“I’m sorry, sir. She won’t get out of the car,” the driver explained hoarsely.

It had been a long day with the wedding and all the guests that needed to be carted to and fro.

The wedding had been at Bart’s house because it was ideal. He lived in a mansion just off the Malahat north of Victoria. There was nothing quite like swearing your vows with a vast mountain range and the ocean as your backdrop. Bart had bought the place with the idea of using it for such occasions and his cousin’s wedding was the first time it was being used for such a purpose.

Bart did not pay for the majority of the wedding, but the one thing he did pay for was the transportation of his more skittish relatives. Any of the wedding guests who were nervous about driving up his mountain were conveyed to the wedding in two limos. The grandmothers and great-aunts were like colorful butterflies, already in a good mood when they arrived, all smiles and joy.

By evening, those skittish guests had left shortly after the departure of the bride and groom and the only guests left at the house were Bart’s closest family members. They were still having a party and Morris, Bart’s brother, was having an adult-brand tantrum.

His girlfriend, Kelsey, refused to come to the wedding with him. She said it was bad luck for their relationship because Kelsey shouldn’t have to see another bride before Morris proposed to her. However, now that the bride and groom had left, it seemed she was perfectly happy to come to the after-party.

Bart understood that his driver, Klein, was tired, and he would have sent Morris to take care of his own girlfriend, except Morris had had too much to drink and it was a wedding. Special occasions made Bart unusually attentive. He was always possessed by this gritty need to make everything go perfectly. That was why Bart paid the extra fee to send Klien to pick up Morris’ girlfriend in Victoria.

When Klien returned, Bart saw him pull up the driveway and wanted to thank him personally before sending him home for the night.

With a light step, Bart went down the steps while Klien was coming up them.

“Where’s Kelsey?” Bart asked.

“I don’t know what happened,” Klein’s harried voice said. “I think I picked up the wrong girl.”

“What? How is that possible?” Bart asked. He had worked with Klein on many occasions and the idea that the driver had made a mistake struck Bart as impossible. “Let’s go through it carefully. What happened first?”

Klien took a couple of deep breaths before answering. “I showed up at the restaurant. There were two women outside who were alone and waiting for rides. I spoke to the first one. She wouldn’t give me her name or tell me anything about herself. She thought I was hitting on her and would not listen to me when I tried to explain to her that I was a driver who had come to pick her up if her name was Kelsey. She hit me with her purse and went back into the restaurant. The other woman had been sitting on a stoop holding her head. I thought she said yes when I asked her if her name was Kelsey. When I leaned in to get her to say it a second time, she passed out cold before she could answer me. On the way up, I tried to talk to her a few more times, but she didn’t answer me until we were coming up the drive. Then I called her Kelsey and she muttered something negative. What if I picked up the wrong girl?”

“What did the first woman look like?”

“She was a blonde who hadn’t dyed her hair blonde recently. Big black roots. She was wearing a leopard print dress with black lace, and she had a bright pink purse,” Klein answered in a sadly triumphant tone, proud to have remembered so much and unhappy that he had made a mistake.

Bart stuck his tongue out and bit it before saying, “That was probably Kelsey.” He approached the back of the limo and looked inside. His eyebrows shot in the air. “Hello,” he said, leaning one hand on the top of the car.

The woman didn’t move. Her eyes were closed and she didn’t acknowledge that he had spoken to her. She had honey-blonde hair, dark red lips, and a fan of dark brown lashes that flattered the shape of her cheek. She wore a black and white dress that had panels of different colored fabric rather than a print that was both black and white. Her heels were white with pointed toes and a strap across her ankle. Her hands in her lap were manicured with a clear sheen and she wore a delicate row of diamonds around her wrist.

“Hello,” he tried again as he put his head right in the car. He wanted her to hear him, but he did not want to shout at her.

She didn’t answer.

On closer inspection, Bart stopped dead. “She’s not drunk. She has a head injury. Did you see this lump on her forehead when you picked her up?”

Bart got out of the way and let Klien have a look at her.

The driver pulled his head out of the limo. “That wasn’t there when I picked her up.”

“Well, regardless, this woman has far too much class to have been dating Morris. Look at her dress length. Her hem is asymmetrical, but the majority of it goes past her knees. Notice how her face doesn’t look like it’s been painted to look like a billboard. She doesn’t need attention. She’s understated and lovely all over.”

“Oh, I see,” Klein said with a chuckle. “I picked up the wrong girl because I forgot that I was going to pick up Morris’ date and not yours.”

Bart chuckled. “If you can pick up women of this quality for me, why have I been meeting women on my own?”

Something about their conversation stirred her and the woman in the back of the limo fluttered her eyelashes. She opened her eyes slowly to show Bart and Klien the beauty of her dark green gaze. Blinking, she looked around to get her bearings.

“Good. You’re awake.” Bart squatted beside her to be at her eye level. “How are you feeling?”

Bart was very conscious of how attractive he was. His looks helped him when he worked with clients, when he worked with assistants, when he went out on his own, and when he went on dates. All of that added up to a conscientious effort to look trustworthy in a classic kind of way. It meant that he never let himself fall for trends and instead opted to look like the kind of man you could trust with your life savings.

He had dark brown hair, parted on the side with a wave in it. He also shaved every morning to help him look clean-cut because his hairstyle didn’t quite produce that effect on its own. He had been dressed for the wedding, so he was wearing a gray suit with a white silk handkerchief in his breast pocket.

“Where am I?” she asked softly.

“My name is Bart Camphor. You’re at my place outside Victoria. What’s your name?”

“Maisie Whitlock,” she answered through gritted teeth. The pain in her head was clearly overwhelming her.

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“Glad to meet you,” he said pleasantly before turning back to Klien. “Would you mind running to my kitchen to put together an ice pack for her?”

“There should be ice in the limo,” Klein said, working on the other side of the vehicle to put something together for her.

Bart turned back to Maisie. “We owe you an apology. Our limo driver, Klien, went to retrieve my brother’s girlfriend from The Silver Swan and picked you up by accident. To make up for it, he’s more than happy to take you anywhere you want to go.”

Maisie didn’t answer him but numbly touched her body almost like she was frisking herself. She looked up at his face and he watched her assess him. Was she talking to someone she could trust or did she detect a touch of oiliness?

“We didn’t do anything to you if that’s what you’re wondering,” he explained kindly. “Your purse is next to you and we didn’t even open it to find out your name or address.”

Maisie nodded. “I live in downtown Victoria. If you could drive me back, I’d appreciate it.”

“Do you remember how you got hurt?” Bart asked.

“Yes. An angry woman threw a tumbler at her date. He dodged and I took it in the temple. It really hurts,” she said, before blacking out again.

“She is gorgeous,” Bart breathed so far under his breath that he hoped Klien didn’t hear him. He stood up and said, “I’m not the least bit surprised that you picked her up instead of Kelsey. Women try to be this beautiful and fail constantly.”

“You don’t seem angry,” Klein, commented.

“I can’t care overly what happens to each and every one of Morris’ dates. He moves from woman to woman at a pace that makes everyone dizzy. Today it’s Kelsey, tomorrow it’s Angelica, and the day after that it’s Louisa. It’s bizarre that Kelsey thinks he’ll marry her.”

“Should I take Maisie home or take her to a hospital?” Klein asked hesitantly.

“I guess it depends on how hurt she is versus how much she’s had to drink. A tumbler to the temple isn’t nothing.” Bart took out his phone, turned on the flashlight, and looked at her injury.

The light in her face seemed to wake her up and she moaned.

“Hospital,” Bart deduced.

Klien handed him the makeshift ice pack, which was just ice in a ziplock bag.

Bart wrapped it in his white silk handkerchief and pronounced, “I’ll come with you.”

He settled next to Maisie in the black limo, while Klien got the engine running. He pressed the ice pack against her temple. Using his free hand, Bart pulled Maisie’s wallet out of her purse. Flipping it open, he found her driver’s license and her address. After confirming the spelling of her name, he found her on Instagram and looked at her posts.

She was twenty-seven, enjoyed baking, and home decorating. It appeared she had a fiance.

Taking a second look at Maisie’s hands, he spotted the engagement ring he had missed on his first inspection. Bart found a picture of her fiance on her feed. He looked like the personification of a rat to Bart, who enjoyed mentally comparing people to animals in order to remember them more perfectly.

Glancing down at Maisie, he tried to figure out what animal he could compare her to. He found himself at a loss as he looked down at her. She was entirely too perfect to be anything like an animal. Peering at her contemplatively, he wondered if she would be the first person he’d ever met who reminded him more of a thing than a person. Was she like glass? Like a glass ornament hanging from a Christmas tree? Like the tall goblet that sat next to the tumbler in the crystal cabinet? Like a wine decanter meant to look like a woman with lips and a swell of hips?

Bart glanced at himself in the dark glass of the window next to him. Not free of his own speculative habits, he was an animal, like everyone else he knew. Naturally, he was a wolf. The lone variety. It was cheesy and terrible, but it was the only animal he could think of that didn’t feel like an insult to be compared to since usually he used the animal comparison to look down on people.

He knew he had to have a conversation with Maisie in order to categorize her. She might be a rare bird or an exotic fish… His mind hung on the idea of a fish bowl with rainbow water splashing… still not an animal.

Wouldn’t it be awful if he spoke to her and all the wonderful things that were dancing through his mind like sparkling sugar plums on a dark Christmas night turned out to be a mistake? He had met plenty of women who were lovely on the surface only for him to discover that was all they had… a pleasant surface. There was nothing of much interest under their skin. If they were fish bowls, they were empty.

“Don’t disappoint me, Maisie,” he said softly as the limo slowed to take the curves in the road.

“I’m not the one who disappointed you,” she suddenly mumbled. “You are the one who disappointed me.”

Taken by surprise, Bart replied to her. “What did I do?”

“Nothing,” she hummed.

“Nothing? If I didn’t do anything, then why are you disappointed in me?”

A sneer appeared on her lips. “You say that like omission, neglect, and passivity are not a problem. Or at least they aren’t your problem. Well, mister, they aren’t going to be my problem anymore.”

He chuckled. Who did she think she was talking to? “What should I have done instead?” he asked, playing along.

“It’s too late for that,” she said, waving a hand limply.

“I won’t apologize for something I didn’t do,” he said, attempting to hide his amusement. After all, she might open her eyes at any moment and realize she was not speaking to the person she thought she was.

“I’m happy to be rid of you,” she said with a slight slur, like she was falling back asleep.

“You hurt your head. I’m not sure you should be allowed to fall back asleep.” He snapped his fingers in front of her face three times and her eyes snapped open. “There you go.”

Her eyes were glassy as she looked around her. “Who are you again?”

“Bart Camphor.”

“Right.” She touched the sore spot on her head.

“Who were you dumping tonight?” Bart surmised. “Your boss or your boyfriend?” In his mind, neglect was unforgivable. How could she have left the restaurant on her own? There was no way a woman like her would have been left alone unless she had left angry and the man she had been with was leaving her alone to cool off. If the guy was the fiance Bart had seen online, he’d be back.

“Neither. He was… yuck… I can’t even say it.”

“Your fiance?” Bart supplied.

Maisie swallowed. “How did you know that?”

“If you want my advice, and I know you do, you should return his diamonds.” Bart picked up her hand and turned her ring around her finger to hide the shine of the rocks.

“Why? He doesn’t deserve to get them back.”

“For quite a few reasons. If you keep them, it would be like keeping a part of him… like you wanted to keep his money or a reminder of the glint in his eyes… maybe it would even be like keeping a piece of his heart.” Seductive talk of this variety was always on the tip of Bart’s tongue. It seemed innocent, but it never was.

Maisie made a face. “Hearing you say that makes me want to open the window and deposit it outside.”

“Does it? What did he do? You were talking about it a moment ago, but perhaps you didn’t realize who you were talking to?”

“I don’t remember saying anything,” she admitted. “Where are we going?”

“The hospital. That bump on your head is quite impressive. It may need to be drained.”

“Gross,” she muttered, gingerly touching the bump.

“Is there someone I can call to let them know what’s happened? A sister? A friend?”

“Um… I don’t really have anyone like that. I just moved. My fiance… I actually broke up with him three weeks ago, but met him tonight to go over any unfinished business. I should have given him his ring back, but his conversation was so annoying, I didn’t think of it. All my friends live up-island. I’m sure if you take me to the hospital and they give me the green light, I can get myself home afterward.”

Bart was nodding like he agreed with her completely, like he would do anything she asked. In reality, he was planning on ignoring her suggestion. He wanted to talk with her and, so far, he was as impressed with her conversation as he had been with her appearance. She didn’t swear at him, threaten to sue him, cry about how much pain she was in, or fall madly in love with him on the spot. That last one was something that happened so frequently, the cliche was killing him. A woman like her did not appear in front of him every day, or ever.

He was not about to let her out of his sight even if he had a party cooking at his house without him. He could definitely escort a fine woman like Maisie to the emergency room.