The advertisement appeared between a listing for a used dining table and a man offering six chickens in exchange for lawn equipment, which should have been our first warning.
Chapter 1
WANTED: Two women with strong stomachs, no shame, and experience dealing with male stupidity. Extremely generous salary. Housing included. Immediate start.
My younger sister Iris read it twice, then looked across our kitchen table at me.
“No.”
“Absolutely not,” I said.
Between us sat a red FINAL NOTICE from our landlord.
Our checking account held forty-three dollars and seventeen cents.
Ten minutes later, we were standing outside a mansion in Connecticut that looked like somebody had combined a luxury hotel, a museum, and several unresolved psychological issues.
Two stone lions guarded the circular driveway. A marble fountain sprayed water high enough to irrigate a small farm. At the front entrance stood an elderly woman wearing a lavender suit, diamond earrings, and the expression of someone who had spent seventy years assuming the world would eventually cooperate.
“You’re the sisters?” she asked.
“Iris and Molly Harper.”
She looked us over.
“Good hips. Sensible shoes. Neither of you fainted at the fountain.”
Iris whispered, “What exactly happened at the fountain?”
The woman ignored her.
“My name is Penelope Archer.”
That name I knew.
Everyone did.
Penelope Archer owned Archer Hospitality Group, which controlled luxury hotels, spas, gourmet bakeries, boutique resorts, and a national chain of pet retreats where apparently wealthy Labradors received better service than most human beings.
She led us into a sitting room larger than the shelter where Iris and I had spent half our childhood.
“Before you explain the job,” I said, “how generous is extremely generous?”
Iris elbowed me.
“What?” I whispered. “We have rent.”
Penelope smiled.
“At least one of you understands capitalism.”
She named the monthly figure.
Iris stopped breathing.
That amount could repair the roof at St. Anne’s House, the group home where we had grown up after our mother died. It could replace the broken heating system, buy new mattresses, restock the pantry, and cover medication for three children with chronic conditions.
“What do we have to do?” Iris asked.
The door opened.
A tall man in a charcoal suit entered carrying a tablet. He was perhaps thirty-five, dark-haired, handsome in the severe way old portraits of disapproving ancestors were handsome.
He looked at us once.
“No.”
Penelope didn’t turn around.
“Good morning, Adrian.”
“I said no.”
Another voice came from behind me.
“That’s his favorite word.”
I turned.
A second man came through an open French window riding an electric scooter.
Indoors.
He wore sunglasses, loafers without socks, and a bright blue blazer. A green parrot sat on his shoulder.
The bird looked directly at me.
“DON’T ACCEPT!”
I pointed at it.
“Finally. Someone sensible.”
The scooter rider grinned.
“I’m Marcus.”
“I gathered.”
The parrot flapped once.
“IDIOT!”
Marcus sighed. “Archimedes has opinions.”
Penelope gestured toward the two men.
“My grandsons.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
“Grandmother, tell me you didn’t place that advertisement.”
“I did.”
“You described us as male stupidity.”
“No. I requested experience dealing with it. People may draw their own conclusions.”
Iris covered a laugh.
Penelope finally explained.
We would pretend to be engaged to her grandsons for one month.
I stared at her.
“Professionally?”
“Entirely.”
“Define professionally.”
“Public appearances. Charity events. Family dinners. Business functions. No physical obligations. No forced intimacy. No expectation beyond whatever all parties voluntarily agree to.”
Iris opened the contract.
“Why?”
Penelope sat down.
“Adrian has forgotten how to behave like a human being outside a boardroom.”
Adrian replied, “Efficient.”
“And Marcus is one bad livestream away from humiliating this family nationally.”
Marcus looked offended.
“That parking meter started the argument.”
“You livestreamed yourself fighting it for twenty-three minutes.”
“It stole my credit card.”
“The machine retained it because you inserted it backward.”
Archimedes screamed, “IDIOT!”
I liked the bird more every minute.
Penelope continued.
“The family foundation’s anniversary gala is in one month. Investors, press, clients, donors, trustees. I need both of them stable.”
I looked toward Marcus.
“So we’re babysitters.”
“Professional companions.”
“With jewelry?”
Penelope smiled.
“With excellent jewelry.”
Iris kept reading.
Then she stopped at the advance payment.
Her expression changed.
Mine probably did too.
That money wasn’t champagne money to us.
It was heat in winter.
Dry beds.
Fruit that children didn’t have to divide into equal halves.
I looked at Penelope.
“We’ll do it.”
Iris turned.
“We will?”
“Yes.”
She stared at the contract again.
Then nodded.
“We will.”
Marcus leaned back on his scooter.
“This might actually be fun.”
I pointed at him.
“You and I will maintain a dignified professional arrangement.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means every time you embarrass me, I charge overtime.”
Penelope laughed so hard she had to remove her glasses.
The pairings were announced immediately.
Iris got Adrian.
I got Marcus.
Adrian looked as if someone had assigned him six months in federal prison.
Marcus looked delighted.
Archimedes screamed, “VICTIMS!”
That afternoon, Iris and I moved into the mansion.
My bedroom had a fireplace, sitting area, private balcony, and bathroom with heated marble floors. Beside an enormous bathtub sat a silver bowl filled with bath salts and an actual sterling spoon.
I held it up.
“They season their bathwater.”
Iris sat on my bed and laughed until she cried.
When the laughter passed, we called Mrs. Kelly at St. Anne’s.
She appeared on video surrounded by children and laundry baskets.
When we showed her the advance payment, she stared.
“Girls.”
“Roof first,” Iris said.
“Heating second,” I added.
“Food.”
“Yes.”
A boy named Toby shoved his face into the camera.
“Chocolate cereal?”
“We’ll negotiate,” I said.
That night, Penelope delivered what she called “future daughter-in-law emergency kits.”
Each contained jewelry, a company credit card, a laminated list of household rules, emergency contacts, and whistles.
Rule one read:
NO LIVESTOCK IN THE ELEVATORS.
From the hallway Marcus shouted, “ALPACAS PROVIDE EMOTIONAL SUPPORT!”
Adrian’s voice followed.
“You brought three to a shareholder meeting.”
“They improved morale.”
Archimedes screamed, “BAD IDEA!”
I looked at Iris.
“We are dramatically underpaid.”
The next morning, Penelope began our training.
My assignment was simple.
Keep Marcus from creating a public-relations disaster for twenty-four hours.
Iris received one instruction.
“Make Adrian laugh.”
Adrian didn’t glance up from his tablet.
“Impossible.”
Iris took a glass jar from the desk and labeled it UNNECESSARY SERIOUSNESS.
“What is that?” Adrian asked.
“Every time you frown without medical necessity, you put twenty dollars in.”
“I will not participate.”
“Forty.”
He frowned harder.
“Sixty.”
Marcus watched from the doorway.
“I love her.”
Adrian glared at him.
“Eighty,” Iris said.
My own assignment started worse.
“Give me your phone.”
“No.”
“Marcus.”
“You’re not my mother.”
“No. Your grandmother pays better.”
He held the phone over his head.
“You’re too short.”
I climbed onto a chair and took it.
Marcus stared.
“That was undignified.”
I opened his social account.
“What are you doing?”
“Improving your brand.”
I recorded a thirty-second video explaining how to supervise an overgrown wealthy child who had not yet mastered impulse control.
Within an hour it had half a million views.
Marcus looked offended.
“They like you more than me.”
“They enjoy seeing you supervised.”
He stared at me.
Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.
Not the exaggerated laugh he used for cameras.
A real one.
Something in his face changed when he did.
That should have worried me.
Instead, I smiled back.
Three days later, Penelope sent us to inspect one of the family’s luxury pet resorts.
There were heated dog pools, massage rooms, cat meditation pods, organic bakeries, and a private lounge specifically labeled FOR EMOTIONALLY OVERWHELMED HAMSTERS.
I stood in the doorway.
“Do these hamsters have better furniture than the children at St. Anne’s?”
Marcus leaned beside me.
“Probably.”
I expected a joke.
None came.
For the first time since meeting him, his expression became serious.
Meanwhile, Iris discovered something equally unexpected about Adrian.
A white poodle stole his tablet.
The dog sprinted down the hall while Adrian chased it in thousand-dollar shoes.
Iris followed, laughing so hard she could barely run.
The poodle finally stopped, turned around, and peed directly on Adrian’s shoe.
Adrian stared down.
“This is Italian leather.”
Iris doubled over.
“It has character now.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“It may be the funniest thing I’ve seen all year.”
Then Adrian smiled.
A genuine smile.
Iris stopped laughing.
He noticed her looking and immediately rebuilt his usual expression.
But it was too late.
She had seen him.
And that evening, I saw him place one of her ridiculous sticky notes carefully inside his leather planner.
I charged him twenty dollars for emotional dishonesty.
He told me to leave his office.
I charged another twenty.
By the end of our first week, the job no longer felt like acting.
That was exactly when it became dangerous.
