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Which had been absurd, because he was a dick.
I needed a major distraction, so when Friday rolled around I texted Cher and Sarah to ask if they wanted to join me for a drink at O’Malleys, which both readily agreed to. Plus, I knew I couldn’t avoid Cher forever. She’d been sending me texts incessantly all week after I’d made the mistake of telling her a few details about the job: that it was in the Hills, that the house had talked. That the house was nicer than the owner, and had better hygiene, too.
Luckily I couldn’t say much more, given how Sarah had said we were supposed to keep mum about who it was.
Except when I arrived, I found both of them already there, looking a little too excited to see me. They poured me a beer from their pitcher while Cher gave a rapid-fire update of what had happened at the Rolling Hills in my absence.
Then both of them fell silent, their eyes on me.
Though my two friends couldn’t look more different—Sarah with her pale, freckled skin, compact figure and hazel eyes, and Cher with her smooth brown skin, busty Amazonian height and thick dark lashes—both looked at me with baited anticipation. I noticed vaguely that Sarah had faint circles under her eyes, but she smiled at me, looking fine again, and I wondered if I’d imagined it.
Cher slapped her hand on the table. “Okay Winona, that’s enough dilly-dallying. You need to tell me everything you know about him.”
My stomach fluttered suddenly with nerves. “About who?”
“About Mitchell Harrington, Blake Harrington’s brother and the man you’re going to have your scorching hot fling with!”
With great effort I kept from spitting my fresh sip of IPA on the table, though a bit dribbled onto my chin.
Sarah handed me a napkin. “I told her who he was,” she said. “She promised a cone of silence. Right Cher?”
“Obviously,” Cher said dismissively.
“I can’t believe you,” I said. “First of all, you haven’t seen the man. And you don’t know what he’s like. I told you already he’s an overgrown asshole.”
“Actually, I don’t think you’ve seen the man, have you, Win?” Cher asked, a twinkle in her eye.
The fluttering turned to a lurch. “What are you talking about?”
Cher pulled out her phone. “I told you she wouldn’t have looked him up,” she said to Sarah as she tapped on her screen. A moment later my phone buzzed.
Cher knew me too well. Of course I hadn’t searched for him. Because I didn’t want to know anything about him. It was much safer to try to forget we’d ever met.
But I couldn’t exactly keep my head buried in the sand, could I? And what harm could it do knowing I was never going to see him again?
The article she’d sent was from an online edition of a glossy magazine Raylan used to get at home. TechBeat. The headline read WHERE IN THE WORLD IS MITCHELL HARRINGTON?
I looked up, my pulse thrumming.
“Just read,” Sarah said.
I flipped Cher the bird for getting Sarah on her team, which only made her snort with laughter.
According to the article, which was dated February of this year, Mitchell Harrington was a thirty-three year old tech genius with contracts with some of the titans of tech worldwide. Governments too, including ours. He was preparing his company, LoupTeq Inc., for a ‘landmark merger’ with Zynstyr Technologies. But last week, he had suddenly handed temporary control of his ‘billion-dollar global entity’ to one of his staff in a ‘shock move’. He hadn’t been seen at his Seattle penthouse, or any recent charity dinners, where he typically dropped anonymous donations that were widely attributed to him just for their sheer size. Harrington, the article said, had effectively vanished. “None of his senior circle would disclose his location,” Cher said, reading over my shoulder, “though his assistant, Salima Brownley, quashed rumors Tuesday that Harrington was in rehab, prison, or had died in a fiery car crash.”
Salima. Sal.
I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry.
“That’s not even the best part,” Cher said. “Scroll down.”
Too shocked to protest, I scrolled. This time it was my mouth that fell open.
There, filling my phone screen, was a photo of Mitchell Harrington.
Except, there was no way the man I’d met was the same as this one.
The man in the photo was—there was no other word for it—gorgeous. Clean shaven, with his hair cropped short; the top swooping stylishly over his forehead. He had a strong jaw, long nose, and piercing eyes, and to top it off, he wore a tuxedo that perfectly highlighted his broad chest.
