The Plus-One Agreement Read Online Free PDF Page A

The black tie charity dinner a week away hadn’t crossed his mind the other evening when she had dropped her bombshell. It hadn’t needed to. Since he’d met Emma planning for events like that had been a thing of the past. He simply called her up, sometimes at no more than a moment’s notice, and he could count on the perfect companion on his arm—perfect respect for the dress code, perfect intelligent conversation, an all-round perfect professional impression. There was some serious networking to be had at such an event, the tickets had cost a fortune, and now he was dateless.
    He reached for the phone.
    It rang for so long that he was on the brink of hanging up when she answered.
    ‘Hello?’ Her slightly husky voice sounded breathless, as if she’d just finished laughing at something, and he could hear music and buzzing talk in the background, as if she were in a crowded bar or restaurant.
    From nowhere three unheard-of things flashed through his mind in quick succession. Emma never socialised on a work night unless she was with him; she never let her phone ring for long when he called her, as if she was eager to talk to him; and in the time that he’d known her she had never sounded this bubblingly happy.
    ‘What are you doing a week from Friday?’ he said, cutting to the chase.
    ‘Hang on.’
    A brief pause on the end of the phone and the blaring music was muted a little. He imagined her leaving the bar or the restaurant she was in for a quiet spot, perhaps in the lobby. He sensed triumph already, knowing that she was leaving whoever she was with to make time to speak with him.
    ‘Tying up loose ends at work, probably. And packing.’
    So she was storming ahead with her plans, then. The need for control spiked again in his gut. He went in with the big guns.
    ‘I’ve got a charity ball in Mayfair. Black tie. Major league. Tickets like hen’s teeth. It promises to be a fabulous night.’
    He actually heard her sigh. With impatience, or with longing at the thought of attending the ball with him? He decided it was definitely the latter. She’d made no secret of the fact she enjoyed the wonderful opulence of nights like that, and he knew she’d networked a good few new clients for herself in the past while she was accompanying him—another perk of their plus-one agreement.
    For Pete’s sake, she had him giving it that ludicrous name now.
    Their usual dates consisted of restaurant dinners with his clients. Pleasant, but hardly exciting. Except for Dan’s own company, of course. Luxury events like this only came up occasionally. He waited for her to tear his arm off in her eagerness to accept.
    ‘What part of “it’s over” did you not understand, Dan?’ she said. ‘Did you not hear any of what I said the other night?’
    It took a moment to process what she’d said because he had been so convinced of her acceptance.
    ‘What I heard was some insane plan to desert your whole life as you know it for some guy you’ve known five minutes,’ he heard himself say. ‘You’re talking about leaving your friends and family, walking out of a job you’ve worked your arse off for, all to follow some celebrity.’
    ‘It would be a sabbatical from work,’ she said. ‘I’m not burning my bridges there. Not yet. And you make me sound like some crazy stalker. We’re in a relationship. A proper grown-up one, not a five-minute fling.’
    He didn’t miss the obvious dig at his own love life, and it made his response more cutting than he intended.
    ‘On the strength of—what was it?— half a dozen dates? ’ he said. ‘I always thought you were one of the most grounded people I know. You’re the last person in the world I’d have expected to be star-struck.’
    He knew from the freezing silence on the end of the phone that he’d sunk his foot into his own mouth up to the ankle.
    ‘How dare you?’ she said, and a light tremble laced her voice, which was pure frost. ‘It was obviously too much to hope