It was those last few words that stuck with me when he left shortly after. Haunting me as I got up to get dressed. Plaguing me as I brushed my teeth. Echoing back again and again as I slipped into my work clothes, and made my way to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee.
Let me start by saying, I had no intention of ‘cheating’ on Nick. None whatsoever. And not only because I currently had no social life to speak of (and thus, no one to cheat with), but because no matter the circumstance, I’d never been the cheating type.
That being said, I was fairly sure it wasn’t possible to ‘cheat’ on someone, when you weren’t technically in a ‘relationship.’
That being said, I didn’t know why Nick would really care either way.
True, I’d asked the same thing of him not long before—it had been one of the conditions I’d insisted on before we left Barcelona. But in my case, it made sense. The entire point of this little dalliance was to keep a positive spotlight on Mitchell Hunter’s son until his company’s grand awakening in three months. Every move Nick made would be scrutinized. The paparazzi fishbowl he already lived in would get even smaller—trapping him under a microscopic lens.
But the same rules didn’t apply to me.
I wasn’t a Hunter. I wasn’t the heir to anything. And even on my best of days, I was pretty damn sure the rest of the world didn’t think of me as an international celebrity.
I was, however, a world class talent at playing with the perceptions of the press. Even if I did happen to have a boyfriend on the side—it wouldn’t be a problem. If anyone knew how to keep a thing like that under wraps, it would be me.
Nick knew that. Of all the people in Manhattan, he knew it best of all.
And yet, he’d expressly forbidden it.
...why?
You don’t cheat on me either.
As if the words weren’t enough, then there was the look on his face. It was a look I had seen many, many times before. He might have been smiling, but there wasn’t an ounce of compromise anywhere in those twinkling blue yes.
It was not a request. It was a command. As simple as that.
I was still mulling it over a few minutes later, when there was a quiet knock on my door.
What the hell is going on today? Am I having an open house I don’t know about?
Cautious, and after double checking again that I was wearing pants, I padded my way over to the door. “Who is it?” I called through the double dead-bolts.
In Brooklyn, you could never be too careful.
“It’s Stacy.”
Stacy?
To say that Stacy Heathrow was a stylist, was like saying that Michael Phelps liked to play in the pool. The woman was a fashion goddess. A true icon. It was as if all of Manhattan had gotten together and compiled all their beauty standards into this one, bionic woman. A woman who somehow managed to encompass them all.
Tall, gorgeous, and with so little body fat I was amazed she wasn’t seasonally restricted indoors, she stopped the conversation of every room she walked into. Turned every head, unhinged every jaw. It was for this reason that Mitchell Hunter had hired her seven years ago.
That and the fact that she was one of the only women in the world who was impervious to his son’s devilish charms.
“Stacy—hey!” I yanked open the door, terrified to keep her waiting even a second longer than was necessary, “is everything okay? Did you and Lily have a fight?”
She swept inside, drenching me in a cloud of Chanel No. Five. Sure enough, despite the icy sidewalks, she was wearing a miniature cocktail dress paired with eight-inch heels. She had to bend down almost a foot to do her obligatory double-cheek-kiss.
“Lily—gosh no. Everything’s fine. She’s off in France or Spain or something—fighting against corporate interests with the rest of her little friends.”
(Lily’s ‘little friends’ happened to be a United Nations Human Rights Commission.)
“Oh, well that’s—”
“You know, this is actually a cute place.” Her ice blue eyes swept around appraisingly, as she shed her coat on a hook by the door. “Even if it is in Brooklyn...”
Knowing Stacy, that was as much of a compliment as I was ever going to get. At any rate, it was certainly as kind as she was biologically capable of.
“Uh...thanks.”
Now that she mentioned it, it was bizarre seeing her in a place like this. Was this her first time venturing over the bridge? I imagined her circuitry turned off once she left Manhattan. Like a broken robot, leaving her frozen and twitching on the far shore.
Wisely deciding not to ask, I quickly navigated back to my original question. “So, uh, not that it’s not great to see you and everything, but...”
I had hoped that would do it, but she returned my questioning gaze with a blank stare. I’d have to be a little more direct.
“It’s still like six in the morning...”
Still nothing.
“A little early to come calling...”
Silence.
Oh for fuck’s sake.
“What the hell are you doing here?!”
“Oh!” Her face brightened cheerfully, as she set her gigantic bag down in the middle of the living room floor. “Nick sent me. He didn’t tell you?”
Why the hell would he tell me? It’s not like it was my apartment or anything.
I shook my head quickly, trying to catch up.
“I’m sorry...Nick sent you?”
Why the hell would Nick send his stylist to Brooklyn? At six in the fucking morning?
“He called me about twenty minutes ago.” She poured herself a mug of coffee from the kitchen, before ripping open the curtains to let winter daylight spill into the room. “Said that we needed to get an early start if we were going to be ready for the event by tonight.”
“Ready for the—”
In an act of sheer desperation, I threw caution to the wind and actually snatched the coffee mug right out of her hands. Anything to stop her perpetual motion.
“I’m sorry, but you need to please tell me what’s going on.” I held the caffeine just out of reach, trying to ignore the way her eyes were dilating like an angry cat. “Nick sent you over to my place to help me prepare for an event? What event? And if it’s at night, why the hell do I need to start getting ready right now? And why would he send you here to help me?”
My voice rose in panic with each question, flailing as things spiraled further and further out of my control. By the last one, I was nearly shouting—sending little drops of coffee flying in every direction.
“And...and how the fuck does everyone know where I live?!”
Most people would have cringed to be on the receiving end of such a tantrum. Most people would have had the good sense to avoid the scalding drops of liquid shooting like shrapnel through the air.
Stacy simply looked bored.
“Are you finished shouting?”
I sucked in a quick breath, considering the question.
“For now.”
Her lips twitched up in a rare smile.
“Good. Then I’ll tell you what I know.” She ticked things off her fingers, one by one. “To start, Nick sent me over here because you’re no longer ‘Abigail Wilder his publicist,’ you’re now ‘Abigail Wilder his girlfriend.’ That means you’re not a behind-the-scenes puppet-master anymore, you’re center stage. The leading lady. And in this town, at Nick’s level, that means you officially relinquished the right to dress yourself. That’s where I come in. With me so far?”
Strangely enough, I was. When Nick had first proposed the idea in Barcelona, it hadn’t really occurred to me that I would have to look the part if I was to play it.
“Yeah...I guess.”
“You’re going to be on breakfast television. You know, Good Morning America.”
My jaw dropped. “Say what?”
“It’s just a little segment. Not long at all. A few minutes tops.”
I let out a long breath. “Okay, I can do this.”
“Yes, you can. So make our Nikey look all shiny and clean.”
A few women burst out in laughter.
“As if that’s possible,” one muttered.
I chuckled. “I work in PR. I know how the game works.”
“Great, then let’s get started, shall we?”
I glanced down at the bag she’d brought with her, suddenly seeing it in a whole new light. For the first time in my entire life, someone was here to do my makeup. They were here to curl my hair and pick out clothes. For the first time ever...that bag was here for me.
But Stacy was just getting started.
“As for the rest of it, I don’t know what the event is. Rumor has it that Nick planned the whole thing out himself—and you know how secretive he gets when he’s planning a surprise.”
I didn’t, actually. Most of the time, I was planning it with him. Going through all the logistics while he monologued excitedly from the sofa. Never once had the surprise been for me.
A sudden stir of excitement fluttered in my stomach, but it was instantly countered with a wave of nerves. I might not know exactly what Nick was up to—but I did know Nick. The man was a fucking poster boy for the perils of ‘getting a little carried away.’
Case and point: he had once launched a hot air balloon off the top of the Empire State Building, just because his friends bet that he couldn’t land it in the Hudson. (He couldn’t.)
Without me there to rein him in...who knew what the lunatic was planning.
“Maybe I should have pushed for a long-distance relationship,” I murmured, wondering whether it would be prudent for me to go out and update all my shots. “You know, something that kept me...out of range.”
“Out of range?” Stacy repeated with a grin. “Of Nick Hunter? Is there such a place?”
Good point.
“So why are you here so early?” I asked, ignoring her question as I focused again on the bag. “Six in the morning for an evening event? Even you can’t possibly take that long.”
Instead of fighting back like usual, her lips turned up in a dangerous smile.
“Aw sweetie, I probably can’t...”
As if on cue, the elevator dinged open, and the sound of a dozen or more voices floated inside from the hall. A second later, they were followed by a dozen or more footsteps. A second after that...there was a knock on my door.
My eyes widened in disbelief, but Stacy simply grinned.
“...but I’m not the only person who knows where you live.”