Mr. Notting Hill, page 2
“Twenty-five thousand,” I bellowed, raising my paddle.
Gasps echoed around the room and I felt a thousand pairs of eyes swing from Arthur to me. Cream Puff squinted, trying to see who she was going to have to go to dinner with, but the lights of the stage were shining right at her—she wouldn’t have been able to tell that it was the man she was ogling earlier in the evening.
I slid back into my seat and gave my name to the woman with the clipboard who’d come over to take my details.
“Interesting,” Arthur said from next to me. “If you’d wanted to date my daughter, you could have done it for free.”
My heart sank to my knees. Cream Puff was Arthur’s daughter? “I had no idea she was your daughter, Arthur. My apologies. Of course, I won’t take her out. This is a wonderful cause and the point was to make a donation, not win a date.” That explained why everyone’s attention was on Arthur during the bidding. Everyone wanted to impress him.
“I hope you’re not going to back out. It’s about time Parker did something that was about enjoying her life rather than trying to fix the world. It will be good for her.” He turned to me and patted me on the shoulder. “For you too, I think. And better you than some of the old men in this room. Make sure you both have fun.”
“I’ll treat her like glass, Arthur. You have my word.”
Dinner with Arthur’s daughter wouldn’t be so bad. It just would be better if I wasn’t so attracted to her. I’d just have to keep my flirting in check and make sure things ended when dinner did. No problem . . .
As long as she didn’t cover herself in cream and tempt me to lick it from her.
Three
Parker
Twenty-five thousand pounds? For a date with me? I was a little dumbstruck at the figure and frustrated I hadn’t been able to make out who had placed the bid. The lights had been so glaring that I’d not seen anything.
Sutton rushed up to me as I was helping to pack up backstage. “Trust you to have the hottest guy in the room bid on you.”
“I did? Did you recognize him?” It was kinda nice that someone handsome had bid. It might be fun to go on a date under these circumstances—where it was nothing to do with attraction or the possibility of a relationship. Instead, this was all about Sunrise.
“I recognized that I’d like to climb him like a tree, does that count?”
I elbowed her in the side. “Maybe you should go out on a date with him.”
“Speaking of.” She elbowed me back and nodded to the door where the hard hunk of muscle I’d crashed into earlier stood. I glanced back at Sutton. “That’s the guy?” Maybe covering myself in cream just before one of the most important nights of my life hadn’t been for nothing.
We locked eyes as he strode toward me, the sexy crinkles at his temples sending my stomach into a spin. That’s when my father bellowed, “Parker! I want to introduce you to your dinner date. Meet my very good friend, Tristan Dubrow.”
My heart, which to that point had felt like it was attached to a hundred helium balloons, landed with a thump. Of course. The hunk knew my father and was no doubt trying to impress him with a high bid.
I plastered on a smile. “Good to be introduced.”
“Very good to meet you.” He took my hand in his. I was acutely aware of how small mine was in his giant hand. He could crush my bones into flour if he squeezed too hard. “I’m Tristan, and I’m looking forward to our dinner very much.”
I sighed. He’d won the bid. He’d impressed my father. He could stop. There was no way this was going any further. There was a reason I’d been single for three years; I’d had enough of guys who were interested in dating the daughter of Arthur Frazer and all that entailed. “Oh, there’s really no need to actually go through with it. They have your bank details, right?”
“There is every reason,” my father replied. “This man paid twenty-five thousand pounds for the privilege of a night with you. You better make it worth his while.”
Tristan cleared his throat.
“Dad,” I said, in the you’re embarrassing me voice I hadn’t used since I was a teenager. “You’re making me sound like a hooker. The auction catalogue didn’t say anything about me providing my date with a good time.”
“Good grief, Parker. I didn’t mean it like that. But Tristan here is on strict instructions to take you out and show you some fun.”
I rolled my eyes. My father was the worst. “Okay, Dad.”
Thank goodness, someone interrupted before he could say anything even more inappropriate. He allowed himself to be guided back toward the ballroom with a silent wave.
“So,” I said, tipping my head back to meet Tristan’s gaze. “Dinner it is. Somewhere we can sit down so I don’t get a sore neck.”
He chuckled. “Do your dates often take you to restaurants without seating?”
“I’ve been strictly food markets until now.”
“I think we can do a little better than that. Give me your phone.”
I handed it to him and he punched in some numbers. As he was typing, a notification went off on my phone. “Gillian wants to know if you’re going to Pilates tomorrow,” he said.
“Hey, don’t read my messages.”
He laughed. “Don’t hand strangers your phone.”
“You asked for it!” Who was this guy?
“Oh, and what’s this?” he said, sweeping his thumb down my screen. “Oblix Holdings just debited sixty-seven pounds from your account.”
I groaned. “Not again.” I snatched the phone back from him. “Sixty-seven? That’s worse than last time.” I opened up the message and sure enough, the charity account had another debit from a company I’d never heard of.
“You okay?” he asked. “You look like you have to go on a date with a stranger for money.”
One side of his mouth was curled up in a half smile and his almost-irresistible laugh lines were back.
“I’ll figure it out. I just keep getting these debits from my account and I don’t know why.”
“They’re unauthorized?” He snatched the phone back from me. “Have you spoken to your bank?”
“Yes!” I tried to wrestle my phone back but he just held it up higher than I could reach.
“How many times has it happened?” His voice had taken on a dark, serious note. I tried to ignore the buzz it sent between my legs.
“None of your concern. Give me my phone back, please. This is my problem. Not yours.”
He tossed me my phone and I caught it. “You could make it my problem,” he said. “It’s what I do, after all.”
What was it with guys who thought they knew better than me?
“Thanks. But I’ve got it covered.” I didn’t have it covered. I didn’t have much faith that my bank had it covered, but better to do nothing than have a perfect stranger asking questions I didn’t want to answer.
“Give me a call if you want me to help. Otherwise, text me your address and I’ll pick you up on Saturday at seven.” He turned and headed out.
“Wait,” I called after him. “I’m taking you to dinner, not the other way around. I can’t do Saturday.”
“Sure you can,” he said as he kept walking without turning around. “I saw your calendar. You’re not busy on a single Saturday night between now and Christmas.”
How could one man be so thoroughly annoying, and at the same time, send lust circling between my thighs?
I turned to find Sutton at my side. “Can you believe that guy?” My outrage was completely fake. Not many men spoke to me like Tristan had. Having a man like Arthur Frazer as a father took care of that. Every man I’d ever dated had either taken me out because I was his daughter or found out shortly after we’d started dating and had continued to take me out because I was his daughter. Either way, it meant I had dictated the terms of every romantic relationship I’d ever had. My boyfriends had never contradicted or denied me.
My dad might not have a crown, but he was a king and I was treated like a princess. Great in theory, but not so good when it came to figuring out whether or not my boyfriends liked me for me or for the advantageous connection to my father our relationship would provide. History told me my father’s wealth and power coaxed the worst kind of men out of the woodwork, like ants following the scent of sugar.
Despite Tristan clearly bidding on me to impress my father, he didn’t seem exactly like the others. No doubt he’d prove me wrong.
“He’s totally hot. And you get to spend the evening with him. Plus, he donated twenty-five grand to this charity. You could have been a little nicer to him.”
Sutton was right. I should have been nicer to him—he was a major donor tonight. Which reminded me, I’d need to check we got his money. I didn’t want him changing his mind and backing out. “I suppose. But if he’s taking me out because of who my dad is—which he obviously is—I’m not sure nosing into my business is the best way to go about it.”
“Maybe he’s just being himself instead of the suck-ups and grifters you’ve dated in the past. Maybe he’s different. Maybe he’s the guy you end up marrying.”
Urgh. I wish Sutton would stop going on about her half-baked idea to marry me off. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve told you I’m not getting married just to get access to my trust fund.” There was a time when I thought marrying the man of my dreams would be part of my twenties—not to get my hands on my trust, but because I loved the man who’d asked me. But that ship had sailed.
“Stop being so stubborn. Getting married would be an easy way to raise the money for the parents and care givers program you want to establish.”
I sighed. The twenty-five thousand pounds Tristan had donated was a lot of money, but it wasn’t enough. Tonight, Sunrise, the charity I’d worked so hard for over the last three years, would bring in an additional hundred thousand pounds. It was a huge amount of money but it was nothing compared to the twenty-five million I’d be able to donate if I got my hands on my trust fund. “Better to convince my dad to change the rules of the trust than to marry someone. I’m not giving up my last name for anyone.” I’d learned my lesson. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
“You don’t have to give up your last name just because you get married. This isn’t the nineteen fifties. But that’s not the issue at hand. You want that twenty-five million and you’ve been trying to convince your dad to change the rules of your trust for the last three years. If he was going to do it, he’d have done it by now. You’re going to have to face up to the fact that if you want access to your trust, you’re going to have to get married. There’s no other way.”
“So what, you think I should just marry someone I meet in the street?”
She shrugged like it was an actual possibility that I was going to march to the altar with a complete stranger. “You’d need to get a prenup obviously.”
“Sutton!”
“It’s a win-win. If, like you say, Hottie McGorgeous is trying to impress your dad—what better way than to marry his daughter? The only problem is . . .”
A knot of regret pinched in my stomach that there might be a serious obstacle to her hair-brained scheme. Not that I was actually considering marriage to Tristan as a possibility. “What?”
“You’re going to look a little funny together. He’s a foot and a half taller than you.”
“Stop exaggerating. He’s six two, max. That’s a foot.”
It shouldn’t have, but the thought made me shiver. I’d bet he could pick me up in one huge hand. I wasn’t sure I’d object if he tried.
Four
Parker
It had been a long month. The hours I’d been working to prepare for the Sunrise gala had been brutal, and now it was all over. We’d far exceeded our one-hundred-thousand-pound target—by twenty grand. I was going to make the most of having a Friday evening off.
I padded through my flat, wearing my favorite cow print pajamas with a freshly applied facemask that promised a dewy, youthful glow. I bet Tristan had plenty of dewy, youthful girls at his beck and call—no face mask required. I wasn’t competing, yet at the same time, I didn’t want tomorrow night to be a pity date. He might have bid on me to impress my father, but I was going to trick him—not into marriage as Sutton suggested—but at least into a good time. He’d see that I was date-worthy, regardless of who my father was.
I’d just poured out my specially prepared ginger and turmeric tea that promised me the immune system of a floor-licking toddler. All I needed now was a couple of episodes of Cheer on Netflix, and life would shift gears into the sublime. The chocolate-covered raisins I had poured into a bowl and balanced precariously on the sofa arm might have to be consumed for me to reach true nirvana.
Just as I picked up the remote control, there was a bang on my door. No one just turned up to my flat, not unless it was an emergency. I raced to my door and flung it open to find none other than Tristan towering over me.
He prodded at my face. “I preferred the cream.”
I pushed his poky finger away. “What are you doing here?” How did he get by the security at the front desk?
“The security in this building is horrible,” he said. “I got in using a key fob I bought on Amazon. That’s how bad it is.”
Why was he here at all? I hoped he wasn’t trying to move our date up. He wasn’t supposed to see me in novelty nightwear and a face mask.
“Thank you for the feedback.” I went to close the door but he caught it with his hand. The big, strong hands that had the ability to crush my bones into a fine powder. Later, I could think about why that was so appealing.
“Hey, I have some questions about that unauthorized payment you said left your account.”
“Just wait a minute. First you need to tell me how you found out where I live. Then you need to explain what in the hell you’re doing here. And then you need to leave. In that order.”
“I told you. It’s about the payments made to the charity. I think I might have remembered the name incorrectly. It’s not bringing up anything when I do a search.”
Had my building started spiking the cold tap with vodka? Was I passed out drunk on my sofa and this was all a bad dream? There had to be an explanation for the twilight-zone conversation I was having right now.
“What are you searching for and why?”
“The fraudulent payments from your account, and because it’s my job,” he said. “Sort of.”
Things were starting to make sense. Tristan was my dad’s stooge. Dad must have arranged to have Tristan bid on me at the auction, then hired him as some kind of security guard. “My dad sent you?”
He looked at me like I’d just said I liked to ride an elephant down Regent’s Street to work.
“Your dad? What does he have to do with anything? I dropped by because of the payment that flashed up on your phone. I didn’t want to call or message when we don’t know what we’re dealing with. If I remembered its name correctly, the company that took the payment out of your account has hidden their tracks well. I don’t want them to know we’re onto them.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, though a lot of what Tristan had just said sounded decidedly not okay. “So . . . you’re trying to help me?”
He widened his eyes and nodded like I’d just come from planet Stupider.
“How did you find out my address?”
“I’m an expert in cyber security. If I couldn’t find out your address given your electronic footprint—which is everywhere by the way—then I wouldn’t be able to call myself an expert.”
“So when you said getting involved in my bank issue is what you do, you mean it’s literally what you do.”
“Of course. What did you think I meant?”
I chose not to answer that. “I’m feeling a little freaked out,” I said instead. The guy hadn’t tried to cross the threshold of my apartment, but it wasn’t normal for a near-stranger to show up unannounced and tell you he found your address online.
“You might have reason to be. People who make these fraudulent claims from bank accounts can be tied to Russian mafia and even ISIS.”
“I mean you, Tristan. You’re freaking me out.”
“You’re a fine one to talk, given . . .” He looked me up and down. “Your face. And the cows.”
“But I didn’t show up at your door, having neither been invited nor given your address.”
“Oh, I see what you mean. I’m doing you a favor. I don’t normally get involved with shit like this. Call your father. He’ll vouch for me.”
I grabbed my phone from the console table just inside my door and called my dad. Tristan waited patiently, his head buried in his phone while I told my dad about Tristan wanting to help with the mysterious payments. After he assured me he’d trust Tristan with my life—and when that didn’t satisfy me, all his money—I was reassured.
“You’d better come in.”
“Agreed,” he said.
“Give me a minute to change and wash my face.”
“Don’t bother. I’ve only got a couple of questions and then I have to leave.” He stepped across the threshold but didn’t follow me as I headed toward the lounge. I turned and waited for him to look up from his phone.
Right then, I was just going to have to stand across from the uber-hot guy while I wore cow pajamas and a face mask. Now I knew he wasn’t a weirdo stalker, I would have liked to impress him on our date tomorrow. But that ship had sailed. That cow had mooed.
“Can I see the account so I can make sure I got the name right?” he asked. Dutifully, I opened the banking app on my phone and showed him the payments. “And how many have gone through?”
“It started about a month ago. Just a pound here and there. The amounts are getting larger every couple of days.”
Tristan nodded, a little crease appearing on the bridge of his nose. What was it with this man and his wrinkles that gave me that wobbly feeling in my stomach? “This company is well protected. Most fraudulent payments come from organizations that are shut down within a week. You can get in and find out who they are like they left a rolled-out welcome mat in front of an open door. Whoever’s taking from you looks a little more sophisticated.”
