The Boyfriend Rental service

Chapter 3: Bring Your A Game

Her father was already in the sitting room when she got home.

He didn't say anything immediately. Just sat there with his jacket still on and looked at her the way he'd been looking at her since she was twelve — like she was a decision he hadn't quite finished making.

"Close the door," he said.

She did.

"The restaurant." He folded his hands. "Who was he."

"Someone I'm seeing."

"You're engaged."

"To a man who was photographed in a hotel room with someone else." She sat down across from him, which she knew he hadn't expected. He preferred these conversations with her standing. "I don't think my behavior is what we should be discussing."

"Richard made a mistake."

"You keep saying that like repetition makes it more true."

His jaw tightened. "You don't understand the full picture."

"Then explain it to me."

He wouldn't. He never did. "The engagement stands. What's been arranged between our families goes beyond whatever feelings you have about this."

"I know."

"Then act accordingly."

"I am acting accordingly." She held his eyes. "Richard humiliated me. I'm not going to sit in a room and smile like I should be grateful he chose me in the first place."

Something moved across his face that wasn't quite guilt. He stood up. "There's a pre-event dinner next Saturday. The Ashfords will be there. You will attend and you will be appropriate." He straightened his jacket. "I don't want to have this conversation again."

"Neither do I," she said.

He left.

The room went quiet. She sat there for a moment, furious in the way that had nowhere to go, and then picked up her phone and called Caleb.

"Next Saturday," she said the moment he answered. "Pre-event dinner. Richard will be there. His whole family will be there. I need you there and I need you to be convincing. Not just present — convincing. I want him to look at us and feel it."

"I'll be there," Caleb said. His voice was unhurried, like nothing she said was going to rattle him. "We'll make him feel it."

She almost said something else. Instead she said "dress well" and hung up.

She set the phone down.

The house was quiet around her and she was still angry and her mind, with nothing better to do with the energy, went somewhere she hadn't told it to go.

His hands at the restaurant — relaxed, unhurried, the way they'd rested on the table while every woman in the room tried to get his attention and he didn't particularly chase any of it. The way he'd looked at her when she made the comment about the card — direct, unbothered, almost amused. The fit of his jacket across his shoulders.

She thought about what it would feel like if this were real. Not a booking. Not an arrangement. If he actually wanted to be there, if those hands were on her instead of resting on a table, if he looked at her the way the women at the restaurant clearly wanted him to look at them.

She thought about it longer than she meant to.

Thought about him walking her back somewhere quiet the way he probably had with women who didn't need to hire him. Unhurried. Certain. The kind of man who made you feel like he had nowhere else to be.

She stopped herself.

Sat up straighter.

That was not the arrangement and she was not that kind of woman and she had hired him for a specific purpose that had nothing to do with whatever her mind had just done with the last thirty seconds.

She stood up, smoothed her dress, and walked out of the room.

But the thought followed her upstairs anyway.

Uninvited and entirely inconvenient.

I was in the middle of telling Danny that the leftovers in the blue container were mine specifically when she called.

I stepped into the hallway and answered.

She was straight into it — dinner, Saturday, Richard in the room, make it convincing. Her voice was steady but something underneath it wasn't, something tight that the steadiness was working to cover.

"I'll be there," I said. "We'll make him feel it."

A short pause. Then — "Good." And she was gone.

I went back inside. Danny had the blue container open in his lap.

"Give me my food Danny."

"It was just sitting there."

"With my name on it."

He handed it back without remorse. "Job?"

"Escalating. Pre-event dinner. Whole family. The fiancé's going to be watching."

Danny whistled. "She's serious."

"She's furious," I said. "Which is worse."

Marcus came in from the kitchen with his laptop and dropped into the chair. "Already pulled the Ashford background." He turned the screen toward me. "Richard Ashford. Forty eight. Finance. Grew up in the Bronx before the money."

He scrolled to the main photo.

I looked at it.

Something happened. Not recognition — I didn't know this man. But something about the photo made my mind reach for something it couldn't find. The jaw. The way he held himself. Something sitting just out of reach that wouldn't come forward no matter how long I looked.

"You know him?" Marcus said.

"No."

"You're staring."

"I'm looking at the profile." I looked away. "Send me the guest list when you have it."

Marcus shrugged. Danny reached over and finished the last of my food while I wasn't paying attention.

I sat back and let the apartment settle around me. Danny laughing at something on his phone. Marcus typing. The usual.

But my eyes kept going back to the closed laptop.

Something about that face.

I didn't know what yet.

I just knew it wasn't nothing.