Page 82 of Mr. Perfect

If you’re not banging Ellie Hatcher, then I’ll give it a try. She looks totally corruptible.

That is the only thing I care about right now. He’ll give it a try. Sure, why not? Some stupid twenty-something at your father’s company is willing to let herself be fingered in a stairwell? Sure. Mac is a man used to getting everything he wants. Mr. Perfect.

Then the previous call from his friend comes back to me. Mr. Perfect, Mr. Romantic, Mr. Corporate. Why does all that sound familiar?

I type in the three names as I stand in front of the computer.

Mac’s face comes up immediately. Tons and tons of pictures of him, only his name is not McAllister Stonewall. I click on the first image and an article pops up. The caption under the picture says, Maclean Callister, AKA Mr. Perfect, and Nolan Delaney, AKA Mr. Romantic, celebrate the dropped charges in the Mr. Brown rape case.

My legs are so wobbly I need to take a seat in the luxurious leather chair.

The Mr. Brown rape case.

I’ve heard of it, of course. It was all over the news a while back. Ten years ago, at least. Back when I was getting ready to graduate high school.

I study the picture of Mac a little better. He’s smiling. So is his friend, Nolan Delaney, who I conclude was the voice on the other end of the phone call I just took. But neither of them look happy and neither of them look like they are celebrating.

I click through more pictures and see them all. Mr. Perfect, Mr. Romantic, Mr. Corporate, Mr. Mysterious, and Mr. Match. They are all well-bred children from well-connected families who are rich beyond belief.

I skim the article to refresh my memory. Five college boys, one college girl, and a rape charge. I understand the basics of what happened. The night started with a homecoming party at the house the boys shared and ended with one girl claiming she was gang-raped.

The newspapers weren’t allowed to report the names of the boys until they were officially charged, so they gave them monikers until that happened. They called them the Misters of Brown University, or Mr. Browns for short. And then each boy got his own nickname based on how friends on campus described them to the media.

Once the boys were officially charged, they were expelled and their real names divulged.

The pre-trial media coverage lasted for well over a year and then abruptly stopped when the girl was found dead in her hometown, some seven hundred miles away.

The prosecutors were forced to drop the charges.

No one thought the Misters were innocent, not for a second. In fact, there was an outcry to charge them all with murder as well. They were blamed for the girl’s death even though all five of them had rock-solid alibis for that incident.

It’s a convoluted story, but I can follow it. What I cannot follow is how Maclean Callister became McAllister Stonewall. And what I’m having a hard time understanding is Mac’s anger at my teeny, tiny lie last week when he’s been holding back this bombshell of an explosion.

Somewhere in the house a phone is ringing.

Somewhere in myself, my heart is breaking.

Is Mac guilty? Did he slip away? Did his real father—because obviously Mr. Stonewall isn’t his father—pay someone off? Did they have anything to do with the girl’s death?

I don’t know how long I sit there before a voice calls my name from another part of the house.

“Miss Hatcher?” I recognize George the doorman’s voice.

“In here,” I call back.

A few seconds later George finds me. “Oh, Miss Hatcher, Mr. Stonewall called asking me if you’d left yet. He sent me up here to look for you when I told him no.” George stares at me for a moment. “Is everything OK?”

I nod out of habit, but I’m not sure everything is OK. In fact, finding out your boyfriend was accused of rape and might possibly be responsible for murder makes things decidedly not OK. “I was just looking for Mac’s phone. He asked me to bring it into work for him.” I hold up the phone and stand. “I better get going. I think he needs it.”

“OK, Miss Hatcher,” George says. “We have your car downstairs waiting for you.”

“I’ll be right down,” I tell him. There is no way I’m getting in an elevator so I can be forced to chit-chat my way down to the ground level.

I wait until I hear the front door close and then I try to put my thoughts together. Was that scavenger hunt Mac’s way of preparing me for the truth?

I feel so manipulated. And that text to Heath. I just feel… used.

I’m sure there’s a way to justify it. Perception is everything. And if Mac can prepare me with his sympathetic point of view before I learn the truth, then he can control my reactions.