Page 3 of Playboy Husband

CALLUM

Istared at the empty chair across from me, wondering if it might spontaneously make a human woman appear out of sheer willpower if I stared hard enough, but it didn’t work. The chair remained very much empty and my patience was rapidly dwindling.

All around me, crystal glasses clinked and the low, smooth tones of a piano drifted through the air from somewhere in a darkened corner. It was romantic, the perfect setting for a first date with one’s future wife, but a complete waste of a table for one.

I drummed my fingers on the starched white tablecloth and glanced at the second wineglass waiting on the other side of the table, the deep red of the liquid inside catching the candlelight flickering between the glasses. Mine was empty. Hers was untouched.

This was supposed to have been the night I met my wife, hence the fancy restaurant. I’d had high hopes for meeting the bold, possibly insane woman who had responded to my ad. Instead, it was looking like the response had been some idiot’s idea of a prank, luring me out and standing me up.

Asshole.

With a sigh, I leaned back in my chair and caught the waiter’s eye, signaling for the bill. Thank God, I’d stopped at only ordering drinks and I hadn’t gone all out, asking for appetizers or even entrees as well.

While I waited, I drained the spare wine—her wine—and slipped a few crisp notes onto the tray once the waiter brought it over.

I left him an extra generous tip in the hopes I wouldn’t become the laughingstock of his circle of friends later, once he got off work and told them about the poor loser who’d been left alone at a table that was nearly impossible to get at short notice.

Annoyed, frustrated, and starving, I stood up, weaved my way around the happy couples who hadn’t stood each other up, and walked out into the cool night.

Instead of the gourmet meal I’d thought I would be having, I grabbed a meal from the burger joint on the corner, which, if I was being honest, suited me better anyway.

With the cold creeping through my suit and the reality sinking in that I’d been played for a fool, it wasn’t long before my mood dropped to match the temperature.

The scent of fried heaven did its best to cheer me up, but I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d been asking for something like this to happen when I’d placed that ad.

It had been an interesting idea at the time and it had appealed to my sense of adventure way more than endless dates with the women my mom wanted to set me up with.

It had never occurred to me that perhaps my sense of adventure was less reliable than common sense when it came to finding a wife. To make matters worse, my phone started ringing before I’d even taken my last bite and Sterling’s name lit up my screen.

“Don’t tell me,” I said as I picked up, speaking around a fry in my mouth. “Mom’s mad at me.”

“Mad? Try homicidal,” my brother drawled. “You skipped family dinner without so much as a text. She’s been ranting about common decency and the decline of society because of food wastage for the last thirty minutes.”

I winced. Our weekly family dinners were not optional. Missing one was only allowable when we had an airtight excuse, like an emergency, life-saving surgery, or being stuck on the other side of the world due to a severe blizzard.

I’d been hoping to walk in next week with good news and a fiancée in tow, convinced that would make Mom forget all about my transgression. Instead, I was sitting alone downtown with ketchup on my tie.

“Tell her I had a good reason and not to put a hit out on me. I’ll be there next week.”

“Yeah, I’m not doing that,” he said, his tone easy and light in a way it had never been before he’d met Laney.

“Tell her yourself, little brother. I have, however, already convinced her not to send the hounds after you. It turns out that she’s not oblivious to the fact that having you in the hospital means you’ll miss more family dinners.

Though, she’s acting like you’ve had her shot through the heart, so be prepared to grovel. ”

“Got it,” I said, wrapping up what little had remained of my meal and standing up, my appetite suddenly gone. “Jewelry or perfume?”

“Both. I’d also include a hard-drawn apology card and prepare a heartfelt speech about the importance of family and how much you appreciate all the sacrifices she’s made for us. Maybe in poem form.”

I groaned. “Is it really that bad?”

“It’s promise to take her on a mother-and-son spa weekend bad. Sorry, Cal. You should’ve texted, man. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

I groaned. “Don’t get all wise on me now that you’re gonna be a dad.”

“Don’t take that tone with me, young man,” he said with a laugh.

We said our goodbyes and hung up. I dumped my greasy paper bag in the trash on my way out. Feeling lower than I had in a while, but determined to save my Friday night, I shot a text to Gage. He replied from a bar not far away, which felt like the first good luck of the night.

He was halfway through a pint when I walked in and slid onto the stool beside him at the dimly lit bar. “You’ll never guess who stood me up tonight.”

“Everyone who’s ever read that newspaper?” he guessed, holding his hand up to get the bartender’s attention.

“Cute, but no,” I muttered. I asked the bartender for a whiskey and Gage got another beer.

I took a sip of my drink and enjoyed the heat in my throat. “It turns out that my big date was actually a big joke. Some jackass jerking me around. No show. No apology. Just me and my ego slowly bleeding out in public.” I took a bigger drink. “What a world.”

Gage glanced at me and grinned. “That’s what you get for trying to find a wife in the classifieds section.

This isn’t the stone age, caveman. There are apps that have been specifically developed for this kind of thing in the modern world.

They’re on these nifty little devices called phones.

There are pictures, likes, dislikes, and all kinds of filters. It’s revolutionary technology, man.”

I drained the whiskey and shook my head. “I’m not swiping my way into a marriage. But I am starting to wonder if the ad was the best idea, though.”

“It wasn’t.” He laughed.

I sighed. “It would’ve been a cool story, but I’m thinking of changing tactics.”

“To what, putting your message in a bottle and throwing it in the ocean? Let Neptune decide your fate.”

“No.” I snorted down laughter. “Maybe I’ll find an heiress to a crumbling British manor or someone else who actually needs my money. It could be a win-win, like it was for Sterling and Laney, or Jameson and Sadie.”

Gage arched an eyebrow at me. “Or you could consider finding love the old-fashioned way.”

“I tried the newspaper ad.”

“No, I mean do it like a normal person. You know, meet someone in person, ask them out, date for a while, fall in love, and then propose. It’s worked for billions of people and it could definitely happen for you.”

This time, I didn’t manage to catch my laughter in time to snort it down. It barked out of me like a dry gunshot filled with bitterness and amusement. “That’s not how it works in my family.”

He frowned. “Why not? Your old man wants you to get married. Most fathers do once you hit our age. Moms start whining about grandbabies and Dads start talking about carrying on the family name. It’s not unheard of, so why can’t you just go out and do it the same way as everyone else?”

“How much time do you have?” I asked, then signaled the bartender for another whiskey.

I got it and took another swig. Gage was still looking at me expectantly, so I took it upon myself to shatter this illusion he was under about how things worked.

“In my family, marriage is a deal. A mutually beneficial arrangement. Take my parents, for example. They didn’t fall in love.

They merged. Generational wealth doesn’t protect itself, and apparently, neither does our reputation.

It’s up to us to craft our lives in such a way that we responsibly and efficiently protect it all. ”

His brow furrowed before he scoffed. “I don’t even know what that means.”

“Exactly,” I said. “It’s a rich-people thing. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’ve never been happier about my middle-class upbringing,” he said, shaking his head as he picked up his glass again. “Is this, like, the West Coast norm?”

“Nope.” I finally looked up while I sipped my drink, realizing for the first time that O’Reilly’s was actually pretty full tonight. Maybe there would be some British heiresses around.

Across the room, a group of women were eyeing me over their cocktails. I caught one of them giving me a slow, deliberate onceover, but I turned back to my drink. They weren’t the kind of women I would marry. Something about their vibe warned me to steer clear.

Gage noticed them too, inclining his chin toward them before glancing back at me. “There’s a whole horde of potential wives right over there. It might be the cheerleader effect, but they seem pretty hot. I’ll wing you. Let’s go over and see if we can get a bite from someone who’s not a catfish.”

I grimaced. “In the old days, I would have taken you up on the offer, but it’d be a waste of time now. I’m not looking for one-night things anymore. I need a damn wife.”

He chuckled. “Spoken like a true romantic. Can’t you have Garvey find you someone?”

Garvey was the family butler. He had been with us for years, as polished and with as stiff an upper lip as my parents themselves. I laughed. “Now that’s a fun mental image. Old Garvey is so blind, he’d probably set me up with one of the brooms.”

“Do your folks even have brooms?” he asked.

I looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Yeah, man. Our housekeepers aren’t genies.”

We made fun of each other’s lives for a while, and it was nice to forget about the ticking clock over my head.

A couple hours later, I headed home, the city lights bleeding gold, orange, and red through my Uber’s window. I leaned my head back against the seat, just watching the streets roll by and wondering if there was anyone out there who wanted what I had to offer. Someone who wasn’t a total train wreck.

It seemed unlikely. Maybe starting the hunt on a different continent really was the answer. Find me a Downton Abbey girl looking for a lord of the manor. We could ride horses and I could pretend to like tea.

My apartment was quiet when I walked in, just the way I usually liked it, but somehow, it felt a little too quiet tonight. It had been that way for the last few months, the silence so deafening that it often felt like the walls were closing in on me.

I kicked off my shoes, dropped my jacket over a chair, and grabbed a shower before I headed to bed. Alone. Tomorrow would be another day of failing to find a wife in the most spectacular ways possible. Clearly, I needed my beauty sleep for that.

By the time morning rolled around, I’d gotten two hours sleep at most, rest seriously not coming easy these days.

I padded to my kitchen barefoot, wearing only my boxers, my hair a mess after all the tossing and turning, and my breath probably smelling like shit since I hadn’t even brushed my teeth yet.

Pinnacle of romance, me. Come on, who wouldn’t want this?

At least my sense of humor hadn’t abandoned me yet. I fixed myself a double-strength espresso and finally decided to open the burner email one last time. If there was nothing there, which I was fully expecting, I’d find out if one of my brothers would be using the jet later.

London was pretty this time of year and I loved England. It couldn’t hurt to go sniff around there for a few days.

Much to my surprise, the inbox was not as empty as the seat across from me had been last night. There was a new message waiting from a different person. It was short and to the point, but there were no obvious signs of it being a prank. I stared at it for a minute, weighing the odds.

What are the chances of this not being another setup? Slim, probably. But the longer I stared at it, the more tempted I was to reply. Oh, goodie. I’m not done humiliating myself in the pursuit of matrimonial bliss yet. Fucking A.

I sure as hell wasn’t booking the most romantic restaurant in the city again, though. There would be no candlelight, no tasting menu, and no expensive wine ordered in advance. Instead, I typed back a time and place, nothing fancy, and hit send.

One last shot—and if it doesn’t work out, I’m London-bound, baby.