walked out, wearing jeans and a polo shirt, hands tucked in his pockets. Lacey pressed her lips firmly together as cuss words traveled across her brain.
“I believe the two of you have met.” Meredith’s gaze bounced between the two of them.
“We have.” Lacey nodded at him. “Bradley.” She didn’t stand or offer her hand. She had zero regrets about what had happened at the gala. Her only regret was that she hadn’t done it sooner.
“Lacey.” Bradley didn’t quite meet her eye as he dropped onto the couch next to Meredith. Huh.
“Well, we haven’t met, I’m Natalie.”
Lacey’s head turned at the unexpected voice, and she stood as the curvy caramel-blonde approached. Natalie’s floral wrap dress seemed to float behind her, pearl-pink toes peeking out from tan wedges. Her hair was cut in a bob, flipping just above her shoulder.
She held her hand out. “Lacey O’Connor.”
“Lovely to meet you, Lacey. I’m a hugger.” Before Lacey knew what was happening, Natalie Porter had wrapped her arms around her in a quick embrace. It was all over so fast that Lacey didn’t have any time to react. Hugging her had to be like hugging a plank of wood, but Natalie showed no sign of anything unusual as she dropped to the couch. “So, elephant in the room. We owe you an apology. Well,” Natalie rolled her eyes. “Bradley owes you one most of all. I about slapped him when I heard the audio. I’m surprised you didn’t.”
“I’m sorry?”
Natalie crossed her legs and leaned back into the couch. “My brother’s not really a creeper. Though he did such a great job at behaving like one that I did wonder for a second.”
“I set you up, Lacey,” Meredith said the words with the same amount of emotion as she’d offered her coffee.
“I’m sorry. What?” The pieces were clicking into place, but not faster than her flustered mouth.
At that, Bradley finally looked at her. “What Meredith and my sister are trying to say, and failing miserably at I might add, is that I’m not a serial womanizer. I just pretended to be one at the gala.”
“Well, you did a great job.” Let him take that for either a compliment or aspersion. She wasn’t even sure which way she meant it. “So, it was a setup?” Natalie’s line about audio appeared again. “And you were wearing a wire.”
“Yes to both.” That was Meredith. “We can discuss the details later. Bradley and Natalie only have a few minutes before they have to go.”
Next to Lacey, Natalie reached forward, took a banana out of the fruit bowl, and peeled it.
“Nat, you literally ate like two minutes ago.”
She shrugged her shoulders at him. “So what? Potassium’s good for the baby.”
The baby? Lacey’s gaze darted to Natalie’s midsection. The flowing dress covered any hint of what must be beneath. But didn’t she already have, like, three kids?
“You’re right.” At Bradley’s words, Lacey shot her gaze to him. “This will be number four. Apparently, Nat and Ryan haven’t discovered Netflix yet.” Something arced between them as she held his amused gaze.
The moment was broken by Natalie throwing her banana peel at her brother, which he caught mid-air.
Meredith looked on, appearing, well, bored. But that could have just been her face in Botox rest mode.
“Anyway, we want you to do our book.” Natalie pulled a face at Bradley. “That is if Bradley hasn’t put you off us for good. Also …” She held her hand up as if in court taking an oath. “I would like to say I didn’t know about the setup. Bradley just told me he would take care of shortlisting potential publicists.”
“Because you had your head in a bucket most of that week.”
Natalie looked toward the fruit bowl as if looking for another missile, but Bradley reached forward and removed it from her reach. “Anyway, we don’t have a shortlist. Well, we do, but it’s you. So, will you do it? Please?”
It was like being Alice in the looking glass. And Lacey felt distinctly uncomfortable about landing the publicity contract of the year simply because she’d turned down Bradley’s advances. “There’s plenty of excellent publicists in New York. Surely you want to at least meet a few more.”
The siblings exchanged a glance, and Natalie pursed her lips. “It would seem that after your little exchange at the Met, my brother decided he would apply the same test to a few other publicists. And, it would be fair to say, none of them did as well as you.”