The Arrangement by Robyn Harding

Author:Robyn Harding [Harding, Robyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery/Scout Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

28

* * *

The Real Estate Agent

The call came in at 11:20 P.M.: Nathan. Gabe wouldn’t have answered it, but Celeste had gone to bed early. She’d been tired lately, napping in the afternoons, abandoning him at ten for the comfort of their king-size bed. Violet was out; not at a party or a club like a normal teen. She was at a meeting to organize a protest outside a Jersey meatpacking plant (he’d seen the MEAT IS MURDER placard in the hallway). Since he was alone in the family room with his glass of Scotch, he decided to answer. Natalie was not the type of girl to call for no reason.

“I’m so sorry to bother you,” she began, “but my roommates threw me out.”

“Why?”

“They know about us,” she said quietly. “They think I’m a hooker.”

Which made Gabe a john. “Where are you?”

There was panic in her voice when she said, “I’m at an all-night diner. I have nowhere to go.”

“Can you go to a hotel tonight?”

“My credit card is maxed out. I might have enough for a hostel.”

He couldn’t let his sugar baby slum it in a hostel. It would degrade them both. “Get an Uber and go to my place. I’ll call the doorman and tell him to let you in.”

“Where are you?”

He thought about Melody, the crazy paralegal. She’d turned up at his Hamptons house with her fake brief and nearly destroyed him. “My daughter and I went away for the weekend,” he fibbed. “But you’re welcome to stay at my place for a couple of days.”

“Thank you so much.”

“On Monday, I’ll make some calls. We’ll find you somewhere to live.”

After he hung up, he finished his Scotch, thinking about Natalie alone in his apartment. He liked the image in his mind, the pretty brunette naked under one of his work shirts, or maybe in his robe. In reality, Natalie would likely be wearing her own clothes, but this was his fantasy; he chose the wardrobe. Tinkling the ice in his glass, he allowed himself to imagine himself there with her, even living there with her.

It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Violet was growing up, was going to college (or to fucking Honduras). It was not uncommon for couples to split once the kids left home. The gray divorce, they called it. No one would be shocked; no one would be to blame. Everyone would put it down to living separate lives. He could keep Natalie on the down-low until sufficient time had passed and it was socially acceptable to introduce his new girlfriend. There would be whispers about her age, comments about an affair, a midlife crisis, but he wasn’t the only guy he knew to turn into a cliché.

It was the Scotch muddling his thoughts. He barely knew Natalie. And while she was sexy, attractive, charming, she would never fit into his world. His friends and colleagues might grudgingly accept her, but Violet would lose her mind. And, as an attorney, he knew all too well what he would lose if he divorced Celeste.

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