Page 3 of Plenty Of…

CHAPTERTWO

“Let me get this straight,” Penny lowers her voice from the other side of my desk, “You agreed to meet this stranger purely because you think he knows who you are?” Why is she looking at me as if I’ve lost my mind? “I think he does know me, Moneypenny!” I whisper back. I shove my phone at her, and allow her to read the messages for herself, and look at what I wrote in my bio. Her eyes scan the screen, and her brows furrow before she looks up, and passes my phone back. “Okay, that’s just odd, Ave. Does he look familiar?”

“He kind of does, but I don’t know where I would know him from. He’s Dad’s age.” I glare at my screen, frustrated as hell. “Wait.” I dump my phone on the table, and use my free hand to type Mac’s hotel chain into Safari. Of course the whiskey, Macallan, comes up, and then Macallan Luxury Resorts comes up. I should have looked properly last night because now I’ve spat my coffee all over my iMac, my desk and my keyboard. And my white blouse. Naturally.

“Oh, no,” I mutter, wiping my mouth. Shit. Fuck. Balls.

“What?” Penny leans over my desk, and tries to see what I’m seeing, but it won’t matter if she does. It’s what she can’t see that’s the issue.

“Uh.” How do I explain this? I mean, I can, but it’s going to sound just as sordid as it did when it happened. I glance at my office door, aware that my office is right next door to my father’s, and stand. I bend at the waist to grab my make-up bag from the only locked drawer beneath my desk.

“C’mon, Moneypenny. I need a cigarette if I’m going to tell you this story.” God, I’m an idiot. I feel so fucking stupid for not putting it together sooner, but I was tired when Mac and I started talking last night. Yes, Mac. I know him. Shit. And not only is Plenty of Fish the pits as far as dating apps go, but Google needs to work on their image search function, or have their fucking eyes checked, because they only gave me limited results. Had they been more thorough, I may have connected these fucking dots sooner and run for the hills.

“What?” Penny hustles after me, her voice low. “You haven’t had a cigarette in almost a year!” I quick-walk down the corridor, towards the emergency stairwell. Penny follows me, and I only stop when I’m four flights down. Shoving my phone at Penny, I unzip my bag and open the sealed box of emergency cigarettes. Penny is right, I ditched this shit a year ago, but if there were ever a situation that called for a nicotine hit to the lungs, it’s this one. I take a drag, and close my eyes. I’m probably going to get hooked again, but right now, it’s a small problem in comparison. “Okay, tell me what’s going on,” Penny says, snatching the cigarette from my fingers and taking a drag. Whoops. I light another one, because I hate sharing, and then explain, “Macallan is his surname. His first name is Forbes, and he’s my dad’s best friend.”

Penny chokes on her next puff but I slap her back like the good best friend I am, and wait for her to stop hacking up a lung. “Ex-c-cuse m-me?”

I exhale, and reply, “You heard me, Moneypenny.” Inhale, hold, exhale. “He’s also the reason I started smoking.” It makes me wonder if he’s quit, but I need to start from the beginning.

“He’s been friends with Dad forever, from before I was even born.” I step on the cigarette butt with my heel, and light up another. Well, two, because Penny wants another one, and I hope Luke won’t kill me. My father will shit a brick anyway, he’ll smell it. “They went to different high schools, but stayed in touch, and when Dad started Bennet Media, Forbes’ father was one of his first clients. Dad did the very first ad campaign for the hotels when they were first built, and while he did that, Forbes went to college, and then worked for his father until he took over the business. The first time I kissed him was the night I turned eighteen.” It was at my eighteenth birthday party, and no one knew about it except us. He was thirty-six at the time, and married to his college sweetheart, but I’d had feelings for the man since I was about sixteen, and well, all I wanted for my eighteenth birthday was for him to kiss me, however impossible it was at the time.” Just recalling those memories has my heart racing, my body heating from the mental photographs of his expression when I kissed him, the feel of his mouth on mine when he suddenly kissed me back, and the clandestine nature of what happened later that night when everyone had gone home. No man has ever lived up to what I experienced with Forbes, and I’m sure it’s why I’m still single. But I worked hard to bury those memories because he would never be mine, and it was only after he’d ended things that I realized what I’d done. I’d slept with a married man at the age of eighteen, a man who was/is my father’s best friend, and at the time, I wasn’t sure which was worse. “It was the December before you started working here,” I add, watching to cogs in her brain work. “And it’s why I hate the holidays.” Forbes ended it two days before Christmas, and the holidays, along with my birthday which is two weeks before, lost their magic.

She puffs out a long breath. “So now what?”

“I don’t know,” I reply honestly, grateful that she isn’t asking for more details. “I don’t even know what he’s doing on a dating app, as fucked up as the app itself is, because when we, uh, parted ways, he was still married.” Though, I’m not sure he is still married. He could have kids for all I know. The thought alone makes me feel ill, but I school my features to hide any kind of discomfort. “Are you going to meet with him?” Penny asks, her expression a mixture of concern and something I can’t quite place.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about it,” I sigh, killing my last cigarette. “But, I have until tomorrow evening to decide.” We start walking back up to our floor, and just before I open the door to the office, Penny stops me. “Did your Dad ever find out?”

That gives me pause. I frown. “I don’t think so.” Sure, Dad knew something was wrong because I slipped into a depression that lasted for almost four months, and he had me see a psychologist, but when he asked me what was going on, I lied. What I told him back then is a hazy memory, but I’m positive I didn’t talk to him about what happened with Forbes. He would have killed him, I’m sure, and I didn’t want to ruin a friendship that was older than I was. Something niggles at my insides, but I plaster on a smile, and tell Penny we should get back to work. She disappears to her desk, and I take a quick shower in the well-hidden bathroom in my office before changing clothes. I’ve just flopped into my desk chair when Dad knocks at my door — I know it’s him because he knocks four times, like a tap-tap tap-tap.

“Come in,” I call, busying myself with the changes Daphne and I discussed the night before. The door opens, and Ralph steps in, brows furrowed. “I’ve been looking for you,” he says, closing my office door behind him. “And why do I smell smoke?”

Shit. I thought for sure the shower would have taken care of that. “I don’t smell anything,” I reply. “And I was in the printing room getting the ad mock-ups for Daphne.” I got those first thing this morning, but Dad doesn’t need to know that. He takes a seat where Penny was earlier, and leans back. “I came to find out of you were able to find a date for Saturday, the venue called to confirm numbers and needs the final guest list by tomorrow at the latest.”

“Yes,” I blurt out. “I’m bringing a date.” Oh, God, why did I just say that? I should have just said I’m still working on it but the conversation with Penny has me feeling more off-balance than I’ve felt in ten years. I don’t need to explain why, Forbes does that to me.

Dad raises his brows, his expression surprised and maybe even impressed. “That was fast,” he says. “Did you use an app?”

I swallow, feeling the blush in my cheeks. “Yes.”

He smirks. “No need to be embarrassed, Avril. Dating apps are meant for just that, no? Is it someone decent, at least?” An image of a much younger Forbes comes to mind but I elbow it out of my head. Shoo. Go away.

“I think so. I’m meeting him on Wednesday night to make sure.” No, Avril, shut up. Now. “If he’s not what or who he says he is, I’ll attend on my own.” In fact, that sounds preferable, but I’ve already shot myself in the fucking foot twice in one conversation. Dad opens his mouth, but I cut him off with, “I’ll be there, date or not, Ralph. Just as you asked.” I don’t like how he’s looking at me, but his expression changes then, and he smiles. “Good. I want you there, Avril.”

My own smile is wobbly, but I try. “Of course, Ralph. I won’t let you down.”

He stands, buttons his suit jacket, and stops before he gets to my office door. “Avril.”

“Hmm?”

His brows dip again, and he gives me an odd look. “You know I love you, right, kiddo?”

My heart balloons in my chest. He hasn’t called me kiddo in quite some time, and I have no idea what has prompted it now. “Yeah,” I clear my throat. “I know.”

He does love me, but sometimes he has a hard time showing it because he was just a kid when I was born, and he worked a lot. Bennet Media came first for a long time, but that changed after my eighteenth birthday.

He nods, and walks out, shutting my office door behind him. My phone lights up on my desk, and when I see it’s a notification from Plenty of Shi-Fish, I cringe. It’s Forbes, I just know it is, and my stomach rolls and twists while I reach for my phone and open the app. My only real option is to tell Dad my date cancelled at the last minute, and forgo meeting Forbes altogether. But just like this godforsaken app’s algorithm, my heart’s algorithm is glitchy as fuck, and is sending mixed messages to my brain. Do I want to see him again after all this time? Kind of, if I’m honest with myself. But I’m not sure I’ll be okay if I do see him, and have him tell me all about the amazing family he has when it was me who daydreamed about having his babies.

“Fuck,” I mutter, feeling my anxiety bounce around me like a forcefield of energy pushing me this way and that. A fishing boat on turbulent waters. Opening his message, I hold my breath.