Fake It For Me, page 11
I rolled my eyes. “You sound like Nick.”
“You mean, I sound like your hubby,” Abby snickered.
I scoffed. “Just don’t even go there.”
“Have you left work already?” Abby asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“Obviously I’m coming over!” Abby said indignantly. “We’ve got to sort out your makeup, and your hair, and your shoes! And God Almighty, what are you going to wear?”
“Nick got me a dress,” I said. “I haven’t had a chance to look at it.”
“I’ll meet you at yours,” Abby said. “But the dress is from Nick. So, chances are, it’ll be the bomb.”
I had my own reservations about Abby’s logic, but I decided to keep them to myself.
“I was wrong,” Abby said quietly. “This dress isn’t the bomb. This dress is…quite a few bombs. In fact, pass me my phone, we might have to call the explosive ordnance disposal squad up in here.”
I gave her a look of mild surprise. “Those are some…technical words you just dropped there.”
“I know, right, I’ve got loads,” Abby smirked. “I’ve been watching this English show called Bluestone 42, it’s about the army in Afghanistan, and they have all of the acronyms and stuff. But, I digress.”
“But, you digress,” I agreed.
We stood in the front room of my apartment, gazing at the masterpiece that Nick had certainly spent way too much money on. And it was beautiful. There was no other word that I could think of to describe it.
It was perfect, an elegant garment made of soft copper pink material with intricate beige lacing around the bust and off-shoulder sleeves.
“I’m so jealous,” Abby half-whispered.
I didn’t blame her. Present Me was jealous of Future Me for getting to wear this bad boy. Or would that be bad girl?
“Alright,” I said quietly. “What time is it now?”
“It’s quarter to six,” Abby checked her cellphone before she answered. “Why? When’s pretty boy coming?”
“Don’t call him that,” I scolded. “And he texted me to say he’ll be here at seven.”
Abby squeaked. “That’s not nearly enough time! Okay, if we hurry, and skip dinner, we should just about make it. It’s fine, you’re going out to eat anyway.”
I cocked my head quizzically. “It’s not going to take an hour and fifteen minutes just to do my hair, you know, Abby.”
Abby laughed at this. “Oh, honey. You’re so precious. We’re not here to “do your hair” as you so inelegantly put it. We’re here to make art. Work with me, people, please?”
See what I mean about Abby? She’s pigheadedly, obnoxiously stubborn. In all the time I’ve known her, I’ve never managed to change her mind about anything. And I don’t particularly remember winning any arguments against her either. She’s a lot more clever and particularly more persuasive than she lets on.
We’d known each other for years now, since High School also, in fact. I’d met her at the start of term, just weeks before I’d met Nick and now that I thought about it, Nick and Abby had very similar personalities. Not only were they both stubborn, often self-centered and smart-mouthed, but they both had holier-than-thou attitudes that would make anybody want to punch them in the face.
I shuddered as I stumbled upon a thought I’d never had before. Abby and Nick would actually make quite a compatible match!
Abby was the only girl I knew that had never shown any signs of attraction toward Nick, and maybe that’s what he needed. A girl who didn’t trip over herself trying to get his attention. Which is exactly what I was trying not to do.
So how come I never want to punch Abby in the face? God knows that’s all I want to do to Nick sometimes!
It was true, Nick could be simply infuriating sometimes, and it was nothing that a good fist in his jaw couldn’t cure. And even if it didn’t, it would definitely do wonders for my mood. But Abby and my relationship was nothing like that. She was my best friend and my most trusted (and often only) confidante. Whenever anything happened at work, whether someone was given a promotion that I should have gotten, or whether someone got fired (once or twice when I would have deserved to be fired also), Abby was the first person I thought to tell.
I guess we just had that strong of a bond.
Forty-five minutes later, I had put it on - the most amazing dress I’d ever had the privilege to wear in my life. And most certainly the most expensive thing in my apartment, which included both myself and Abby.
I sat in front of the mirror on my dresser, and Abby dabbed at my face with contouring brushes and eyelash pencils, applying makeup in a way I just didn’t have the skill to do. When she was done, she’d given my eyes a kind of ‘smoky’ effect that I had no idea how she’d created.
As I checked my reflection in the full-length mirror, I was impressed at how clear, and free of blemishes and imperfections my face was. How the elegant dress hugged my curves. There was no other word for it. I was hot.
Suddenly, my cellphone buzzed. I checked my text and gasped at the message that I saw there. “It’s Nick, he’s here!”
“Already?” Abby asked. “He’s early!”
“He’s downstairs!” I barked. “Am I ready?”
“As you’ll ever be,” Abby nodded. “Hold on - let me just take a picture.”
She struck a photographer’s pose with her cellphone and started taking pictures like it was a photoshoot. Suddenly, there was a gentle knock at the door.
“Come in!” Abby called. “The door is on the latch!”
The front door swung open, and I heard Nick’s footsteps in the corridor. “Sandy?” he called. “Are you decent?”
Ha! Like he wouldn’t look even if I weren’t, I thought knowingly.
“Come see for yourself,” I called.
And then Nick came around the corner. He was wearing an even sharper tuxedo than he had been the previous night, and he looked - again, there was no other word for it - dashing. His blazer looked as though it was made from some kind of ethereal, velvety material that sparkled the more I looked at it. The black of the material looked blacker than normal black. As an interior decorator, I respect anyone who can create jaw-dropping effects using colors, and Nick had certainly done that, or rather, his tailor had certainly done that for him.
The tuxedo was perfectly fitted to his body, which meant that he’d gotten it tailored to his own measurements, probably in anticipation of tonight. That kind of stunt had Nick written all over it. Like I keep mentioning, he loves to flex with his money, and wearing, for example, a rented tuxedo is not very billionaire-ly, and it’s not the kind of thing that “the Great Nick McConnery” would ever be caught doing, be that dead or alive.
The shirt he was wearing was impeccably white like it had been stitched from cotton that was whiter than snow itself, and it was further offset by jet-black buttons that ran down the center of his chest. Even though Nick was very often dressed sharply, when he suited up for real, he suited up for real. That was the one thing that no one could ever deny about Nick McConnery - he never half-stepped at anything. He gave it his all or nothing.
At least his Dad had managed to raise him with one good personal trait.
But as I watched him carefully, Nick’s jaw visibly fell open, something I’d never seen happen to him in all the years that I’d known him. He placed his hand over his chest as if he’d received a blow to the heart, and I realized that that was exactly what he was insinuating.
“Doesn’t she look good?” Abby prompted.
Nick locked eyes with me. “You knock the wind right out of my chest.”
I couldn’t resist grinning widely at the compliment. Can anyone blame me? What girl doesn’t love to be complimented? It does wonders for our self-esteem, especially after spending all day second-guessing ourselves, wondering whether we look good, or whether we’re too fat, or too thin or too pale, or too dark. Sometimes I wonder if boys know how hard we ladies have it, especially when it comes to appearance.
But on that day, a compliment from Nick wasn’t enough. Even one of such magnitude. Because it wasn’t Nick that day that we were trying to impress, it was his father, a man who was never impressed by a thing. Or anyone, for that matter.
“Damn right!” Abby growled in response to Nick’s comment. “The dress is a knockout, Nick, it must have cost a bomb.”
“It was nothing, really,” Nick waved away Abby’s appraisal. “It really wasn’t that much at all. I’m pretty sure you could have afforded it if you’d seen it in a shop window.”
“Oh, okay, now I know that’s a lie,” I said firmly. “I don’t know much about dresses, but I know an expensive one when I see it, believe me.”
Nick winked. “Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies.”
“Okay, well answer me this at least,” I said. “And don’t lie. Promise.”
Nick smiled before he made a vague ‘x’ shape over his chest. “Cross my heart, hope to die.”
“Will your Dad like it?” I asked, hopefully. “Will he like…me?”
Nick looked me straight in the eye. “Like you? He’ll love you, I feel pretty certain about that.”
“Really?” I asked, ogling him. “What makes you say that?”
Nick made a face. “My Dad is always trying to get me to settle down with one woman. Partly because he wants a grandchild, but also because he wants to quell the rumors going around the offices that I slept with his secretary.”
“And did you sleep with his secretary?” Abby asked sternly.
Nick looked abashedly shame-faced. “That’s not really important,” he said. “The point is, he thinks I should “court” you, as he keeps saying. Because he’s from a time when such things were still in fashion. Courting, buying records, burning witches at the stake, those are the kind of things that were cool when he was younger, round about eleven hundred AD.”
“And he mentioned me by name?” I asked, trying and failing to stifle a smile.
“Yeah,” Nick grinned. “He said if I didn’t ask you to marry me, he’d do it himself.”
I burst out laughing. “He really said that?”
“He can be charming when he wants,” Nick shrugged.
“Just like you, eh?” Abby asked, somewhat accusingly.
Nick scowled at her, then at me. “Is she always right?”
“Yeah,” I said immediately. “Literally.”
“It’s my special power,” Abby grinned. “What’s yours?”
Nick smirked. “What’s my special power? Looking smokin’ hawt. And by the look of this little lady here, I’m in good company.”
I giggled again at the compliment. I had a really good feeling about tonight.
Chapter Fourteen
Nick
It turned out that Dad had decided to make a last-minute change of plans at the eleventh hour. Instead of going to a restaurant, the dinner was going to be at the McConnery family home, a mansion way out in Westchester County. I could tell that Sandy didn’t have a lot of experience with the State of New York as opposed to the city, and a lot of people assume that there wasn’t much to New York than Times Square and the Empire State Building.
The drive out to Westchester was even longer than the drive from Sandy’s place in Queens to the restaurant we’d been to, but I knew from personal experience that it was going to be worth the distance.
The McConnery Mansion was a sight to behold. It was hardly Wayne Manor, the house Batman lives in (or rather Bruce Wayne lives in), but it wasn’t too far from the mark, minus the Bat Cave and military-grade weapons.
As Ramon drove us up the winding path toward the manor (Ramon was still kind of mad at me for leaving him hanging the night before), the manor came into sight, and I heard Sandy gasp next to me. I smirked. Once again, she didn’t fail to amuse me with her constant amazement at the quality of life I lived.
McConnery Manor was a huge mansion in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. I’d personally counted all the bedrooms that it had, and I knew that it had fourteen different bedrooms and six bathrooms.
Ramon pulled to a stop outside the mansion, and the tires crunched on the gravel. I disembarked first and crossed to Sandy’s side to offer her my hand to help her out of the car.
“Try to avoid calling him Master McConnery or whatever it was you called him that time,” I shuddered.
Sandy blushed a deep red. “I called him Lord McConnery, not Master! Jeez!”
“Whatever,” I dismissed this. “Mr. McConnery will do.”
I rang the doorbell and waited patiently. Soon, the door opened, and a familiar face was staring at me.
“Hey, there, Benedict,” I said warmly.
“Master Nicholas,” Benedict replied, just as warmly. He was dressed as he was usually, in a smart suit with coattails and swanky white gloves. “Good to see you again! And you must be Mistress Sandy.”
Sandy went red again. “Just Sandy,” she corrected.
“Benedict is my Dad’s butler,” I explained as we passed into the entrance hall. “I practically grew up with him.”
“He’s like the Alfred to your Dad’s Bruce Wayne,” Sandy remarked.
I was surprised. “You know Batman?”
“Of course,” Sandy scoffed. “What do you take me for? I used to read the comics growing up.”
I chuckled at this. “That’s awesome. Wait! If my Dad’s Bruce Wayne, what does that make me? Dick Grayson?”
“You’re not cool enough to be Nightwing, you’re Jason Todd,” Sandy said cheekily.
Next second, she was distracted by the size and grandeur of the house. Everything in sight was big and chrome, or bronze, or gold-plated. It was part of Dad’s delusions of grandeur.
Benedict took us through three rooms into the dining room, where Dad was waiting for us at the huge dining table. “Nicholas!” he boomed as we entered. “Good to see you, boy, I thought you’d gotten lost!”
“I grew up in this house, Dad,” I rolled my eyes. “You know that, right? You remember?”
“I barely remember what happened yesterday,” Dad winked. “I’m going senile.”
Sandy giggled, and I was suddenly confused. What was happening? Dad was being all…nice.
Dad got up from the dining table and addressed Sandy with a bow. “Good evening, madam,” he said politely. “How do you do? I hear you’re the woman who’s managed to tame my car crash of a son.”
Sandy laughed again, not least because of the scowl on my face.
“Dad, stop showing off!” I barked. “What’s for dinner, by the way?”
“I told Benedict to ‘surprise me,’” Dad said, as we all sat down around the table. “If he cooks something I like, he gets a raise. If not, I’ll fire him.”
“You wouldn’t actually fire Benedict, though, right?” I arched my eyebrow.
“What do you take me for, a man of my word?” Dad chortled. “No, I wouldn’t actually fire him, but I like to make him sweat once in a while. It’s good for morale.”
Benedict soon came by and started by serving around an aged red wine, one of my favorites - a Cherval Blanc 1947.
“So, what you got cooking back there, Benny?” I asked genially.
“Spicy calamari soup appetizer to start,” Benedict said. “Filet mignon entrée with roast potatoes and grilled asparagus, and chocolate profiteroles for dessert. I thought afterward, we could break out that 1850 brandy? In honor of the young Master’s engagement?”
“Sure, why not?” Dad shrugged. “Good show, Benedict. I guess you’re getting a raise after all.”
Benedict walked off, trying not to look too pleased.
“What does that mean?” Sandy asked. “1850 brandy? Oh, let me guess, it’s not eighteen dollars fifty cents? It’s somewhere around a thousand eight hundred and fifty? Am I close?”
Dad and I exchanged a confused expression. “That’s not the price, that’s the year,” Dad said politely and tolerantly. “The price was…considerably more.”
“Oh!” Sandy went red. “It’s over two hundred years old?”
“Quiet,” Dad nodded. “Almost as old as me.”
Everyone laughed. I was surprised that Dad was being…well…not himself.
“So where did you two meet?” Dad asked.
“Dad, please, don’t grill her,” I pleaded. “He does this with every girl I’ve ever brought home. One time he grilled her so much she started crying.”
“What was her name again?” Dad asked like he was enjoying the memory.
“Vanessa,” I said stiffly.
“Ah yes, Vanessa,” Dad lounged back in his seat, a grin on his face. “It’s okay, Nicholas, I’m sure Sandy is made of tougher stuff. Besides, I’m only asking where you met.”
“We met in high school,” Sandy said, sipping her wine. “And we just immediately, kind of…I don’t know how to put it…”
“Had a connection?” Dad supplied.
Sandy nodded. “Yeah. Exactly. We had a connection. I couldn’t put it better myself. Nick made me feel special because…he was different with me than he was with everyone else. I mean, make no mistake, Nick was popular back then. He was always the center of attention, and part of me thinks he liked it like that.”
Dad scoffed. “Part of you thinks? You’re kidding, right? Listen, Nicholas can survive on attention alone, even if he were deprived of food and water.”
Both Sandy and I laughed at this. I wasn’t personally of the opinion that I was so dependent on attention alone, but what can I say, I was extremely popular. Sandy took a sip of wine and then continued her story.
“We didn’t just have a connection, we had a special connection. One that Nick himself said he’d never had with another person. All that rough-tough “I’m God’s gift to women” exterior is really all just an act, but it’s one that gets results with young women. Even back then, Nick had a reputation for being a bit of a lady-killer, but he wasn’t really like that. Not with me, at any rate. He was…sweet. Gentle. Kind. Considerate. Everything that a girl should dream of marrying.”
Dad had a surprised expression on his face. “I never had the impression I managed to instill any of those qualities in my son.”
