One Bride for Five Brothers Read online

  “That's what I was going ask you,” I reply, tapping the power button and tucking the iPad back under my arm. “After all the shit that I did to get you set up here. After explaining the protocols to you and giving you the manifest, plus giving the manifest to those two stoner halfwits that you call bouncers, I thought we were totally clear on this.”

  He’s got his phone out, frantically scrolling through some app, then opening another.

  “That's my dick! Oh my God, I'm trending on Twitter too!”

  “Yeah, I already sent this to Melanie. She’s on it.”

  “Why would you do that?? She's going to be so pissed at me!”

  “Well, that's what marketing people are for, right? So she will pissed at you for little while, but she’ll also kind of love it. You probably just made the Ugly Little Wiener Hall of Fame.”

  “Shit! Shit!”

  He scrolls through his phone, looking for more mentions of his name. I know he is not thrilled, but then he sort of likes it too. These douchebags, they don't even care how their name gets out there, just as long as it gets out there.

  “Do you know who did this to me?”

  “Well, I would, if I had some idea of who you were with last night! That's why we have the manifest, Kirkman. That's why we have approved visitors!”

  “Shit!”

  “So, think,” I tell him calmly. “Does anything about the picture jog your memory? Do you remember who was on that blue chaise with you? Do you remember her?”

  He scrunches up his face, trying to think. I hope he doesn't give himself an aneurysm.

  “Becky… Betty… fuck. Barbara?”

  “Nice. So do you just show everybody your dick? Did you just get a first initial?”

  “It's the gig, man,” he informs me snidely. “Getting with ladies is part of what I do. It's part of my process…”

  “Yeah, fuck your process. We had an agreement, Kirkman. If I was going to work for you, you were going to stick to certain protocols —”

  “— just find out,” he groans, staring at the front of his phone. I see Melanie's face, pinched and pink, as her call comes through. She'll give him way more hell than I am, just for doing this without her approval. So at least I got that going for me, which is good.

  I just back out the door, leaving him with her wrath. There's no point in even trying to sort out the women who already submitted to background checks, and whoever else he picked up last night. I’m not going to find the culprit in the penthouse. Anybody who was bold enough to do that was not going to hang around.

  But I am thinking that his reaction was genuine. He really did seem surprised and upset. So maybe he’s not just an attention-whore inventing “leaked” photos to keep himself in the news. Someone really did do this to him, even if it’s a one-off.

  When I got this detail, I thought it was all bullshit. I figured it was all just some marketer’s cynical plan to get him on the news, and he was playing along. But I don't think he's playing along. Somebody actually is doing this to him. Now I’ve got a whole hell of a lot more work to do.

  Chapter 28

  Dahlia

  I reach over and flip up the lock on the passenger side, watching Bunny as she talks her way out the front door of the diner where she works. She's all smiles, clearly laughing and joking around with someone else she works with, halfway hanging inside of the diner while I just sit here and wait for her. My fingertips drum impatiently on the steering wheel.

  Finally she flings open the car door and flops inside, sighing dramatically.

  “What a day!” she exclaims. “I think I got like twelve-, maybe fifteen-thousand steps today.”

  I pull away from the curb and try not to scowl at her as she taps on the tiny LED of her Fitbit.

  “13,763!” she continues, not even picking up that I might be a little bit irritated with her. “That's great, I might even be able to fit into those Gucci jeans I got at the thrift store if I keep this up!”

  “Just think how much more exercise you'd get if I didn't drive you home,” I suggest calmly. “In fact, that really would be good for you, don't you think?”

  “No, then I would get runners’ butt,” she muses, picking at the tips of her gelled fingertips as she stares distractedly out the window. “Too much of a good thing. I kind of want to slim down without bulking up, you know?”

  “If you say so.”

  I gun it through a yellow light, safely making it to the other side. But Bunny gets edgy, glancing around and sucking the inside of her cheek.

  “You mad?” she finally asks me.

  “Oh, what would give you that idea?”

  “Well, you're driving like kind of a jerk, for one thing,” she shrugs. “Also, I suppose you're not making eye contact, and you are holding the steering wheel kind of tight…”

  I don’t want to say anything, afraid that everything will come out all at once and just bury the interior of my little red Escort like an avalanche.

  “Bad day at work?”

  “I don't want to talk about it.”

  “Oh, okay. Well, here's how my day went… first, my new boss, Giorgio, was all excited about —”

  “— why are you always late?” I interrupt her.

  I feel her eyebrows go up, but I don't bother to look over at her.

  “I wasn't late,” she replies irritably. “Were you early or something? I got off right at five, like I always do.”

  “Well, maybe you got off at five, but you didn't come outside at five. I wasted ten minutes of gas sitting outside the diner while you were laughing it up with those guys.”

  “No you didn't.”

  “Yes I did!” I huff, getting irritated now. If she wants to argue the details, I'm all for it.

  “I wasn't laughing it up with anybody.”

  “I saw you!”

  “Whatever,” she sighs, waving her hand in front of her face. “I’ll be sure to rush right out next time, okay? I didn't realize that finishing a sentence was going to set you off like this, Dahlia, geez.”

  “I'm not set off,” I mutter, realizing I sound fairly petty.

  I should not say anything else. I've already complained, and that should be enough. I should let it go. Try to do some deep breathing or something for the few blocks I have before we get back to Bunny's house. I hate leaving her on a bad note like that. It’s kind of a superstitious thing, but I always want to be able to say goodbye on a positive note, just in case, you know. Sometimes people don't come back home.

  But as I pull into her driveway, I finally feel my irritation sink below the full mark. I'm only at one third of a tank of irritation, so I twist toward her and smile before she gets out.

  She pauses, her hand on the door handle. “I'm sorry I made you wait,” she mutters grudgingly. “You want to come in? Have a beer?”

  “I should head on home. There's dinner… maybe some vacuuming…”

  “Maybe some white wine?” she suggests. “Perhaps some aimless venting of internal frustrations that you are clearly having and yet not willing to admit?”

  Her big brown eyes bore into me, like a tractor beam. She doesn't want to let me go, and maybe she's right.

  “One glass of wine, maybe,” I mumble.

  “Whatever it takes!” she quips, flinging open her door and climbing out of the car. She crosses the grassy hill diagonally instead of sticking to the concrete walkway, opening the front door and dropping her gym bag and purse unceremoniously next to her old-fashioned waitress shoes under the hall table. I follow behind, feeling slightly better.

  “So, what's on your mind?” she asks as she unscrews the gold colored lid on the bottle of a suspiciously pink wine. I know everybody's drinking rose these days, but I don’t know if this qualifies.

  “Actually…” I start, trying to think of how to put it all together. I plop down in a stool next to the kitchen sink and accept the small glass she hands to me, the one printed with painted yellow daisies. The wine is way too sweet, but it's nice
and cold. I feel it trickling through my insides on its way to my stomach.

  “Just spit it out,” she suggests. “You said you were only staying for one glass of wine, so you gotta pace yourself. Just in case it's a long story, you should start now.”

  “Okay…” I start, feeling myself smile wanly, “well, first thing this morning Lori said that we lost a few contracts.”

  Bunny shrugs, wrinkling her nose and sniffing her overfilled glass suspiciously. “Does that happen a lot? Is that normal?”

  “It didn't seem normal. She seemed pretty upset about it,” I explain. “She said if we don't get replacements for that income, we will have to make some changes around the office.”

  Bunny's eyes go wide. She blinks several times. “Oh my God, did she fire you?”

  “No, nothing like that,” I shake my head. “She said we have options, whatever that means. I think she's offering me a chance to save my job… but it means coming up with something creative. Maybe taking over somebody's workload? I'm not really sure.”

  “Wow, are you ready for that? You're so new there.”

  “I know, right? I barely know what I'm doing. But I feel like I could do more. Like, something anyway. Just not entirely sure what to do.”

  Bunny nods thoughtfully, scowling. She can be really helpful when she puts her mind to it. She has a way of wiggling out of complicated situations. It's a skill.

  “What can you do?” she muses. “Is there somebody else there you could get fired, maybe? Automatic promotion?”

  “Ha, I hadn't thought of that,” I chuckle. “I don't think I'm really cagey enough to get anybody fired, Bunny. But… I might have made a bit of a mistake.”

  I shrug and look away, but I feel terrible about it. I know she can tell.

  “A mistake? What could you possibly have done?”

  “Well, she said something about new business… something about protection details…”

  Bunny shakes her head, not understanding. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  “I might've mentioned Kirkman East? Like, just in passing?”

  Her eyebrows go up, way up. She takes a healthy swig of the wine and then dramatically refills the glass almost to the brim.

  “Are you telling me that you just swiped a contract from August? And gave it to your boss? Seriously?”

  “I did not swipe anything! I don't have anything to swipe! I just mentioned… that I might have thought he was around…”

  Wincing, I sip my wine, then gulp a little bit more.

  “Oh my God, Dahlia. You're insane.”

  “Actually, I didn't even really mention it. I just said his name, and asked if she knew him. That's not so weird, right?” I babble, trying to cover up my humiliation. “I mean, I'm sure I can come up with something else. I didn’t even know what to say. I just thought that… actually I don’t know what I thought.”

  She nods seriously, looking around the room and deliberately not meeting my eye.

  “Wow, Dahlia. Have you talked to August about this?”

  Suddenly, I don't feel so good. For a moment, I was eager to get this off my chest, but now that I'm hearing it out loud it actually sounds terrible.

  “God, Bunny, what was I thinking?”

  She rolls her eyes and rubs the top of her forehead. Then she sighs dramatically and slaps her thighs with her palms. “You know what you do, Dahlia? When somebody threatens your job? You think about saving your own ass. People do that. It’s okay. Don't beat yourself up.”

  She's got a point, but I still feel shitty. “So, what I do now?”

  “Well, do you know of any other celebrities in the area? Or perhaps some unsolved mysteries that you could solve in a hurry and get paid by a secret millionaire or something like that?”

  “This isn't an episode of Scooby Doo, Bunny.”

  “Oh, isn't it?” she quips. “I'm not the one with the harebrained scheme, Dahlia. You're the one who's turning your life into a cartoon.”

  “You're not helping!” I bark, a little bit more seriously than I meant to. I thought it was going to be funny, but it comes out sounding desperate and a little scary.

  “Okay, okay. Let's just figure this out,” she says reasonably, lowering her voice to a calming tone. “If you don't have any other ideas… could you maybe… oh, I don't know? Try to actually get next to Kirkman East?”

  I almost spit out my drink. “Wait… I thought that we decided this was a stupid idea. Why would I do that?”

  “Just bear with me for a second. I'm trying to think on my feet here,” she explains, beginning to pace back and forth across the yellow linoleum tiles in front of the avocado green fridge. Her kitchen is so outdated, it is practically falling back into style again.

  “Okay. What if you just got next to Kirkman? Got a picture with him? And then you can tell Lori that there was no business available there, but at least you could prove that you tried?”

  “So, like… I wouldn’t be taking anything away from August? You're sure?”

  She chews on the knuckle of her forefinger, bouncing her head back and forth as though following imaginary timeline.

  “Yeah, I think this will work,” she finally pronounces. “You just get in the room with Kirkman, snap a selfie, get out… and tell Lori there was nothing there for you to pursue. No questions asked. Nice and neat.”

  I run it all over in my mind. Instead of trying to find new business, I guess I'm just trying to find an escape hatch out of the dumb thing I said today. At least the fallout of this would be much less disastrous than trying to follow through on what I foolishly said I could do.

  “You know what, I think this could actually work. At least, I can back out of the trouble I just got myself in.”

  “Exactly!” she declares. “And then you will be free to find all new kinds of trouble to get in!”

  “Brilliant!” I say, toasting her in the air. She refills my glass and I take a sip before I remember I was only going to have one drink. Suddenly the world seems a little bit brighter. At least my screwup will not be permanent.

  “So, now we just need to get August to put you in a room with Kirkman! Simple!”

  My mouth falls open a little bit. I guess I forgot about that tiny detail.

  “Wait. How am I supposed do that?”

  She grits her teeth, grimacing. “Can't you just ask him?”

  “Well… wouldn't it be better if I didn't? I'd like to keep this disaster contained, if possible. Not flowing outward in an ever-expanding puddle of awful.”

  “Contained, contained,” she repeats, musing. “Okay. I have an idea. Give me your phone.”

  I pull it out of my purse and hand it to her, confused. Before I know what she's doing, she reaches forward, snapping open the top two buttons on my blouse and sticking the phone practically into my bra.

  “What the hell do you think you're doing?” I protest, buttoning my shirt back up and jerking away from her. “I have definitely not had enough booze for that!”

  “Oh you wish!” She rolls her eyes. She keeps tapping on my phone, opening apps and not letting me see what's going on.

  “Seriously, Bunny. What are you doing?”

  More tapping. More ignoring me. Finally she holds up the phone triumphantly.

  “There. You're all set up,” she announces.

  She hands the phone back to me and I take it, peering at it suspiciously. “I'm all set up for what?”

  She grins evilly. “Your new Finstagram. @WantKirkman.”

  My eyes go wide. My breath catches my throat. “Oh my God, Bunny, what the hell did you just do?”

  I stare at the phone, aghast at what's in front of me. There is a picture of my cleavage with the words “Kirkman hmu!” across it in fat pink text.

  “I just set you up a Finstagram — a Fake Instagram. You should be thanking me!”

  “Oh my God, how do I delete this?” I mutter, looking for the settings portion of the app.

  “Don't delete it! That
's your way in!”

  I shake my head, not understanding. “Bunny, if my dad saw a picture of my tits on Instagram, he would skin me alive. Not to mention, I would probably lose my job immediately. What the hell are you thinking?”

  She knuckles her hips and tips her head to the side.

  “Ah, poor grasshopper. You don't get it. I did not put your face on there. Nobody knows whose tits those are. You're going to get your meeting with Kirkman, one way or another. No one will know that it’s you. It's genius!”

  “It's not even going to work!” I gasp. “This is insane!”

  She shakes her head slowly, as though pitying me. “It's not insane. It's already working. You have one follower… check who it is.”

  I scowl at the front page of the app, scrolling up and down. She's right. Somehow I immediately have one follower.

  @augustberner

  August. It's August.

  My mouth hangs open. My tongue goes dry.

  “What am I supposed to do?” I whisper hoarsely.

  Bunny rolls her eyes dramatically. “Follow him back so you can message him, dummy.”

  I tap on his profile, then tap on the Follow button.

  “Now what?”

  She shrugs. “Think of what you want to say. You just got an incognito account, totally secret, and connected with the hottie you’ve been wet-dreaming about for the last three years. Get crazy, girl!”

  “Oh my God… so we’re connected? Me and August?”

  I hold the phone out to her so she can see the little notification. She nods tightly, as though this is all going according to her plan.

  I’m totally lost.

  “Yeah I figured tagging Kirkman would alert him, but that was even quicker than I expected. Looks like your cleavage did the trick!”

  Unconsciously I tighten my shirt over my neckline, still feeling pretty violated that she just snapped a picture of me like that. I’m not sure I like this feeling. I’m being swept away.

  “Now what do I do?”

  “Jeez!” she barks, frustrated. “You’re like a kindergartner. You message him!”

  “But what do I—”