Lie to Me: A Contemporary Billionaire BWWM Romance

by Mia Caldwell

  The thought now occurred to Zoe that if a CEO was handling disciplinary action then the transgression would have to have been very serious indeed. Her mind rifled hastily back through her recent misdemeanors in search of something that might qualify. Generally speaking, Zoe was a model employee, she was far too petrified and meek to do anything wrong. She had never stolen so much as a paper clip from the supply cabinet, while she knew fellow workers whose home offices looked like a branch of a stationary store.

  She was never late, she never left early, she never took too long for lunch. She was not sure how to go about embezzling company funds but would have been too honest (and too nervous) to do so even had she known. She was not selling company secrets to corporate spies or involving herself in shady insider trading deals. She was, as far as she could fathom, the paragon of good behavior.

  Of course, she did occasionally say less than flattering things about Vanessa.

  Zoe’s stomach went cold and her pace slowed still further. What if something she had said about Vanessa had made its way back to the woman herself? Although Zoe did not think that she had said anything too terrible (certainly not compared to what she had heard other people saying), Vanessa was not the sort to see the funny side of even the most minor comment. She was more the type to take vindictive revenge upon any who had wronged her.

  By the time she reached the top floor, Zoe had convinced herself that a stray comment she had made about how many vodka cranberrys Vanessa Reese had consumed in the bar of their hotel the week before, was responsible for, not just her being fired, but her being black-balled from every large company in America.

  And possibly an FBI investigation as well.

  There were two doors leading off the central foyer onto which the elevator opened. Outside of one was a hive of activity – various assistants fluttered in and out with binders, files and memos, all purposeful and hurried. A line of suited men sat outside in a row, awaiting their appointment whilst earnestly reading the financial pages. The telephones – of which there were six – seemed to be ringing near-constantly and were answered by one of the fleet of assistants with a clipped, “Adam Rothberger’s office, please hold.”

  It was a busy, but well-oiled, machine, every piece working in perfect conjunction with those around it, resulting in the appearance of an ant colony, working like a single unit towards a single goal.

  On the opposite side of the room, in front of the other door, was a similar desk with just one phone (silent), no files, binders or memos, not even a computer, and one assistant (perturbed). The man gave off an aura of quiet panic, as if he had somehow been caught in the middle of his worst day ever.

  Zoe approached the busy desk. “Hi, I’m…”

  The sharply dressed woman behind the desk held up a finger to silence Zoe as she tapped out a few keys on her laptop. She then lowered the finger, looked up at Zoe and cocked a sharpened eyebrow.

  “Name?”

  “Zoe Blanchard,” replied Zoe.

  “I’m not seeing you.”

  Zoe frowned. “I’m right here in front of you.”

  The woman pursed her savagely scarlet lips. “On my list of appointments. I am not seeing you on my list of appointments.”

  She spoke accusingly, as if Zoe was not on the list deliberately to spite her.

  “I only spoke to Mr. Rothberger last night, it’s possible…”

  “I’m not seeing you on the list.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “I’m not seeing you on the list.”

  This was apparently a deadly faux pas, past which there was no getting.

  Zoe took a deep breath then spoke quickly to try to get in before her status vis a vis the list was once again reiterated. “I was in a bar last night and Nick Rothberger…”

  “Nick?” The interruption came fast and hard.

  “Sorry,” Zoe corrected herself, “Mr. Rothberger…”

  “This is Mr. Adam Rothberger’s office.” The assistant was not even looking at Zoe any more. “Over there.” She pointed across the room with a razor like nail to the other desk, managing to simultaneously convey her contempt for the desk itself and for anyone who might have business there.

  Zoe smiled an apology, which she did not mean, before crossing to the quieter and yet more harassed desk. As she approached, the phone rang and the man at the desk regarded it as if it was an adder about to strike. Finally he seemed to remember what he was supposed to do and fumbled the receiver into trembling hands.

  “Hi?” he answered unprofessionally. “Oh.” He looked up across at the other desk. “It’s for you.”

  The look that was shot back at him from the severe woman made it clear that this was not how they did things here.

  The man returned to the phone. “Hang on. I’ll transfer you.” He pushed a button and a dialing tone emerged from the machine. The man looked up at Zoe. “I think I disconnected her.”

  “I’m sure she’ll call back if it’s important,” said Zoe comfortingly. She could not help feeling sorry for the hapless man. “Is this Nick Rothberger’s office?”

  “Ummmm…Yes… yes…” the man mumbled, as though he was not quite sure, while replacing the phone.

  “I have an appointment.”

  “Let me check my book.” The man opened an appointment book which was empty save for the name Zoe Blanchard. He unnecessarily ran a finger down the page and tapped the name. “Your name please?”

  “Zoe Blanchard.”

  The man checked again. “Ah yes. You’re a few minutes early.”

  “Is he busy?”

  The man shrugged and spit his gum into a nearby trashcan. “I wouldn’t have thought so.”

  As he spoke, the door behind him opened and the face of Nick Rothberger emerged from it. “Is she – Ah, Miss Blanchard. Come along in. Hold my calls, Eddie.”

  The man at the desk, whose name appeared to be Eddie, nodded and turned his gaze to the phone, watching it like a hawk, as if it might pull out its cord and make a run for the elevator at any second.

  Nick beckoned to Zoe, who crossed nervously to the door and followed the CEO inside. He was smiling, which seemed to Zoe to be a good sign, but for all she knew he enjoyed firing people – it might be a perk of the job.

  Entering the office, Zoe was somewhat taken aback. She did not spend a lot of time in the offices of CEOs but she had a sort of mental image of how they looked and that image did not include dust and cardboard boxes.

  Nick, shifted a pile of printer paper off of a chair and indicated it to Zoe. “Please.”

  Zoe sat. “Did you just move in?”

  “No,” said Nick, as he excavated a second chair for himself. “But I don’t get here often. Hence, Eddie.”

  “Ah.”

  “Poor guy isn’t used to having to do his job,” Nick shook his head sadly. “He’s been my PA for three years now and I think this is the first time he’s actually had to do something. He’s petrified of making a mistake.”

  “I see,” said Zoe, although really, she didn’t. The CEO of RothCo hadn’t been here for three years? How did that work?

  “Tell most people that RothCo has two CEOs,” Nick continued, answering Zoe’s unasked question, “and they’ll wonder what on earth you’re talking about. My brother Adam does the bulk of the actual – what would you call it? – work. I do the…” He paused in thought for a moment. “Well, I don’t do the work anyway. Not the day to day, that is,” he hastily continued. “I’m more the go-to guy in times of crisis. If something’s going wrong and you don’t know what to do about it – who you gonna call?”

  “Ghostbusters?” suggested Zoe, who was finding herself completely lost in this whole conversation.

  “No. Me.” Nick frowned at her. “How did you not get that?” He sighed and shook his head and for a moment looked thoroughly displeased with his lot in life, but then seemed to shake the moment off and continued. “The reason I have asked you here, Zoe, is that we have a problem. One with which I t
hink you are already familiar.”

  “Yes?” Zoe wracked her brains, which seemed to have turned to mush.

  “A company problem,” Nick prompted. “One to do with an upcoming deal. In which you have been involved. A problem at whose inception you were present. In South Africa. To do with your boss.”

  “Oh!” Zoe jumped at the answer. “Vanessa being run down by wildebeest!”

  “Yes!” said Nick. He was smiling but Zoe got the impression that he was not as happy as he seemed. In truth, she would have got what he was hinting at faster if not for the fact that she had never really seen the trampling of Vanessa as a ‘problem’.

  More a welcome break.

  “Vanessa Reese is of paramount importance to this company and her being stampeded over has been something of an inconvenience to us.”

  “And to her,” added Zoe.

  Nick shrugged. “Presumably. But we’re going to focus on us. You’re familiar with the Jourdan deal?”

  He had asked hopefully and Zoe was delighted that she could finally seem like a competent employee and less like a stuttering, empty-headed dullard who couldn’t pick up a hint to save her life. “Yes! Yes. Jourdan Wines and Spirits. Vanessa was working on that pretty solidly until her accident.”

  “And you too.”

  Zoe nodded.

  “You’re familiar with the deal.”

  “Very.”

  “Probably more familiar with it than anyone else in the company -- excluding those currently laid up in South African hospitals with a broken leg.”

  “Probably,” Zoe concurred with slight hesitation. She hadn’t thought of it like that before but it was probably true. Wow – she did actually have a position of some trust within the company.

  “Excellent!” For the first time since this interview had started, Nick Rothberger looked genuinely happy. “The thing is, Vanessa is in no position now to close this deal – seeing as how her current position is on her back with one leg in the air. But the deal is worth quite a lot to the company.”

  “Three billion dollars,” put in Zoe, eager to demonstrate that she had such details at her fingertips.

  “Indeed,” Nick nodded, not obviously impressed. “And I don’t have to tell you that there are other companies who are keen to get their hands on Jourdan Wines and Spirits and will be looking to close a deal themselves as quickly as possible.”

  Zoe nodded. “There’s Keystone, Quantum, Bro-Tec…”

  Nick held up his hands. “Yes, yes, thank you.” Apparently he was willing to take Zoe’s command of the basic situation for granted without her demonstrating that command further. “The point is: can anyone other than Vanessa Reese close this deal?”

  Zoe swelled with pride. “I can, sir.”

  Nick laughed.

  And laughed.

  Then tried to speak but fell about laughing again, before finally getting control of himself.

  “Sorry, that was rude of me. But no. No. The answer I was looking for was ‘No’. No one can close this deal but Vanessa Reese. We need Vanessa Reese.”

  “But,” Zoe frowned, “she’s been flattened by African wildlife.”

  “True,” acknowledged Nick. “But if we can’t have Vanessa Reese, then we need the next best thing.”

  Having gotten the last answer wrong, Zoe hesitated to venture forth another try, but the weighted silence called for her response. “…Me?”

  In other circumstances Zoe might have found Nick’s laugh quite pleasant, but right now it was just insulting. Why had he asked her here if she was not the next best thing?

  “Well what is the next best thing to Vanessa Reese?” she asked.

  “Someone pretending to be Vanessa Reese,” Nick announced with a theatrical flourish of his hands.

  Zoe stared blankly for a minute before realization sank in. “Who--- wait. Me? Me?”

  This time she was correct.

  “Who else?” Nick asked. “We need someone who understands the ins and outs of this deal, someone who can speak French, someone with style, class, sophistication and beauty.”

  Zoe perked up.

  “You have an understanding of the ins and outs of this deal,” Nick continued. “You speak French. And we’ve got three weeks to fix the rest.”

  Zoe perked down again. “You know there are other people on the team who might do better.” Being put in charge of the deal was one thing, being a puppet was something else. “People who know almost as much about the deal as me and who speak French and who might better meet your other criteria. Wouldn’t it be easier to bring them up to speed on the deal?”

  Zoe was almost sure she heard Nick mutter, “Yes it would,” under his breath but perhaps she was mistaken as he continued, “I’ve looked at all the options and I’m sure you are the one for the job. You’ve spent time around Vanessa, you know what she’s like. That makes you the ideal choice to play her. What do you say?”

  Zoe was not sure what to say. It was nice to be asked – wasn’t it?

  Then again – no.

  No.

  It would have been nice to be asked to take over the deal, but she was being asked to stand still, say nothing and try to look as much like her bitch-queen of a boss as possible. She was not being singled out for her skill or business acumen, she was being singled out for her gender, ability to speak French and… Well, there had to be something else but Zoe found herself frustratingly unable to put her finger on it. She had the feeling that Nick was keeping something back.

  Did Zoe bear some fleeting resemblance to Vanessa? If she did it was very fleeting indeed. Vanessa was tall, statuesque and stunning, Zoe was short, chubby and the word ‘plain’ had been bandied about far more than she would have liked. It had never really bothered Zoe that much – she had not wanted to be defined by her appearance but by her ability, and so she had, if anything, played up her lack of obvious visual appeal. Now she was being asked to become the thing that she had never wanted to be (if only temporarily). All her efforts to be judged by what she could do. Realization was dawning on her.

  “You need a black girl.” It was a statement, not a question. Zoe pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes.

  “Well… that helps if someone is going to be Vanessa.”

  “Because we all look alike.” She crossed her arms and leaned back in the chair.

  “Now—I didn’t say that.” Nick sputtered.

  He didn’t have to. It was a source of endless ire to both Vanessa and Zoe (one of the few things they had in common) that they were constantly mistaken for each other. They were also frequently mistaken for Anika Washington, who had locs and worked in payroll, and Yolanda Martinez, who weighed close to four hundred pounds and worked in the cafeteria. Really, how hard could it be to keep the four black women who worked in the same office building straight?

  Pretty damned hard, apparently.

  “No thanks,” said Zoe, firmly.

  “I’ll give you five hundred thousand dollars,” said Nick, without batting an eyelid.

  Another thing that Zoe had never wanted to be was one of those girls who value money above all else. She would not marry for money, she would not work purely for the pay-check, she would not be swayed by the gods of materialism. But whether you wanted to be one of those girls or not, someone waving five hundred thousand dollars under your nose was… well there was an awful lot she could do with five hundred thousand dollars.

  Most pointedly, her parents were mortgaged to the hilt on their home and it had always frustrated Zoe that she was not in a position to help them. Surely doing something just for the money didn’t count if you were planning to give the money to someone else? Right?

  Zoe was still eyeing him warily. “I’m not definitely saying yes,” she hedged, “but tell me what this would entail.”

  Nick Rothberger smiled and, as he embarked on his explanation, Zoe could not help noticing what a very attractive smile it was.

  The details were simple enough.

  In three weeks th
ere was a meeting scheduled between Jacques Jourdan and various competing investors, Vanessa Reese representing RothCo included, to discuss terms on the sale of Jourdan Wines and Spirits. Zoe would step in for Vanessa at that meeting and would behave exactly as Vanessa would in that situation. She would be fed what to say and she would not deviate from it.

  That much of the plan was simple, the complex part was that Jacques Jourdan himself had, via their emails and letters, developed something of an attachment to Vanessa. It would be too much to say that he was enamored of her (and Zoe was very clear that there were some things she would not do), but they had a lot in common, he liked her and a big part of this deal rested upon that pleasant relationship between them and the hint that it might grow into something more should Jacques Jourdan play his cards right.

  Zoe would have to be Vanessa convincingly enough so as not to lose that affinity, or the deal was doomed. In the intervening three weeks she would learn how to be Vanessa enough to fool Jacques Jourdan. She would read the messages that had passed between the pair to get some idea of which subjects to bone up on and in what areas her knowledge was deficient. She would learn how to talk like Vanessa, how to behave like Vanessa, how think like Vanessa. She would leave behind the badly dressed, vodka-spilling, lemon wedge-choking, nacho-cheese dripping, hick that she was, and become the classy, uptight, wine-sniffing sophisticate that apparently floated Jacques Jourdan’s boat (and that boat was a yacht).

  And the changes would not stop with her knowledge and behavior.

  “It will be uphill work,” said Nick, mildly insulting by implication, as he had managed to be throughout. “You don’t dress like Vanessa – she has class.”

  “She has money,” said Zoe – despite her mild temperament she was being more and acid in tone the longer this went on. Which was actually pretty good training for being Vanessa.

  “Money you can gain,” said Nick, “class is something you have or you don’t.”

  Zoe bit her tongue, knowing that, if she had all the money in the world, she would still prefer to lounge around in a T-shirt and sweat pants, and rather judged anyone who didn’t.