I pulled on the door handle, but it didn’t give way. I pulled it even harder and peered inside to see that the café was empty, but the lights were on.
Since when do they close early on Mondays?
I walked to the other entry door and spotted a pink sign in the window.
This establishment has committed HEALTH CODE VIOLATION 785-12.
CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
“Didn’t you hear?” A woman pushed her stroller next to me. “It’s pretty disgusting how badly they failed the inspection.”
“No...” I sighed. “I don’t even want to know what happened.”
“They had a cockroach infestation. It was so bad that they were grinding some of the dead roaches into the coffee beans.” She smiled and held out her phone. “There’s a pretty funny YouTube video about it. See?”
I immediately walked away from her and headed toward my place.
This day can’t possibly get any worse...
I waved down the approaching company town car and slipped into the back seat. The driver gave me a sympathetic look, but he didn’t say anything. He simply let his soft music play over the speakers.
Scrolling through my inbox, I answered what emails I could and called Tina.
“Yes, Miss Lauren?” she answered.
“Can you give me the daily updates? I’ll be there soon, but I’m in mid-day traffic.”
“Sure thing.” Papers shuffled in the background. “Well, I have good news and bad news.”
“Go with the bad news first so we can get it out of the way.”
“We lost two clients, Michael Pilot and Liam Johnson, to Drew and Associates as of this morning.”
“Of course, we did.” I shook my head, debating whether I should ask the driver to turn around and take me back home so I could sleep the rest of this terrible day away instead.
“But there’s good news!” She exclaimed. “I found a few viable references for our mystery RD LLC client.”
“Okay, great. Who are they?”
“The Welch Group, Embassy PR, and Avenue & Associates.”
“He’s been with all of them already?” I scrolled through my list of contacts. “When was this?”
“He didn’t say, and I figured you would want to be the one who called to ask questions.”
“Got it,” I said. “Thank you, Tina.”
“You’re welcome. See you soon.”
I ended the call and tried to think about who this guy could possibly be if he’d already dealt with three of the biggest firms in this city. I was hoping he was a high-profile athlete who was trying to turn his career around, or maybe one of the many newly displaced Los Angeles celebrities who were attempting to start fresh in New York.
Smiling at the possibilities, I dialed my contact at The Welch Group first.
“Veronica of The Welch Group speaking,” she answered on the first ring. “Who is this?”
“Penelope of Lauren & Associates,” I said. “I hope I’m not reaching you at a bad time.”
“Not at all, Penelope. What do you need?”
“I have a question about a potential client who listed you as reference. He listed himself as RD LLC, so I was wondering if—”
She hung up in my face.
Seconds later, she sent me a text message.
VERONICA: I have absolutely nothing to say about that client. EVER.
“Okay, then...” I scrolled down and called my contact at Avenue PR.
“Eva of Avenue PR,” she answered. “Who do I have the pleasure of speaking with today?”
“Hey, Eva. It’s me, Penelope at Lauren & Associates. I’m calling to see if you can give me any information about a former client of yours.”
“Sure. Which one?”
“He hasn’t given his name yet, but he came to us under RD LLC.”
Silence.
“Hello?” I asked. “Hello? Eva, are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“Well, um...Can you tell me anything at all about this client?”
“I can tell you that he would have to pay me a million dollars a week to work with him again. I can also tell you that if you’re smart, you’ll reject him the second he brings his special brand of assholery through your doors.”
I sighed. “Anything more concrete than that, maybe?”
“You’ll see.” She hung up and I didn’t bother calling the other reference.
By the time I arrived to the office, it was two thirty and my staff had already set out the snack trays and flower bouquets for our trademark client introduction meeting. I unwrapped a fresh pack of fountain pens and placed them at the center of the conference table.
“Did anyone have any luck finding out anything about our incoming client today?” I stepped into our break room. “Anything at all?”
The majority of the team shook their heads, but Bob raised his hand.
“I did,” he said pulling a mini notepad from his back pocket. “This detail is from Heather at Ransom & Company. And I quote, He’s sexy as hell and I wish I would’ve fucked him before we parted ways. But I would never work with him again.” He closed his notepad. “Oh, and apparently he has a ‘huge cock’ that she used to stare at from time to time during their strategy meetings.”
“Thank you so much, Bob.” I rolled my eyes. “That really, really helps.”
“You’re welcome.” He laughed. “Do we honestly care what this guy does, though? He gave us three million dollars in advance, and last time I checked that’s enough to keep us afloat for a while, especially since Drew is relentlessly poaching from us again. As long as he’s not a crime boss or a murderer, who gives a damn?”
The rest of the staff murmured in agreement and I returned to the conference room. I watched the secondhand tick by on the wall clock—half excited, half worried.
Please don’t be a crime boss...Please don’t be a crime boss...
Four o’clock passed. Then four thirty. Then five. Then finally, five thirty.
Convinced that today’s signing session was some type of elaborate joke, I pushed my chair up to the table and headed into my office. I decided to work on the files for our clients who existed in real life, and when six thirty arrived with no sign of RD LLC, I called the bank. I needed to make sure the manager froze that three million until further notice.
The receptionist was putting me on hold when a loud knock came to my door.
“Come in!” I said, and Tina stepped inside my office.
“Um...” She cleared her throat, and I noticed her cheeks were a bright pink. “Our potential client just got here.”
What? “Does he know that he’s two and a half hours late?” I hung up the phone. “Go ahead and send him in.”
She walked out and the door opened seconds later.
I forced myself to smile, prepared my lips to say, “Hello and welcome to Lauren & Associates,” but the second the “client” stepped into my office, I felt all color leaving my face.
“My apologies for being late,” he said. “My board meeting was—” He stopped mid-sentence and stared at me, letting that familiar, sexy smirk from last night slowly form on his lips. Today he was wearing a three-piece black suit with a sapphire blue tie, and he looked even sexier than he did last night.
As he continued to look me up and down, I bit my lip to prevent my jaw from dropping—silently hoping the floor would suddenly open beneath my feet and swallow me whole.
“I was told this was someone named Penelope’s office.” He stepped closer to my desk, his eyes moving from my face to my silver nameplate. “Last night, you told me your name was Rachel. Did you not?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr.—” I stood up and extended my hand to him, “What exactly is your name sir?”
“My name is the same as it was hours ago when we were fucking,” he said. “Ryan. Dalton is my last name, though.”
“Well, it’s nice to finally get an actual name from you, Mr. Dalton,” I said. “And it’s very nice to meet you for the very first time in my life, because we have never met before this exact moment in time. You can have a seat.”