“This is not a credit card machine failure, as I suspected,” he informs me. “You need to pay the bill.”
“I’m a good customer. I’m sure this is some sort of an error. Can’t I just—”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Monahan. You have to settle the bill immediately. Do you have a debit card?”
“Oh! My personal account. Of course! I can pay it, and I’ll have my company reimburse me once this is all sorted out. There’s plenty of money in our personal accounts.” I pull out the debit card and hand it to him, relieved to have been given an out, still furious to be in this position at all.
He runs it. I stare at the machine. At the same moment, my skin does that prickly thing again, goosebumps everywhere. If I weren’t in this state of abject terror that I’m working so hard to cover, I would think that I was aroused.
Aroused in the most delicious of ways.
Ian McCrory's entirely at fault.
The light on the machine turns red, the word looking like Hebrew, although at this point I know damn well what “decline” looks like upside down.
“Hastings,” Ian purrs in my ear, his hand resting between my shoulder blades. His eyes flit down to take in the machine, then the cards gripped in my hand. He looks at José. An extraordinary expression of sympathy that makes me want to rip my own liver out and eat it in front of him covers his face.
“Oh, Hastings. I had no idea.”
That is the exact moment I learn how much I hate Ian McCrory.
“Had no idea of what?” I challenge.
He looks at the debit card as if it were a limp penis. “That you and Burke were in financial trouble.” The words come out of his mouth as if they’re in slow motion, in free fall, BASE jumping without a parachute.
“We are not in financial trouble,” I snap, hating the edges of my words, how they vibrate out into the waiting area. Two people turn, microscopic shifts in the way that their ears tilt. I know full well about eavesdropping on other people’s drama–and I know damn well that I don’t want to be someone else’s funny story for later. “We’re fine. This is some kind of computer glitch.”
“Ma’am, you have now attempted four credit cards, all from different issuers, and your personal debit card. Everything has been declined,” José says, completely obliterating my cover story.
The shift from Ms. Monahan to Ma'am is the worst.
The spray of shock that radiates through my body as his words hit me makes it hard to breathe. Something really is wrong. How can the greatest moment in my entire life implode like this?
“José,” Ian says to him, making himself a human shield between the prying eyes of my dinner party and me, “put it on my account.”
“You can’t do that!” I protest.
“I am doing that.”
“But this is my dinner. This is my responsibility. And my contract,” I growl.
“I’m not trying to take your contract away from you, Hastings. I’m trying to save you from embarrassment.”
“I don’t need you to rescue me.”
“It sure as hell looks like you do.”
“This… this isn’t… I’ll pay you back,” I hiss, furiously grateful, but filled with more fury than gratitude.
“Of course you will.”
“And–I’m not in financial trouble.”
“Of course you’re not.”
Condescension is my kryptonite. It’s what I use against other people as a weapon, a cover for my insecurity.
Yeah, yeah, I’m not supposed to be that self-aware. I went through enough therapy to know I don’t give a damn what other people think about me, but I certainly give a damn about how I feel when someone else perceives me as weak.
And that’s exactly what Ian’s doing right now.
“First of all, you’re a jerk. Second of all, thank you.”
“That’s the worst thank you I’ve ever received in my life.”
“I’m sure you’ve been subjected to worse.”
“Well, there was that one time in Sydney when I was in bed and—”
“I don’t want to hear about your sex life!”
Especially when mine is non-existent.
“Look,” Ian says, grabbing my upper arm gently, pulling me out of the view of my dinner guests. “I don’t want you to win this contract any more than you want me to win the ones that I take from you.”
“You admit it? I’m a competitor of yours?”
“You’re an annoyance, Hastings.”
“Annoyance?”
“You’re so much smarter than you give yourself credit for, and you’ve attached yourself to that slimy piece of overblown ego masquerading as a finance expert.”
“How dare you talk about my husband that way!”
“You knew instantly who I was talking about, though, didn’t you?”
We're both breathing harder than we should be, and a flush of heat wanders around my body like it's looking for something to burn.
I straighten my spine and let out a deep sigh. “I am not having this conversation with you.”
“Actually, you are. We’re literally exchanging the words right now.”
My phone buzzes in my hand. I look at it. It’s from Burke. It’s two words:
I'm sorry.
My eyebrows drop, my face twisting with horror. “I’m sorry?” I whisper.
“That’s better.”
“Not you! I’m reading my text from Burke–‘I’m sorry’? At least he's finally contacting me, so I can stop worrying.”
A second text follows:
Don't tell them anything.
I frown. Before Ian can rudely ask me what the new text says, his phone buzzes, too. Over at the table, everyone’s phone buzzes at the same time.
The timing is too coincidental.
A snake begins to uncurl along my tailbone, rising up my spine between my shoulder blades to the base of my neck, splitting in two and going to each ear, crawling up over the crown of my head.
Something is terribly wrong.
Burke doesn’t apologize for anything.
Behind me, the door to the restaurant opens, bringing with it a cool blast of evening air that should be refreshing but feels more like death. The sound of heavy steps makes me turn, and a clink-clink-clink that is distinct and unfamiliar.
“Hastings Monahan,” says a man behind me. He's not asking if I'm her.
Because he knows.
I look at Ian. His eyes are wide, hand gripping his phone, thumb on the unlock position already. When I turn around, I’m faced with uniformed police officers and men and women in black, all of them wearing weapons and expressions of doom.
“Yes?”
What happens next is a blur. Words float into my brain, like under arrest and charged with as Ian punches the glass screen on his phone like a jackhammer on concrete, barking orders to some person named Irene on the other end. My purse is taken out of my hands, my wrists pulled behind me. I catch Ms. Bannerton’s eye, and her whole expression melts into one of mocking delight.
The men at the table do not move, do not defend me, do not protect me, do not interfere in any way.
I can’t blame them.