She flashed again on Theresa and the study group, having midday cocktails and tapas, free to do nothing but study or swipe left on their iPhones.

Angel didn’t have an iPhone. She didn’t do Tinder. Or dates. She wasn’t free to have drinks in the middle of the day. She wasn’t a kid. She hadn’t been a kid since the day Jose was born. At fifteen, she’d created something, and, accidentally or not, she was responsible. She only stayed up until two in the morning if she was studying or Jose was throwing up. She was a mother. She’d turned her back on her childhood and free time and walked away.

She didn’t have time to resent it.

Leaning against her door was a large package.

“Ahem,” said a voice behind her.

She jumped a foot and whirled around. She grimaced when she realized it was Aaron, Duke’s agent. “What are you doing here?”

He handed her an envelope and gestured to the box. “Duke sent this over.”

Chapter Ten

“Gabriela!” Angel shouted, bursting into the salon with the long box.

A half-dozen women swiveled toward her.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“The Duke sent me this!”

Gabriela frowned at her. “Good Lord. Unless that is a human head, stop your screeching. You just gave me a stroke.”

“What’d that fine man send you?” Latisha called from her station.

Angel placed the box on the floor in front of her, removed a piece of thick, creamy paper, and handed it to Gabriela. “Duke wants me go to a cocktail party with him tonight…”

It took all her strength to not complete that sentence, that the Duke and his agent needed her to go to the party. As his beard, to keep up the charade for his manager.

She’d told Aaron she’d think about going, and then left him standing in the hall as she went into her apartment and shut the door, not wanting to give him the chance to steamroll her with a sales pitch. But she just couldn’t see how it was a good idea. It would not be responsible or prudent for her to take up so much time doing something so pointless and frivolous. Pointless for her, anyway.

Gabriela read the note. “Oh my God. It’s at Roland and Kinley Smith’s Park Avenue penthouse.”

“Isn’t she the reality TV star? I love her,” said a customer dressed from shoe to choker in leopard print, her eyes wide beneath a head of hot rollers.

“What do I do? I can’t go.”

“Why in the hell not?”

“This is crazy. I’ve got Jose, and work, and tests coming up.” And I don’t want to be anyone’s fake girlfriend. It was embarrassing enough to be on the news; what would happen when the media figured out it was a ruse?