Dolly All the Time(16)

“What?” he asks.

“Do you get manicures?”

“Sometimes, yes.”

I raise my eyebrows at him. I haven’t had a manicure since Layla’s wedding in 2021.

“You can tell a lot about a person by their hands,” he says.

I drop my hands onto my lap so he can’t see my nails. “Yes,” I say. “I can tell by your hands you have extra money for manicures. So why are we lying to your family?”

He looks down at his laptop and then pushes it away and opens his menu. “It’s sort of complicated. What looks good?”

“Let’s split the chicken cordon bleu and the endive salad,” I say. I close his menu and stack it on mine. “If I’m going to do this, I need to understand what it is. Now spill.”

He takes his time refilling his wineglass, which is already half full. “I’m trying to get a promotion.”

“Okay?”

“And so is my cousin Grant. We’re both in business development. Basically my ideas are good and his are bad. It’s in the best interest of the company that I get the job.”

“In your unbiased opinion.”

He doesn’t blink. “Yes. But it’s the truth. My dad is retiring as CEO at the end of the year, and they’re choosing his replacement in the next few months. My family makes up a big part of the board of directors, so I need their vote.”

“Ah, yes, this all makes perfect sense.” I swirl the red wine in my glass. “Naturally they won’t vote for you unless you’re dating a fish heiress.” I hold up a hand to him. “I get it. I minored in business. Say no more.”

The waiter comes and Stewart orders exactly what I’d suggested, plus a steak and french fries.

“I work a lot,” he says when the waiter’s gone.

“You’ve said.”

He bites his bottom lip and I have the feeling it’s a tell. Stewart’s worried and he doesn’t want to say the next thing. But he does. “My mother doesn’t think it’s entirely healthy. It’s probably not. She’s always been worried that if I took over as CEO, I’d go overboard and never make time for a life outside of work.” Stewart’s mother, Victoria Whitfield, has recently retired from a long career in medicine. Pediatrics, I think. She is by all accounts not a typical socialite.

“So you think Audrey dumping you is enough for your parents to block your promotion.”

“Audrey dumping me is practically proof that they’re right. The way my mom looked at me when she saw the photo of Audrey with that guy—I don’t even have the job yet, and I couldn’t keep my relationship going. This is all really bad timing.”

“So I’m here to make you seem like you’re emotionally healthy enough for a relationship and in a balanced frame of mind to take on the role of CEO.”

“Essentially,” he says. “And like I’ve found my person. You’re so different from her. We’ll show them how right you are for me, and they’ll know how wrong for me she was. It’s perfect, actually.”

“I’m the anti-Audrey.” That, at least, seems true.

“Exactly,” he says. He reaches into his satchel and pulls out his glasses. I like his glasses. He’s more human in them, like it’s an admission that he’s not twenty-twenty in every aspect of his life. “And Grant. In addition to the fact that his terrible projects happen to have higher returns than mine, he’s happily married. So right now, Grant’s looking like exactly the right guy for the job.”

“Why do you work so much?”

“It’s what I do,” he says.

“Always?”

“Pretty much.” He pulls his laptop toward him and readies himself to take notes.

“And are you good at your job?” I ask.

“Yes, why?”

“Because I would have done it for fifty.”

He looks up at me over his glasses and gives me that one-dimple smile again. “I would have paid you a hundred.”

“Shoot,” I say. Naomi was right.

“Duration,” he says. “Through the Starlight Gala on August twenty-second.” He’s typing as he speaks. “After that I’ll be back in Boston, and we can pretend to have a long-distance relationship until the CEO announcement is made.”

“I’m also going back to Boston.”

“Right,” he says, still typing. “Perfect. We both came for the summer.”

“Fine,” I say. “Why are you here this summer?”

“Grant floated the idea of remote work during the summer, and I’m pretending I don’t think it’s the worst idea in the world. Which it is.” He’s typing again. “Can you commit to two outings per week, as necessary?”

“Okay,” I say. “Any travel?”

“Yes, but not far. Maybe an overnight or two if we need to be in Boston.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Overnight? Stewart, let’s get super specific.”

“I think you mentioned already that you’re not involved in the flesh trade. Let me get that down.” He goes back to typing, mouthing, “no flesh trading.”

“Wait, did you just make a joke?” I ask.