Mister Romance Read online

  Table of Contents

  M I S T E R R O M A N C E

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  NAT KING COLE

  ALSO BY LEISA RAYVEN

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events that are portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  MISTER ROMANCE - Copyright @2017 by Leisa Rayven. All rights reserved.

  Except as permitted under the US copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  WWW. LEISARAYVEN.COM

  First edition: April 2017

  Cover design: Regina Wamba, MaeIDesign

  Formatting: CP Smith

  Cover photograph: Deposit Photos

  ISBN 978-0-9953847-2-9

  This book is for everyone who’s ever felt ignored and invisible.

  Please know that I see you,

  and you’re beautiful, and incredible,

  and more priceless than you’ll ever know.

  ONE

  The Man, The Legend

  When I hear the term Mister Romance drop from my sweet-but-naive baby-sister’s mouth, I’m convinced she’s been duped into believing yet another urban legend. Asha’s sitting at the breakfast bar in our small Brooklyn apartment, looking way too put together for six a.m. on a Monday morning.

  I stop filling the coffeemaker and turn to her. “You’re telling me that women hire a man to make their romantic fantasies come to life? Come on, Ash. There’s no way that’s a thing.”

  “It’s true!” she insists. “Joanna was dishing the dirt in the break room at work. He sets up all these amazing scenarios. You know the tropes: damaged billionaire, sexy bad boy, devoted best friend, hottie contractor. He has this whole range of characters that don’t usually exist outside of romance novels, and the word is he blows his clients’ minds. Joanna overheard a whole bunch of women talking about him last weekend at some thousand-dollar-a-ticket charity event.”

  I make a scoffing noise and go back to making coffee. “What the hell was Joanna the secretary doing at that kind of event?”

  “Her cousin is related to some obscure Latvian royalty or something. The crown prince’s limo broke down on the way in from the airport, so Joanna was invited at the last minute to take his ticket.”

  I give my sister my best deadpan look. “Latvian royalty. Of course. Makes perfect sense.”

  My sister is a junior editor at one of New York’s oldest publishing houses, and even though I haven’t met all her coworkers, the ones I have met are definitely on the strange side of quirky.

  “Isn’t Joanna a compulsive liar?” I ask.

  “Well, yeah, she tells some tall tales, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know stuff. One of the women talking about the über-stud claimed that a date with him cured her depression. Another said he saved her marriage, because until he showed her how sensual she could be, she’d forgotten how much she enjoyed sex. This whole gaggle of women thinks he’s their romantic savior. White-hot Jesus, or whatever.”

  I shake my head and watch as coffee dribbles through the filter. Always the more imaginative out of the two of us, Asha has inherited all my mother’s blind optimism but zero common sense.

  “So what you’re telling me,” I say, as I pour two cups of fresh Joe, “is that this mythical man-beast about whom Pants-On-Fire Joanna was raving, is some kind of ... what? Superhero gigolo?”

  “He’s an escort,” Asha clarifies.

  “Isn’t that just a fancy label for man-whore?”

  “No. He doesn’t have sex with his clients.”

  I pass her a cup of coffee. “You just told me he did.”

  “No,” she says as she defiles her mug of hand-roasted Columbian blend with four sugars, “I said he makes their romantic fantasies come to life.”

  “And that doesn’t include sex?”

  “No.”

  “Doesn’t sound very romantic. A guy who won’t sleep with me? I can get that for free.”

  Asha adds cream to her coffee and lets out an exasperated sigh. She does that a lot with me. My relentless cynicism wears on her hopeless-romantic sensibilities. Always has.

  One time when I was eight and she was six, I was arguing with Mom about the non-existence of Santa. Asha got so upset she went through my Peter Pan coloring book and drew devil horns on everyone, even Nana the dog.

  Horrible little monster.

  To get back at her, I threw a whole bunch of glitter on her bedroom floor while she slept. When she woke and asked what happened, I told her Tinkerbell was so angry about her defacing Peter, she’d exploded with rage. Asha cried for a full half hour before Mom could convince her I was joking.

  Needless to say, my little sister never defaced any of my property again.

  “Would you ever actually pay for sex?” she asks with a contemplative expression as I load some bread into the toaster.

  I think about it for a second. “It would have to be epic bangage to be worth my hard-earned cash.”

  “How epic are we talking?”

  “Three orgasms, guaranteed. Maybe four.”

  She smiles. “There’s no way you’re getting those kinds of results with someone you don’t know.”

  What she really means is someone you don’t love. She thinks that the best sex happens with people who truly care about each other. It’s one of the reasons she avoids one-night stands and harbors disdain for me having so many.

  “If you didn’t know the guy,” she says with her usual condescension, “there’s no way you’d be able to relax enough to pop multiple times.”

  I shrug. “I think you underestimate my ability to allow relative strangers to provide me with pleasure.”

  “Oh, come on. You can’t tell me you always come.”

  “Most of the time, I do.”

  She looks at me in disbelief, and I can’t deny I’m fudging the truth a little. God knows, the last few men I’ve slept with have never heard about the existence of a clitoris. Or proper cunnilingus technique. Each one of them had about as much oral finesse as a bloodhound in a sausage factory.

  “Don’t you ever want more?” Asha asks wistfully.

  I laugh. “More, what? Dick?”

  “More ... everything.” She sighs. “A partner. Lover. Friend. Protector. Cheerleader. A real man in your life.”

  “As opposed to all of the imaginary men in my bedroom?”

  “Eden, you know what I mean.”

  “Of course I do. I just don’t believe I need a man to complete me. I’m quite happy how I am.”

  She rolls her eyes and sips her coffee. No matter how many times we have this discussion, she just can’t comprehend me not wanting to be in a relationship or saving my body until I find the one. The poor baby hasn’t dated enough to know that ‘the one’ doesn’t exist. The entire concept is the greatest fraud in human history.

  Mind you, she’s no virgin. She had a serious boyfriend in high school who she thought was the keeper of the Holy Grail,
right up until he tripped and fell dick-first into her former best friend on prom night. It completely upended her five-year plan to marry Jeremy after college and become the youngest senior editor ever at a New York publishing house. Even though that last part is still possible, I’m not unhappy about her tossing Jeremy and living the single life with me. Asha is by far the best roommate I’ve ever had, even if she does give me constant grief about my love life.

  I’m smearing peanut butter on my toast when she takes a mouthful of cornflakes and points at me with her spoon. “One day you’ll meet a guy who will change your mind about men, and when that happens I’m going to laugh, and gloat, and probably make a laughy-gloaty YouTube video to commemorate the occasion.”

  “Doubtful.”

  “Definitely.” As she says it, some milk and cornflake shrapnel spray from her mouth onto the counter.

  “Stop talking and eat. Besides, you’re wasting your breath. I’m happy doing my thing.”

  Asha swallows and wipes her mouth. “Which is what? Having substandard sex with a rotating roster of losers?”

  “At least I’m getting laid.”

  “Badly. My bedroom is next to yours. Do you think I don’t hear things? Call me old-fashioned, but it’s supposed to be at least seven minutes in heaven. Not three.”

  “Yeah, but sex is kind of like pizza; even when it’s bad, it’s good.” I crunch down on my toast and give her a smile.

  She scoffs and pulls a book from her bag, before holding it open on the counter and starting to read. Unsurprisingly, it’s a romance novel. I shake my head. As if she needs more fuel for her unrealistically romantic fire.

  I’m taking my last bite of toast and washing it down with coffee when my bedroom door opens, and a shirtless man emerges.

  Speaking of underwhelming sexual partners.

  “Hey.” The half-naked man rubs his hair and saunters over in low-slung jeans. Then he leans in and gives me an awkward kiss on the cheek.

  God, I hate the morning after.

  “Uh, hi,” I say. “Want some coffee?”

  “Sure.” He leans up against the counter as I pour an extra cup and hand it to him. Asha stares at me, then at him, then back at me.

  “Oh,” I said. “Sorry. This is my sister, Asha. Ash, this is ...” Shit. What’s his name? “Tim?”

  “Tony,” he corrects.

  “Sorry. Tony.”

  “Hey, there.” Tim/Tony waves at Asha and gives her an appraising look; the kind most men give my sister. If the two of us sit at a bar together, it’s Asha who always gets approached first. With her killer curves and crimson lips, she looks like a pinup girl, while I look like the pinup girl’s efficient-but-plain personal assistant.

  Tony shoots me a quick glance, and I can tell he’s thinking he hooked up with the wrong sister. His douche-osity comes as no surprise. Apparently, I have a type.

  What he doesn’t know is that my sister hardly ever hooks up, so he’s lucky he got any at all.

  Asha gives him a weak smile. “Hey.”

  Tony was the bad decision I made last night after Asha left me at our local watering hole, The Tar Bar, so she could go home and read. I’ve warned her before that I’m not to be trusted on my own after drinking tequila. It’s like I’m an iPhone, and tequila turns all my permissions to ON.

  “So, Tony,” Asha says with more than a touch of disapproval. “Shouldn’t you be heading off to work?”

  Tony chuckles. Yeah, ‘cause he looks like he has a job. “Band practice doesn’t start until one.”

  Asha gives him what I’ve come to recognize as her judgey smile. The thing about having a workaholic single mother is that she instilled a kickass work ethic into me and my sister, and if someone has even a whiff of slacker about them, they immediately get demerits from the Tate sisters. Not enough demerits for me not to sleep with them, but still ...

  “So great to see you have goals,” Asha says, with a pinched expression. And as Tony seems about to engage her in conversation, she studiously turns her back on him and sticks her nose in her book.

  Tony must get the hint, because he puts down his coffee cup and retreats to the bedroom. A few minutes later, he reappears, fully dressed.

  “Well, see ‘ya. Thanks.” I walk him to the front door and open it. He turns to me and says, “So ... uh ... did you want to give me your number, or ...?”

  Why do men always feel the need to ask that? It’s clear as day this guy has zero intention of calling me, and yet he still blurts it out like he’s afraid if he doesn’t, I’ll cling to his leg until he agrees to get my digits tattooed onto his ass.

  “No, I’m good,” I say.

  The relief on his face is almost comical. “Okay, then. Cool. See ‘ya ’round.”

  I close the door and head back into the kitchen.

  Asha studies me as I clean up. I ignore her.

  “Eden –”

  “Don’t want to hear it.”

  “You could do so much better.”

  “Asha, stop.”

  “You deserve so much better.”

  “Do I?”

  She slaps her book down on the counter. “Of course you do! You could get an amazing man if you just put in a little effort.”

  I recognize her subtle dig at my lack of style. Every day I wear the same thing: jeans, boots, t-shirt, and some sort of jacket, usually leather. Ash, on the other hand has more flair than a whole salon of hairdressers. She has a way of turning her thrift-store clothing into cutting-edge fashion that looks way more expensive than it is. Also, even though we both have our mom’s fiery red hair, I’m content to let mine hang to my shoulders and embrace the natural curl, while Asha keeps hers short, funky, and dead straight. It goes perfectly with her horn-rimmed glasses that are more for show than actual vision correction.

  She’s a quintessential hipster, and I’m the opposite of hip. Asha often tells me that I’m so unhip, it’s a wonder my butt doesn’t fall off.

  Oh, did I forget to mention she’s an insufferable smart-ass?

  “Edie, all I’m saying is that you don’t have to resort to banging the King of the Potheads to get sex. There’s a better quality of man out there. You just need to have slightly higher standards than breathing and has a penis.”

  “Hey, that’s not fair. I also insist on him having all of his own teeth and less than five felony charges.”

  “Wow. I had no idea you were so fussy.”

  I smile while taking her empty coffee cup to the sink to wash it. As much as I love her, men is one topic upon which my darling sister and I will never agree.

  “You should at least do a story on him,” Asha says as she shoves her book into her bag and grabs some fruit from the bowl on the bench.

  I look over at her. “Who? Slacker pot-head Tim?”

  “Tony. And God, no. I’m talking about Mister Romance. It’d make a great feature, right?”

  I write for Pulse, a news and entertainment website with more than five-million subscribers. But even though I graduated top of my class in journalism from NYU, my boss has me doing inane click-bait pieces that make me ashamed to own a functioning brain. There are titles like, YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT KIM KARDASHIAN IS DOING WITH HER BUTT NOW! and 10 SIGNS YOUR CAT IS TRYING TO KILL YOU! NUMBER 3 WILL CHILL YOUR BLOOD!

  I’m waiting for the day I put my four years of investigative journalism training to use, but with how inflexible my boss is about giving staff new opportunities, I have no idea when that will be.

  I finish with the cleaning up and wipe down the sink. “Ash, I’m almost one-hundred percent sure that Joanna was screwing with you about that whole Mister Romance story. But even if he does exist, I’m never going to be given a real news feature if I suggest something that’s meaningless fluff.”

  She loads the plates into the dishwasher. “Then make it not meaningless. The guy has the city’s social elite in a frenzy, even when he doesn’t sleep with them. What’s he providing to these rich housewives of NYC that their million-dol
lar lifestyles and powerful husbands aren’t? That’s the big question. And if you figure out the answer, it’s going to be one hell of a story.” She closes the dishwasher and kisses me on the cheek. “Just think about it, okay? See you tonight.”

  After she leaves, I think about what she said. I can’t deny that her idea intrigues me. All I need is one solid story to pull me out of the mire of banality in which I currently find myself. One big break that will prove to my pig-headed boss that I have more to offer than mindless drivel. A good-looking conman fleecing Park Avenue’s finest out of their Botox allowance could do the trick.

  With fresh energy, I grab my laptop and Google Mister Romance. Apart from several million hits for books and websites with the word romance in the title, there’s nothing that looks remotely like what Johanna described. I scour page after page, looking for even the slightest clue that he really exists, but after an hour I still have nothing.

  I shut my laptop and rub my eyes, hating myself for wasting time chasing a lead from Joanna the compulsive liar. Good God, I think I’m catching my sister’s hopeless gullibility.

  How mortifying.

  With a grunt of frustration, I pack my computer into its case, grab my purse, and head toward the subway station. Looks like I’m off to another week of intellect-destroying, morally-vacuous meme generation after all.

  Oh, joy.

  TWO

  A Dick Says What?

  I’m banging my forehead against my desk and groaning quietly when a shaggy head of light brown hair appears over the top of my cubicle. Hazel eyes follow, and the rest of my friend Toby’s face appears.

  “Tate, what the fuck are you doing?”

  “Punishing myself.”

  “Why?”

  “Because after the festering pile of bullshit I just submitted, I need to pay.”

  Toby sighs and walks around into my poor excuse for an office space. As usual, he looks like Gulliver visiting the town of Lilliput.

  Toby was one of my first friends when I began at Pulse, partly because we shared a warped sense of humor, and partly because we were cubicle neighbors. He’s one of the few reasons this job hasn’t driven me insane. A self-confessed geek, he writes the technical features. The best way to describe him is that he looks like a Green Bay Packer who wandered into a cardigan store by mistake and emerged looking like Shaggy from Scooby-Doo, if Shaggy were six-five and on steroids.