by Maddy Raven
Alexa sighed and grabbed a tub of ice cream and tossed it into the cart.
She knew she shouldn’t be mad at Frannie—she was just trying to find a good nanny who could take care of her kids, run errands, clean her house, and come running at the snap of a finger. But a part of Alexa felt like the world owed her something, something better than the life she was currently living.
All throughout high school, she had been so sure that her life was on the right track. She had made all the right moves, doing everything she was told to supposedly get a good job. Yet, here she was, checking items off a grocery list like a stay-at-home mom—only Alexa didn’t even have kids or a husband to justify how far she had fallen.
She scanned the rest of her list, noticing that her cart was beginning to fill up. All that was left to grab were the steaks for that night’s barbecue, which she probably should’ve gotten before the ice cream, now that she thought about it. She pushed her cart toward the meats section at the back of the store in a hurry.
There was only one other shopper standing in line, a guy wearing a navy, zipped up hoodie. He was tall from the back, and he had that adorable light brown hair that made her think he was always in the sun. He shifted from one foot to the other, arms crossed uneasily. She wondered what he could possibly be anxious about?
As she pulled her cart up beside him, his profile surprised her—he was unexpectedly handsome, with high cheekbones and dangerous, dagger-like eyes. He was the type of guy who dressed too nice to be a real-life version of Grand Theft Auto, but he had that edge, a wildness about him, like an animal that wouldn’t be tamed. He was the fantasy without all the trappings of a harsh reality—no drug addiction, no running from the law, no heists or murders.
She took a step closer to get a better look at him, pretending to study the kebabs in the display case, but her phone buzzed in her pocket, distracting her—another text from Vivian, her college roommate from Northwestern. She was in town for a few days and was begging Alexa to meet her at a club that she had never even heard of.
She didn’t want to see Vivian. She didn’t think she could face her past, not yet. Vivian was one of the few people who knew her before the big breakup with her boyfriend, before the cycle of unemployment, before the rejection from Northwestern’s MBA program, despite her 3.8 GPA as an undergrad. She was the vivacious friend who had encouraged Alexa to party instead of study, who had maintained a rotating door of men in and out of their dorm room, who had stayed out until four in the morning even when she had a test the next day, who had nurtured dozens of best friends who each adored her.
Vivian had blown off everything during college, but now she was the one who had the posh job in Washington, DC. Vivian was where she should have been, and she didn’t think she could handle the unfairness of it all after everything that had happened in recent months.
She shoved the phone back in her pocket, text unanswered. Besides, she reasoned, she had been looking forward to having the apartment to herself for the entire night. Her ex-boyfriend had a date, or at least she assumed—he had added a woman’s name and dinner reservation to his calendar on the fridge—and if Chase was being Chase, he would try to sleep with her, thankfully at her place instead of the apartment they were forced to share.
Alexa glanced up as the butcher handed the tall, handsome man his order. The man gave her a sidelong look before grabbing the plainly wrapped packages and neatly folding them under his elbow. He ducked his head as he turned away, but he hadn’t secured his purchases well enough—one of the packages slipped and fell to the floor in his hurry. The tape securing the wrapping had come loose, causing a gap between the paper and its contents.
“Sir?” Alexa immediately bent down to pick it up. “Sir, you dropped something.” The man backtracked toward her in a matter of seconds, panic reaching his eyes.
“I’ll take that,” he said, reaching out to grab his purchase from her—but not before Alexa’s eyes fell on the transfer between their hands, giving her a closer look at the package’s contents. A bag of white powder.
Her smile faded as her mind registered what she was seeing. The package fell from her grasp and she stepped back. Behind the counter, the butcher’s eyes widened, and he mumbled something nervously before fleeing to the back office.
“Oh my God,” she said, avoiding the man’s eyes. She turned and walked back to her cart as calmly as possible, hearing him snatch the package off the ground.
She spun around. “I won’t say anything,” she whispered. “I swear. Everything is fine.” So much for the fantasy. She had been wrong—her tall, handsome man was into drugs, and God knew what else. The last thing she needed today was to be a witness in a drug bust, especially because she had to pay for all her groceries and pick up the kids in less than an hour.
She gripped the handles of her cart and pushed it toward the front of the store, hoping the man would ignore her as she wanted to ignore him.
And hoping she could forget what she saw.
WILL
“WAIT!” Will cursed to himself and ran after the girl who had, out of pure dumb luck, been a witness to his transaction.
When he reached her, he grabbed her elbow.
She flipped around, her eyes wide. The words flew from her mouth in a hushed voice. “You don’t have to worry about me. I won’t tell anyone, I didn’t see anything, nothing happened.”
“At least let me buy your groceries.” He tried to remain collected, like buying illegal drugs in a grocery store was just like picking up a bag of chips or 6-pack of soda. He had wanted to get in and out of the store unnoticed, but this new complication changed his plans.
“That’s unnecessary,” she said, finally regaining her composure. “They’re not for me anyway, so you wouldn’t be doing me a favor. My employer would just ask questions.”
“Who’s your employer?”
“Does it matter?”
He followed after her, not letting her out of his sight. She didn’t seem to know who he was, but he couldn’t take any chances. He was one of the one-percenters, and everyone loved to see a rich kid get what was coming to him.
“Hey,” he said. “I’m just trying to make conversation. Will you at least tell me your name, so I can thank you properly?”
She brought her cart to a halt, turning to look him in the eyes for the first time, though they were narrowed suspiciously. “Alexa,” she said. “And you are?”
“You don’t know?” Will laughed a little, knowing that women fell hard for his soft chuckle.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Ryan Gosling! I totally didn’t recognize you in that hoodie.” She rolled her eyes and pushed her cart forward again. It took him a moment to realize she was being sarcastic.
“Ha. Ha. Ha.” he said mockingly. “No, really—you have no idea who am?”
She made a face. “I know that every time you open your mouth, your charm dissipates just a little bit more.” She raised her hand, pinching together two fingers to make a point. “I already told you, I’m not interested in your secrets, and I’m not interested in your money.”
She made her way to the checkout, so he grabbed a pack of Twizzlers off the shelf and lined up behind her, adding several packs of gum to his purchases to distract from the meat packages.
“Come on,” he said. “I’m trying to be friendly.”
She laughed, but it wasn’t the cute laugh that he normally coaxed out of women. This laugh was aimed at him. “Typically when people are trying to be friendly they start by introducing themselves, not by offering up a bribe.”
She unloaded her cart onto the conveyer belt. Will watched the young cashier slowly scan every item, one by one. He needed a game plan—if she didn’t want him, and she didn’t want his money, what did she want? He didn’t believe that she could just let this go. At some point in the future, she was going to see a picture of him on a gossip site like Zoey Fromme, and she was going to remember him.
In his experience, there were only a few successf
ul ways to keep someone quiet. Money, especially the kind that came with an obligation. Loyalty, which was typically gained through a long series of interactions, but could more easily be acquired by establishing a deep, quick emotional connection with someone. And finally, leverage, which was best gained by uncovering someone’s secret.
If she wasn’t going to accept his money, and if he couldn’t seduce her, he needed to find another way to convince her to keep her silence.
Will surreptitiously glanced over her shoulder as she swiped the Black AmEx card and scrawled her name across the signature pad—Alexa Romo, in loopy letters with silly dots in the center of the O’s.
Alexa Romo? He imagined there were thousands of people with the last name Romo, but Alexa seemed uncommon enough. Still, he needed more—a license plate, a copy of her driver’s license, a credit card number. He was going to have to stick with this girl until he got something on her. His reputation was at stake, not to mention his clean record.
The bagger helped her load the groceries into her cart, and she quickly pushed it towards the exit. “See you later,” she glanced back at him, “random person who won’t give me his name.”
He kept an eye on her as the cashier scanned his items, his agitation starting to become evident. With his package safely in the plastic bag, he quickly scooped up the rest of the items and dropped a bill onto the counter.
“Here’s a fifty, keep the change.” He grabbed his bag and rushed toward the exit.
She turned around right as he reached her. “You can’t follow me around everywhere, unless you want me to file a report against you for stalking.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “… in addition to the potential drug charge.”
“I thought you weren’t planning on reporting it,” he whispered back.
“That was five minutes ago,” she said. “The longer you follow me, the less I want to keep your secret.” She studied his face, then raised her eyebrows. “You do know that, don’t you?”
Will glanced her over—she was smart… too smart to believe any lie he could make up to get her information. Instead, he decided to go with the truth.
“I know that you think you have no idea who I am, and that you saw me in one of my less-than-stellar moments… I want to make sure you won’t talk.”
“Does it matter? Even if I wanted to say something, it’s still my word against yours.”
“I’d rather not take my chances,” he said. “A he-said-she-said story is surprisingly convincing when everyone is trying to paint you as someone you’re not. So really, if you’ll just take my money—”
“Fine,” she said, and held out her right hand. “Give me 20 bucks and we’ll be done with this.”
“You’re seriously going to keep your silence for 20 bucks?” Will shook his head. “No wonder you’re running errands for someone else.”
She glared at him. “Did you just insult me? Because your charm ran out about seven minutes ago, and the way you’re pursuing me, I’m guessing you’re pretty important. You don’t want to piss me off.”
“That’s why I want to pay you more,” he said. He started counting bills from his wallet until he found five crisp one-hundred-dollar bills. He glanced around, then folded the bills and slipped them into an opening in her purse.
“Smooth,” she said, removing the money from her purse and stuffing it back into his hand. “Are we done here?”
She started toward the doors again; he quickly tossed his bag on top of her purchases.
“Seriously? Why are you still following me?”
“I’m helping you load your groceries into your car.” He had no intention of leaving her side, at least not until he grabbed her license plate number. Five hundred dollars was nothing to keep the secret, so he needed the leverage. And a sharp, educated twenty-something girl who was running errands for someone else like him definitely had some skeletons in her closet. No one had that sort of fall from grace without making some bad decisions along the way.
“Do you think I’m stupid?” she asked. “You obviously want something else.”
“No, I—” They stepped outside into a stream of sunlight, and he paused to give his eyes several seconds to adjust. In the next instant, half a dozen reporters flooded the parking lot, talking at once and snapping pictures from every angle.
Will felt Alexa freeze in place beside him as the cameras bombarded them.
“No,” he mumbled. “Just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
He realized that he had nothing in his hands, and the reporters had probably seen the two of them together inside. He had no idea how they knew he was there, but either way, he couldn’t make it obvious that he was walking out of the store alone and empty-handed, and he certainly couldn’t call attention to the bag in Alexa’s cart. He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head to shield himself from the cameras, then wrapped his arm around Alexa’s shoulder as she pushed her cart across the parking lot.
Now more than ever, he needed her to keep her cool. He placed his hand on the small of her back and leaned in to whisper into her ear. “Smile and play along,” he said soothingly. “Act like we know each other.”
“Seriously,” she whispered between her teeth. “You have to tell me who you are.”
“William Henry Harper, but my friends call me Will,” he whispered back.
“Okay… are you a celebrity or something?”
“Not exactly, but I can’t go back to my own car without raising suspicion, so I need your help getting out of here.” He tried not to sound as nervous as he felt, asking for the favor, but Alexa had a lot of control over the situation at the moment, and someone else in control was not something he was used to. If she played along, he might be able to escape without drawing too much attention to the fact that he was there, buying nothing visible, arriving in a beat up decoy car, wearing street clothes so he wouldn’t be recognized.
Aside from a potential drug charge, Morgan Cummings had been trying to get under his skin for months, and he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of knowing that he had changed his habits to avoid her. She had already, unknowingly, begun to cause a rift with his parents, his dad questioning whether he deserved to take over the company. He wasn’t about to give her any more ammunition to use against him.
“You need my help getting out of here?” Alexa asked incredulously. They arrived at her car, the photographers not far behind, documenting his every move. He helped her load her groceries into the back of the black SUV, taking note of the license plate number and committing it to memory. ZXR 367. Easy enough. He’d have his father’s investigation team look her up. “And what exactly does that consist of?”
“Just let me ride out of here with you. I can’t go back to my car, so maybe you can give me a ride home?”
“I can’t. I have to be somewhere and I’m already late.”
“Fine,” he said. “Just let me get in now, and you can drop me off when we turn the corner.” He felt a slight twinge of guilt about lying to her, but he didn’t have much of a choice. He already knew that the reporters would only get into their cars and chase them for miles. But he couldn’t go back to his own crappy, broken down heap. He couldn’t be photographed in that.
She didn’t say anything as she transferred another bag from the cart to the trunk, but she appeared to be thinking it over.
“Please,” he whispered, plastering an earnest smile on his face. “They won’t leave me alone if you don’t let me come with you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She slammed the trunk closed. “But I can’t drive you all the way home. I have to pick up the kids.”
“The kids? You’re way too young to have kids.”
“Hello, I’m a nanny,” she said. “Remember?”
“Right,” he nodded, though he didn’t remember at all. He would go along with anything if it meant getting her to do as he asked.
Will opened the passenger door and quickly got in beside her. The guilt dug a little deep
er when he thought of the children who would be waiting for her while she drove him around senselessly, trying to lose the reporters. But the feeling passed just as quickly as it came—this was so much more important than being a few minutes late to some kid’s after school activity. He couldn’t even remember how many times his nannies had been late picking him up, and he turned out fine.
He needed to protect his reputation and his future. Alexa Romo and whatever she had going on was collateral damage, the small price to pay for him to maintain his image, stay out of jail, and protect his place at his father’s company.
“Okay, I’m not well-versed in reporters, so you need to help me out.” She glanced over her shoulder. “How exactly do I get out of this parking lot when all these people are surrounding my car?”
“Very slowly,” he said. “Make it obvious that you’re backing out, and hopefully they’ll move.”
“Have you done this before?”
He shrugged. “I’m not typically driving myself around.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” She put the car in reverse, and the reporters cleared the way for her as she inched backwards. Immediately, they scattered to their own cars, just as he suspected.
“So, what, are you rich or something?” Will watched her glance in her rearview mirror. “Are they getting into their cars?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Zoey Fromme is obsessed with who I’m dating, and it probably looks suspicious that I came out of a grocery store with you.”
She frowned. “Why did you follow me, then?”
“I panicked,” he admitted. “I’m dressed down for reason; I wasn’t expecting them to catch me out and about in my street clothes.”
“Should I be worried about this? Like, is my picture going to be all over the news or something?”
“No, of course not.” It may not be posted all over the news, but he was sure that Zoey Fromme would try to learn everything they could about Alexa, now that he had led the reporters to her car. He felt like such an idiot—why had he dragged this girl into his spotlight? And was it really going to be any better than the picture they would’ve taken of him alone and without groceries at his decoy car?
