My mouth fell open, and I stared dumbly between him and my coffee. Hark? Hey, where was he when I was practicing my lines today?
I picked up the phone. “Mom, I have to call you back.” I hung up and leaned over the railing, trying to pull myself together. “Has someone been watching romantic comedies again?”
He ignored me and climbed up the fire escape like a champion, all while trying not to spill coffee. And by the time the two of us squeezed into the tiny metal box, I had to admit I was blown away that he’d go out of his way like this to get my undivided attention.
“Wow,” I said. “I’m impressed. You didn’t spill a drop.”
“This looks a lot better in the movies.” He glanced around the cramped space and handed me the cup.
“Yeah, well, this is Los Angeles. Space is money.” I shook the mocha and smiled—it was about a quarter full. “So what’s the number to this coffee delivery service? I love it!”
He winked. “Are you asking me for my number?”
I grinned.
He straightened his shirt and put on his best poker face. “I’ll get right down to it. I want to pay you twenty thousand dollars to come to the Caribbean for the weekend.”
“I’m not a high-class call girl,” I said. “Maybe you should check with them. I’m sure they’ll jump on it. Should I kick you now or later? I told you, no prostitution.”
“I need an actress. Not a call girl.”
“That’s right. You had mentioned that you wanted me to act like your girlfriend so we can fix your Casanova image problem you got going. You could’ve paid a hooker to do this, you know. They have ‘girlfriend’ packages, from what I hear.”
“I don’t want to be associated with a hooker.”
“Yeah, if you get busted, that would really hurt your image.”
“So is twenty thousand dollars a fair price?” he asked.
“Is this for real?”
“Yes, Rebecca. This is a very real proposal. Act like my girlfriend for a weekend and I’ll pay you.”
My mind went blank. Completely blank. Could have been something to do with twenty thousand dollars… Amanda would kick me if I didn’t take this offer.
I opened my mouth several times, each time falling short of what I actually wanted to say. “What do you…? Are you actually…? What would I do in the Caribbean all by myself?”
He pursed his lips to restrain a smile. “Well, I’d be going with you. Perhaps I should have made that clear. A very important client of mine is hosting a charity gala there in two weeks, and I have to make it appear that I’m stable.”
“…clearly.” I grinned.
“With a stable, charming girlfriend.” He gave me an appreciative nod. “One who I already know he likes.”
I was still at a loss. “You just go to the Caribbean for the weekend?” I grasped at another inconsequential detail.
Why was it that whenever anything big happened in my life, I remembered things like the song playing in the background rather than what actually occurred? Maybe I wasn’t built for these kinds of shocks.
He shrugged without shame. “When you can afford to go whenever you want, you just go for the weekend.”
“Fair point,” I echoed faintly.
He flashed a pearly smile. “So…?”
I glanced up to see him inclining his head, leaning down, so those damn ocean eyes were sparkling right into mine. My heart smashed around in my chest.
I was surprised my eviction notice didn’t blow out of my purse on a mysterious breeze and slap me in the face. The coffee shop, the party, the unfortunate pepper spray incident? The universe was clearly hitting me upside the head with sign after sign, but strangely enough, that’s what was making me pause. I didn’t trust things like that. I never had.
Ignoring the way his body was tilting invitingly into mine, I took a deliberate step back, narrowing my eyes suspiciously. “And if we go hence to the—”
“Hence?”
My cheeks flushed. “Sorry, it’s been a weird day. I’ve been auditioning for a part. It’s still stuck in my head. Uh…so if we go for the weekend, you’ll give me the money, and then…that’s it? We go our separate ways?”
I couldn’t believe I was considering this. I flat out couldn’t believe it. Then again, if I said no—what would happen? He’d drive away, leaving me to wander with my empty coffee cup back inside and wait with Deevus until Amanda got home. I’d tell her the details, she’d be shocked. Then we’d speculate for a night or two as to what might have happened, until we forgot about it. By the end of the week, it would have already begun to fade away. Consigned to that forbidden place in my mind where all the what-ifs and missed opportunities slowly fermented to bitterness and passive-aggressive rage.
No—not this time. This time, I was jumping in. No reservations. No regrets.
Even if it did mean agreeing with my mother.
“That’s it.” He raised his palms innocently. Then, before I could change my mind, he dropped a thick envelope into my hands. “Consider this a down payment. Good faith—and all that.”
I stared down in amazement, thinking I ought to set certain conditions and boundaries. I ought to draw up some sort of paperwork or find a notary or something. But before I could properly vocalize any of these concerns, he snatched my phone from the balcony and programmed in his number.
“Nothing physical, nothing indecent. Separate rooms.”
He slipped the phone into my hands and flashed me another grin. “Don’t worry…I’m sure by the end of the weekend, well, we won’t be able to wait to get rid of each another.”
I laughed shakily, still staring down at the envelope. “Right.”
“Rebecca.” He touched my shoulder, and I stared up into his face. “We’re going to be surrounded by other people all the time. This is not going to be something you regret. You have my word.”
The cynic in me crumbled at the sincerity shining behind his eyes. “Okay. The answer is yes. I’d love to be your fake girlfriend.” I then winked. “This is going to look so good on my acting résumé.”
He cocked his head, and I laughed.
“Kidding,” I said.
“Great,” he said. “You won’t regret this. And you’re really helping me out of a jam. I can’t thank you enough.”
“You’re helping me out too. Now I won’t have to get evicted. So thank you.”
“The pleasure is all mine.”
“And please give me those exact dates for the Caribbean. I’ll need to get them off work as soon as possible.”
“I’ll get you all the dates you’ll need off.”
“Thanks.”
Satisfied that I was satisfied, he took a step back and eyed the fire escape doubtfully. “Do you mind if I…?”
I cocked my head toward the apartment. “Yeah, why don’t you just use the stairs?”
Chapter 11
The next day, I was supposed to sleep in. I’d stayed up late into the night, staring at the sealed envelope on the table for at least an hour before I’d plucked up the courage to open it. Ten thousand dollars was staring back at me. After resisting the urge to march downstairs and use it to bitch-slap Hamburg across the face, I was seized with the sudden panic that my little roach nest in East Hollywood wasn’t a safe place for ten thousand dollars. I spent the rest of the night tearing up our apartment, frantically searching for a proper hiding spot until I could get it to my bank, drawing upon several of my favorite movies for inspiration. In the end (and after scuffing up several floorboards in my attempt to pry them loose), I ended up just putting it in a sandwich bag and stashing it in the back of the freezer behind some year-old Popsicles. Thank goodness Amanda had spent the night at Barry’s, or she might have thought I’d gone all Howard Hughes on the place. Point being, none of it mattered because I wasn’t scheduled to work so I was supposed to be able to sleep in.
Supposed, being the operative word.
I was jarred awake by a song, screeching at me. I
t took me a minute to realize it was coming from my phone. The song was Don't Stop the Party by Pitbull.
I bolted up in alarm.
What the fuck?! A party song?
Half-worried it was someone after my sandwich bag, I snatched it up and glanced down at Amanda’s phone number. My eyes narrowed, and I answered as menacingly as I could, considering my voice was thick with interrupted sleep.
“…Hello?”
“Morning, sunshine!”
“Mandi!” I fell back against the pillows with an exasperated sigh. Amanda. Of course. “If you could see my face right now, you would not call me Sunshine.”
She laughed brightly. “Oh, I didn’t wake you, now did I?” I could almost picture her mocking grin.
“You programmed in your own ringtone?” I asked accusingly.
“Yeah, do you like it? It’s about parties—I thought it’d make you laugh.”
I rolled my eyes and pushed my tangled hair out of my face. “Yeah, I got that. Where are you?”
“In the living room. I just came home for a minute to shower and change. And why is the living room a wreck? Did you have a party and not invite me?”
It took a few seconds for this to register. “Wait…what? You’re here? Why are you calling me then?”
My question was answered by a knock on the door as the line went dead. My face darkened like the dead.
Oh, that girl is going to pay for waking me up!
What followed was a rapid attempt to get dressed as the pounding on the door increased with persistent regularity. The sounds were soon echoed by Mrs. Wakowski’s morning Zumba.
“Come in, already!” I said.
“You’ve got a billionaire sitting on the torn and ripped up couch. A billionaire! How do we entertain one of those?” She let out a long chuckle. “And I told you we needed to invest in a couch cover. Maybe you should’ve listened to me.”
“Marcus is here? Now? This early? Shit!”
I cursed and seethed as I stumbled around, pulling on jeans and tugging a comb through my nest of hair as I tried to find a shirt. Damn laundry day! All I had left were scrubs and a few lonely “stuffed in the back of the dresser for sentimental reasons” shirts that I now perused with growing horror.
I smirked as I pulled a pink tee-shirt with a drunken unicorn over my head. A glance in the mirror across from the door made me visibly cringe, but what could I do? At least I was going to give him hell for waking me. And Amanda too!
I yanked open the door and walked into the living room. An outstretched mocha-chino softened those plans.
Marcus smiled. “Amanda told me to tell you that she’d see you later. She’s heading to Barry’s.”
“Oh, okay. You two woke me up,” I said.
“Well, hello to you too.”
“But you brought coffee, so you’re forgiven,” I said.
He glanced curiously around at the surrounding chaos.
“And before you ask. No, I wasn’t robbed.” I followed his gaze and bit my lip. In the bright light of day, the damage I’d done trying to find a suitable hiding place looked less forgivable than the night before. “If you must know, I was looking for a place to stash that envelope you gave me.”
He turned around cheerfully. “Let me guess. In a bag inside the freezer.”
My eyes narrowed, and I took a scalding sip of coffee. “Did I miss the memo? Is something happening today? Because I got your text. The seventeenth is two weeks away.” The caffeine was revitalizing and I was thinking more quickly.
“I had some business in the area.”
“Not in this area,” I mumbled, but I don’t think he heard me. What business could he possibly have had in this rundown neighborhood?
He perched delicately between an upturned toolbox and a stack of past-due library books. “And while the seventeenth is two weeks away, the Los Angeles Diabetes Fundraiser Gala is tonight.”
I hopped onto the counter and pulled my knees to my chest with a frown. “I’m not following.” Spotting a hair tie, I quickly restrained my mane into a messy ballerina bun, wishing for what was sure to be the first of many times, that when I lifted my arms anywhere above my chin, my junior high tee-shirt didn’t crawl up past my navel.
His eyes lingered on me for a moment, before he cleared his throat. “I’m here to make sure you dress in something appropriate. Something that doesn’t reflect the weird Flintstones aesthetic you have going on here.”
I squinted suspiciously. “You’ve never seen the Flintstones.”
“That’s right,” he answered sarcastically. “I spent most of my youth selecting Afghans and teething on books.”
“At least he admits it…”
“Listen, Rebecca.” He stepped in front of the counter, placing his hands on either side of my knees. “we need to keep up the façade until we get to the island. Otherwise, there’s no point.”
I pursed my lips. “That seems fraudulent.”
“Of course it’s fraudulent, that’s the whole point. But there’s no reason why we can’t both get what we want.”
“Not fraudulent in general.” I slid off the counter, forcing him to take a step back, “I meant fraudulent to me. I thought we would spend one weekend together for cash—that’s it. And if you think I don’t know how prostitute-y that sounds, you’ve got another think coming.”
He ran his hands through his hair and chuckled. “It’s not prostitute-y if there’s no sex.”
“You know what I mean, Marcus.”
For some reason, he perked up when I said his name. “I need this, Rebecca. I need to keep this client. If it’s a question of wanting more money to see the whole thing through—”
“I don’t want more money—there’s only so much my Popsicles can hide.”
He cocked his head curiously, and I rubbed my temples, praying for the mocha to kick in.
“Look,” I continued, “I’ll do this for you. It’s a very generous offer of money, and despite the painstaking efforts you take to appear otherwise, I think deep down you might not be a total douche.”
Okay, so I shouldn’t have called him a douche. But he dated three women at one time.
“Well, thanks—”
“Not finished.” I held up my hand. “But you’re going to have to be straight with me. I’m not going to be jerked around like some prize pony. I want to know exactly what we’re doing and exactly what we’re both getting out of it.”
He nodded slowly. “All right. Well, I’m going to need you to make off and on appearances with me for the next two weeks until we leave for the Caribbean. This town is swarming with paparazzi at every street corner—we’re going to have to commit if we want to sell it.” He paused for a moment, as if waiting for me to object, but when I stayed quiet, he rushed on. “In exchange, I give you the money. And cover all expenses.”
“Off and on appearances…” I glanced in the mirror and saw a wilted ballerina dressed like a twelve-year-old staring back. “…if you think it will help.”
“I do.”
“Then I’ll commit and help sell the girlfriend ploy for you.”
“Thank you.”
“Just remember. You can’t fix all your problems by writing a check.”
“I know that. And I’ll never do this again. I’m just so thankful you’re taking this job.”
“It’s an easy job. And I’m broke right now.” I downed the rest of the coffee, engine revving up as I recapped the game plan. “So you trick people into thinking you’re a half-decent human being, and I get a wad of cash. Sounds reasonable to me.” He shot me a comical look and I shrugged. “I watch a lot of television.”
“I’m a decent human being. Just because I date lots of women, and have been labeled a playboy, that shouldn’t make you think any less of me. I’m not ready to settle down. I don’t even want a girlfriend. I just want to have fun, be carefree, and run my business. I’m not ready to settle anytime soon. What’s so wrong with that?”
“It’s okay to enj
oy a bachelor lifestyle,” I said. “But I would never date a man who was dating two other women right along with me. I just have more self-respect than that.”
“Well, you’re in luck. I have just settled down with you. You’ve swept me off my feet, and there’s only you in my life.”
“The world will think I’ve tamed you…until our Caribbean escapade is over.”
“It’s a wonderful business arrangement for both of us,” he said. “Once the papers are signed, we’ll casually break up in a big public spectacle.”
“And you’ll go back to your old lifestyle? Being a billionaire playboy who can’t handle his tequila. Flying off to Vegas and having wild sex.”
“You’ve Googled me, I see.”
“You had sex on an elevator with a showgirl.”
“She was my high school sweetheart. Funny how they leave that out. I went to Vegas to win her heart back.”
My gaze narrowed. “I take it you didn’t get the girl?”
“No, I didn’t. Money can’t buy everything.”
“I suppose it can’t,” I said softly.
“I could buy anything I wanted. But not her.”
“I’m seeing another side to you. I’m getting to know the man behind the wallet just a tiny bit more.”
Money. Women. A good time. They all came easily to Marcus. And maybe there was something deeper out there for him. I knew there was, but he just wasn’t ready for that leg of his journey. Maybe one day he’d grow up. But for now, it was my job to help him keep his client. Marcus told me his client believed strongly in monogamy, so much so that he didn’t want to be associated with Marcus and his crazy antics and outrageous newspaper headings. Marcus told me he had quit drinking and only drank socially now. I would tell his client that I had tamed him, that I had won his heart, and Marcus had given up his old lifestyle. If his rich client believed it, he might give his account back to Marcus.
I also thought Marcus was hurt from the old girlfriend that he tried to win back. Maybe when he couldn’t win her heart, he just went wild. Maybe he dated and drank too much to get his mind off the woman he loved, the woman who rejected him. Maybe he wanted to numb the grief. I knew I sometimes did that.
Bad Boys & Billionaires: An Anthology Page 28
