Second Hearts (The Wishes Series) (17 page)

I stared straight at Kinsey as I spoke. “No, please don’t fire me,” I begged, much to her delight. I held the phone closer to my ear, not wanting Kinsey or Whitney to hear the very descriptive ways he came up with to kill the rest of the evening if he were to fire me. “I’ll keep it in mind,” I said, before ending the call and handing the phone back.

“I told you,” said Kinsey victoriously. “Hit the road.”

I leaned down a little closer to her and spoke quietly, trying my hand at being a menace. “I’m not going anywhere. I guess you don’t have as much pull as you thought you did. Eat your steak, love. You look like you could do with the calories.” I walked away leaving Bente to deal with the aftermath.

Then things turned bad.

I’d been so caught up torturing Kinsey that I hadn’t noticed Ryan walk in. He stood by the podium at the door, flicking through the reservations book. He glanced up briefly as I approached. “Charli,” he purred ominously.

I cut straight to the chase. “Look, I’ve had a really sucky night so far so if you’re planning to haul me over to coals, do it now, please.”

“Why would I do that?” he asked, still studying the reservation book.

I might have jumped the gun. Perhaps he hadn’t yet discovered that his apartment had been looted again. And it had been. I was home when Colin the delivery guy dropped off six boxes. I’d left it for Adam to unpack when he got home, certain I’d be struck by lightning or hit by a bus if I dared touch it.

Keeping quiet was only delaying the inevitable so I told him all about his brother’s crime spree.

“I know.”

“And you’re not upset?”

“No. He did me a favour actually. Out with the old and in with the new.” He glanced over at Whitney’s table. “Adam can relate to that concept, I’m sure.”

“That was below the belt.”

“You’re right. I apologise,” he said, not very sincerely. “What I meant to say was that I used it as an opportunity to redecorate.”

“I thought you said you didn’t have the time.”

“I don’t, which is why I employed the services of a designer – and she’s working out beautifully.”

I knew there was more to it. His whole demeanour had taken on the dark edge he adopted whenever he was being an ass.

“Is she working on you or the apartment?”

He leaned down to whisper. “Her name is Yolanda. She’s blonde and gorgeous and we’re meeting up later for a drink – to discuss my design options, of course.”

“Of course, design options,” I repeated, making no secret of my disgust. “So Adam gets a reprieve because you’ve somehow managed to twist it to your advantage?”

His wry smile left me with no doubts. No matter how hard Adam tried to be devious and underhanded, he was never going to match his older brother.

“Would you rather I hold a grudge and destroy him slowly?”

“No. I wouldn’t.”

“Good, because he doesn’t need the extra pressure. He warned me not to introduce you to dim Whit if your paths crossed. How’s that working out for you, Charli?”

I cocked one eyebrow. “She’s still sitting there, isn’t she? Perfectly unharmed.”

He looked past me. “Kinsey looks a little distressed.”

“Kinsey tried throwing her weight around. I guess she forgot that’s only about eighty pounds.”

Ryan chuckled blackly. “Don’t get too cocky. She’s not your only competitor this evening.” He flipped a few pages of the reservation book and held it up to me.

“Décarie.” He tapped his finger on the page. “Table for two at eight o’clock.”

My eyes widened in horror. “Your parents?”

“What’s it going to be, Charli?” he quizzed. “Fight or flight?”

I didn’t even need time to think about it. “Fight, Ryan. It’s what I’ve been doing since I got here.”

Bente couldn’t understand my nervousness. “You have to meet his parents some time,” she enthused. “They’re decent people. They’ve always been very nice to me.”

“How nice do you think they’d be if
you
were seeing one of their princes?”

“Good point,” she admitted, looking to the floor.

“I’m screwed.”

Bente leaned forward and patted my shoulder. “Well, it was nice knowing you, Charli.”

Clearly she wasn’t going to be much in the way of moral support. Nor was Ryan. He left early to meet up with Yolanda, his new plaything. Thankfully, Kinsey and Whitney left too. Introducing myself to Adam’s parents while they were still there would have blown my charade to pieces – not that I expected to escape the evening unscathed.

I was painfully aware of Fiona Décarie’s feelings toward me. I was her vagrant-pauper-trollop-minx nightmare. I had no idea what her husband’s take on it was. Jean-Luc had hardly rated a mention.

I was standing near the information station when they arrived. Taylor showed them to their seats. Both of them thanked her, giving me slight hope that they weren’t completely tyrannical.

Bente sidled up, handed me two menus and mercilessly told me to get on with it. “What are you, Charli?” she whispered. “A man or a mouse?” I was about to claim mouse status when she pushed me in the back, sending me stumbling forward.

I smoothed my hair, drew in a long breath and approached their table. “Hello.” My mouth was so dry it felt like I was chewing on sand. “My name is... Charli. You’re Adam’s parents?” I wanted to slap myself for asking such an obtuse question.

“Charli?” asked Jean-Luc, frowning slightly. I nodded, too worried about what I might say if I answered out loud. Jean-Luc stood up, leaned forward and kissed both of my cheeks. “It’s lovely to finally meet you.”

Utter relief washed over me. Perhaps I was going to live through it after all.

“Please, sit down for a moment,” said Fiona, smiling. “It would be lovely to chat for a while.”

I did as she asked because I was too scared not to. Ryan had warned me about the sweet façade she’d display in my presence. It was a front she maintained to a T.

Adam’s parents knew rather a lot about me. I had been under the impression that I was some dirty little secret, an indiscretion of Adam’s that wasn’t supposed to last longer than his Australian vacation. “Isn’t it remarkable how people find their way back to those they love?” asked Fiona, making me sound like a lost puppy.

I nodded but didn’t answer, fearful of saying something sarcastic and rude.

Jean-Luc asked what our plans were. I had no answer for him either. We hadn’t discussed the finer details. “Don’t put her on the spot, darling,” said Fiona, placing her hand on his. “She’s only just arrived.”

I was thankful for the reprieve. Jean-Luc flashed the very familiar Décarie grin and I smiled back, not sure what my expression was exposing. My verbal skills weren’t exposing much at all – except that I was socially inept.

It was a terrible impression to make on a New York social butterfly. I could see it in Fiona’s flawlessly made-up sapphire eyes. She thought I was little more than a moth from Pipers Cove.

Jean-Luc was a little more forgiving. He asked many questions about my travels, seeming genuinely interested. Anything to do with my time away from home was easy to talk about. Conversation flowed freely, until his phone rang and he excused himself from the table.

I had trouble maintaining eye contact with the queen once he’d gone. She obviously didn’t. She glared at me.

“It’s a frightful situation when the so-called love of my son’s life is waiting tables in his restaurant.” Her tone was ice-cold.

“It’s important to me that I pay my own way,” I told her.

“You understand that my sons lead very privileged lives, don’t you?” I nodded. “It’s a life we enjoy. If Adam chooses to lower his standards and slum it for a while I’m prepared to humour him. But you must understand something, Charli….”

“And what might that be?” I asked, matching her refined vernacular – just to prove that I could.

“You’re a temporary fixture in his life.”

I forced myself to look at her. “You’re going to make sure of that, aren’t you?”

She sneered, but spoke gently, the way Kinsey had when she thought she had the upper hand. “If it’s the last thing I do.”

Jean-Luc returned to the table, unaware of the nasty turn to the conversation. “Sorry about that. Where were we?”

I stood up. “I was just leaving,” I said, smiling as normally as I could. “I have to get back to work.”

“I must say, Charli, I find it admirable that you’ve taken a job. Being self reliant is a remarkable attribute,” praised Jean-Luc.

“Thank you. It was lovely meeting you both.” I darted my eyes between the two of them, hoping Jean-Luc wouldn’t see through me and Fiona wouldn’t have the chutzpah to call me on my obvious lie. “I hope to see you again soon.”

“Of course,” beamed Fiona, so artificially that I wanted to gag. “Adam has invited you to dinner on Christmas Day, hasn’t he?”

“Yes. I’m looking forward to it,” I lied, backing away from the table.

Bente jumped me the second I was out of earshot. “Well?” she demanded.

I let go of my rigid expression. “Kill me now,” I whispered, dangerously close to tears.

I didn’t object when Bente suggested I take an early mark. I doubt it had anything to do with feeling sorry for me. I was a subpar waitress at the best of times. When I was hiding out in the cloakroom I was positively useless.

“Look, just go out the kitchen door,” she urged. “You won’t even have to face them.”

I took her advice, ghosting out the back door without raising the attention of a single person in the kitchen.

Adam didn’t ask me why I was home early. He just took it as a windfall. I didn’t feel the need to fill him in on the night’s events at that moment. Just being in the same room as him somehow dulled the horror.

He kissed the top of my head. “Hungry?”

“Starving,” I replied, shrugging off my coat.

He began patting himself down, searching for the pocket that held his phone. “I’ll order pizza.”

I used the time to remove all traces of Nellie’s. I unclipped my hair, untucked my shirt and kicked off my shoes. Our new black couches were almost as comfortable as our bed. Sinking into the soft suede cushions made staying awake difficult.

“Dinner should be here soon,” said Adam, snatching me from the brink of sleep. He lifted my feet and sat beside me, repositioning my legs across his lap. “Are you tired?”

I couldn’t really claim to be tired. My hard night had nothing to do with being run off my feet; my exhaustion was more to do with the emotional beating I’d taken at the hands of his mother.

“No, I’m fine.”

“I heard you had a busy night.” His expression remained flat but I could hear the amusement in his voice.

“You heard wrong.”

“I thought meeting Whitney, Kinsey and my parents would have made for a very busy night.”

I lifted my head, trying to gauge his expression, but his face gave nothing away. “How did you know?”

“Mom called me.”

Perfect. I should have known she’d get in first. Thinking of all the horrible things she could have said was more torturous than playing the actual conversation back in my head.

“What did she say?”

“She apologised. She told me you were an absolute delight and she was sorry that she’d jumped to conclusions before meeting you.”

Nothing about him was dishonest. I had to believe that he was telling me the truth as he knew it.

“That was very sporting of her,” I muttered.

Adam leaned across, stroking his hand down the length of my hair. “She wasn’t too proud to admit she was wrong, Charli. I think you should give her the benefit of the doubt.”

I wanted to slate him for his gullibility. But I didn’t. I smiled, giving the impression that all was forgiven. “I can do that, for you,” I assured. “But you should probably know something…”

He looked worried. “What?”

“Kinsey Ballantyne is always going to be fair game. She gets nothing but the benefit of my bitchiness.”

He threw his head back in a rush of relieved laughter.

“Silly preppy girls,” I grumbled. “They’re so easy to spot,”

“Really? How?”

“I have a theory. It’s all in the name. A name ending with
ee
automatically lowers your intelligence. Whit-ney, Kin-sey – “

“Char-
li
,” he volunteered.

“I didn’t say it was a perfect theory.”

Anything he was about to tease me with next was halted by a knock at the door. Adam jumped off the couch to answer it while I headed in to the kitchen to get some plates.

Colin, the delivery guy, had undoubtedly made a killing during the Décarie brothers' game of furniture ping-pong. A quick search through my now full kitchen cupboards led me to think he’d earned every cent. Along with cutlery, crockery and appliances, he’d managed to box up napkins, dishwashing soap and some matchboxes from a downtown club. I spent a long moment taking it all in, wondering which item Ryan would miss the most. I decided it would be the matchbox from The Renoir Club. On the back was a girl’s name and phone number. I sniggered when I read it. Her name was Kat-
ie
.