“Just tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
“Leave the car alone. You can’t undo what has been done, but you can change the outcome. This one little accident is a blip on your radar. To her, it will change her life. It likely won’t change it for the better. You can make it so she isn’t hit so hard from the accident.”
I watched a man do laps in the pool. He looked so free. I wondered if he was married. Did he have kids? Did he have a meddling mother insisting he get married? Judging by the way he was leisurely swimming, I didn’t think so. I wanted to feel that same thing. That feeling of being completely unencumbered.
“Ashton, can you call the pilot. I’m coming home.”
“What?”
“I can take care of things from Manhattan.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I already met with the hotel manager. I’ll pack and be ready to go. Text me and let me know when the pilot is ready.”
“All right, I’ll have a car waiting for you at the airport.”
“Thanks, Ashton. Oh, don’t do anything with the car. Not yet. I want to explore some options.”
He was quiet for a few seconds. “Okay, got it. I’ll text you.”
“Thanks.”
I ended the call and walked into the bedroom to pack my bag. I didn’t bring much with me. The trip was supposed to last a week, but I had a wardrobe stored at every hotel. It was a lot easier. I didn’t have to pack a bag or stress about forgetting something.
With my bag packed, I left the room to talk with the hotel manager in person. I found him in the dining room giving the space the literal white-glove treatment. I called his name. “Anthony.”
He looked surprised to see me. “Mr. Harrow, did we have a meeting?”
“No, no. I’m heading out. I need to get back to Manhattan. We were supposed to tour the grounds tomorrow. Is there anything specific I need to know about?”
He looked back at the young man with a notepad in hand. He spoke to him in Italian and then turned back to me. “Let’s walk.”
We toured the grounds, chatting about some additions he thought could improve the property. I trusted him. This particular hotel was doing well, and reviews were always favorable.
I got the text from Ashton with the new flight information. “I’ll be in touch, Anthony. Thank you so much for all you do. You have made this place a huge success and the family appreciates it.”
“It is my pleasure to be a part of this company. You know this, yes?”
I smiled and patted him on the back. “We do. I need to get going. As always, call me anytime.”
I left and went back to my room to grab my bag. I knew Ashton. He would already have my car waiting for me.
Sure enough, when I stepped out of the lobby, my usual driver was there. Ashton was better than a wife. I didn’t think my mom quite understood what my life was like. I didn’t have time to check in with a wife all the time. I didn’t want to have to worry about checking in and thinking about someone’s feelings.
Ashton was easy to get along with. He was always there for me but he never demanded anything of me. He made sure I was taken care of. He encouraged me and kept me in line. He did all of that and did not demand to talk about our feelings or pout if I didn’t give him enough attention.
I had Ashton and the freedom to date, flirt, and sleep with any woman I wanted. Except married women. I did not do married women. I’d learned my lesson the hard way with that. Never again.
I found myself reaching up and rubbing the faint scar that split my eyebrow. Never again.
Now, I had a new plan. I knew just how to appease Ashton’s conscience and how to get my mom off my back. Now, I just needed to figure out how to get Paislee to go along with what I was going to propose. It was daring and I had a feeling her initial response would be something along the lines of “drop dead.”
She would not want to pretend to be my girlfriend—no, fiancée. I was going all in. I was going to propose she be my fiancée. Three months should be just long enough to get my mother off my back. Three months and a handful of dates and appearances for my mother’s benefit and I would be off the hook.
I could milk the breakup for at least a year.
I smiled, thinking about the freedom. I would be able to enjoy a gourmet breakfast at my parents’ house without being grilled about my lack of a girlfriend. I could almost feel the weight lifting from my shoulders.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“What was that, Mr. Harrow?”
I looked up. “Nothing. Just thinking aloud.”
Rejoicing aloud, more like it. I thought about how I would get her to agree to it. I was a master negotiator. I would start on the lowball side. Ashton would tell me I was taking advantage of her. I didn’t see it as taking advantage. I saw it as me offering her an excellent deal.
She pretended to be my fiancée and I would pay her medical bills and not file a claim with her insurance company for the car. I didn’t think I was exactly in the troll range. She could do worse than me.
Giving her what would be upwards of eighty-thousand dollars in reprieve was a pretty damn good gesture. I only needed her to play a role. Not even for long. I was certain she would be open to my plan.
I wasn’t going to mention this plan to Ashton. I already knew he would not approve. He would lecture me about manners and impropriety and flaunting my wealth. It would all be true, but I could do this without his approval. He was the one that gave me the idea.
If he wanted to be mad, he could be mad at himself.
I boarded the jet and got comfortable. I reclined the seat so I could do my best thinking. I was already going over my proposal. I would need to get her information from Ashton. That could prove to be difficult. Unless I told him I needed her address to send her a card.
“Dumb,” I muttered.
He would never buy that. I needed to stick to the truth as much as possible. I would tell him I wanted to check in on her. That would work. Satisfied I’d worked out all the details, I opened my laptop and got started on the work I was supposed to be doing in Rome.
I started sending out some emails about the upgrades Anthony proposed. Weirdly enough, I kept thinking about Paislee and the parties we would need to attend to sell the story. I envisioned her in a sexy black dress. Her blonde hair would be up in a twist that revealed her beautiful neck. I would make sure she had nice jewelry. She would look the part of a woman destined to be my wife.
Once she accepted my proposal, we would work out the details of what would be expected of her. The more I thought about it, the more I suspected I was going to have to sweeten the pot a little more.
That was fine. I loved a challenge.
Chapter 6
Paislee
“Take care of yourself, sweetie.”
I smiled at Betty. She was the sweetest woman I had ever met. She would have been the best grandma ever. I wished I had family like her. “Thanks. I will try to do a better job.”
“You really should have taken a few days off.”
I shrugged a shoulder. “I couldn’t afford to. Plus, you know how he gets if we call in sick. He’ll cut my hours next week.”
“Let me see your forehead,” she insisted.
I leaned forward. She was sitting at the small table in the breakroom of the grocery store we both worked at. She carefully lifted my bandage and winced.
“Is it icky?” I asked her.
“No, but the stitches do look a little angry.”
“I will put ointment on it when I get home.”
She nodded and gently pushed the bandage back into place. “I’ll bring you some of my aloe plant tomorrow. Just a little will do you good. And raw honey. Put a touch of raw honey on there to help fight the infection. If that gets infected, you are going to have an ugly scar and a big hospital bill.”
That was Betty. She had grown up old school with no money. She had a remedy for just about everything.
“Thanks, I’ll see
if we have honey when I get home.” I knew I didn’t, but the white lie would keep her from worrying. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I was beat. Absolutely exhausted. My second commute was a real bitch. I never realized just how much I really needed my piece of crap car. It was the bus, then the subway, and then a half-mile walk. Then it was standing for eight hours with a fake smile on my face as I listened to rich people bitch about our lack of organic options.
As if my day wasn’t already bad enough, some jerk on the bus grabbed my ass while I was stepping off. I pushed him and got a warning from the bus driver. Me! I was warned. Not the pervert who groped me.
It had been a day. I could not wait to get home and drink wine from the box in the fridge. It wasn’t classy but it did the job.
My head ached. When I dug in my purse for the ibuprofen I always carried, I discovered it was gone. Then I remembered we were out at the apartment and I had busted into my purse supply last night after work. Now I had none.
I had a decision to make. I could turn around and go to the bodega on the corner to get some, or I could go home.
“Screw it,” I muttered. I was so damn tired. I would drink wine and hope it cured the headache.
Bella would be home tonight, and we could drink wine together as we caught up on the last few days. I needed to fill her in on the accident and why I was officially grounded. I was glad some of the bruising from the airbag hitting my face had faded. Bella would have lost her shit if she had seen me yesterday.
I was trying my best to be positive. Well, not necessarily positive but accepting. I had to accept I was going to be relying on the good old bus for a good, long while. There was no way I could afford a new car. I had been lucky to get the one I had.
The thought of relying on public transit the rest of my days did not make me happy, but I would survive. Millions of people in the city did. I was acting like the rich people I dealt with all day. I had no real excuse to be complaining. At least I had a job. Even if it was clear across town.
I was barely paying attention as I closed in on the last stretch to home. I was so close I could almost feel my couch under me. When I rounded the corner, I immediately saw a black car that absolutely did not belong in my neighborhood. I didn’t miss the man leaning against the car with his phone in his hand.
It was the proverbial sore thumb sticking out. The car in my neighborhood was not normal. I hoped he had good insurance on it. It would get stolen in a matter of seconds if he turned his head. Hell, he wouldn’t even need to turn his head. My neighborhood wasn’t ever going to be considered one of the safest in the city.
I cleared my throat when I got within ten feet of him. His eyes popped up from the phone he’d been busily tapping away on. “Hello,” Jay said with an easy smile.
I stared at him. I knew why he was there. He was going to give me the repair bill. It was kind of a dick move. He had to see the difference in our living situations.
I didn’t have the money to pay and I doubted my insurance was going to cover much. I was going to be on the hook for the remainder of the bill. Considering how expensive his car was, it would still be more than I made in a year.
“Hi,” I said. “I thought you were in Rome.”
“I was. I’m back. How are you feeling?”
“Better.”
He cocked his head to the side. “You look better.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“How’s the head?”
“Much better.”
I stood staring at him with my purse clutched to my body. He could mug me, but it was still going to be a fruitless exercise to get money out of me. I doubted the three dollars in change I had in my purse was going to do much good.
My brow furrowed. “So, uh, you’re here. That’s odd.”
He stepped away from his car and slid his phone into his pocket. “I’m here. I was hoping we could talk.”
My stomach dropped. He was seriously going to try and get me to pay up. “Um, yeah. Sure. Of course. Would you like to come in?”
He smiled. “Yes, please.”
I fished my keys out of my purse and headed for the door. I pulled it open and smiled at the young boy that was sitting on the steps in the foyer. “Hi, Nathan.”
“Hi, Paislee.”
“Is your mom still at work?”
“Yes,” he said with a sigh.
“If she isn’t home in thirty minutes, come up to my place and you can hang with me. You can’t sit out here. It isn’t safe.”
“She’ll be home soon.”
“Okay, but if she isn’t,” I said.
“Okay, Paislee.”
I turned back to Jay, who seemed mildly disinterested. “Fourth floor,” I told him.
“You don’t have an elevator?”
“No.”
He nodded. “All right, lead the way.”
I was surprised he wasn’t curling his lip. I doubted my building was quite his speed. I didn’t care. It wasn’t like I could compete with his place. I unlocked my door and opened it up. “Come in.”
He stepped inside and looked around. Having him standing in my living room made it feel so much smaller. It was a little intimidating to have him in my home. “Nice,” he said.
I burst into laughter. “Sure. Can I get you something to drink? I was going to bust into the boxed wine.”
I expected him to be repulsed. “Yes, that sounds good actually. Thank you.”
That was a surprise. I dropped my purse on our little table and opened the fridge. “I should warn you, it’s chilled. I like my wine cold.”
“I appreciate a nice cold wine.”
“Great.” Again, this was one of the weirdest conversations I ever had. It was hard to imagine him knowing anything about chilled wine that came from a box. I opened the cupboard and only then realized we didn’t have actual wine glasses. I filled two mismatched glass tumblers and carried them the ten feet to the living room.
“Thank you,” he said and took the glass. “Have a seat, please.”
I stayed standing but that felt rude. I sat down in the ugly-as-sin wingback chair that Bella absolutely loved. I stared at him and noticed there were bags under his eyes. Bags that had not been there before. He looked tired.
“Did you just get back?” I asked him. “It seems like you were just here, and then you were there, and you are here again.”
“It was a busy couple of days.”
“Don’t you have jetlag?”
He shrugged. “I’ve done it so often, I’ve gotten used to it. Plus, I sleep on the jet.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Private jet, right?”
He winked. “You know it.”
I sipped my wine and waited. It was just a little strange to have him in my apartment. He obviously wanted to talk to me about something. I wasn’t going to start the conversation. If he was here to ask me to pay for his car, it wasn’t going to happen. He had every right to ask me for it, but I didn’t have it. He had to know that.
“This is actually good,” he said.
“You sound surprised.”
“I am.”
I had to laugh at his bluntness. “Did you come by to tell me you were back?” I asked. I just had to know what he was doing there.
“No, I came to talk to you about a proposition I had for you.”
That sounded intriguing and a little scary. “So you’re propositioning me?”
He cleared his throat. “No, nothing like that. In a nutshell, I need you to pretend to be my fiancée for a few months. In exchange for you doing that, I won’t file a claim with my insurance or yours for the accident. Also, I won’t expect you to pay for any of the damage. Because this would be a huge favor to me, I’ll also pay for your hospital bill. I understand you don’t have health insurance and your auto insurance is… basic.”
“Why would you understand that?”
“What?”
“Who told you that?” I asked.
“Paislee, I’m Jameson Harrow.
I have my ways.”
“You mean you use your money and influence?”
He shrugged. “Yes.”
He didn’t try and deny it. I supposed I should have appreciated his honesty. “You’re offering to rent me?” I murmured. I was trying to wrap my head around what he was saying. It didn’t make sense. People couldn’t be rented.
“I wouldn’t call it renting. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
I looked at the glass of wine, wanting to make sure I wasn’t drunk. The glass was still relatively full.
This was the concussion. This had to be me having some weird dream as a result of my head injury. I was exhausted when I left work. I’d probably passed out on the couch and now I was having a wild dream.
Since I was in a dream, I was going to have some fun with it. “Mutually beneficial? How do you benefit?”
“My mother keeps trying to set me up with women she knows. I’m running out of polite ways to say no, so I’d like to put a stop to that.”
I smiled and sipped my wine. “With a fake fiancée?”
“Yes.”
I sipped more wine and took a moment to take in the sight of him. Jameson was a really good-looking guy. I wouldn’t mind pretending I was engaged to him.
Hell, I wouldn’t mind knowing what it would be like to kiss him. Girls like me did not kiss guys like him. Unless we were getting paid.
That was when reality slapped me upside the head. “Wait, do you think I’m a prostitute?”
He laughed—actually laughed. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I didn’t think it was a good thing. “No! God no.”
“You just offered to basically pay me to be your fiancée. That is like call-girl shit. You need to leave.”
“Paislee, wait. Let me explain.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. None of it made sense. All of it was insulting. The guy was taking advantage of my poor status, and that was a dick move.
My initial impression of him had been that he was kind and, despite his aloofness, he did care. After all, the guy stayed at the hospital with me and then allowed me to stay in his luxurious home. He didn’t even demand his assistant search my purse before we left to check and see if I stole anything.
Pay Up Hot Stuff: A Billionaire Fake Fiancée Romance Page 4