Chapter 3: Fifth Avenue Fling: Chapter 3

I can’t believe I paid forty dollars to go up the Empire State Building. Now I’m staring straight at it from the fiftieth floor of Quinn & Wolfe headquarters while they complete my vetting.

I remember looking over at this building from the viewing platform. With its two spiked towers like horns, it looked more evil than the other skyscrapers. I think I’m in the right horn.

After my weird encounter with fairy godfather Marcus, I spent all last night researching Killian Quinn online.

At thirty-six, he’s one of the wealthiest men in the United States. Self-made, too—the sexiest kind of money. He owns a chain of hotels and casinos across America with his brother and another business partner, ranging from upmarket hostels to luxurious seven-star hotels.

Yes.

Seven.

Doesn’t that mean he wants a seven-star nanny maid? My idea of cleaning is to move things to less obvious places.

Which is why the whole scenario stinks of something fishy. I’m likely about to be flogged on some billionaire black market. Why else would they need so many samples of body parts and fluids?

Blood. Hair. Pee. I half expected them to ask for a poo sample.

After much anxiety, I handed it all over, along with a signed twenty-page NDA.

I filled out a questionnaire so detailed I didn’t know some of the answers about myself.

Blood type? I don’t know my blood type.

Feeling self-conscious, I flick at invisible specks on my skirt. The HR lady left me in the waiting area for thirty minutes this time.

If buildings had personalities, this one would be a sociopath—cold and sterile, with monochrome walls and sharp edges. Negative energy swirls in the air every time someone strides by, talking into their wireless earbuds.

Like building, like owner.

“Clodagh.” The HR lady pops her head out of the door and beckons me to follow. “One more form and you’re free to go.”

My heart thuds. Talking to the beautiful HR lady makes me nervous. Compared to her, I feel like a country mouse. I love New York, but sometimes it’s so overwhelming.

I shuffle into the room and settle back in the same seat I’ve been in and out of all day.

Ugly words in a big black font stare up at me, and my stomach drops out of my ass and down all fifty floors.

Criminal record check

Looks like I’m getting on that flight back to Belfast.

***

“Let’s get married!” Orla beams, taking a large gulp of her Manhattan. Since I’m leaving New York in six days, four hours and—whatever, I’m too tipsy to figure out the rest—I figured Manhattans would be a good choice.

Orla came to town from Queens to help me drown my sorrows. Now I’m treating us to expensive cocktails near Quinn’s headquarters at three o’clock on a Thursday afternoon like we have money to burn. I thought it fitting to choose a Quinn Brother hotel bar.

Red velvet padding lines the walls, maybe to keep you from getting hurt if you get too drunk, like an adult playpen. Dim lights and fancy lampshades make it feel like eleven o’clock. Dangerous.

“I have an American passport, so we can get married,” Orla suggests. She swings happily on her barstool as if she’s figured out a solution to climate change.

“Shush.” I nudge her knee. She’s too loud for a bar like this.

After this drink, I’ll take her home. For an Irish woman, she’s a lightweight with alcohol.

Though she has a point… marrying Orla doesn’t seem so absurd anymore. We would be a married couple minus the sex, and there are plenty of those out there.

Jesus, I’m desperate.

“No.” I sigh mournfully into my Manhattan, swirling the straw around the ice. “It’s hardly a long-term solution. What happens when one of us meets a man?”

“They’d probably want a threesome.”

The sophisticated older lady sitting a few feet away gives us a disapproving side-eye.

“I’m going to have to accept it, Orla,” I murmur, staring into the V-shaped glass filled with red liquor. “I’m leaving. I tried, but let’s face it…” My voice cracks. I can’t cry in this fancy bar.

“No.” She grabs both my hands, lifting them in the air like she’s performing some ritual. “There must be a way. Maybe they won’t find anything on your criminal record. Does it get wiped after a while?”

I give her a weak smile. “Not this soon, no. It’ll still be a big dirty mark against my name.”

She hums and squeezes my hands tighter. “Maybe they’ll miss it?”

“They won’t miss it.”

“The au pair agency did.”

“The agency are cowboys. They also tweaked my résumé so much I sounded like Nanny McPhee. Quinn took blood from me. He means business.”

Her hands release mine as she sinks back into her seat. We both go silent.

“Maybe they won’t care what’s on your record? You didn’t go on a murder spree. It was just a… series of unfortunate events.”

I smile to humor her. That’s not how the police saw it and that’s not what’s on my record.

Drawing a slow breath through her nose, she places her fingertips over her eyelids. “Deep breaths. Positive thoughts. We have to have faith. One year from now, we’ll be celebrating in this bar as legal citizens of New York. I’ll be working for the NYPD, probably having earned a medal of honor, and you’ll be a carpenter winning… Carpenter of the Year!”

She still has her eyes closed, so she can’t see mine rolling. “Have you been reading The Secret again?”

She opens her eyes and grins. “If you believe it will happen, it will happen.”

I exhale heavily and take a large gulp of my Manhattan, welcoming the burn on its way down. If my last hope is wishful thinking, it’s a sad state of affairs.

“I’ll be right back.” Orla slides off her stool, causing her skirt to ride up. “Gotta go to the bathroom.”

“I’ll be here,” I say cheerfully, swirling the last of my cocktail. “For now,” I add quietly to myself.

I watch Orla walk away. My heart twinges. Soon, we won’t be doing this together. We’ve been best friends since we were kids. We were neighbors, we went to school together, and we bunked off school together. The only time we spent apart was when she’d go on holiday to the United States to visit her relatives, and I was so jealous.

Now these past few months, we’ve living in each other’s pockets, in the loft of Uncle Sean’s house in Queens.

“He’s here,” the woman behind me says, interrupting my private pity party. Her excited tone makes me want to eavesdrop on their conversation. “I saw him coming out of the restrooms.”

“You’re kidding me,” whoever is with her replies. “We have to find a way to bump into him accidentally.”

I scan the bar, looking for signs of someone famous, mildly curious. Who’s here? The guy in the corner looks vaguely like Al Pacino.

The woman says something in a lower voice to her friend, which is inaudible to me. Her friend laughs. I wish I could catch more of their chat.

I lean back slightly on my stool. This isn’t a good plan, considering I’m a bit wobbly from the cocktails.

Bad timing.

The bartender zooms past me. I barely catch his arm as he reaches for my glass.

“Hang on!” I lunge forward and snatch it up, my fingers gripping the stem firmly. “I’m not finished.”

He looks at the nearly empty glass and then at me, barely suppressing an eye roll.

I scowl in return. Waste not, want not. It’s no more than a dribble, but I’m not wasting a drop.

I tilt the glass back, making sure I don’t miss a single drop, then place the empty glass in front of him.

“I’ve been thinking in the bathroom,” Orla announces as she returns.

I wait for the grand revelation.

“We should have one more,” she says, smiling at me with glazed eyes. “One more, and then we’ll head home.”

***

One becomes four. We drift around the hotel’s ground level, surrounded by overpriced, high-end stores, in pursuit of the entrance.

Orla is going in and out of stores we have no business being in, and I wish I could put her on a leash.

It takes me a moment or two to realize what the buzzing noise is. The stolen cocktail glass clinks noisily against the toiletries from the hotel bathroom as I struggle to locate my phone under all the crap in my bag. I finally find it under the soaps and fish it out.

I press connect on the unknown number.

“Clodagh?” a deep American voice drawls down the line. “It’s Marcus.”

My heart goes from resting to racing. “Yes?”

“Good news,” he booms. “You’re good to go. You start Monday.”

Abruptly, I stop still in the throngs of people, nearly dropping the phone. How much have I drunk? “I… passed the vetting?”

I look around for Orla, but she’s wandered into another shop. Typical.

He chuckles softly down the line. “Weren’t you expecting to?”

“Uh.” I expel a strange gargle. I’m not even sure it came from my mouth.

“We’ll need you to move in on Sunday.” Marcus either chooses to ignore my shock or isn’t fazed by it. He sounds like he’s walking. “Mr. Quinn will meet you on Sunday afternoon.”

“Right,” I breathe, staring dazed into the window of a luxury lingerie store. I force a casual tone even though my heart does the bongo against my chest. “Send me the details. I’m delighted.”

“Excellent. Don’t mess this up, Clodagh. You won’t be able to stay in New York if you do.” The words hang in the air as an ominous warning. “Mr. Quinn’s driver, Sam, will pick you up.”

Something isn’t right. Is it possible for the police to make mistakes? Doubtful. Is Quinn’s vetting really lenient? Again, I doubt it.

My sixth sense says that something’s wrong, but as Marcus ends the call, I bury that thought deep down under my delight. I can’t stop the goofy grin from taking over my face.

I’m staying.

I’m staying in Manhattan.

I need to hug someone. Where the hell did Orla go? Shoppers and hotel guests mill around, but Orla is nowhere in sight.

My hands tremble as I dial her number. “Orla! Get your ass back here.”

She begins to speak, but I cut her off. “I’m staying, Orla. I’m actually staying! I passed vetting.”

The screech down the line must be heard by everyone within ten meters. She says, “you’re kidding,” five times, and I repeat, “I’m not.”

“On my way! I went to the loo when you were on your phone. I thought you were talking to your gran, and you know how she likes to chat.”

The call goes dead. A long beat passes before I realize I’m frozen, holding my phone midair against my ear and grinning like a lunatic at a mannequin in the shop window. I think she smiles back.

I might be delirious.

She’s wearing emerald-green underwear with embroidered lace that would complement my red hair perfectly. The matching choker around her neck makes it the sexiest damn lingerie I’ve ever seen.

Invisible cords pull me toward it. Maybe I’ll save up and buy it now that I’m staying.

Orla comes up beside me and I grab her arm. “I’d look sexy as fuck in that. Don’t ya think? I might buy it to celebrate.”

Except when I turn, it’s not Orla’s arm.

It’s muscular, hard, and wrapped in nice-feeling material.

A broad chest in a blue shirt and vest looms over me. I look up… up farther… and am met with an angry stare, as arctic eyes blaze into mine.

Wow.

“Holy shit!” I shriek. “I mean…”

He glares down at where I’ve grasped his forearm and detaches himself with a grunt.

My breath catches in my throat, and I look away, flustered.

I…

He’s…

Just fuck.

Glass smashing snaps me out of my daze.

I hop back in surprise, away from the little shards of glass littered around me. My bag has slipped off my shoulder, spilling the contents across the floor, one of which was the fancy cocktail glass I had taken from the bar as a ‘souvenir’. Now, it lies broken in a thousand pieces.

Ah, karma.

“Fuck,” I hiss, staring in horror as the little soaps roll around the guy’s feet in different directions before settling. “I’m so sorry. I thought you were my friend.”

My cheeks feel like I’ve been sunbathing in Death Valley. I can’t look at the man.

I asked him whether he thought I’d look sexy AF in underwear.

I need to get the soaps back in my bag before anyone notices I’ve depleted half the supplies in the hotel bathroom.

I squat down to grab them from among the broken glass, trying to decide how I will deal with the glass. My hands aren’t communicating with my brain. I’m doing a juggling act with soaps and manage to shove some of them into my bag.

“Step away. You’ll hurt yourself,” the shadow above me says gruffly. It’s a low, gravelly American baritone that sends unexpected shivers through me. It must take an enormous pair of balls to pump out that much testosterone.

Looking up, I see icy eyes flaring down at me with annoyance, and my stomach drops so low, I’m afraid it will fall out of my ass for the second time today.

He’s quite a bit older than me. Strong masculine features. Thick, wavy, dark-brown hair. The icy blues, angular jaw, and prominent nose make him look ruthless. A vest and shirt combo that my vagina approves of.

Holy fucking potatoes. The guy is gorgeous.

His gaze sweeps over the disaster on the floor, and his eyebrows draw together. He couldn’t look less impressed if I stormed in wearing a mask and robbed the reception desk.

Even through the glare, I can’t stop gawking.

He looks down at me for a moment longer before nodding to someone behind me. I crane my neck to see a burly security guard walking toward us, speaking into an earpiece.

“It’s only soap,” I huff as our eyes lock again. Somehow, his stare manages to be hot and cold at the same time.

My gaze drops. I’m eye level with his cock. I bet it’s as large and threatening as the rest of him.

“Get off your damn knees, girl,” the guy growls.

Girl?

“Ma’am, do you need assistance?” another voice says from behind me. The security guard. His expression tells me that assistance is an escort out of the hotel.

Two cleaners scuttle over.

“I’m so sorry,” I rasp to the cleaner bending down to sweep up the shattered glass.

Mortified, I steal a fleeting glance at the arrogant, god-like man. He’s already striding off with a stunningly beautiful brunette dressed like the First Lady on his arm.

She’s almost tall enough to look him in the eye, and he must be six-three or six-four. She makes gliding in stilettos and a tight dress look effortless. She’s not penguin-waddling.

A perfect match for him.

I’m irrationally jealous for a fleeting second as he puts his hand on her lower back and leads her toward the entrance.

Then, unease grows in the pit of my stomach.

I’ve seen those eyes before.

Was that… Killian fucking Quinn?