Page 9 of Fifth Avenue Fling

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. “Theremustbe 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.”

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