Her only hope was that this incident wouldn’t follow her around like a bad smell, the way those awful rumors started by her old boyfriend had.

She went home and, since her workday had barely started, pulled up her CV on her ancient laptop. She was immediately disheartened. Scrubbing toilets was her top skill these days, but without a reference she wasn’t even fit for that. The fashion design route was even further out of reach.

She couldn’t waste time on berating herself, though. There would be ample time for that later. For now, she needed to make rent.

Perhaps she should go back to school. It was months until September, though.

Fliss looked around her room with its chipped sill and saggy bed and toilet down the hall. It wasn’t much, but it had enough space for her sewing machine and table, her form and a tall, cardboard wardrobe where she stored her finished creations.

She could sell those, she supposed, but that would be counterproductive to her aspirations. Plus, experience had taught her that she would be lucky to earn back the cost of the fabric, especially when she was in a hurry to sell. She rarely got enough to cover her many hours of labor.

As for the gown, she could barely look at it.

She was both appalled and elated when she thought about her night with Saint. Nearly everything about it had been perfect, from the way he’d swept her into the glamor of the gala, then taken her for such a fancy dinner. She’d felt like Cinderella. Maybe she hadn’t been fully on his level socially and financially, but she hadn’t felt as far away as this life put her.

And the sex. If that was what she’d been missing all this time, she had a newfound contempt for her old boyfriend for making her think sex was something you worked up the courage to offer someone. With Saint, there’d been surprisingly little awkwardness. She had reveled in sharing herself with him. He’d been equally generous with his body and kisses and skill.

When she’d awakened in that wide bed on those luxurious sheets, she’d been pleasantly sore all over, feeling as though she’d hiked to a challenging peak and was brimming with accomplishment. As though she’d won the lottery and could live her life on her own terms from now on.

The first knock of reality had arrived when she had discovered she was alone.

Saint had warned her that he’d had an early flight, so she had tried not to let his disappearance bother her, but it had felt a bit tawdry that he’d slipped away without saying goodbye. She’d splurged on a car share rather than a walk of shame on the tube. She had been home and emptying her clutch before she’d found the number he’d scrawled with Call me on the back of the invitation that bore Delia Chevron’s name.

Chagrin had wormed into her at that point, boring holes in her midsection. Fliss hadn’t lied to him about who she was. She hadn’t dropped Delia’s name to impress him, but his knowing that she’d possessed that card made her reluctant to text the number he’d given her. If she were a student at this point, she might have felt more confident in connecting with him again, but she was now an unemployed housekeeper and she didn’t have a good way to explain that card.

She peered into the nightstand drawer where she had left it, keeping his note like a war bride holding on to a love letter. Should she text and ask What is this about earrings?

Oh, God. He wasn’t trying to pay her, was he?

That felt tawdry. Sex work was fine for people who chose it, but she was ultrasensitive to how she was perceived sexually, especially when it was a wrong impression. Had he thought that was what her motive had been in going to that gala? Did he think she’d been trolling for a sugar daddy?

Fliss buried her face in her hands, ready to do anything to go back in time and not take that card!

Which would mean she wouldn’t have the memory of those few magical hours with him.

No. She dropped her hands from her face. Much as she regretted how things had turned out at work, she didn’t regret that night. Saint had helped her discover a passion she hadn’t known she could feel. It had been a wonderful experience and now it was over and that left her wistful, but fine. She would suffer the consequence of her impulsive theft of that card, find another job and never see him again. Her boring little life would go on.

She believed that right up until her phone rang the next day. It was a reporter for one of the tabloids.

“Are you the Felicity Corning who was with Saint Montgomery last weekend?”

“People keep asking me for a statement. This is my statement,” Delia Chevron said on her social media reel.

Saint took the phone from Willow to watch the slender brunette with a wide mouth and eyelids that sat at a bored half-mast.

“I’ve never met Saint Montgomery or Felicity Corning. She was working for a housekeeping agency and took an invitation from my home that she used to get into the gala. The next day, Mr. Montgomery tried to send earrings to her, through me. This alerted me to the theft. My security team recommended I end my contract with the agency, so I have. That’s all I know. Don’t ask me for dirt on any of them. I don’t have any.”

“I do.” Julie had spliced Delia’s statement into the front of her own so the video cut to her in the back of a car. She wore a ponytail and yoga clothes to give the impression this was an impromptu reaction, but she wore full make-up and he would bet his encryption software that she was getting paid to wear that brand.

“This is how he operates,” Julie told the viewer. “He’ll sleep with anyone, even a light-fingered housekeeper. And the earrings? Judging from where they were purchased, they’re worth at least two hundred thousand pounds. In fact, they were probably purchased for me. I was meant to attend that gala with him. He told me he’d have something pretty for me to wear, then he dumped me. For her. Although I wouldn’t doubt he was trying to get Delia’s attention. Watch out, girlfriend. That man is a playa...”

Saint swore and clicked off the phone, handing it back to Willow.

“I’m going to have to take legal action against her, aren’t I?” he muttered.

“Who?”

“What do you mean ‘who’? The woman destroying my reputation,” Saint snapped.

Willow drew a breath and held it, as though still at a loss.

He swore again. “The woman who is intentionally destroying my reputation for the paycheck she’s earning off her viral clicks.” Although all of these women were contributing to this debacle in their own special way. He couldn’t blame Willow for not being sure which one was causing him the most irritation. “Did you send the apology to Delia?”

“With a gift basket and an offer to cover her PR costs.”

“Good. And Ms. Smythe?”

“Has the earrings. You’re not out of pocket. She has also received a gift basket and some tickets for an opening in the West End as compensation for her trouble. I had the sense that future calls from you might go to voicemail.”

No doubt. Saint scratched his eyebrow. How had one night turned into this?

“What about Fliss? Any word from her?” He braced himself as he picked up his phone to look for a text, not sure what kind of reaction he expected from her. Something that monetized her own notoriety? Blame for the attention that had fallen onto her? An apology for not being completely honest with him?

Nothing. Not even a redirection for delivery of the earrings.

“Her socials have been switched to private,” Willow said. “She hasn’t returned to the house in London. Her housemates are quoted as not knowing where she went.”

Fliss had been photographed leaving her home five days ago, when gossip from her coworkers had leaked to the press. She’d since found a good place to hide because she wasn’t turning up online. That was both a relief and a frustration for Saint.

He didn’t love that she’d hidden so much about who she really was, but she hadn’t been outright dishonest, either.

Are we prevaricating?

I’m out of my league.

He was dismayed to hear she’d stolen from a client’s home. It was too much like Julie’s laptop snooping for his comfort. It made him wonder if Fliss was hiding from paparazzi while she negotiated the best way to capitalize on her night with him—the way Julie had.

“I did find some background on her that was...concerning,” Willow continued.

“I’ve seen what the trolls are saying,” Saint grumbled.

“They claim to be childhood friends.”

“Friends don’t say things like that about friends.” And who cared if she’d had an active sex life? So had he.

No, those rumors bothered him for a different reason. They didn’t fit with the inexperience she’d expressed.

I’ve always wondered how these things were handled.