“ABBY—”
“Alright, alright!” I threw out my arms between us like a shield, and backed slowly to the headboards—pulling the cover up around my chest as I went. I may have been lucky enough to be wearing pants, but all I had on top was a thin little baby-doll. The kind you put on specifically for company, if you know what I mean. (Coincidentally, the kind I was only wearing, because it was laundry day.) “Why don’t you just tell me what happened? Start at the beginning.”
He froze with his fingers curled into fists, clearly trying to decide whether to do as I asked or simply strangle me to death with his own hands. I held my breath. But after a second, he seemed to have accepted that he would need me to clean up this one final mess.
He could kill me later.
“Fine.” He sat down where I had been lying just seconds before, making a deliberate show of wringing out his wet sleeves all over my comforter. “We went to the Solay for dinner, just like you arranged. There were a lot of people, a lot of press, and I guess it went as well as could be expected...until we got to dessert.”
Oh good—and the trouble begins.
“Ella wanted to order strawberries foster.”
He said this like it explained everything. I, however, simply paused.
“I’m sorry,” I shook my head, “isn’t it supposed to be bananas foster?”
Nick stifled a weary sigh—he had clearly contemplated that question many, many times already that night. “I think the pastry chef was trying something new...”
An automatic grin rose to my cheeks, and I pursed my lips quickly to hide it.
“Okay, so, strawberries foster...” I prompted.
“You know how they light the bananas one on fire? It was the same concept here.” A delayed shudder rippled through his body. “You can imagine how Ella wanted to try to do that part herself...”
Yes, I certainly could. I also had no trouble imagining what would happen next.
The way she would panic and spray lighter fluid across the table. The way Nick would rise to his feet in horror, slow-motion yelling for her not to strike the match. The way that leaking silicone had long ago deteriorated her brain—so she would do it anyway, throwing it on the crumbling dessert in panic. The way restaurant security would have knocked the whole thing on the ground to smother it—my client included—sending cream and berries flying into the air.
He followed my curious gaze and dismissively guessed my thoughts.
“I obviously didn’t want to stick around and wait for the burn unit, but one of the women sitting next to me happened to be a trauma specialist. She put some gel on my face.”
“Oh!” I leaned back against the headboard once more, both enlightened and relieved. “I actually thought it was some kind of KY—”
“It is.” He forced himself to meet my gaze, before looking deliberately away. “She had it...she had it in her purse.”
It was a testament to how angry Nick was that I didn’t laugh. I may have been literally dying inside, but I held it together. At least for a moment.
“Well thank goodness for that.”
There really wasn’t anything left to say. Between the flaming strawberries and the face full of jelly, it had all pretty much been covered.
Well...not all of it.
“This is New York,” Nick continued in his most dangerous voice, “you learn to expect a certain degree of spontaneity. To factor in for these sorts of things.”
His eyes flashed as they met mine.
“But what I did not expect, something that no one in their right mind could possibly be expected to deal with, was coming home after all of that only to discover that while they were being incinerated at dinner...their demonic publicist had moved Ella Campbell into their house.”
Yeah...that part might have been me. In my defense, I could have had no way of knowing about the strawberries foster. Or the lighter fluid. Or the rest of it.
“Yes,” I said slowly, trying to stall for time, “I could imagine how that might not have been exactly...ideal timing.”
Nick nodded curtly, and waited.
Waited for me to fix it somehow. For me to apologize. For me to give up on this bizarre game that we’d been playing, admit defeat, and let him off the hook.