“No can do. But I can offer you a ride—or I’ll wait with you while you call for help.” It was getting dark and roadside support would take a while to drive out here. “My name’s Aarav Rai. Internet-search me—promise I’m not a serial killer.”
“Sure, Mr. Big Shot,” she said, but input my name.
I knew the instant she saw it:
MILLION-DOLLAR MAN—HOW A YOUNG WRITER WENT FROM PAUPER TO PRINCE
By some quirk of algorithms or the whim of the internet gods, that article was always the first hit when you input my name. I actually had far more than a million thanks to the movie deal, but the article worked to get attention—and engender trust. My face would’ve also populated the screen, both my official head shots and candids taken by fans.
A quick flick from under her lashes to check my face matched the one onscreen.
I smiled.
Sulkiness morphing into sultriness, brunette fluffed her hair. “I’ll leave the car here for pickup. Damn thing probably needs a tow.”
She slid into my passenger seat. “You know, even though you’re famous, I wouldn’t have gotten in the car with you if I hadn’t seen your leg just now.”
She’d obviously never heard of Ted Bundy. “You want to call for that tow? Then I can drop you home.”
After she did, she wiggled in her seat. “I’m Ginger. It seems too early to be going home.”
“I know a bar.”
I deliberately chose a higher-end city bar, and she was all wide eyes as I pulled into a parking spot. “Are you sure we can get in?” she whispered, and smoothed her hands down her little black dress. “I heard they only let in VIPs.”
“I know some people.” The other writers I knew were always goggle-eyed when I did things like this—most people couldn’t ID a writer if that writer was standing next to their head shot while holding a neon sign that spelled out their name.
But the “Pauper to Prince” journalist had included a whole lot about my “mysterious and tragic” past in the piece, and they’d styled the photo shoot with me on the motorbike I’d sold after buying the Porsche. It hadn’t been in the plan, but the woman running the shoot had gone nuts when I turned up to it on my bike.
Only reason I’d done the shoot was because I’d known it’d piss off my father to have his son in such a major publication—but in the arts section rather than the business one. Yeah, it hadn’t been all that mature, but I take my wins where I can get them.
The photos had gone viral.
End result of it all had been an unexpected wave of celebrity. Then came the hit movie; it had boosted my profile to the next level. No longer was I on the B-list. No, I was a firmly A-list “moody genius” who—according to Kahu—women wanted to fuck and mother at the same time.
It’d all turn to dust if I didn’t deliver a second book that replicated the success of the first—or maybe I’d just slide into permanent D-list celebrity status. For now, however, I was a bona fide A-lister complete with superstar “friends” who followed my social media, and the ability to get into clubs that liked to tout themselves as exclusive.
I didn’t drink in those bars and clubs, though I was very good at giving the impression of it. Even when I’d had a problem, I’d only ever gotten blind drunk in the privacy of my home.
“You think this means you’re in control?” Paige’s green eyes looking down at me where I sat in the spa, a vodka on the rocks in hand. “Open your eyes, Aarav, or you’ll pickle your liver by the time you’re thirty.”
I should message her, tell her my liver was now safe, ask her . . . What? What was it that I desperately needed to ask Paige?
The thought slipped away, just like the woman who’d inspired it.
Once inside the bar, I got Ginger a cocktail and myself a soda water that’d pass for vodka because that’s what she’d expect it to be. Then I set to charming her. I was very good at it—some would say psychopathically good. Before long, she’d imbibed two strong cocktails and was giggling. I maneuvered the conversation to her work.
Another giggle. “I’m in hospitality.”
“Oh yeah? At a hotel?”
“No, private.” Teeth sinking into her lower lip, she ran her fingers down my lapel. “I’ll be hospitable to you for free