Nicholas Hunter.
At fourteen, he had been named one of the five most beautiful people on the planet. The Belgian royal family had tried to adopt. He’d opened the Olympics twice—performed in them as a last-minute pole-vaulting addition once. He’d backpacked through every country where you could still find espresso. Literally orbited the earth’s atmosphere on a dare. Destroyed a priceless Egyptian artifact when he tried to take an ill-timed selfie. And on three separate occasions, he had turned an official state dinner into an impromptu rave.
At present, he was standing in the center of the fountain. Dripping wet. Drunk as hell. His hand wrapped around the breast of one of the statuesque angels in an unintentional grope.
“Abby!” he cried the second he saw me.
He was the only one who called me Abby. Even my mother was not so bold. To everyone else, it was Abigail. Abigail Wilder. PR maven extraordinaire. A credit to her industry. A savior to her clients. A razor-tongued blessing to those who employed her, and a curse to those who stood in her way. (This was all printed on my business cards. In so many words.)
But to him, I was Abby. And to me, he was Nick.
We’d dropped the formalities about the third time I’d had to stash him naked in the back of my car. Hiding under a pashmina as I smuggled him through security.
Fifteen seconds. Make them count.
“What are we into this time, Nick?”
Every rescue started the exact same way. A simple question, followed by a lengthy explanation—so convoluted and self-righteous, it defied rational comprehension.
Sure enough, he was ready for me.
“Lobsters,” he answered promptly.
This one actually threw me for a second. A second I didn’t have.
“...lobsters?”
Instinctively, I looked down into the water below—half expecting him to be standing in the middle of a small colony, teaching them how to unionize.
“What did you...” A flashbulb went off behind me, and my voice lowered sharply. “What do you mean—lobsters? What did you do?”
He tilted his head defiantly to the side, still holding onto the angel for balance.
“Why do you automatically assume this is my fault?”
My eyes made a slow journey from the top of his dripping head, to the bottom of his submerge
d four hundred dollar shoes. Even he had the decency to blush.
Ten seconds...
There was a sharp tap on my shoulder, and I turned around only to come face to face with the most severe looking mustache I had ever seen. It took everything I had not to reach out and touch it with the tip of my finger—see if I would bleed. The mustache had a face to match.
“Excuse me—but are you responsible for this man?” A heavy French accent, and a spray of spit. “Ms. Wilder?”
He sneered my name with the kind of disdain you only heard from villains in children’s TV shows. The veins in his neck throbbing with every vowel.
My face melted into a charming smile. The kind I should have been using on my date.
“That’s me. What seems to be the problem?”
There was a drunken splash behind me, and the smile tightened painfully.
For fuck’s sake, Nick. Could you make this any harder?
The man’s face darkened to an ugly shade of puce. An aneurysm was not too far behind.
“We were pleased to welcome Monsieur Hunter into our establishment today. As ever, his family’s patronage is greatly appreciated. But halfway through the cheese course, he took it upon himself to attempt to free the collection of lobsters we keep in the kitchen. My security man, Harold, found him frolicking in the tank.”