The Player + The Pact = I Do (New York City Billionaires #2)

Chapter 7

SEVEN

Leo

Worth never calls me during the working day, so when I see his name flash on the screen of my phone, I pick up, even though I’m just about to meet my fiancée. At least I hope whoever she is turns out to be my fiancée.

“I’m going to cut to the chase,” he says before I even have a chance to say hello.

“Please go ahead,” I say sarcastically.

“I think this fake fiancée thing is ridiculous.”

I sigh because I don’t want to have to justify myself to Worth, of all people. He’s such an all-around good guy. I trust him. I like him. I want him on board with this idea because it’s important to me. There’s no way I’m going to the awards alone. Not when I know Caroline will be there.

“Hear me out,” he says. “I get the Caroline thing. But it will turn out to be worse if she or her father finds out it’s all been faked.”

I push my hands into my hair. “They’re not going to find out. Don’t worry about it. It’s not like we do business together. Next time anyone asks, I’ll have split up with whoever it is.”

“You might not do business directly with Hammonds, but you know New York is a small city. I’m sure real estate is a small business. The grapevine is very real. You don’t want to become a laughing stock. You don’t want the reputation of a man who faked his engagement.”

“Of course I don’t, but why would it come to that? The only people who know are you five and my assistant.”

“And whoever she’s asked to audition for the part. What’s that saying? Two can keep a secret when one of them is dead. You’re already at six by my count, plus Efa. That’s more murder than I think you’re comfortable with.”

My heart thrashes against my chest. He’s right.

“Why don’t you just take a date? You don’t have to be engaged, do you?”

“If I turn up with a date…” I pause, pushing my fingers through my hair. “It means I haven’t found the one —haven’t met anyone as important as Caroline, since Caroline . I’m not prepared to see her in those circumstances.”

“Better that than you get found out as a man who has to hire someone to be his fiancée.”

I groan. He’s right. If anyone was to find out, it would be humiliating.

“Then I can’t go. I won’t accept the award,” I say. “Because there is no other solution.”

Silence echoes at the other end of the phone.

Fuck. Why did Caroline have to come back to town now? Why couldn’t she stay in California and run the business from there? I can hear her saying “darling!” like it was yesterday. She had this effected, condescending tone that I thought at first was sophisticated, but hindsight makes clear that it was just fucking rude. “Darling, of course I can’t actually marry you. You know we were never going to be a long-term thing. I’m a Hammond.”

It had taken a while for her words to sink in, to understand that I was just a ball of wool to her kitten—something to be toyed with. I was nothing to her.

“I’m just trying to protect you,” Worth says.

“I get it. But I want to go and accept this award. The fact that Hammonds is fucking sponsoring it makes me want to go more. I want to stand up there in front of the hotshots of a city where I used to deliver bread and look at everyone who wants to do business with me, wants a little piece of what I have, and have a chance to soak it all in.”

“You deserve that, my friend,” Worth says.

I swallow, ignoring the way my throat tightens.

“Maybe the answer is to double down,” he says. “Maybe you just need to go harder, rather than retreat.”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but… maybe you need to get your engagement announcement in The New York Times . Go full throttle. Why would you risk doing that if it was fake?”

“Because I was losing my grip on reality? And it doesn’t solve the problem of a relative stranger knowing a powerful secret about me.”

He sighs. It’s still a problem.

“Do you know anyone in the UK? What about a friend of Efa’s or Eira’s? There’s a bit of distance there. Less chance of crossover. Less chance of anyone finding out the engagement’s not actually real.”

“I’ll bring it up tonight.”

It’s Monday, our regular meet-up night. I could get five opinions for the price of one.

“Look, I have a meeting starting in about two minutes.” I don’t tell him it’s with a potential fiancée, but even so, this meeting suddenly feels like the wrong thing to do.

I hang up and bellow at Jules to come in.

She sticks her head around the door. She’s only been working with me for a few months, but I’m impressed at how quickly she’s picked things up. She’s smart and resourceful and the plan she worked up for The Mayfair was impressive. If I didn’t need a good assistant so badly, I’d be tempted to try her out in place of Louis. But I don’t want to rock the boat. She’s right, Louis isn’t great at his job, but better the devil you know as far as I’m concerned.

“This woman you’ve lined up,” I say. “Where does she work?”

“Saks,” she says. “She has a boyfriend down in Florida, so you don’t even have to worry about her getting expectations or anything. She’s my roommate. She totally gets it.”

“I’m going to have to cancel. Or press pause at least. I’ve got a small-scale crisis at New River to worry about.”

She sighs like I’m an exasperating little brother and not her boss. I don’t know if she’s like this with everyone, but it appears she’s borderline annoyed with me at least half the time I’m interacting with her. Lucky for me it doesn’t seem to impact her job performance.

“What crisis?” she asks suspiciously.

“I’m dealing with it. Don’t worry about it.”

“So basically you’re rejecting her because she works at Saks. I’m officially out. I’m not finding you a fiancée. Find your own future wife.”

It’s like I’ve tripped a hidden switch. Sometimes, Jules can be the most helpful woman on the planet, dedicated to making my office the very best it can be. At other times, she’s completely inappropriate and, frankly, rude. She’s lucky she’s good at her job .

She storms out of the office and closes the door behind her. She’s probably frustrated at her wasted efforts trying to find me someone to take to the awards.

I turn back to my emails to find Louis, manager of The Mayfair, has messaged. Since Jules started, he’s always gone through her, so his correspondence is completely unexpected.

I click open the message and scan the text.

“Jules,” I bellow again.

It’s like she’s been standing behind my door this entire time, because she pokes her head in immediately.

“Leo, how can I help?” she says like she’s Mary fucking Poppins.

“What did you do?”

She opens the door a little wider and steps through. “I’m sorry about before. I just had my roommate waiting and I was a little frustrated.”

We’re talking at cross-purposes. “Did you see the email from Louis?” I ask.

“No. Should I have?”

“Have you spoken to him?” I ask.

“About what?”

“The fact that you want his job?”

Her expression looks like she just smelled sour milk. “No. Why would I do that?”

“When’s the last time you spoke to him?” I ask.

“I’ve never spoken to him.”

“But you said you used to work at The Mayfair.”

“I did. But I only saw Louis once in the entire time I worked there. He never came out of his office.”

I sigh. Jules doesn’t strike me as a particularly gifted liar, and she’s never given me a reason not to believe she’s telling the truth. “So him sending me his resignation just now is a total coincidence?”

“He resigned?” Her eyes are usually barely visible beneath her thick-framed glasses, but they widen in shock. “Are you hiring? I’ll do whatever it takes. Hell, I’ll even be your fiancée for the awards ceremony.”

I can’t help but laugh. Jules isn’t my type. Not even for a night, let alone a lifetime. She dresses like she’s ninety, never wears a scrap of makeup and, well, she seems angry a lot of the time.

Jules isn’t going to solve my problems right now. I need to find a new manager for The Mayfair and a solution for the awards ceremony. And based on the seething look in Jules’ eyes right now, I’m going to have to figure it all out myself.