by Lara Hunter
“It’s only the truth,” Phil said, smiling at me crookedly. “You seem like a good girl, Alice, but if you ever decide you’re not… Well, I wouldn’t say no.”
“Mr. Mercer!” I protested, pushing harder against him.
“Alice, there you are!”
Harvey’s voice came from nowhere. Phil released me as though I were a hot poker.
“Darling,” I said, stepping forward so that Harvey could kiss me hello. He did, but his eyes stayed hard on Phil’s. Afterward, rather than releasing me, he held me close against his side as he stared at Phil.
“Harvey!” Phil said, clearly flustered. “We’d wondered what had become of you!”
“Missed me, did you?” Harvey’s voice sounded pleasant enough, but there was something dangerous in his tone.
“Of course! Night can’t start without you, man.”
“Right,” Harvey said. “If you’ll excuse us, I’m going to get Miss Clarke a drink. And I think your wife was looking for you.”
“Of course,” Phil said again. He looked terrified. “I’ll just be getting back then.”
He rushed away as though a dangerous animal might pursue him. When I turned and saw the look on Harvey’s face, I decided that Phil might be exactly right about that.
“That filthy bastard,” Harvey said in a low growl. He turned to me. “Did he hurt you?”
“No, Harvey,” I said. “He was just… overly friendly.”
“Hmmph,” Harvey said, sounding unconvinced.
“Really, I’m fine,” I insisted. “But I actually would like a drink, if you don’t mind.”
He sighed heavily.
“All right,” he said. “We should probably be getting in there.” He held my hand as he led me back to the dining hall.
A few minutes later, I was sipping chardonnay at Harvey’s side as he chatted with business associates, scholarship board members, and family members of the recipients. Despite the permission Harvey had given me to be more outgoing, I found myself mostly just listening and watching as he talked with the other guests. Not for the first time, I found myself impressed with how smoothly he interacted with people of all ages and backgrounds. From the seventeen-year-old scholarship winner to the seventy-eight-year-old chairman of the scholarship board, Harvey always seemed to know just what to say to everyone he met.
Not long before the ceremony was scheduled to begin, Harvey introduced me to yet another couple. Nothing in his voice or manner indicated there was anything special about this stocky, middle-aged man and his petite, gray-haired wife, so I had to hide my shock when I learned that this was Roger and Marie Layton, the owners of the business Harvey wanted so badly to buy, the people I had been hired to influence.
I put on my warmest smile as I shook their hands.
“Mr. and Mrs. Layton, so nice to meet you,” I said.
“And you as well, Miss Clarke,” Marie Layton said, looking from Harvey to me and back again.
“I thought you were a permanent bachelor, Mr. Pace,” Roger said, laughing. Harvey laughed, too.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Harvey said, smiling at me. I blushed and looked down.
“You two are a lovely couple,” Marie said. “The way you look at each other, it reminds me of when Roger and I were young.”
“How long have you been together?” I asked.
“Almost forty years now,” Roger said, kissing his wife’s hand. “So many young people today don’t understand the value of commitment, of family. It’s good to see you figuring that out, Harvey. Better late than never, right?”
“Right you are,” Harvey said.
“Oh, it looks like they’re starting,” Marie said, pointing to the stage, where a board member was coming forward to stand at the podium. We quickly found our table and sat down.
Harvey squeezed my hand and leaned in close to me.
“Was that all right?” I whispered.
“Better than all right,” he said. “You were perfect.”
I flushed with pleasure at his praise and leaned against his shoulder as we watched the ceremony together. Underneath the table, Harvey didn’t let go of my hand.
When the ceremony was complete, we were served dinner. Harvey chose the filet mignon, and I had lobster ravioli. The meal was delicious. We drank good red wine and chatted with the other people seated at our table, all high donors to the Jenson Pace scholarship foundation. When dinner was finished, a band started playing. I saw Roger and Marie Layton make their way onto the dance floor.
“Shall we?” Harvey asked, standing and extending a hand to me.
As before, when Harvey held me in his arms, I couldn’t help but enjoy the feel of his body against mine. My mind reminded me that he was only pretending, but I still found myself relaxing against him, savoring the feel of his breath in my hair, his warm hand against the bare skin on my upper back.
Phil Mercer wisely didn’t try to cut in on us this time.
We had several dances together, then circulated through the room, sipping champagne and having what felt like the same conversation, over and over again: How did you meet? How long have you been together? You make a lovely couple… My responses were becoming well-practiced.
The night ended uneventfully. Phil Mercer made himself scarce during the event, and he and his wife left as early as politeness would allow. Harvey and I stayed longer, but also retired before it got too late. On the drive back home, I remembered my earlier conversation with Mick and decided to ask Harvey about it.
“Nothing special, huh? He would say that. He plays it down, but the fact is that Mick Northern saved my life twenty years ago, mine and Susan’s,” he said.
“Really?” I said, fascinated. “How?”
“It was after my mother had passed. Susan and I were traveling with my father in Jordan. Things weren’t as unstable then as they are now, but there were still some concerns, so my father got connected with a security group that was running a contract in the area and got one of their men to cover Susan and me during the trip. Our third night there…” Harvey trailed off, and his gaze went far away. “We think they were going to ask for ransom. The Jordanian police never turned up much information about why they targeted us; we think they just saw wealthy Americans and thought they could get a ransom out of us.”
“What happened, Harvey?”
“They kidnapped Susan and me. Or, they would have, but Mick stopped it. He was young then, maybe twenty-five, but he was like a machine, Alice. I was just a kid, and it happened so fast, but I remember that one minute those men – three of them – were grabbing us, dragging us toward a van, and the next there were these loud shots, and then Mick was there, and the men who’d attacked us were dead. Susan was screaming, but I was just… stunned, I guess. I just stared at Mick. He seemed like a giant to me right then. He was bleeding; one of them had stabbed him in the shoulder. He wouldn’t let the ambulance take him to the hospital, though, not until his relief and my father arrived.”
“Wow,” I breathed. “That’s just… unreal.”
“My father wanted to hire him full-time then and there, but Mick wasn’t interested. Too much fight left in him, I guess. It was my luck that he changed his mind and came on full-time when I took over the company.”
“I understand now, why you trust him so much,” I said.
“He and Susan, they’re the closest thing I have left to family,” he said. “He spilled his own blood to keep me alive, and I know he’d do it again if it were necessary.”
“That must be a strange thing to know about someone.”
“It’s… humbling,” he said.
I nodded, trying to imagine the life Harvey had lived, the uncertainty and danger, the people he had lost. As I watched his face, I felt a strange new tenderness toward him.
It was alarming.
I was relieved when the car arrived at my building.
“Here we are,” he said. Instead of letting me out at the entrance, he got out of the car and went i
n with me. He took the elevator up with me and walked me to my door. I tried to behave casually, but my heart was pounding. Was he expecting to come inside with me?
I needn’t have worried. He didn’t try to come in, just held both my hands in his for a moment.
“Goodnight, Alice. I’m more than pleased with how tonight went. Thank you again, so much.”
He reached up and touched my cheek; the brief contact was electric. I turned away awkwardly, searching in my purse for my house key.
“Goodnight, Harvey,” I said, and ducked inside, closing the door behind me.
I went into the living room and sat down on the couch with a heavy sigh, feeling suddenly exhausted. As I kicked off my heels, my eyes fell on the flowers Harvey had brought me earlier in the week, still fresh and blooming on the dining room table.
Who are you, Harvey Pace?
I thought I’d known the answer, but I was becoming less and less sure.
CHAPTER NINE
Over the next few weeks, Harvey and I settled into something like a routine. Where at the beginning I had been dazzled and unsure, I found myself become more comfortable and confident. Each time I accompanied Harvey out to a charity golf tournament or an art show or a retirement dinner, I felt a little more like posh Alice Clarke and a little less like poor Alice Brennan.
Rose called me every few days. I talked to her as much as I could, but, as time went on, I found myself avoiding her phone calls. I told myself I was just trying to stay in character, to avoid being distracted by reminders of my outside life. And, to a point, that was true. But the main reason I didn’t look forward to talking with Rose was because I just didn’t want to be reminded that, at the end of all of this, I was going to betray Harvey Pace.
Since the scholarship dinner, he’d started walking me up to my apartment door after each event. He always thanked me warmly, and he never tried anything physical with me beyond holding my hand. Despite that, though, I still felt a strong pull toward him. Even small touches, even ones that I knew were just for the benefit of those watching us, made me tingle and feel warm. He could tuck a strand of hair behind my ear or help me out of a car and it felt more intimate than many of the steamier encounters I’d had in the past with real boyfriends.
He kept sending me flowers, too. I told myself that it was just for the benefit of keeping up appearances with his office staff (who no doubt were actually the ones ordering the arrangements), but I still felt that flush of pleasure every time a new bouquet arrived. Before Harvey, I could have counted the number of times a man had sent me flowers on one hand. I’d told people that I wasn’t a flowers type of girl, that those gestures were clichés that I didn’t need. But, I had to admit, there just isn’t anything like having two dozens of roses show up at your door with a hand-written note thanking you for a lovely evening.
One afternoon about a month after I’d started working for Harvey, I got a text from him letting me know that he was going to stop by. He never asked if he could come by, but he always let me know ahead of time. At the beginning, it bothered me that Harvey rarely asked, and so often ordered. I’d grown accustomed to it, though, and found myself simply accepting the instructions that I had fumed over at the beginning. It was just part of who he was, and I couldn’t deny to myself anymore that some small part of me had grown to like him.
I tried not to think about that too much.
When Harvey arrived at the apartment, I was in the living room working on some sketches I’d made of his latest floral gift. I was only a mediocre artist, but the last orchid he’d sent was too lovely to resist. I’d run out the day the plant had arrived and picked up a sketch book and pencils, and I’d spent the last few days remembering how much I used to enjoy these simple leisure activities.
I let Harvey in the door and invited him to come into the living room. He saw the sketch book on the coffee table and picked it up.
“May I?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Um, sure,” I said, feeling my face turn red. “It’s not anything. I was just fooling around.”
“No, Alice,” he said, flipping through the pages. “These are actually pretty good.”
“Thanks,” I said, still feeling quite uncomfortable.
“I didn’t realize you could draw,” he said, putting the book down.
“I can’t, not really,” I said. “I took a class at the community college years ago, back when I was still trying to put myself through school. Now I just do it for fun sometimes. It’s been years since I felt like drawing, though. I’m really out of practice.”
“You should keep it up,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said again. “So, what brings you by?”
“I wanted to bring you up to date on where we’re at with the Laytons,” he said. “And where we need to go from here.”
I nodded, and he went on.
“Layton Steel has confirmed that they’re interested in selling. There are, of course, several companies interested in buying, but my people tell me that Jenson Pace is the front-runner.”
“Well, that’s good news,” I said.
“The Laytons aren’t ready to sign yet, though. They want to get to know my company, and me, a bit more before going forward. They’re emotionally invested in the company… I think they’re trying to get a sense of who will be running it, how the corporate culture might change, things like that.” He frowned. “Honestly, I think they want to imagine that Layton Steel will still be a family company when this is over, just with a different family.”
“Yours and mine,” I said.
“Yes,” he replied.
“So, what do we need to do?”
“We need to spend some more time with them. I’ve invited Roger and Marie to come out on my yacht this weekend, and I’d like you and Susan to be there.”
I smiled. He had said he was going to take me out on his boat before the summer ended, and it looked like he was going to make good on it. He must have guessed what I was thinking, because he smiled too.
“The weather is supposed to be perfect,” he said. “One of the last warm days before fall arrives.”
“It sounds wonderful,” I said. “But you didn’t come all the way over here just to invite me on a boat ride.”
“No, I didn’t,” he said. “I wanted to talk with you in advance about how we should present to the Laytons. We’ve been romantic in public for a little while now, but I want to advance that a bit, drop some hints that this thing of ours is moving toward marriage.”
“I see,” I said, thinking. “That shouldn’t be too difficult. I… can ask them about how they were married, and then make some jokes about what our wedding might be like. Something like that?”
“Yes, that’s exactly the kind of thing I had in mind,” he said. “See? This is why I wanted to talk with you first. I knew you’d know what to do.”
I felt embarrassed by his praise.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “Really.”
“Nonetheless, you’ve been invaluable Alice. With any luck, we’ll be able to announce the purchase at Jenson Pace’s silver anniversary gala next month.”
“Anniversary?” I asked. This was the first I’d heard of it.
“Yes, we’re celebrating twenty-five years since my father and his late partner founded the company. It’s going to be a huge event, lots of press, current and past employees and associates, notable members of the business community, even some government representatives and celebrities.”
I groaned. “I guess that will mean another shopping trip with Susan.”
Harvey laughed. “Definitely. I might even tag along. Everything will need to be perfect.”
“I’m sure we’ll manage,” I said. “We always do.” I glanced over at the kitchen. “Would you like some coffee? I can start a pot. Or something else?”
“No,” he said, getting up. “I actually need to be getting back. I’ll pick you up by eight on Sunday morning. I’m going to have Susan work with you on clothes.”
“Harvey, honestly, I can dress myself for a boat ride.”
“This isn’t a boat ride. We’re entertaining important clients on my yacht. And, meaning no offense, I don’t expect that’s something you’ve done before. There are certain expectations for presentation for such things.”
I sighed.
“Just humor me, Alice, for god’s sake. You’d think I was asking you to do something horrible.”
“Have you ever been shopping with Susan?” I asked.
He laughed.
“You’ll survive; I promise.”
He left after that. At almost the same moment the door closed, my phone rang in the other room.
How does she always know? I wondered.
“Hello, Rose,” I said
“Allie, what the hell?” she said. I realized then that I’d answered with my English accent.