Tove laid her garment bag carefully in the trunk of her Mercedes, closing it with a solid thunk. She had everything on her list. Everything except her plus-one, who was nowhere to be found.
“If one more man lets me down, I swear I will commit murder this time,” she muttered to herself as she dug her phone out of the pocket of her wide-legged trousers and checked the time again. She hated the nerves that had caused her belly to fizz with sour anxiety. It made her feel young again and not in a good way. Age had introduced her to the “zero fucks given” concept and it was a good one. She wouldn’t be Emily’s age again with all its worries for anything.
The phone in her hand chimed with a text message and she startled, realized she’d been staring, unseeing, at her quiet, tree-lined street.
Patrick: Slight change of plan. Can I call you?
Tove gritted her teeth and tapped his contact, raising the phone to her ear.
“Or you could call me.” The deep voice had a smile in it and Tove fought for control of her temper.
“Where are you?” she asked, being sure to pitch her voice in a casual, light tone. She was not freaking out. She had no nerves. She was Tove Nilsen, professional badass, and she had everything under control. Always.
“Pittsburgh.”
“What? Why?” Calm gone, her voice pitched into the stratosphere, panicky and vulnerable. Great. If Vati’s harebrained scheme had seemed like a bad idea before, it now seemed like the worst idea ever.
“A confluence of things. Out in the field, car trouble, phone died, had left my charger in my car when it got towed, and I couldn’t use anyone else’s phone to call you because I didn’t know your number.”
“But why are you in Pittsburgh of all places? Never mind.” Her brain kicked into fix-it mode. How could she get him here in…zero minutes, because they were supposed to be leaving now?
“I’ve got it under control. I bought a charger and rented a car. I’ll meet you at the Enterprise rental place in Cumberland. It’s right on your way.”
Tove had been out to the resort a couple of times during the run-up to the wedding and knew the route all too well. “Cumberland’s less than an hour away from Deep Creek.” According to the original plan, they were supposed to have over three hours in the car together to get their stories straight.
“No help for it. I mean, we could get things straightened out over the phone…”
“Studies show talking on the phone distracts drivers in a way that in-person discussions don’t. I’m not risking anyone’s life for a cover story.”
He gave an easy chuckle. “Well, then I’d better get off the phone now and let you get on the road. We’ll figure it out.”
“Fine.” It took her a few minutes after they hung up for her to realize why she was no longer angry.
Because, for the first time in decades, she hadn’t had to fix yet another man’s mess.
Two hours and fifteen minutes of driving later and Tove was pulling into the parking lot of the rental car agency, scanning the front of the building, and failing to suppress the upwelling of nerves that had reasserted themselves as soon as she exited the highway. Movement at the corner of the establishment caught her eye and she came to a stop in front of a dark-haired man with a leather garment bag hanging over one finger who stooped to pick up a large, matching duffel. When he straightened, her breath hitched a little.
Photographs did not do Patrick Mercer justice. At all. They couldn’t capture the easy roll of his walk or the way his dark, hooded eyes seemed to take everything in all at once. Tove put the car in park and got out, desperate to move, to get her sweaty butt out of the driver’s seat.
“Tove.” The voice she’d only ever heard on the phone sounded deeper, richer when she could attach it to his face.
“Patrick. It’s nice to—” meet you died on her lips as he stepped forward and brushed a kiss across her cheekbone. Just a quick touch of his mouth, but the brief contact and the fleeting fragrance of expensive soap stopped her voice.
“Would you like me to drive?” he asked. “You’ve been on the road a while.”
“So have you,” she said, opening the back door of the sedan and gesturing for him to put his bags there.
“I’ve had about twenty minutes to stretch my legs,” he replied, that slightly crooked smile quirking his mouth and making his dark eyes shine.
“Oh. Okay. Sure, I guess. Thanks.” This was as close to babbling as Tove had gotten in years. She felt her own smile, a nervous, transient thing nothing like his easy expression, skitter across her face as she shut the door and walked over to the passenger’s side. Patrick slid in, adjusting the seat and controls without hesitation. “You’ve driven an S-Class before?” she asked, buckling her seatbelt.
“Not in a couple of years, but I guess it’s like riding a bike.” He pushed the starter button and piloted them smoothly out onto the road. “I like the green,” he said, nodding at the paint job. “Different.”
Tove leaned back and rested her head on the headrest. “Well. So many of them are black or silver.”
“Boring.”
Were they really going to waste their precious forty-five minutes of road time with this banal conversation? She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Okay. So, we need to know some things about each other. The type of stuff that will come up in casual conversation. Like what you supposedly do for a living. I was thinking therapist. Because if you are seeing patients you can’t really talk about your work.”
His glance slid sideways at her for a fraction of a second and then returned to the road. “Or I could just be me.”
“Retired sex worker?”
That little scar she’d noticed on his lip hitched up. “I wasn’t exactly going to lead with that. I have a small consultancy business now.”
Tove narrowed her eyes, wondering if this was his sense of humor in action. “Is that a euphemism for something?”
He shook his head, chuckling just a bit. “Nope. I help charities with their fundraising efforts.”
Against her will, Tove was intrigued. “How?”
“I basically give seminars on how to charm very rich people out of their money.”
“Was that what you were doing in Pittsburgh?”
“Yup.”