I rolled up my sleeves with a sigh.
I should have known my date would end like this...
Chapter 3
IN THE LAND OF PUBLIC relations, they called it the twenty second rule. It meant that from the moment you set foot on hostile territory, you had twenty seconds to make a game plan. Twenty short seconds to assess the situation, create your spin, plot your escape, and make your move.
Normally, twenty seconds was more than enough time. I had once snuck a wealthy client down a fourteen story fire escape, dressed in nothing but a poncho, in less than ten.
But this wasn’t your average client. The Reverie wasn’t your average establishment. And right now...? Right now I’d give anything for a fire escape.
Alright, Abby—you’re on. Twenty seconds starts...now!
I slipped through the crowd like an otter cutting through foamy surf, my layers of chiffon clouding up behind me. The timer was on, and I didn’t have the luxury of being either polite or delicate. Fortunately, my thirty-inch heels provided a great incentive to get out of my way. The last set of stockbrokers parted in front of me, and all at once, I skidded to a stop.
There you are.
International sex idol. Whimsical philanthropist. Playboy extraordinaire. Heir to the largest fortune in the Western Hemisphere. And the bane of my existence.
Nicholas Hunter.
At fourteen, he had been named one of the five most beautiful people on the planet. The Belgian royal family had tried to adopt. He’d opened the Olympics twice—performed in them as a last minute pole-vaulting addition once. He’d backpacked through every country where you could still find espresso. Literally orbited the earth’s atmosphere on a dare. Destroyed a priceless Egyptian artifact when he tried to take an ill-timed selfie. And on three separate occasions, he had turned an official state dinner into an impromptu rave.
At present, he was standing in the center of the fountain. Dripping wet. Drunk as hell. His hand wrapped around the breast of one of the statuesque angels in an unintentional grope.
“Abby!” he cried the second he saw me.
He was the only one who called me Abby. Even my mother was not so bold. To everyone else, it was Abigail. Abigail Wilder. PR maven extraordinaire. A credit to her industry. A savior to her clients. A razor-tongued blessing to those who employed her, and a curse to those who stood in her way. (This was all printed on my business cards. In so many words.)
But to him, I was Abby. And to me, he was Nick.
We’d dropped the formalities about the third time I’d had to stash him naked in the back of my car. Hiding under a pashmina as I smuggled him through security.
Fifteen seconds. Make them count.
“What are we into this time, Nick?”
Every rescue started the exact same way. A simple question, followed by a lengthy explanation—so convoluted and self-righteous, it defied rational comprehension.
Sure enough, he was ready for me.
“Lobsters,” he answered promptly.
This one actually threw me for a second. A second I didn’t have.
“...lobsters?”
Instinctively, I looked down into the water below—half expecting him to be standing in the middle of a small colony, teaching them how to unionize.
“What did you...” A flashbulb went off behind me, and my voice lowered sharply. “What do you mean—lobsters? What did you do?”
He tilted his head defiantly to the side, still holding onto the angel for balance.
“Why do you automatically assume this is my fault?”
My eyes made a slow journey from the top of his dripping head, to the bottom of his submerged four hundred dollar shoes. Even he had the decency to blush.
Ten seconds...