He rang for the bellboy, who wheeled their luggage to the lobby. Mason took Alyssa’s hand one last time, but it hung cold and lifeless in her grasp. The connection between them died on that day.
He led her to the dining room for the last time, and they entered the same old crowd. Alyssa knew a few people here now. She didn’t have to worry about sitting alone with no one to talk to, but he didn’t let go of her hand. He led her to the front of the room to say good-bye to his parents.
She stood still before the two withered figures. She forced a smile and hugged Mason’s mother. The parents bobbed their heads and talked to Mason in Spanish.
He hugged both his parents and kissed them on the cheeks. His mother patted his face and brushed away tears. He stood back, but just at the moment when he took Alyssa’s hand to lead her away, the crowd parted and Tina stepped into view.
The woman stood straight and tall, and her eyes flashed with wild fury. She leveled an accusing finger at Mason and Alyssa. “Mama! Papa! This woman is not Miguel’s wife. They made it up to fool you. He has never married, and this woman has never even once set foot in his house. They have never traveled together before now. They got married a week before they left to come here to trick you.”
Mason’s father’s eyes popped out of their sockets, and his mother’s hand flew to her heart. “Is this true?”
“I looked it up on the internet,” Tina replied. “Their marriage license is so new it hasn’t even been processed yet.”
Mason leveled a look of pure murderous hatred at Tina. “Is this your way of bringing our family together?”
“If anyone is tearing our family apart, it’s you,” Tina growled. “You perpetrated this whole charade on us. You’ve done nothing but flout our family for years.”
Mason looked back and forth between Tina and Alyssa. “Is this the big secret you’ve been keeping from me all this time?”
Alyssa stared down at the floor. “I’m sorry, Mason. I wanted to tell you, but she threatened to ruin me along with you. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
Mason clenched his jaw. He shook his head and looked away. “I should have known it was something like that. I should have known this was what was bothering you.”
Mason’s mother lifted her damp eyes to her son’s face. “Is this true, Miguel? Is this not your wife?”
Mason squared his shoulders at his parents. He hugged Alyssa around her shoulders. “This is the only wife I’ve ever had, and this is the only wife I’m ever going to have. I love this woman more than anyone I’ve ever loved in my life, and that includes you, Mama and Papa. If I had to choose, I would choose her. I’ll love her forever, and I’ll protect her for life.”
The old woman turned to Alyssa. “Is this true? Are you his wife—his true wife?”
Alyssa sheltered in his embrace. “Yes, I am. I’m his wife. I love him. I love him more than anything.”
Tina’s eyes narrowed. “This is all part of their act. They made it up, and they’re acting it out now.”
Mason faced her. “Is that the best you can do? Is that your way of ending this reunion, by tearing us down?”
Mason’s mother interrupted. She blinked back tears, but a beautiful smile spread across her wrinkled face. “I knew it all along. Look at them. You can see the love in their eyes.” She pressed Alyssa’s hands in both of hers. “I knew it. I knew you loved him, my daughter. I knew you were his true wife.”
She kissed Alyssa’s hands. Then she kissed her fingertips and held them out to Alyssa. She kissed Mason’s cheeks and petted his hair.
He kissed her back. “Adios, Mama.”
After all the embracing and kissing and farewells, Mason escorted Alyssa out of the hotel. The limo waited for them at the front entrance. Mason held the door open for Alyssa, and she slid into the seat.
As soon as she got settled with Mason at her side, she took his hand. They smiled at each other, and they never let go of each other’s hands until they got to the airport. They went through immigration and got their baggage checked in.
Alyssa sat down in the first-class seat on the plane, and Mason leaned back in his own seat. He sighed and closed his eyes. “I thought that would never end.”
Alyssa peered at him. “You said you enjoyed it. You said you wanted it to continue forever.”
He opened his eyes, and they sparkled when he smiled. “And now it will.”
She looked away, but he turned her chin to face her. “Is that what upset you so much? Were you worried about Tina blowing our cover?”
Alyssa’s eyes stung all over again. “I never cared about Tina. I just couldn’t stand keeping anything from you. I couldn’t let you love me without telling you. I couldn’t look into your eyes and hold you in my arms with a lie between us.”
“You didn’t lie. You did it to protect me, and you had every right to protect yourself. What did she say she would do if you told?”
“She said she would ruin me, that she would dog my footsteps and make sure I never got another decent job. She said…..”
He chopped his hand through the air. “That’s enough. I don’t want to hear any more.”
“What if she follows through on her threat? What if she comes after me?”
“That won’t happen. You’ll be with me. Whatever she does, we’ll face it together.”
She peered into his face. “Really?” she asked. But she already knew she could trust him completely.
He leaned close to her face. “Isn’t that what you meant when you told my mother we were married?”
“Yes. Is that what you meant?”
“Of course. Haven’t I told you enough times?”
She couldn’t stop smiling. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“There’s no ‘guess so’ about it.” He buckled his seatbelt. “Now we’re heading home.” He shot her another bright grin. “Real home.”
She took hold of his hand. She would never let go of that hand now. “Yes. We’re going home.”
THE END
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CAPTIVE
Chapter One – Maya
There aren’t many things that get cleaner with history. That’s what I’m telling myself when I walk into the offices of Storm and Associates. It’s one of the oldest consulting firms in town, upwards of 200 years, or so the legend goes. But it’s spotless. Every surface is either white or silver. Everything gleams. There are few hard edges because everything is space-aged and sleek. Even the chairs have unexpected curves. They look more like lozenges.
Nope. The march of time hasn’t put one spot of grime on this place. Now, the same cannot be said for its owner, Conrad Storm. He’s got a reputation as a billionaire playboy that makes Bruce Wayne look like a shy, fumbling teenager. Conrad Storm, or so the legend goes, is richer than God, the most gorgeous of God’s creations, does not believe in God, and has a bottomless appetite for women.
A dirty man in this clean place, in other words.
So why, oh why, did I get invited to apply for a job here? I’m hot and I know it, but there’s hot and there’s otherworldly. Like, say, the woman working the reception desk. Blond. Maybe eight feet tall, which I can tell even though she’s sitting down. Legginess is a state of mind as well as a measurement. She looks like she stepped out of a magazine, airbrushed, but here she is, in person. She’s sizing me up. It’s what we do. But she knows she’s got me beat on this one. It’s no surprise at all to see that her name is Zima. It was always going to be something like that.
“Can I help you?” she says in the bored, slightly wary tone of voice that makes me feel like I wandered in wearing a garbage bag and pushing a shopping cart.
“Yes, I have an appointment for—”
“Send her up please, Zima.”
“Right away, Conrad,” says Zima to the ceiling. Or maybe she’s looking up at Heaven. Conrad’s rich enough that he may be a majority owner in Heaven at this point.
Zima glares at me. She jerks her head at the elevator door that is suddenly opening in the wall. She jerks her head with such venom and force that her hair whips around and covers her face. Feeling a satisfaction that I haven’t done anything to earn, I walk to the elevator, enjoying the fact that everyone is watching me get on so I can…well, what exactly, I don’t know.
The elevator doors close behind me. Well, this is weird as hell. There aren’t any buttons in here. Maybe this was a huge joke and will be my version of being buried alive. I’ll never get out of this elevator and those women in the lobby will get my job and Zima will laugh and laugh. I’ve got to keep it together. He’s probably watching. With that thought, I use the reflective surfaces of the silver walls to do one last mirror check. I chose a gray dress with sharp lapels and a small red sweater on top. My black hair is cut into a modern bob that always delights my hairdresser. He says I’m his favorite and it might even be true. I’ve got a subtle but commanding shade of red lipstick on and the whole package is nicely offset by my pale skin. This is probably the best I’ve ever looked. I know everyone says that when they’re 25, and it’s usually true, but it’s really true today.
Anyway, if I don’t get the job, at least I know it’s not because I dressed wrong.
The elevator is moving. That means someone is controlling it. That someone is probably Conrad. This means that he gets to choose where I get off. And that unfortunate phrase, “get off,” reminds me of the latest bit of Conrad press that hit the Internet. He had gotten pulled over for speeding. The details as to what happened next are unclear, but what was happening two minutes later is as clear as it gets. The cop was a woman named Cindy. Conrad tempted her into his car and they started making out where he was parked on the shoulder. They were there for so long that another cop car pulled over to see if a fellow officer was in danger. That poor—albeit satisfied—woman is now under investigation by her own department. “Why didn’t you show some self-control?” they keep asking her in interviews. And every time, she smiles and says, “You’d have to be there.”
She doesn’t seem sorry in the slightest, even after she lost her job for her refusal to admit she acted unprofessionally. Whatever he said to her, whatever he did to her…it was all worth it to her. She also seems totally crazy, which has kept everyone glued to the TV when she’s going to be on.
Conrad’s response was simple. “It was part of an experiment.”
That’s when the elevator doors open silently. I’m looking out onto an expanse of white carpet so vast that I feel like I might go snowblind. The office is so big it feels like a joke. Way down there at the end of the enormous office is a desk. Sitting behind the desk is a man in a dark gray suit.
I don’t have the best eyesight in the world, but even from this distance, I can tell two things.
One: he’s as gorgeous in person as he is on camera.
And two: he’s grinning like I just stepped into a trap.
“Come in,” he says, and it doesn’t feel like I have a choice. I ponder, for exactly two seconds, how I might stay in the elevator and get out of here, but there still aren’t any buttons. Anyway, I can’t let him see how nervous I am.
As if I own this building, this firm, the world, and everything in between, I walk towards him with my shoulders back. You don’t scare me. I try to make it obvious in every step. But as he grins wider and wider, it’s obvious that he knows exactly what effect he’s having on me.
Chapter Two - Conrad
She’s trying to play it cool. They always do. I love that she thinks this is a once in a lifetime opportunity but has no idea what the opportunity is. With every step she takes, she’s getting more excited, more nervous, and more curious. Nothing shows you what people are like quite like a pressure test. Here she is. In front of my desk. She’s folding her arms across her chest and trying to look like she doesn’t have time to mess around with me.
“Have a seat,” I say.
She looks around. The only other chair in here is over by the wall. Is she going to go get it? It took the custodians a while to empty this room out for the interviews. It’s already worth it.
“I’ll stand,” she says with a smirk. Maybe she thinks she knows what I’m up to. Maybe she’s right, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
“You probably know why you’re here,” I say.
“I’m here about the job.” She can’t figure out where to look. Her eyes dart from eye left eye to my right eye, down to my mouth, and then starts over.
“Which job is that?” I say, leaning back in my chair, stretching out my legs, and crossing my ankles.
“The, uh—”
“Hey, isn’t that the dress you were wearing when you won nationals?” I say. This is how you learn who people are. You shove them out of their comfort zone and pay attention to how they react before they can put on whatever mask feels appropriate. She’s better than most, I’ll give her that. Cooler. Her eyebrows shoot up for a second, but then she finds the mask. She’s calm. Tranquil. She’s seen it all.
As if.
“Yes,” she says. And there’s the tell. Her voice has changed. There is still uncertainty in it, no matter how serene and unruffled her face looks. “How did you know?”
“I see a lot,” I say. “I like games.”
“You don’t say,” she says, looking at the chair against the wall. “I never would have guessed.”
“I do. You want to know the secret to success?” I watch her look around the office. She wants to know how I got all of this. She just won’t admit it. “It’s that you treat it all like a game. Or like an experiment.”
“All of what?”
“Life. Everything. All of it. You play to win. You play to have fun. You learn the rules so you can break them when it suits you. You smile. That’s it.”
She smirks. She knows what she’s working with, but she doesn’t have any idea just how good she looks. I can tell she’s never been with a real man. Not like me. “You should write a self-help book,” she says. “A thousand ways to be annoying.”
I laugh. I’ve never been talked to like that in here. It’s intoxicating even though she’s horrified. She literally claps her hands over her mouth as if she can’t believe the words that just popped out of her. “Oh my God! I’m so sorry!” she says. “I’ll go. Give the job to someone who’s not insane.” She turns to walk away.
“I like insane,” I say, getting to my feet. I fetch the chair for her and carry it over to my desk. “Have a seat.”
She sits. Still blushing.
“So, you probably want to know how I found you,” I say.
“That would be nice. But I assumed that you had someone hack into the phone system and send a massive storm of texts to everyone who fit your profile. I can’t imagine you had time to sit around watching all my videos, just to see if I’d ever mention my address.”
“What makes you think I wouldn’t do the hack myself?” Not that I could. I’m good at what I do, but I doubt I could even learn basic HTML. She’s closer than she knows on the videos, though. “And what profile do you think you would fit?”
“Well,” she says, looking at the ceiling for a moment. I can see t
he wheels turning. She’s going into debate mode. This is why she’s here. “Given the appearance of the women in your lobby, not to mention Zippy or Lima or whatever her name is behind the desk, you like them young, physically attractive, and, if I’m any indication, ambitious. You also put stock in risk takers. Not everyone would respond to an advertisement as cryptic as your text message, but I’m guessing that you knew that, and I’m guessing that the majority of the people you sent it to did respond because you knew they would. You don’t ask questions you don’t know the answer to, at least not often, and you don’t invite people to visit you who will say no. Even with that lunatic cop on TV. And because you said you like games, you need other people to play with, and those need to be people who will accept your version of the rules since you will undoubtedly be in the position of power. On the surface, at least.”
She’s good. She knows it. And that’s good for both of us. This is going to be fun.
“You’re hired,” I say. I reach into my desk and pull out an ancient bottle of whiskey with two glasses. One inch for her, two for me.
“Really?” She laces her fingers together and her eyebrows shoot through the roof.
“Really. To us,” I say. We clink our glasses together.
I tell her that she’s going to start on Monday. I tell her when and where. She writes it all down. It never occurs to her to ask what the job actually is, which suits me fine.
The job was never the point.
The game. Always the game.
“This will be a good experiment,” I say. She frowns, wondering why that sounds familiar to her.
Chapter Three - Maya
When I step out of the elevator I’m thrilled to see the women packing their things and heading for the door. Zima is glaring at me like she wants to scalp me. Word travels fast here, and the thought thrills me. They all know it’s me. I got it. How did he tell them? Was it the robot voice saying “It’s over, all of you get out!”
Fake Bride: A Billionaire Boss Fake Marriage Romance Page 7
