of the booth. Her head flops loosely against his shoulder; her eyes flicker open, peer at him, and then fly open wide. "You? Am I dreaming?"
He just snorts. "No ma'am."
"You're a real person?"
"Last I checked."
She groans. "Wonderful. I meet Hunter Hawkins…in this state. You can just drop me off at the mental hospital."
He glances at me. "Is this…normal?"
I sigh, laughing. "Not exactly, no."
I lead the way out back to the alley parking lot where my car is parked. I open the back seat, and he slides her in across the second row bench.
“Our car is around front," he tells me, once I've closed the door behind her. "We'll follow you." A pause. "If you're sure. I don't want to intrude."
I laugh, shaking my head. "I won't be going to sleep anytime soon. I get too wired after events. I could use the company." I touch his hand. "You don't need to donate again, Mr. Hawkins. I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but—"
"I never joke about money, Miss Kaplan."
Which is how I find myself in the condo I share with Eliza—yes, we're best friends, business partners, and roommates—drinking Diet Coke from juice glasses and eating the best cheese pizza in all of San Diego with Hunter Hawkins and Delia Hawkins-Badd.
"So, you said you were in town for another event?" I ask, by way of making conversation.
Hunter nods—Delia is scarfing pizza like it's going out of style, and it does my foodie, curvy-girl heart good to see her eating with gusto. "Yeah. Another fundraiser across town at the same time."
I can't quite suppress a sigh. "Don't get me started."
He arches an eyebrow. "Uh-oh. Turf war?"
I snicker. "No, sir." I shrug. "Well, sort of. I had my event planned for weeks before they did, but they're the bigger company, so most of my biggest donors went to that event first, or instead. We still did well, even without your contribution, but…"
"Well, from the posts I’ve seen,” Delia says, dabbing her mouth with a paper towel as if she wasn't wearing a dress that could pay my rent for a year, "your event was way better.
The food at Tom's event was micro-gastro-whatever.
Foam and…grass, and…" she wrinkles her nose.
“And the live performance artist? I don't need to see some naked lady reading bad poetry. "
Hunter snorts. "High-brow bullshit is what that was." He indicates me. "You had real food, I saw. And a string quartet.”