The Singles (18 page)

He scanned it quickly but before he handed it back to me, he moved his shiny head a couple inches closer to mine. “I thought you deserved to know,” he said in a grave voice, “Mrs. Emerson has been upstairs for two hours, and she’s called down here three times already, wanting to know if you were here yet.”

I felt my heart sink as I tossed the badge down in my bag. What the hell happened with Margaret going on a spa retreat?

“Thanks for the heads-up!” Giving Carl a grateful, shaky smile, I turned the corner.

As I waited for the elevator with a woman I recognized as the HR receptionist, I kept my appearance calm as I texted Pen.

I thought you said Margaret wouldn’t be here. Security just let me know she’s been in her office for over an hour waiting for me.

My best friend responded a few seconds after the other woman got off on the second floor.
Check your phone log. She definitely called.

Biting the inside of my lip, I went to my call history. Just as Pen had promised, the very first call on the list came from Margaret. She’d contacted me at 8:49 AM from her home phone number, and her call with my best friend had apparently lasted for just one minute, ten seconds. 

So what was going on?

Rubbing my palms down the front of my A-line houndstooth dress, I walked tentatively into Margaret’s office, my legs wobbly inside of my black knee-high boots. She was on the phone, but that didn’t stop her from jabbing her red-manicured finger to the seat in front of her desk.

“...Monday morning is not good enough, Mr. Harding, I need it sent
now
,” she barked. “Then email me the document and I’ll sign and fax it right back over.” Slamming the phone down, she focused her undivided attention on me, her icy features contorted into a harsh expression.

God, this was not going to be good.

“Where the hell were you this morning?” she demanded sharply. “You’re an hour late, and in all honesty, I’ve needed you since I stepped foot into this goddamn building at eight.”

From what both Carl and Margaret had told me, she’d been inside her office for the majority of the morning. There was no way she could have called me at 8:49 from her house like my call log was showing me. Although I hated pointing fingers, it didn’t take many guesses to figure out who might have called me from my father’s old house.

Still, I couldn’t accuse Finley because I had a feeling Margaret would lose her shit. From what I could see, my boss worshiped Oliver’s ex, even if he had moved on.

“Where were you?” she repeated through clenched teeth. Before I could answer, she twisted her laptop around so I had a clear view of the screen. A popular L.A. based lifestyle-and-entertainment website was pulled up, and the headline read
Emerson & Taylor Charity Gala Nets Record Contributions.
 That was a good thing, wasn’t it?

But then my eyes dipped down and I saw the photo that accompanied the article. Even though my face was completely obscured because the picture was captured from Oliver’s side while we waited together for a drink, it was obvious to anyone in attendance that the woman beside him was me. The blond hair and flowing aqua-blue costume made sure of that.

Reading the caption beneath the photo, my heart felt like it had lodged in my throat.
The Bad Boy Next Door Meets the Mother of Dragons – Oliver Manning of Manning Hotel Group and guest attends the Emerson & Taylor Costume ball last night.

When I swallowed hard, Margaret smirked and turned her laptop back around to face her. “Let me ask you again, where were you this morning, Ms. Connelly? Because if it was with my son, you can pack your belongings and leave this office now.”

––––––––

“I
woke up alone. And I went to bed
alone
,” I said honestly, struggling to keep my voice even. I prayed she hadn’t noticed my disappearance during her speech last night, but if she mentioned it, I was prepared to make up any excuse necessary to keep my job.

“You understand, of course, how suspect it looks that you were with my son—whom I had no idea even came to the party—and then you were late to work this morning.”

“Mr. Manning spoke to me briefly last night to let me know how impressed he was with the event, which was obviously when this photo was taken.” There was a fine line between dismissive and defensive, and I was balancing precariously on the edge. Releasing a laugh, I shrugged one of my shoulders in a flippant motion. “The media adores him, and they look for any opportunity to get his picture. No matter who’s standing in the way.”

My boss digested what I said for a long moment, slitting her light blue eyes. At last, she leaned back in her chair and tapped her fingers against her thin lips softly. Her gaze focused distractedly on something behind me, but I kept my shoulders squared and my eyes on her face.

“Oliver doesn’t always have the best taste in women. Obviously, you understand why I’m so protective over my son?”

There was nothing quite like being told I was a mother’s worst nightmare for her son—and on my birthday, of all days. I straightened my back painfully. “I’m sorry to hear that. And of
course
I understand.”

Sighing, she moved her head, her wavy highlighted hair swishing around her narrow face. “My
husband
was the same way.”

My stomach lurched painfully. Was she talking about my father or Oliver’s dad? I searched her distant expression, wishing she’d say more, all the while knowing it was impossible for me to ask. After the way we’d started this morning, I felt like my job was hanging on by a thread already. Pissing her off would probably put an end to my Los Angeles pilgrimage.

Plus, something about her demeanor today seemed ...
off
. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but her typical icy behavior was mixed with another emotion that made her fidgety and unfocused.

“Again, I’m sorry to hear that,” I said cautiously, and she snapped her head in my direction.

“I’m going to tell you this now because I’m sure you’ve probably heard the water cooler chatter before—Greg Emerson and I were engaged twice.”

Actually, I’d
never
heard that before, and my body automatically angled forward. Pushing away from her glass desk, she walked over to the window behind her and stared down. Splaying her hand out on the glass, she snorted.

“The first time, he let some gold-digging Russian whore turn his head.”

My mouth fell open, but I immediately snapped it shut. Still, I felt the blood rushing to my face. At first, I wondered if I’d been found out. Then I observed the smug look on my stepmother’s face.

No, she didn’t realize who I was. The only thing she knew was that she wanted to shame me. And though I knew for certain I wasn’t a parasite, the words hit so close to home they stung.

I’d worked in the adult industry since I was eighteen—first as a phone sex operator before I even lost my virginity, and then as an escort named “Alice” for the last three years—and I’d heard the words
gold-digger
and
whore
thrown at me only once. It was permanently embedded in my mind.

It had happened about a year ago, and I still remembered the jolt that snapped through my body when the guy—the CEO of a bank—went from calling me exquisite to every negative name in the book after I’d refused to snort coke and have sex with him.

I’d held in all emotion as I’d gathered my stuff from his hotel suite and listened to him rant about what a horrible review he planned on giving my agency, but as soon as the cab let me off at my apartment, I broke down.

Mentally replaying what Margaret said in my thoughts once more, I felt like gasoline was being thrown over the fire already raging within me. Because as I heard her snippy
gold-digging Russian
whore jab, it dawned on me she not only insulted me, she’d also obviously called out my mom.

Although my father’s first wife had never been mentioned when I was younger, I knew that she was an American woman—the heiress to a South Carolina-based furniture company. It had ended amicably in the early seventies—two years after it started—and she and my dad hadn’t felt the need to stay in touch.

My mom had been my father’s second wife.

She’d only been twenty when they met, a model hired for one of Emerson & Taylor’s spring campaigns, and I could still remember my dad staring at her affectionately, telling me that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

My mom was
not
some money-chasing Russian
anything
.

She had been everything to me.

“I’m not calling you a gold-digger, Ms. Connelly. I just want you to know I’m very concerned about who my son dates.” She sat back down across from me, and I fisted my hands in my lap. “While I may not be able to discourage him from some of his other—” She wrinkled her turned-up nose. “—
conquests
, I can at least make sure my assistant isn’t sleeping with him.”

Conquests.

It took an exhausting amount of effort not to reach across the desk and tell Margaret my mom was Ukrainian, not Russian. That even though she wasn’t perfect, she certainly hadn’t been a gold-digger. That, had the roles been reversed, my mom would have never turned Oliver away, offering him a settlement in exchange for him disappearing from her life.

That I wasn’t a goddamn conquest.

Blinking back the tears that punched at my eyelids, I stretched my lips into a smile that broke my heart. “Luckily, your husband came to his senses,” I replied, and Margaret sneered. “And even luckier, I have no interest in Oliver or his wealth. I’m sorry that I was late, but I value my job too much to—”

Margaret held up her hand, cutting off the partial lie. “I’ve got it, Ms. Connelly.” Tightening her mouth, she gestured at the door. “Since you failed to bring my coffee earlier, I’ll take a large now.”

*

I
’d never been a crier. When I was a little girl and had gotten hurt, or when a boyfriend had ended things with me as an adult, I never let the tears fall. My father had instilled that in me. Before my parents split up, my dad had always gently reminded me that tears solved nothing. It was better to face whatever problem I had directly with a clear head. As I drove home from work that evening, though, a hot path of tears flowed freely down my cheeks, landing on the front of my black and white dress, making it difficult for me to see.

This was the second time I’d flat-out cried since all the lies began five months ago, and it was a culmination of every emotion hurtling through me today. Frustration at the fact I had yet to figure out everything I came to California for, rage at what Margaret had said about my mother earlier, and anger at Finley Scott for the bullshit joke that had helped spawn my boss’ tirade.

Shame, for the first time, over the job I’d started to make ends meet.

And confusion and lust and dizziness because of Oliver.

He was quickly getting into my head, occupying an increasing space in my thoughts. After parking in my usual spot in the apartment garage, I rested my forehead on the black leather steering wheel. “Get a grip,” I warned myself, rubbing the tears from my face with the back of my hands. “Get a grip before you lose
everything
for just a few hours of sex.”

Even if those few hours could be the intense explosion Oliver’s fingers and mouth had promised.

Heading up to my apartment, I threw my bag and keys on the foyer table and released a groan as I walked toward the dining room, where Pen had been practically living ever since she and August started their secret project.

“I swear that woman is a four-letter word that rhymes with runt, and—”

“Gemma, look who’s here!” she shouted.

I froze a few feet from the table at the sight of a tall man sitting with Pen. Lifting her face, she gave me an apologetic look and mouthed,
“I tried to call you.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded. Bearded, with a dark buzz cut that I knew grew out into curls, Linc Connelly was probably the best thing I’d laid eyes on all day.

He stood up, holding his arms out wide. “I wasn’t going to miss your birthday,” he announced when I nearly knocked him over tackling him. He wrapped me up tightly, keeping our crotches from touching as he smooshed his lips to my cheek in a brotherly kiss. When he leaned me away from him, his smooth forehead was wrinkled.

“You’ve been crying.”

I brushed my fingers over the spot where his lips touched, finding it slightly damp. In my periphery, I saw Pen’s face screw up in concern, and although I’d probably tell her everything later, it wasn’t possible to say anything with Linc standing nearby. 

In a day full of excuses, what could one more hurt?

“I poked myself in the eye with my mascara,” I said. “So, no, you don’t have to shoot anyone today, Agent Connelly.”

I shot him the mandatory dirty look, and he stifled a laugh. “You shouldn’t put on makeup and drive.”

“
But
,” Pen chimed in loudly from behind us, and we both looked at her, “you should probably get dressed.”

“Penelope,” I groaned, and she scratched the peacock on her left shoulder and grinned sheepishly.

“I didn’t know he was coming, and there’s no way I’m cancelling our plans.” Hopping up from the table, she wiggled her eyebrows at her brother. “Sorry, Asshat, but it looks like you’re DD tonight.”

*

A
couple hours later, I swirled my beer, watching as my best friend danced against a redheaded guy beneath the flashing lights at the appropriately named Club Chaos. The line waiting out front had stretched around the corner, and though she’d explained to her brother and me that she’d had our names on the list for weeks, I had a feeling she’d used her special skills to get us a spot tonight. 

Linc had given her a ghost of a smile, but it was obvious he wasn’t buying her excuse either.

“When does your friend come back to town?” he asked me, dragging my focus from the dance floor. I had no idea the extent of what his sister had told him about our stay in California, and I rested my elbows on the table.