“We’re supposed to be in love, right?” she asked me. “We should probably be able to hold hands. We need to look legitimate. That’s what I’m getting paid for.”
She waited a beat. “Is that okay?”
With no small amount of indignation, I felt my palm begin to sweat.
“Maybe later,” I said. I pulled my hand away and wiped it on my pants. Audrey had the grace to not watch me while I did it.
“Elena tells me you’re a student,” I said, desperately trying to start over.
She looked shocked. “Really? I’m totally not. I’m hooking full time.”
We just looked at each other for a beat.
“Oops. I mean, Elena probably meant my cover—so yes. I’m a full-time graduate student. New England School of Graphic Design.”
“Why’d Elena pick graphic design?” I asked.
My hand was still hot where she’d touched me, but I wasn’t going to think about that.
“She said it was perfect because it’s too boring to talk about. We were going to do law school, but she said your family had a bunch of lawyers in it.”
“She’s right. My brother, Todd—the one whose wedding we’re going to—is a corporate lawyer. His fiancée, Evie, is a lawyer too, but not for long.”
“How come?” Dre asked.
I snorted. “She was just waiting to marry into a pile of money. You know the type, right? Just goes to law school to meet a rich guy?”
A look of distaste crossed her face, but she stifled it immediately. Almost immediately.
“Trust me. She deserves every bad thing I say about her. She’s a twat,” I said and desperately wished that I’d just hired this woman to f**k me senseless. For the first time in years, I felt self-conscious. Every word I said made me sound like a bigger and bigger jerk.
Usually, that was the idea. In my business ventures, it worked to my advantage for people to think I was unpleasant and difficult to deal with. But right now? I had to stop talking
“Okay then. The sister-in-law-to-be is bad,” Audrey said, her voice soothing and agreeable. She probably thought I was upset because I’d called Evie a twat. But she would learn, as we went on, that I always called Evie that. Because she was one.
I grabbed a decanter filled with bourbon from the side of the car. “Would you like some?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said, accepting the small tumbler I poured for her.
I poured myself a drink that was significantly larger and took a sip. Something about Audrey unnerved me. She seemed like a whole person, not someone broken that wanted to get f**ked up and then f**ked hard, just to shut the world out. Which is to say, she was not what I was expecting. She seemed like somebody’s sister. Like a graduate student.
Like somebody’s girlfriend.
“So…tell me about this wedding. The more details you give me, the better prepared I’ll be,” she continued, all soothing efficiency.
“I’m dreading the wedding—I don’t have a great relationship with my family,” I said. I could hear the tension in my own voice. I always sounded like that when I spoke about them, which was one of the reasons I never did.
“James.” She put her hand on mine again. “None of the guys who come to us have good relationships with their families. None of the girls at work do, either. You have nothing to be embarrassed about. Trust me,” she said.
The fact that she understood put me at ease. Until I thought about it some more, and then the fact that it put me at ease made me uneasy.
“So,” she said, “back to the wedding.”
“I’m the best man,” I said. “I think Todd did that to make sure I’d show up. My mother informed me that I had to come to every non-stop event. Evie really wants this week to be a big lead-in to the wedding. There’s a dinner tonight and an endless series of brunches, co**cktail hours, and photo shoots that we have to attend. Then Friday night is the rehearsal dinner at Il Pastorne. And Saturday the wedding is being held at Trinity Church. Then we’re off to Eleuthera for a week with the happy couple, my parents, some cousins, and some friends.”
“It all sounds very proper,” Audrey said. She sounded impressed.
“It’s going to be a complete cluster f**k,” I said.
She nodded at me. “I have a family. Mine’s probably messed up in a different way than yours, but I get it, James.”
I swallowed the rest of my bourbon, hard. “I hired you because I didn’t want to deal with questions from them about why I’m still single,” I said. “I broke up with someone a few months ago. I’ve decided to take a break from dating and just concentrate on work. My family’s beside themselves that I’m almost forty and not married. They’re worried about not having any heirs.” I smiled at her grimly. “So I hired you to bear the brunt of the misery with me.”