Copyright 2019 by Addison Jenkins - All rights reserved.
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SINGLE AND RICH
Addison Jenkins
Contents
Fake Fiancée
Fake Fiancée - Book 1
Fake Fiancée - Book 2
Fake Fiancée - Book 3
Fake Fiancée - Book 4
Owned Heart
Owned Heart - Book 1
Owned Heart - Book 2
Owned Heart - Book 3
Two stories…Two destines…Two different battles …
Who could have foreseen that life would push Lois into the arms of rich playboys and almost throw her to the threshold of becoming a call girl at an escort agency?
Who could have expected this all-consuming conflict between dream and reality that would force Jane into a fight with the circumstances even with the one who had already stole her heart?
At the very rare and few moments that her senses were alert and logic prevailed, she could see clearly and understood the dead end road she was heading to.
These precious moments offered her a final chance to get out of this mess and run away.
Would she take it??
Life does not stop playing its games.
And a happy ending does not always come as a win in the lottery.
Read these stories, where everything leads to one very question: Is it possible to overcome an unexpected?
Fake Fiancée
Fake Fiancée - Book 1
Lois Townsend sat on the deserted Central Park bench in a steady drizzle that underscored her misery. The evenly-spaced clop, clop, clop, clop of the approaching horses seemed to enumerate her problems. Poetically, it felt like what she deserved; what anyone deserved when the world was against them.
Lois looked at the couple in the horse-drawn carriage as it slowly passed her. A couple was sitting in the backseat, wrapped in one another’s arms in a passionate embrace. Why is it that other people’s happiness can make you feel so much more miserable? Lois tore her eyes away from them, looking at the driver. He was carefully oblivious to his passengers, his plastic-wrapped hat pulled low over his eyes. He knew his tip depended on how invisible he could make himself while driving the lovers’ nest.
Mired in her self-pity, Lois mentally bullet-pointed her own dismal life, or at least how she saw it at that moment. She sighed and pulled her raincoat down over her damp knees, soaking up her self-awarded misery.
The illegitimate daughter of successful attorney, Robert Townsend, and his secretary, Lois had always felt as though she was flotsam and had no real family. Her mother, Beverly Turner, had kept Lois’ birth from her employer and lover, fearing that she would be fired and thereby excluded from the presence of the man with whom she was deeply obsessed.
Beverly had often pretended that she was, indeed, Mrs. Robert Townsend. She spoke of him often, plying Lois with stories of his many successes and charismatically perfect life. She’d even bought towels monogrammed with a “T.” She claimed it was for “Turner” but Lois had caught her mother wrapping her naked body in them as she slept and knew Beverly imagined it stood for “Townsend.”
Lois’ life had been a study in contrasts. While on a family level, she’d had only her mother, Beverly had an obsessive, suffocating personality. Lois sometimes felt that her mother compensated for the lack of attention from Robert by smothering the daughter he knew nothing about. Beverly kept her secret knowledge of Lois as mental justification for the rejection from him.
Thus, it had come as some surprise when Beverly had corralled Lois earlier that afternoon.
“I need to talk to you,” she’d started and Lois had rolled her eyes. This was hardly an unknown occurrence. After all, who else did Beverly have to talk to?
Lois had plopped herself onto the over-stuffed decorator sofa in their apartment and waited for the next dramatic tale.
“He’s gone.”
Lois frowned, confused. “Who’s gone, and gone where?”
“Your father.”
Beverly had never referred to him directly like that. She’d called him Robert when she talked about him, thereby reducing Lois’ claim upon him and jealously keeping him to herself.
“You mean he died?”
Beverly blanched at the suggestion and quickly responded, “No! Of course not. He’s left the firm.”
Lois sat mutely, watching her mother for some sign of how she was to appropriately respond. Finally, she simply asked, “Am I supposed to be sad or was this like a promotion or something?”
“A promotion? Heaven’s no! It’s his firm,” Beverly replied, indignant. “He just stopped coming in to work anymore. At first we thought he might be ill and I called his wife.”
“He has a wife?” This was news to her. She knew he had been married and divorced multiple times. “What number is this one?”
“Lois! Be respectful! He’s your father!”
“Jesus, Mother… I’m never sure how I’m supposed to behave. I don’t know the man. All I know is what you tell me and I’d hardly say you were unbiased. So, what happened?”
“He left her. Just packed his bags, walked out the door, and disappeared. She was heartbroken, poor thing. Now, there she is… left all alone in that big house with all the responsibility of sorting things out.”
Lois cocked her head. “She’s a poor thing? She, may I remind you, is his wife and lives in a mansion with a healthy monthly allowance. And she’s probably gorgeous to boot! I’m sorry, Mother, but I don’t feel a great deal of pity for her.”
“Lois, that’s not kind. It’s not her fault. She has two sons, you know.”
Lois’ head popped up. “I have brothers?”
“Well, strictly speaking, they were her sons when she married him. I suppose that would make them your stepbrothers…” Her voice wandered off as she mused about the familial connections.
“So, let me get this straight. I have a father who doesn’t know he’s my father and he has now disappeared to parts unknown to avoid what was probably going to be a divorce. I also have two possible stepbrothers who not only are now abandoned, but don’t know about me because their stepfather didn’t know about me, and I’m guessing the same goes for their mother, who would be my stepmother if my father knew about me and claimed me, which he doesn’t and didn’t. Somehow, in all this mess, they’re the ones who are to be pitied and I’m supposed to be sympathetic and supportive? Do you see any holes in this logic, Mother?”
Beverly stared at her, her mouth opened in disapproval. “Don’t talk about your father that way!”
“So, how old are these ‘stepsons’?” Lois asked, her voice layered with hostility.
“Oh, they’re grown men. Both are in their 30s. I’ve heard him talk about them. Palmer Sanders, that’s their last name, is a talent agent; has his own agency. I understand the actor, Jet Thompson, is one of his clients. Tyler has some sort of website… dating, I believe it was. He built the business and I understand it’s doing very well.”
“Well, goody for them. I doubt they’re crying in their beer, Mother. As for me, I’m stuck here in this apartment and have no job and no future. You’ll pardon me if I don’t get all torn up.” Lois’ voice had been mocking and completely unsympathetic. S
he’d flown up from the sofa, grabbed her rain slicker from the hall closet and left
Which was how she’d ended up here. On a park bench in the rain. Lois wiped the tip of her runny nose with her sleeve, focusing on how depressed she felt. Although she’d been popular and very pretty in high school, her mother’s lack of preparation hadn’t allowed her to get any further than an associate’s degree at a small city school. She needed more, but lacked the means. She shuddered when she considered living the next ten years or more with her mother.
She had circulated the word that she was anxious for some kind of job among her friends. One had suggested they knew a restaurant that was hiring third shift waitresses. Lois knew that meant winos and druggies who were coming in to get warm and barely had the price for a cup of coffee, let alone a decent tip. Another friend had suggested a cannery down on the waterfront. She couldn’t imagine herself standing twelve hours a day stinking like dead fish and fighting off waterfront assholes. Someone said they knew of a nanny’s job for a professor and while this seemed to be the better of three choices, she really wasn’t fond of young kids and the result could only be disaster.
Surely in a city this size, there had to be a decent job for her. One where she could make some money for school, get some exposure to the kind of people she wanted to be around and still maintain some self-respect.
Then inspiration struck. She had a brother, with a talent agency…surely to god there was something she could do.
Newly rejuvenated, Lois saluted the back end of the horse which was, even now, leaving a deposit of fertilizer on the sidewalk as encouragement. Frowning, she headed home and locked herself into her room with her laptop and a detective’s attitude.
***
Lois stood before the office building and looked up. She had tracked down Palmer, her stepbrother. It hadn’t been that difficult; he was, after all, in the talent business. His contact information was everywhere.
She had checked him out thoroughly, including through social media. If these men were to be her extended family, even though not related by blood, then she should know a bit about them. After all, she reasoned, while she might lack the magic name, she did have the successful Townsend blood in her veins.
She phoned his office the next morning and was passed along to his personal assistant. When asked her business, she simply stated, “family business.” She was placed on hold and the man was soon back on the line. “Mr. Sanders can see you on Tuesday at three o’clock.”
Her response was immediate, but measured. “Tell him I look forward to it,” she replied and disconnected before she lost her nerve.
Everything she’d done in the interim had been to ensure the success of what might be the only shot she could come up with to transcend the life she wanted out of. She chose a tailored suit in navy blue—the power color. She’d carefully pressed a white blouse with a very narrow lace edging—just the right combination of femininity to offset the power. She had no idea what sort of position he might find for her—if she was lucky—so she’d wanted to be prepared.
Her moment on stage had arrived. She rode the elevator to the twenty-sixth floor and emerged to find that his offices occupied the entire floor. A receptionist guided her to a waiting area and his personal assistant soon appeared to escort her to his office at the end of a long, emerald-carpeted hall. The assistant tapped on the door and opened it, ushering her inside.
Palmer was standing with his back to her, facing a wall of windows, and talking on the phone. The conversation ended almost immediately and he turned neatly on the heels of his expensive shoes. He came around the desk, his hand extended. “Palmer Sanders, Ms. Turner. Won’t you sit down?” he offered.
She smiled her carefully rehearsed look, not too eager and not too self-assured, and shook his hand. Until she knew more about him, she’d have to be neutrally acceptable.
He cocked his head. “Have we met?”
“No, we haven’t yet.”
“You look familiar somehow.”
“You may see a resemblance to my mother,” she began.
“Indeed? And she is…?”
“Beverly Turner. Your stepfather’s secretary.”
His face went neutral. “Ahhh, I see. Yes, it would seem my stepfather has absconded and left a great many people in the lurch. I’m sorry about your mother’s position, Ms. Turner, but there isn’t much I can do for you.”
“I’m not here about that.”
“Then how may I help you?”
“I want to work for you.” She put it to him directly in language so stark that it took him aback.
Palmer laughed; it was a polite laugh of disbelief. “Tell me why I should hire you,” he said, his face still holding a look of mockery.
“Because I’m your sister… well, a stepsister, at least. In some form or another”
The look on his face froze. She could see him thinking. “Are you saying what I think you are? That my stepfather and your mother…”
She nodded and smiled.
“Did he know about you?”
“No, my mother never told him because she knew it could mean her job. Would your mother have permitted her to stay if she’d known his former mistress was staying late with him at the office?”
“Probably not,” he conceded.
“My point, precisely.” She nodded, pushing on. “Of course, now that he has ‘left the building’, as they say, it doesn’t really matter. There is no job to worry about, at least not for her. Now me, on the other hand…” She reached into her portfolio and laid her resume on his desk. “I need a job, and a good one. I have things I want to accomplish in my life and within reason, I’m willing to do almost anything to get there. First on the list is to complete my degree, so before you frown, understand that you’re getting me before the price goes up. Once that sheepskin is in my hand, well, let’s just say you may not be able to afford me.”
“My, my, but aren’t we cocky,” he observed.
“I don’t think you got all this,” she opened her arms to indicate the office around them, “by being shy.”
He studied her. “You’re right, of course. I would like to say, first of all, in defense of my mother, that Townsend never deserved her. She has always been pure class and the fact that he’s done through a dozen women proves he didn’t deserve her. He never told her about the others. Even when it was too late and my brother and I exposed him, she stood by him. It was simply who she was. I’m sorry, but telling me he’s your father is probably one of the worst strings you could have tried to pull.”
“I get that. I’m not too fond of the guy myself, you know. He doesn’t even know I exist. I’m not here to sing his praises. I’m here because I need a job and you happen to have a company and I’d like to work with you.”
Palmer was sitting with his fingers laced, his brow furrowed in thought. Lois watched him, her muscles tense with anticipation, hoping that her bold approach would work and not get her thrown out of here.
Then he sighed. “Look, kid, the only thing I’ve got is—”
“I’ll take it,” she interrupted.
“You don’t know what it is.”
“Doesn’t matter, I need a job and I don’t think you’ve got anything to offer in this place that I could improve upon.”
“Heh, you think so… well, it’s like this. Do you know what a beard is in the business?”
She shrugged. “You mean the hair kind?”
“That’s what I figured.” He shook his head, leaning forward on his desk. “No, I mean the kind who acts as the girlfriend or date for a gay actor who doesn’t particularly want people to realize he’s gay.”
“I’ll do it.”
“Wait a minute.” He held up his hand, laughing. “Let me give you some advice. You can’t act so greedy. You need to hold out a bit longer, maybe negotiate the money. Ask who the client is and whether you have a wardrobe allowance. That sort of thing.”
“Okay, all that then.”
�
�What do you mean?”
“I mean, how much does it pay, who’s the client and will I have a wardrobe allowance? Oh, and do you have any benefits like tuition reimbursement?” Her flushed face indicated her excitement. It made her auburn hair a rich warm color and the green in her eyes dance with enthusiasm.
Palmer had to laugh, despite himself. He figured she’d turn the job down the moment she heard it, but he was wrong. She was hungry. He liked that. He had a soft heart when it came to giving people a hand up in achieving their goals. “Well… the pay is per engagement and is three grand each appearance. The client is Jet Thompson and yes, you’ll definitely have a wardrobe allowance because you’ll have to go in disguise from time to time so we get the most out of you. It’s not permanent, now, so there’s no tuition reimbursement.”
“Oh, my god, you’re kidding!”
“You thought it was permanent?”
“No, I had to idea that Jet Thompson was gay!”
“He’s not.”
Lois frowned. “Then I don’t understand.”
“Yeah, I hear that all the time. He’s just one of those guys who’s so damned good-looking that he’s prettier than his female co-stars. That almost always starts the gay rumors and Jet’s pretty sensitive to that. He’s straight as an arrow.”
“If that’s true, why does he need to hire a girlfriend?”
He smiled. She caught on quickly. “Too sticky to get a real one. They take a lot of time to cultivate and if she gets pissed for some reason, she could tell the paparazzi that he dumped her because he’s actually gay. So, you see… counterproductive.”
Lois nodded, working the idea over in her mind. “I guess that makes sense. So, when do I start?”
“Meet me downstairs in the lobby Friday night and I’m taking you to the Nines club. I’ll have Jet come along and you two can get acquainted and we’ll set up some preliminary dates. Will that work?”
She stood up and straightened her jacket. “It works. I’ll be here at seven.” She turned to leave and he came around the desk and stopped her.
“I’ll be here at nine. But Lois, this stays between you and I. I’ll have a contract for you to sign, but in the meantime, not a word to anyone. Not even your mother. Can you do that?”
Single And Rich Page 1
