10

Daniel closed the door to the boat house and turned to face Tim and Holly.

“What’s all this sneaking around about?” Tim asked.

“I don’t want Sabrina to know what’s going on.” He looked at Holly. “Are you sure she’s busy for the next hour?”

Holly nodded. “I’ve talked her into taking a long bubble bath. She needs it. She looks really exhausted. I think all that stress about the wedding preparations is getting to her. And yesterday when she got back from shopping for a present for me, she looked all agitated.”

Daniel ran his hand through his hair. “Just another reason to make sure that she doesn’t find out what’s happening.”

Tim raised an eyebrow. “Is this about the article in the New York Times?”

“You know about that?” Daniel asked, not even really surprised. He’d planned on telling Tim about it now, but was glad he didn’t have to. He was aware that Holly already knew, because she’d been shopping with his mother when Linda had alerted them to the article—or rather when Linda had rubbed in the bad news with glee.

Tim motioned to Holly. “Holly told me.”

Holly merely shrugged. “Hey, I just saved you the trouble. Besides, he knows the whole story anyway. So, no harm done.”

“Just as well.” Daniel sighed. “I know who’s behind it.”

“Who?” Holly looked at him expectantly.

“Who do you think? Audrey of course.”

“Is that confirmed?” Tim asked.

“She admitted it. I went to the columnist who wrote the article and she claimed she had solid proof that Sabrina is a call girl, but she wouldn’t give me her source or tell me what that proof was. I found out nevertheless and confronted Audrey.”

“And? Is she going to get the paper to retract the story? It’s clearly false. We all know that,” Holly said.

Daniel huffed. “Of course not. We’re talking about Audrey here. That’s why we have to discredit the proof she has.”

Tim braced his hands at his hips. “And what kind of proof does she have?”

“My credit card statement with the charge of the escort service. Though there’s nothing in the name that suggests it’s an escort service, somehow she figured it out.”

“Fuck! How?” Tim asked.

“Most charges have a phone number next to them so you can dispute the charge if needed. I guess she called and figured it out somehow.”

Holly glared at Tim. “See, I told you we should have never let it run through the agency!”

“He would have smelled a rat early on if we hadn’t,” Tim defended his action.

“Hey! Guys!” Daniel interrupted. “What’s done is done.”

“How did Audrey even get access to your credit card statement? Who did she sleep with this time?” Tim asked.

“She didn’t have to sleep with anybody. She had my assistant Frances in her pocket.”

“Crap!” Tim exclaimed.

“I fired her.”

“Good for you!”

Holly leaned against a work bench. “Hold on, guys. How would she make the leap from a credit card charge by my agency to knowing that Sabrina was the one who showed up? Even if she was able to somehow convince the staff at the agency to release the name of the escort who took the booking, she would have gotten my name, not Sabrina’s.”

“Holly’s got a point,” Tim agreed.

Daniel rubbed his chin. “I’m not sure. She said she got suspicious, because I called Sabrina ‘Holly’ the night Audrey surprised us in the hotel room. So she believes that Sabrina used a nom-de-guerre, so to speak, when working for the agency. That she pretended to be somebody else.” Which ironically was the truth. She had pretended to be Holly, but Sabrina was no escort.

“It shouldn’t be too hard to disprove that. After all, the real Holly is right here.” Tim pointed at Holly, who tilted her head sideways, glaring at him then lifting her middle finger in salute.

“No, Tim. I’m not going to expose to everybody what Holly does for a living. There has to be another way. Besides, then the rumor mill will really start to turn and people will assume I’m sleeping with Sabrina’s best friend. In any case, I can’t expose Holly.”

Holly smiled at Daniel. “Thanks, it’s good to know that at least one person here has some decency left.”

Tim shrugged. “It was just a thought how we could play out a case of mistaken identity. Nothing personal, sweetheart.”