Bought And Paid For: The Billionaire's Girlfriend

by Lara Hunter

  I knocked on the door, and Mick answered it. He looked tired, and a little sad.

  “Good to see you, Alice,” he said. “Come on in.”

  I followed him, not to the study where I’d met with Harvey before, but down a side hall to a different sitting room. Harvey was sitting on an antique sofa in the room, bent over a book opened on the table in front of him. A glass of amber-colored liquor rested on the table beside the book.

  “Hello, Harvey,” I said, remembering to use my accent despite my confusion.

  “No, don’t do that,” he said, not looking up at me. “My staff is gone today, except for Mick. I chased them all out. Just talk with me like a damn human being. It’s been so long since I heard your voice, I can hardly remember what it sounds like.”

  I stood silent, surprised, for a long moment before I answered him.

  “Sometimes I forget how it sounds, too,” I said. No accent.

  Harvey looked up at me, and there were tears shining in his eyes.

  “You have a lovely voice,” he said. “Just as you are. I shouldn’t have changed that about you.”

  I crossed the room to where he was sitting and sat down beside him. I looked back at the doorway, but Mick had gone. I laid a hand on Harvey’s back.

  “Harvey, tell me, what’s wrong?”

  I looked down at the book he was looking at so intently, and saw that it was a photo album. It was opened to a page with a portrait of a family – a girl, perhaps twelve, dark hair and the long, awkward limbs of adolescence; a boy, younger than the girl, unruly dark hair and a mischievous grin; a woman, early thirties, fine-boned, softly curling sandy brown hair framing a sweet but weary face; and a man, nearing middle age, dark hairline just beginning to recede, a forced smile.

  “That’s your family,” I said.

  “It was,” he said. “This was one of the last portraits we took together. Mom was already sick… You can see here she’s getting thin. She was a great cook, you know, and was always a plump woman before the diagnosis.” He ran one finger around the border of the photograph, circling the edges.

  “She was beautiful,” I said honestly.

  “They knew, when we took this,” he said. “They knew she wasn’t going to get better. You can see it, in my father’s face. How much older he looked here than he did just a year before.”

  “It must have been terrible, losing your mother so young.”

  “I wish I remembered her more than I do,” he said. “Did you know, when you remember something, what you’re actually remembering is the last time you remembered it?”

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “Our memories are copies of copies of copies. They’re corrupted, false. I look at these photographs, and that helps, but I wish I had more than just the image of their faces.”

  A tear spilled over onto his cheek, and he brushed it away. He reached for his drink and drained it in a few gulps. He looked over at me, seeming to really see me there for the first time.

  “Forgive me, Alice,” he said. “I’m not myself today.”

  “It’s fine, Harvey, really. But why today? What’s happened?”

  He smiled ruefully.

  “Nothing, just a difficult day for me, and for Susan. It’s the anniversary of my father’s death. Eight years have gone by now.”

  Susan’s behavior on the boat the day before made sense now. With the anniversary of her father’s death so close, it was no wonder she hadn’t been in the mood to help Harvey entertain clients. In retrospect, it was rather surprising that he’d managed to do it so naturally.

  “Will you have a drink with me, Alice?” he said. “You don’t have to. You’re off the clock today, so to speak.”

  I only hesitated for a moment before I answered.

  “I would like that,” I said. “Scotch and water?”

  He got up and walked over to a polished oak bar in the corner of the room. He made the drink, and another one for himself. He brought the drinks over to the couch and sat down beside me again.

  “Thank you,” I said. I took a sip, and the warmth of the liquid spread pleasantly down my throat.

  “They’re never easy, these anniversaries,” he said. “But this one is worse somehow. Before, I missed them, but I could believe that they would be pleased, proud of me even, if they were here. But now…”

  He shook his head.

  “Why don’t you think that anymore?” I asked.

  He looked at me and released a heavy sigh.

  “I’ve made some hard choices, Alice. For the company, for myself and for Susan. Some of them have been wrong. Some of them have hurt people.”

  My spine began to tingle. I sat up straighter, but Harvey didn’t seem to notice.

  “For a long time,” he continued, “I was blind to it. Whatever had to happen for Jenson Pace, I made it happen. I didn’t care who lost, as long as I won. And… God, Alice. I don’t even want to tell you. I did some cruel things. I hurt people who couldn’t defend themselves, took what they had, however little they had…” He took another drink from the glass.

  “I’m sure… you only did what you had to,” I said, trying to muster sincerity.

  “I wanted to win,” he said, his voice low. “I thought… I thought that would prove that I loved my father, by doing this job, doing it well. But all I’ve proven is that I can’t love anyone.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” I said.

  “I’ve tried,” he said. “I take care of Susan, as my parents would have wanted. I care about Mick. I value him. But more than that… There was a woman, Alice, and I thought I loved her. I was ready, to change everything, truly begin a life with her…”

  I pulled the name from my memory, where I’d tucked it weeks ago.

  “You mean Kate?” I guessed. He looked at me in surprise.

  “How did you know about her?”

  “One of your associates mentioned her once,” I said. “They didn’t say much, but I had a feeling.”

  “Well, yes,” he said. “Her name was Kate. We were together for over a year. I thought I would marry her.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “She saw through me,” he said. “As she learned more about my work, some of the projects and practices that Jenson Pace was involved in under my leadership… She confronted me about it, and I told her that it wasn’t important, that she shouldn’t worry about it, and that I was only doing it to provide for my family. She couldn’t take it, though. She didn’t love me anymore after that. She walked out of my life. And… I can’t blame her, not really. For such a long time, during those years, nothing was important to me except Jenson Pace’s success – my success.”

  “And now?” I asked.

  He laughed bitterly.

  “I’m not exactly reformed, am I? Rather than form a real relationship, or god forbid just be honest with my clients, I hired you to play this game with me. I don’t even know what that makes me.” He looked down at the album again. “But I know that they wouldn’t be proud of the man I am today. I do know that.”

  “I think you’re wrong,” I said.

  He shook his head and swallowed hard.

  “Parents don’t love their children because they’re perfect, Harvey. I’m a failing actress with terrible credit, and my sister is a short-tempered paralegal who drinks too much. And our parents are nuts about us. Whether they’d agree with your choices or not, Harvey, I know your parents would still love you.” I reached down to where his hand still rested beside the photograph. I took his hand in mine. “Just look at them. They loved you both so much.”

  He squeezed my hand and turned to look into my eyes. He reached up and, very lightly, touched my hair.

  “Alice… I hate that I met you this way,” he said. “I hate that all you know about me is how weak I am, how much of a liar I can be. I hate that we can never…”

  He trailed off and looked away.

  “Can never what, Harvey?” I asked, my heart racing.
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br />   He took my hand in both of his and looked into my eyes.

  “I hate that we can never know, Alice,” he said. “I… I’m so out of line saying any of this to you…” He shook his head. “I just think I might go crazy wondering, if we could have had something…”

  “Something real,” I finished for him.

  “Yeah.”

  I sat still for a long moment, looking down at his big hands wrapped around mine. Something inside of me, something that I had tried to ignore, something I had tried to silence, was singing, utterly enraptured by the possibility Harvey’s words suggested. Another part of me was sounding alarm bells, warning me to stop, back up, get out of there. I barely knew him, and there were still so many things about him that gave me pause. And yet, I wanted to ignore those alarms. I wanted to lean closer to him, to close my eyes, move closer still until I could feel his breath on my lips…

  “No,” I said, when his mouth was only a fraction of an inch from mine. “Not now, Harvey. Not like this.”

  He released my hands abruptly and got to his feet, turning his back to me.

  “Of course,” he said. His words were suddenly more formal, the slur in them less pronounced. “Forgive me, Alice. This was… unfair of me.”

  “No, Harvey, you don’t need to apologize—”

  “I do,” he insisted. He glanced back at me, his expression pained. “Alice…”

  “What is it, Harvey?” I said. A lump had started to form in my throat. “What do you need from me?”

  He looked away from me.

  “I need you to go,” he said. “Please… just go.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Mick was waiting in the foyer. He drove me home, not speaking during the ride. When we arrived at my apartment, he got out and opened the door for me.

  “It was good of you to come, Alice,” he said.

  “I don’t know, Mick,” I said. “I don’t think I helped.”

  He shrugged.

  “He can’t tell himself no one gives a shit anymore,” he said. “That’s something. It’s a big something, when you’re feeling like that. I’ve been there. I know.”

  I smiled at him through the tears that blurred my vision.

  “Thanks, Mick.”

  An impulse struck me, and I stepped forward and caught him in a hard hug. He stood stiffly for a moment, then gingerly hugged me back. He cleared his throat loudly as I stepped away from him.

  “You have a good night, Miss Alice,” he said, smiling at me with real warmth.

  “And you, Mick.”

  ~ ~ ~

  I didn’t turn my phone back on that night. In the morning, I waited until after I’d had my coffee before starting it back up. There were four messages from Rose.

  “Come on, we need to handle this.”

  “Seriously, Allie, you’re not his slave. Don’t bail on me. Tell him you can’t tonight.”

  “Just call me tomorrow, okay?”

  “Are you okay???”

  I sighed heavily and made the call. She answered as soon as the phone started ringing.

  “Allie! Are you okay? Is everything alright?”

  “I’m fine, Rose,” I said. “Something unexpected came up. I had to meet Harvey on short notice.”

  “He has a hell of a nerve,” she said. “Does he do that a lot? Snap his fingers and make you come running?”

  I ignored her question.

  “I can meet you today, if you can make it. I don’t think I’ll hear from him for a while.”

  “Oh, well, alright. Same place? Lunch?”

  “Sure, Rose. I’ll see you then.”

  I ended the call and put the phone away.

  I stretched out on the couch and pulled a throw blanket around me. I wasn’t looking forward to meeting with Rose, but the sick churning in my stomach was finally gone. I finally knew – I wasn’t going to betray Harvey. I couldn’t. It was the wrong thing to do. He had been wrong… but I didn’t have to be.

  And, even though it terrified me, I had to acknowledge, at least to myself, that there was more to it than that. I cared about him. Yesterday, when I’d been with him, and I’d just been me, I hadn’t been acting. I was Alice Brennan, not Alice Clarke, and I still wanted him. I wanted to touch him; I wanted him to hold me, to kiss me, to look at me that way he had looked at Alice Clarke so many times. I wanted it to be real, and I wanted it to be mine.

  And, of course, that was crazy. Harvey and I were nothing alike. They may have made me up to look like the kind of girl he’d date, they might have given me this apartment and these clothes, but underneath all of this, I was still just Allie, the starving actress who’d dropped out of community college and couldn’t afford to keep a pet cat. Once Harvey sobered up, he would see that, and we would be strictly professional again. I wasn’t stupid; I understood all of this. But I still couldn’t hurt him on purpose.

  I wouldn’t.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A few hours later, I stepped out of a cab and walked into the café where I’d arranged to meet Rose. The place was far enough from my apartment that I wasn’t worried about being recognized, but it was just nice enough that it wouldn’t look too wildly suspicious if someone who knew me as Alice Clarke did see me here. I considered using my British accent during this meeting – it would be a sensible precaution – but decided against it. Rose was going to be angry enough with me as it was.

  I spotted Rose, already seated, and crossed the café to her table.

  “Allie!” Rose said, getting out of her seat. She moved to embrace me, but stopped dead. “Oh. My. God. What on earth did they do to you?”

  I flushed bright red, and tucked my hair behind my ear nervously.

  “I know, it’s different. It’s actually grown on me, though.”

  “Different is a good start,” she said. She shook her head, then came forward and hugged me. “You hardly even look like my little sister. What happened to your hair?”

  “It’s… complicated. Making it look like this,” I said, laughing. “You should see how long it used to take me to get it right. It’s not so bad now. But you’ve already seen how I look, in the pictures in the news.”

  “A picture is one thing, but in person…” She shook her head.

  Rose was wearing a brown tweed skirt with a plain white blouse; her hair was pulled back into a loose bun. She must have come from work. She glanced away from me and smoothed her hair down with her hands.

  “I feel like such a slob next to you, Allie. Goodness, those clothes!”

  “Please, don’t do that,” I said. I was wearing a red skirt suit with white pumps. “I didn’t pick these clothes, or pay for them. It’s just a costume. Forget it. It’s just me here.”

  “Yeah, okay,” she said, her voice uncertain. She sat back down at the table, and I took the chair across from her.

  After we’d ordered, Rose got right down to business.

  “Okay, so I checked it out, and Pace’s dinner is on the thirteenth, Friday the thirteenth if you can believe it. I tracked down someone who works with the catering company that Jenson Pace uses. They already have the schedule for the evening. There’s going to be an introduction, then food, then a big presentation, awards, blah blah blah. You know, a bunch of rich assholes patting each other on the back for being so wonderful.”

  “Mmm hmm,” I said, sipping my coffee, trying to summon the courage to break the news to her.

  “I’m thinking the best time to do it is after dinner,” she continued. “But before the presentation starts. You can slip away from Harvey, say you’re going to the restroom or something. The microphone should be all set up by then. All you’ll need to do is get up there, and tell them all – in your real voice – what your real name is and the real reason you’re with Harvey Pace. Security will probably intervene pretty quickly, but you won’t need much time. A minute, tops. Make sure you get your name in. The press will just have to Google you, and they’ll find write-ups and photos from your other acting jobs. From th
ere, it’ll take care of itself. Harvey won’t be able to show his face anywhere for a long time.”

  She sat back in her chair, smiling, flushed with excitement, waiting for me to respond.

  I swallowed hard and looked her in the eye.

  “No, Rose.”

  “No?” She blinked at me in confusion. “To what? Do you think there’s a better time to get up there? Or maybe we should just leak the contract directly to the press? I mean, maybe—”