by Tiana Cole
He needed to find a way to ask his dream girl what she wanted, what she was after. He needed her help and wished he had a clue how to start a conversation like that without making it an accusation. He couldn’t exactly just ask what she was after without it sounding nasty.
A knock on the door startled him from his reverie. After a short pause, the hammering came again—a brash thumping on his door demanding attention.
It wasn’t just the heavy handedness of the knock that startled him. He noted that the intrusion summoned up feelings of guilt. There was something about a hotel room that made a simple knock on the door, when one wasn’t expecting someone, when one hasn’t called for room service, that sent the hair on the back of the neck rising. It didn’t help that he was sitting in a hotel room with a woman he had slept with and somehow made his wife. Facing the outside world when he hadn’t even sorted out his inner world made the impulse not to answer almost overwhelming. He was in his room with this woman who was his wife, but somehow shouldn’t be.
That sudden guilt that rose up was an almost paranoid reaction. A reflex. He wasn’t one to give in to emotional impulse. Still, an unexpected knocking on his Las Vegas hotel room in the morning after his ill-advised evening of drinking and getting married couldn’t herald any good at all.
For a moment, James froze, more out of indecision than fear. He looked at Deja, thinking about how she was his wife. No matter how crazy that seemed, it was true. Eventually the word would get out. Hotels didn’t keep secrets well.
The knock came again. “Mister Andrews,” a woman’s voice called.
He wished it to go away, knowing it wouldn’t, knowing that the longer he waited the more it would seem like he was hiding something. Just because he was, making others realize it didn’t work to his advantage. No matter how he felt about the things that had happened, hiding from reality wasn’t a real option. Not for a person like him. He didn’t run from fights or hide from things. At least he tried not to, and now, every bone in his body wanted to run.
As he wallowed in his indecision, he saw she was quietly studying him. She tipped her head and smiled at him, looking amused. Whatever he did about her, this woman who was his ostensible and temporary wife, he couldn’t deny being attracted to her. Her smiled pulled at him.
He glanced over at Deja. “I have no idea who this might be.”
“I sure as hell don’t either.”
He hesitated, looking at the door. “Whoever it is, let me do the talking.”
She laughed, and it was a delicate, musical treat. “Of course. No one gives a damn what I have to say anyway.”
He opened the door and stood squarely in the doorway, looking at a couple he didn’t know. The woman was tall and blonde, and wore a severe suit that actually looked rather good on her. Professional. She looked familiar. The man, sloppily dressed in jeans and a dirty sweatshirt, held a video camera. He trained it on the woman, framing James in the doorway. She held out a microphone.
“Mister Andrews, I’m Donna Dirby from the local ABC affiliate television station.” Then he knew. She’d been the one reporting on the escaped con on the news. “We heard about your sudden wedding. What can you tell us?”
“Not a damn thing you probably don’t know already,” he said, letting himself answer calmly. It felt good, like he was in control.
“I was hoping to get an interview with you and your bride.”
“Why?” he asked as the reporter peered around him, into the room. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Deja sitting on the bed. When she saw the camera was on her, she smiled and waved her hand, saying hello.
“Is that her? Deja? We’d love to meet her. We can let the world get to know her.”
“Well, that’s very nice. How thoughtful of you to tell me what you want. Everyone wants something. For example, I want to be left alone. Maybe if I shut this door, one of us will get what they want.”
“All we want is an interview.”
“So why don’t you go find someone who wants to be interviewed?”
“Please, at least tell me…is Deja really her name? That’s such an interesting and unusual name.”
He felt the calmness evaporating. “It’s a popular Mongolian name that loosely translates into ‘leave us the fuck alone.’ Feel free to use it for one of your own bastards. Now go away.” Even as he did it, he knew that slamming the door in the woman’s face had been the wrong play. Reporters turned from persistent to insistent and viscous in a heartbeat. And she was right that the public would consider something about him newsworthy.
He turned and faced the bed. “Well, I guess I fucked that up.”
“Unless what you wanted was to alienate a major news outlet.”
“Not really.”
“Then yeah, you fucked up.”
“I seem to be on a roll in that respect—fucking things up, I mean.”
“I have to say that liked the part you ad libbed about my name, though. It was clever, if kind of caustic.”
“I don’t think Donna Dirby thought it was clever.”
“No, I suppose not. Nasty, maybe.”
“She’ll probably decide I’m too hostile to confront, but she’ll try to find a way to get you alone.”
“She’s not my type. I’d tell her that.”
“Now who is being clever and caustic?” he asked
She giggled. “So sue me. I’m bored.”
“Bored?” He turned away to stare out the window.
“What is it?”
“I can’t help wondering if maybe you didn’t expect the reporters.”
“Me? Why would I expect them?”
“I’m not entirely sure why, but you didn’t seem to mind them showing up at all. In fact when they put the camera on you, you gave them a pretty big smile and a wave. You played to the camera.”
“I was being polite. Try it sometime. Just because they barged in, doesn’t mean we need to be rude. Anyway, how would I know they were coming? I don’t even know how they knew where we are. The hotel doesn’t give out room numbers.”
“They aren’t supposed to, but employees can be bribed. Or maybe when I was gone you called them and gave it to them.”
“And maybe you did.”
“That would be stupid. What would I stand to gain from publicity?”
She turned and looked at their reflections in the mirror. “As far as I know, the same thing I get out of it—nothing at all. But if it was someone in this room who tipped them off, there is a fifty-fifty chance it was you, and taking into consideration that I know it wasn’t me, that makes it you. Besides, why would I want to be interviewed? I can’t see the upside.”
“Some people in the news media, especially tabloids, often pay people for inside stories. Especially what they happily call human interest stories. In this case an interview with a woman who bagged a rich husband in Las Vegas might be worth a nice piece of change. Hell, for all I know, that’s what you intended from the beginning.”
“What I intended by saying yes to your proposal you mean? Damn it, James, I don’t know any inside story.”
“They want to know about me.”
“And about all I know about you is that you are fun, a decent person, and good in bed. That doesn’t strike as fodder for the tabloids or something it would kill you to have in print if they got ahold of that breaking news.”
The idea that she thought he’d been good in bed stopped him for a moment. “What they print about me doesn’t matter. It’s all just goddamn hype anyway. A tabloid screaming ‘I married a billionaire’ gets attention and I don’t like being in the limelight.”
“And you don’t like attention?”
“It’s meaningless noise. I can’t abide noise.”
“And the reason I’ve seen your face featured on websites and magazines is because you’re such a fucking introverted hermit?”
The observation jarred him. “So you knew who I was.”
“After we started dancing, sure. I don’t wear blind
ers, but I don’t believe the crap I read about people either. Don’t think you’re the only person in the universe who can’t see through the hype.”
“Point made. Okay, I am a public figure, of sorts, and the media is usually around, lurking somewhere. Normally I do what I can to avoid them without actually going into hiding. No, I’m not a hermit, but once your face is known anything you do in public becomes a balancing act, Deja. For celebrities, it’s all good. For a businessman who wants to just do good deals, it isn’t so good.”
“And now this involvement with me is making you rather unbalanced.”
He saw she was hurt. Maybe whatever she had in mind, whatever had caused her to marry him, had nothing to do with the reporters. He didn’t think she had sent them. “It could’ve been Alan.” He said it just as he thought of it. Alan had something up his sleeve.
But there was also something behind this marriage—something he didn’t know. “Alan is up to something. But I don’t think the entire story is on the table yet,” he said. “I can’t shake the feeling that there is a lot to come out.”
She laughed. “To come out? You intend to import professional interrogators to see what deep dark secrets I might have in my sordid past?”
“I intend to find out about you. Who you are matters…to me.”
“I think that right now all that matters to you is how marrying me affects your business deal.”
“To some extent, that’s true.”
He saw her wince, and wished he had couched it differently.
“Well, that is certainly food for thought. If being married is less important to you than the motives of the people around you and the public attention it attracts, it says something about your values, doesn’t it?”
He sighed. He’d started wondering the same thing himself. He hadn’t done much lately that made him proud or even like himself. No matter what had happened, treating Deja like dirt wasn’t going to make things better. Even if somehow she deserved it.
“I’m sorry. That was said badly.”
“I think it was said rather well. Succinct and to the point, as an arrow should be.”
Something in her face unnerved him. A lot about her unsettled him—she made him nervous and unsure of himself, but this was something deeper. It had to do with whatever drove her to accept his drunken proposal. His instinct, something deep in his core, told him that she hadn’t been as drunk as he, that she had accepted his proposal for a specific reason. If he knew that reason, maybe he could let himself relax about her. Well, not relax. How did he relax when he were in a bedroom with the girl of his dreams? Especially when he didn’t know if she was friend or foe?
How had he let things get so out of hand? So complicated? There was something wrong about that too.
* * * *
Long after the reporter left, Deja could still feel the tension in the room their abrupt arrival had created. James didn’t trust her, that much was clear. Of course, he was right not to. He’d seemed silly last night, but now, serious and trying to focus, he seemed rather formidable. As he sobered, got his senses back, his true nature was showing.
She liked the emerging James better than the one she’d married. He was sharp and deserved respect. Although he’d been shocked to wake up and find himself married, he hadn’t flown off the handle. He’d restrained himself, and tried to work out what had happened. Even though she’d teased him about calling his lawyer first thing, it made sense. Marriage involved personal finance, and even if her financial situation couldn’t possibly have been much worse and let her still eat, he was successful. Wealthy.
How wealthy he might actually be, she didn’t know or really care. In the light of day, what she cared about was that she felt bad about what she’d done. The man she was meeting deserved better, and obviously she’d been lied to about the real nature of the trick being played on him. It wasn’t some friendly prank—not that it would have been the least bit funny anyway, but a prank that was over the top was easier to justify, to live with, than some predatory trick.
She tried not to show the strain. Fortunately, the reporters had distracted James when he was questioning her. If she was going to perpetuate this fraud, something she was growing less certain about all the time, she needed some distance. Otherwise, he’d ask the right questions, and she’d tell the truth.
And then she’d lose out on the money—that would certainly happen. Beyond that, who had a clue what would happen? If all hell broke loose, Deja could find herself worse off than ever. And she’d never be able to raise the money she needed.
“Those vultures know everything,” James said. He glanced at the closed door as if he expected the reporters to break it down. His breath was labored. “How can that be?”
Unsure of what to say, or that she should even say anything, Deja held her tongue. Everything going on around her was too far outside of her experience. She figured she’d have to deal with a hostile husband in the morning, but she’d never imagined the press wanting to know about her, that she’d have reporters banging on her door, insisting on an interview.
“I wish I knew your angle. I know we were drinking. I know that it was my idea to get married. I can almost get a handle on the state I was in last night. I can look at you, feel the emotions you stir up in me, and that almost makes a certain kind of sense. Certainly wanting you, wanting to have you, is something I understand. But your motives aren’t clear at all. I don’t see you just going along with it. You strike me as more substantial than that. If I’m right, then it makes me nervous.”
His suspicions startled her. Not that he didn’t have reasons to doubt what had gone on was some sort of plot—it was—but after his speculation that she’d called the reporters, she knew he saw her as capable of all sorts of duplicity. She reminded herself that he didn’t know her, but then, at that moment, she wasn’t certain she knew herself.
After all, she’d done this, gotten him to marry her. What else was she capable of? Where was the bottom? Where would she draw a line? A week ago she’d have been insulted if anyone had suggested she’d do exactly what she did.
She picked up her phone and tossed it over in his direction. It lay on the bed between them. “You still think I’m spreading the word about our marriage, trying to get publicity. I didn’t call the reporters or anyone else. So check my calls and see if I’m lying to you. I haven’t made any. When you were out I could’ve called someone, but I didn’t. And let me tell you something about me: if I intended to talk to the press, especially if I had conned you into marrying me so I could sell them my story, I would have arranged to meet them somewhere else.
I would’ve slipped out early, or while you were in the shower, counted their money, and talked privately, not set up an ambush. And once I had done what I set out to do, you’d come back to an empty room, because I’d have what I want and I’d have no reason to put up with your shit. But if you take a look around you’ll see that I’m right here, in our hotel suite, with my ass sitting on our marriage bed.”
He sighed. “Okay, so someone else told them.”
“Or maybe they have someone who searches on the names from the chapels every morning and yours sent up a flag. Or maybe someone who has it in for you called them.”
He nodded as he considered those options. “I guess it doesn’t matter, as it’s done. If we are going to have any peace, we do need to get out of here.” Coming to that conclusion seemed to reassure him. “I still have business in town, but I’ll get us rooms in another hotel.”
“Rooms?”
“I’ll get a two bedroom suite. I’d like you to hang around while we work out whatever we do next.” The smile he gave her was uncertain. “How’s that sound?”
“Fine with me. I suppose separate bedrooms was advice from your lawyer.”
“He said I’d need your help. I do.”
“And what about what I need?”
“Can we just address one crisis at a time? Please?”
“No, I’m afraid we can
’t. Not unless we address mine and put yours on hold.”
“What do you need?”
“In case you’ve forgotten, I have a job. And before I go to work I need to see someone.”
He looked alarmed. “Who?”
His concerned expression made her smile. Not that she enjoyed seeing him alarmed, but she could tell that she was seeing the real person behind the facade of the billionaire businessman—and despite everything, she found him delightfully human. “Not the reporter,” she assured him. “I didn’t call her, and if she’s hanging around, I won’t talk to her. I promised my sister I’d go see her today. We have some important family business to talk about and I made that promise before I ever met you.”
She watched him digest the idea and wondered if it was just dawning on him that she might have family, or a job, for that matter.
“I see.”
“What the hell does that mean? I see. Are you saying you’re okay with me getting back to my life, or are you going to hold me against my will?”
“No, that’s fine.” He gave her a confused look. “Go ahead. I’m sorry for being jumpy. I like things organized, and this is about the most disorganized mess I could imagine.”
“Then I’ll need to get going.”
“I’ll leave a note for you at the desk telling you where I’ll be.”
Her heart went out to him. More than anything, she wanted to tell him everything. To tell the entire story of her involvement. Now that she knew the truth, that this wasn’t just some prank like she’d been told, it felt like she owed it to him.
But she owed Barbara a lot more, and telling the truth would screw that up, And, as James said, it was important to address one crisis at a time. She was doing the best she could.
“I need to go see my sister.” She picked up her handbag and went out the door. She sensed that he was watching and she thought that maybe there was something she could say on her way out the door that might ease the tension. Maybe there were a lot of things she could’ve said, should’ve said, that might make things better. She wanted things to calm down.
