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Should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy. Nothing ever is.
“We’re friends, right?” Amanda asked, throwing an arm across the back of the bench.
They weren’t friends. They’d had a handful of mutual acquaintances a few years ago. These days, Cath pantomimed familiarity when they ran into each other around Greenwich so that she could legitimately harass Amanda for the straitjacket.
Cath didn’t have any friends. She had a roommate who didn’t like her, a socially awkward boss who did, and an empty life that revolved around her job.
“Sure,” she said, because it was what she was supposed to say.
“And you need a favor.”
Just smile and nod, Talarico.
She tamped down her temper, refrained from pointing out that she’d just won her favor fair and square, and did as her good sense instructed.
“We’ll do a trade.” Amanda grinned, a smile that announced, This is the best idea anyone’s ever had. “Eric and I are going to a concert tonight at a club with his cousin. He’s in town from Newcastle for the weekend. We could really use a fourth.”
A garbled announcement of the train’s approach came over the loudspeaker, and Cath kept her expression neutral as she stood and shouldered her bag.
Christ on a crutch. She’d walked into a blind date.
For any normal woman, this wouldn’t be a problem. No one wanted to be set up with some random warm body from Newcastle, of course,
but spending an evening being hit on, ignored, or bored out of her skull ought to have been a fair exchange for getting her way.
For Cath, though, Amanda’s proposal was worse than a problem. It was a disaster waiting to happen.
She hadn’t been on a date in two years. No concerts, no bars, no men. These were the rules that set New Cath apart from her irresponsible predecessor—the restrictions that kept her from making the kind of mistakes that had necessitated the creation of New Cath in the first place.
Cath didn’t want to break the rules. She needed the rules.
But she needed that straitjacket more. It would be a coup for the exhibit, which meant it would win Judith’s gratitude, and Judith’s gratitude was Cath’s ticket into a permanent curatorial position.
She had to do it.
“Sounds like fun,” she said, her cheerful tone the first of many frauds the evening would no doubt entail.
Surely she could spend one night with a guy in a club without doing anything she’d regret.
Chapter Two
Too bright. Way too bright. Cath buried her face in the pillow with a moan, trying to shut out the morning light. She must have forgotten to close the curtains last night.
Head pounding, she reached for the glass of water she always kept on her bedside table, but her fingers scrabbled through empty space.
No water.
Further flailing of her hand produced no bedside table. Huh.
With a groan, she cracked her eyes open and turned her face just far enough to bring the wooden corner post of a headboard into focus. A very nice hardwood headboard. Cherry maybe. Edwardian, she’d guess.
Not hers.
Shit.
She rolled over and surveyed the room, a white cube with sparse furniture—just the bed, a massive wardrobe, and an antique chair upholstered in gold brocade. Above it hung an enormous painting of a smiling girl with one arm around a dog. Cath didn’t recognize the artist, but the piece was excellent. Whoever lived here had taste. Money, too, if the furniture was anything to go by.
She sat up, wincing as she waited for the hangover judge to pass his sentence. Headache: check. Queasy stomach: check. But neither was debilitating. Certainly, neither was going to give her as much trouble as the fact she had no idea whose bed she was in.
