CHAPTER 3
Jane had some regrets about trying to appear entirely forgettable, which manifested most strongly right outside an Italian joint called Bianchi’s, where she was supposed to interview with Nick Dawes. She’d been caught in the rain without an umbrella, which probably did not project responsibility and whatever else it was you needed to convince someone that you were not going to let their fish die or set their penthouse on fire while they’re away. That said, the error did result in making her look mousier than she was even going for. Wet hair that was probably alternating between extreme frizz and soaked, no makeup, boring clothes (well, clothes with at least two fewer colors than usual). I am the epitome of the unobtrusive fish feeder you are looking to hire, Mr. Dawes.
She entered the front door, shucked her raincoat off, shook the water out of her hair, and then tried to tame it with a rubber band. After stating her name, she was whisked through the restaurant by a buxom brunette with a classic New York accent, who escorted her to a private room that looked equally appropriate for hosting children’s birthday parties and bloody disagreements between Mafiosi.
And within seconds she was sitting across from a guy who seriously looked like he walked off the movie screen just in time to show up for dinner in Jane’s life. What was it Cecily always said about Shane and his friends? Extremely large, superhot. Check aaaaaand check.
Objectively speaking, by pretty much any measuring system, Mr. Dawes was even hotter than Shane Sullivan, Cecily’s man. Which was a high bar. A really high bar, since Shane could probably set a T-shirt on fire just by putting it over his head.
Mr. Dawes was wearing a suit and tie plus a crisp white dress shirt sporting French cuffs that flipped back far enough to reveal a gold watch clamped around his muscular, corded wrist. He was sleek, but he was somehow saved from looking just too smooth thanks to an unruly lock of dark-brown hair that fell into his gunmetal-blue eyes.
In short, he looked very, very expensive. He was actually beautiful. Like, too beautiful to be having an entire dinner with a stupid, boring girl just to see if she was an appropriate candidate to feed his fish, which raised a lot of questions. The same questions that Ally and Cecily either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. Of course, she was going to be living in his house, with his stuff, so on second thought, Jane figured it was only right that he spend some time making sure she wouldn’t abscond with his belongings.
He was pretty quiet at first, studying her studying him. The only chip in the mold of this exceptionally beautiful statue came from inside; the set of his mouth and the look in his eyes made Nick Dawes look tired. On edge. And like he didn’t want to be here.
The waitress had first served Mr. Dawes a martini (Jane had turned down the offer of something other than water) and put down a giant bowl of salad and a massive platter of ravioli. As she doled out two servings, Jane couldn’t help but wonder if he chose ravioli so that noodles wouldn’t spatter his pricey clothes.
Jane made a choice. This was good food, and she wasn’t going to waste it. Besides, if she talked, he might discover she wasn’t the moron he was looking for, and she’d tank the interview. So she tucked into her food and waited for him to ask a question.
“Tell me about yourself,” Mr. Dawes finally said.
“Well, what would you like to know about me?”
“Just start talking, I’ll tell you when to stop.”
Jane blinked. “Er, should I start with my background?” I have seen things and lived through things you wouldn’t believe. Should I tell you about the time my parents asked a motorcycle gang to babysit me while they went to hustle pool? Yeah, no.
Nick Dawes slid the first martini olive off the toothpick with his teeth. She noticed he had rather pronounced canine teeth; they gave his pretty-boy looks a little edge and made her want to order a family-size jar of olives and a fresh box of toothpicks and just say, “Go.”
“It doesn’t matter.” He seemed bored. Good news, since he’d specified boring. Bad news, since she wasn’t actually trying. “I had you vetted. I just need to take your measure in person.”
How about you take my measurements instead? Just put one hand right on my—
“You’re an artist, like Cecily.” He looked down then, like he was matching her clothes to the idea of her as an artist. There was probably a reasonably strong correlation, given that she had on a navy-and-aqua striped riff on the Breton look; the stripes were paint lines, and the neck was wide enough for one shoulder to do a modified Flashdance slip.
“Actually, no,” Jane said. “Cecily’s a smart artist; she’s a graphic designer who helps build websites. I’m an idiot. I hand draw flourishes for the insides of self-help books and the like.”
“Flourishes.”
“Yes.” Jane made a swooshing gesture in the air. “Here.” She pulled one of her promo pieces out of her purse and handed it to him.
“That’s a living?” he asked.
“Well, as it turns out, no,” she said. “One of us makes money; the other doesn’t. So, for the last year I worked as an assistant office manager at a website marketing company.”
Mr. Dawes blinked, showing no signs of humor. He stared down at the heart-shaped plastic letter opener in his hand imprinted with Jane’s name and calligraphy-style logo.
“In case you’re in the market for flourishes,” Jane said. She thought he looked slightly pained. Truth be told, it did have a whiff of desperation about it. Well, screw you, Moneybags.
“If you slide that bit there, there’s even a tiny mirror too,” she said, and added, keeping a straight face, “in case you need to floss.”
Mr. Dawes didn’t move, so Jane reached over and pointed at the plastic lump that opened to reveal a barely usable mirror. Their fingers touched, so she didn’t finish taking it out. Still keeping her expression completely serious, she persevered with, “It comes out. You can look at yourself all day.”
He looked at her sharply. “And this gets people to buy your flourishing services?”
“People like getting things that are heart shaped. Even if they don’t know it, it brings them joy. Then they’ll associate positive feelings with me. So, I like to think of it as a long-term investment.” Jane softened her face and let him off the hook. “You can give it back. I won’t be offended.”
Mr. Dawes studied her face and then pocketed the stupid letter opener. He was looking at her like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. It is extremely disturbing to discover that I’m so talented at being unappealing, Jane thought. She suddenly wished she’d remembered an umbrella or at least put on mascara.
“Why did you stop being an office manager?” Mr. Dawes asked.
Jane flinched.
“Something happened,” Mr. Dawes prompted.
This clearly interested him. Oh, god, here we go. “I was an excellent office manager,” Jane said.
“So?”
Oh, screw it. “I made the mistake of having a relationship with my boss. When it didn’t work out, he made things hard on me.”
A very long silence transpired.
Jane cleared her throat. “That wasn’t in the vetting, I guess. Was that too much or too little information?”
He cocked his head to the side.
Jane leaned forward. “I want you to know that I’m very experienced at handling the unusual. Change has never bothered me, I eat ‘transitions’ for breakfast, and I’m good with difficult men.”
Another long silence.
“Right. Difficult men,” Mr. Dawes said. “Listen, Jane, I need to be straight with you. Part of what I do requires that I hang out with dangerous people. Right now, some of those people aren’t too happy with me. I want to make it clear that I don’t expect any of them to come to my apartment. They are unhappy with me. Only me. But I thought you should know that . . .” He suddenly looked askance, his thoughts far away. “Shit, maybe this—”
Oh, no you don’t take this opportunity away from me! “You work with Cecily’s fiancé, Shane, right?”
“Right.”
“He’s a mercenary.”
Mr. Dawes hesitated, then: “Right.”
“I’ve been warned.”
“I don’t know what you were told, but—”
“Listen.” Jane felt a wave of emotion pass through her, and she knew Mr. Dawes didn’t miss it when her eyes flooded with tears. I need the money. I really, really need the money for Nana and a place to live so I can figure out what to do. “You have a situation,” she said, choking a little. “I have a situation too.”
Mr. Dawes kindly looked to the side while Jane successfully reined in the tears and pulled herself back from the weird vulnerability she’d just displayed. Suddenly he said, “Here are the instructions. What questions do you have?” He produced a piece of paper with a lengthy numbered list. It was very organized. The paper was thick, a creamy off-white, and, as an artist, Jane kind of hated that it was being used for house-sitting instructions. “When you get there, call this number, and I’ll walk you through the fish-tank protocol.”
Suddenly, he hesitated. “Some of the fish have already died. They’re still there. You’ll have to—”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it,” Jane said briskly. “Okay, so I should go there tomorrow? I should start tomorrow?”
“Yes.” Mr. Dawes handed over a key chain with three keys on it. “Door to building, door to apartment, door to downstairs mailbox. Got it?”
“Yes, Mr. Dawes,” she said as she took the keys.
His eyebrow raised, and a small smile crossed his face.
Jane reared back slightly. “Oh, should I call you something else?”
His smile got a little wider. “Definitely call me Mr. Dawes.”
Jane felt herself get a little hot. “Yes, sir.”
His smile apparently forgot itself and turned into a grin. “I’ll give you information for the delivery services I use. Buy whatever you need but don’t throw a party in my place, right?”
“Whatever I need? Like cleaning supplies? Or like fresh Maine lobsters?”
He actually shrugged. “Either. Whatever. Just no company. No parties.”
“I am one hundred percent not throwing a party at your place, Mr. Dawes, sir,” Jane said solemnly, enjoying the change in Nick Dawes’s expression every time she called him something fancy. “My number one job will be to make sure your fish don’t die.”
Wrong thing to say, apparently. Serious concern flickered in Mr. Dawes’s eyes. Jane quickly added, “And if you’ve been receiving regular cupcake delivery service or something, I’m not going to tell them to stop just because you’re not living there.”
He stared at her, and Jane thought she’d got him again, but then he frowned and said with some annoyance, “You were supposed to be—”
“Boring, just stupid enough, and unassuming,” Jane supplied helpfully.
He let out a snort and said with equal parts disdain and admiration, “Goddamn Ally.”
“Did I just blow the interview?” Jane asked.
“I already gave you the keys,” Mr. Dawes faux grumped.
But you could take them back. Man, you’re adorable, Jane thought. I mean, you’re obviously gorgeous and rich, but you’re really worried about your fish.
The waitress appeared. “Hey. Got a to-go bag for you all ready, Nick.”
“Actually, I’m staying a little longer than I expected. Could you bring out a bottle?”
Jane raised both eyebrows. Okay, so I definitely nailed the interview.
“Red, dark fruit,” the waitress said, glancing over at Jane. “He hates Chianti.”
Noted, thought Jane. Mr. Dawes, sir, hates Chianti.
After the interview, Jane headed back to Ally’s to pack up her stuff. Ally poked her head around the corner of the living room door and watched Jane sitting on the couch, stuffing a duffel bag. “Is that you muttering?”
“Yep,” Jane said darkly.
“He didn’t hire you?” her friend asked incredulously.
“Of course he hired me,” Jane said. “Thank you very much for setting it up.”
Ally’s eyes narrowed. “What’s the problem?”
“I’m mad at myself.”
This got Ally to come and sit down on the couch on top of the pile of Jane’s underwear and socks. “For what?”
Jane paused, mid stuff. If her cheeks still burned in humiliation thinking about it, she clearly wasn’t over it. “I shouldn’t have stayed for the wine.”
Ally’s eyes widened. “Did something happen?” she asked with a note of menace in her voice, like she was perfectly prepared to go punch Mr. Dawes in the gut if “something happened.”
“No! Good lord, no. He gave a speech about pH balance for twenty minutes, and then we left. It was completely innocent.”
“A speech about what?”
“pH bal—oh, never mind. It was completely innocent.”
“You’ve said that twice now,” Ally pointed out.
“Ugh.” Jane frowned. “I think that’s just me reminding myself not to like my boss too much. The best part about learning about pH balance was watching his mouth. He has really sexy lips and incredible teeth. When he says the word ‘alkaline,’ you can see a bit of tongue. It’s just not fair, not after what I’ve been through. Am I being tested?” She looked almost desperately at Ally. “It can’t happen again. The mess I got myself into with Bill . . . it can’t happen again.”
“Don’t worry. What else is there to say? I’m sure you won’t hear from Nick again until the job’s over.”
Of course, that comment immediately annoyed Jane. For absolutely no good reason.
And then Jane’s phone rang. She glanced at the screen, gave Ally a knowing look, and held the phone out so her friend could see who was calling.
Ally blurted out a laugh, and Jane took the call, shaking her head. “Jane speaking.”
After a pause, Nick Dawes said, “Hello, Jane.”
“Hello.”
After another pause, he asked, “Are you home?”
Jane held the phone out at arm’s length and stared at it suspiciously before putting it back to her ear. “Yes. I’m with Ally.”
“Right. Good. I realized I should have called you a car service.”
“Why?”
Mr. Dawes let out a soft, startled laugh. This question seemed to surprise him. Or maybe it was the fact that she’d questioned him at all. “Did you take the subway?”
“Of course.”
“Which I’m sure involved a walk in the dark to Ally’s place.”
“It often does,” Jane said.
After a truly awkward silence, during which Ally stared at Jane while making a variety of ridiculous and questioning facial expressions, Mr. Dawes said, “But you’re home now.”
“In fact, Ally’s right here. Do you want to talk to her?” Jane asked hopefully.
Ally gave her a look that said she thought Jane was nuts, but Ally had nothing to worry about because Mr. Dawes said, “That won’t be necessary,” and hung up.
Jane’s phone disconnected the call. How very awkward. Presumably she still had the job.
Then she looked up at Ally, who seemed inappropriately amused.
“I don’t think I like him very much,” Jane said with a sniff, tossing the phone aside and resuming her packing.
But what a great voice.