by Linda West
Devlin was all butter. But, Sofia was done.
“Just settle down, honey. We’ll work this out. Keep driving.”
That’s when Sofia took it to another level. She rolled down her back window and stuck her head out.
“Rape! Rape! Help me! Help me! I demand you pull over now!”
I rolled my eyes and pulled over to the side of the road. Before the limo was fully stopped, Sofia flung open her door with a bang.
“You want an actress, you can find another one. You have no heart, Devlin Somerset. We done.”
With that, she tugged the colossal engagement ring off her hand and threw it hard at Devlin’s head. It bounced off his cleft chin, leaving a little red blood spot. He raised a hand to his perfectly chiseled face, bewildered.
Sofia stepped off the curb and raised her hand in the air. Within seconds, a taxi pulled over, and in a moment, she had jumped into it and was gone
Chapter 8
Devlin’s mouth hung open in utter confusion. I looked out the front window and clenched my teeth. If this was not so uncomfortable, it might have been funny. The great thing was, that now I would be free to drop off the narcissist and get over to join my dad at the center.
Devlin searched the car for the ring, which he must have found because he stopped crawling on the floor. I glanced in the side mirror as he rubbed his chin where the huge diamond had nicked him.
He got out of the car in a panther-like move, with his phone in his hand. I could only assume he had dialed Sofia, because even through the closed windows, I could hear him screaming.
I was bored with this charade. It was Christmas at the center, and I wanted to get home if this spoiled brat was done with his games.
He was fooling his father. What a jerk. Devlin had everything he ever wanted, and now he wanted his dad’s company too. The only good thing was that he would most likely ruin the biz, and that would be karma at its best.
Somerset Industries was one of the top five businesses I wanted to see fail. They were #1 at killing trees. Their box division was thriving—despite the ecological disaster brewing—and they seemed determined to drive all other retail stores right out of business.
I sat quietly for another fifteen minutes until I couldn’t take it anymore. “White Christmas” was on, and I was getting teary. Mr. I-Got-Dumped was in the back just sitting there staring out the window again. I rolled down the divider and cleared my throat.
“Mr. Somerset.” I lowered my chauffeur's hat. “Where should I take you now?”
Devlin rumpled his dark hair in thought, and his gray eyes flashed. He glanced up at the female voice with curiosity and squinted his eyes.
“Where’s Charles?”
I swallowed. “Ahh, he wasn’t feeling well, so he sent me. I’m the best.” I smiled winningly.
Everyone always said my smile was my best trait. Good teeth on my mother’s side. I beamed that treasure at Devlin now, willing him to say, Let's go home!
He studied me. “How old are you? Are you even qualified to be a Rolls Royce limo driver?”
My face got warm, and I struggled to keep from swearing at him.
“I can assure you I am more than qualified. I grew up in the business.”
Jerk off didn’t have any clue who I was. Not that we had seen each other since we were children, but still, one thought he might put two and two together.
“I’ll have to see your license.”
I spun around and rolled the divider window down all the way. I’m sure I was anything but professional as I gripped him with my death-stare.
“Excuse me?” I said with all the disdain and professionalism I could muster together.
“Your license.” He stuck the ring in his pocket and held out his hand for my documents.
I shook my head as I withdrew my backpack from under my seat and rummaged through it. I luckily found my ID. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d left home without something I needed, just assuming it was in the mess of my bag somewhere.
I handed him my ID, and he took it and looked at it silently.
“Archer. You’re Charles Archer’s daughter?”
I nodded. Feeling defiant.
He handed back the ID and muttered. “I just have to be careful that you are who you say you are. Do you know how many women want to get close to the sexiest man of the year?”
I gurgled a half-laugh that came out as a snort. “Sorry. Allergies.” I grabbed a tissue at the top of my purse and buried my face in it.
I had seen the cover of GQ and Devlin all over it with his handsome, rich, smug face. It had made me want to puke. How about naming someone the sexiest person that had contributed to the world and done something actually sexy–like inventing a machine to clear the plastic in the ocean or chaining themselves to a redwood to stop loggers? Something. Not just sitting in Daddy’s office, keeping your pecks perfect and spending his money.
“Sexy is as sexy does,” I said, for no good reason, except I assumed he was not smart enough to pick up on sarcasm.
I was wrong.
He looked up with a sneer that somehow made him even more handsome than his usual dumb-looking, charming Peter Pan look.
“Anyway, would you like me to take you home now?” I tried to keep the hope out of my voice.
He pulled the ring out of his pocket and looked at it wistfully. “No. I have to fix this somehow. I just have to think.” He hit himself on the side of the head a little too hard.
I winced. Ouch.
More head hitting—this time harder.
“Hey—hey, stop that,” I said. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
Devlin stopped like a child that had been reprimanded and stared at the ring again in a trance. Rich people problems. Maybe I should take him to his therapist.
“What, exactly, were you trying to get your fiancée to do?” I had to ask. “Because you obviously didn’t want her to be herself.”
Devlin threw his hands up. “She’s beautiful.”
I rolled my eyes.
“And?”
“Balderdash! I thought she was fine being single. Women!”
I looked at him with no sympathy.
He let out a big sigh. “My father’s a traditionalist. I just thought it would be better this way. Make him happy. Win-win.”
I shook my head.
“In what logical world did you think that you were going to bring home an exotic dancer and get her to act like she was a perfect 50’s wife?”
He clenched his hands.
“Right, I was crazy.”
“Well, if you just needed a darn fake date, you would have been better off grabbing somebody off the street than trying to remake Sofia Denario!”
Devlin’s gray eyes lit with a sparkle. “That’s it! Great idea, great idea! I’ll get a stand-in!” He beamed at me, and for a split second, just one, I could see why women swooned over him. Then he pushed the button, and the divider window rolled back up between us. Nothing like getting ‘the hand’ via a window—in case I had forgotten my station.
A half an hour later, we were still parked. Devlin had been on the phone nonstop. I continued to watch the snow come down hard and wondered when he’d give up and decide to go home.
I glanced back and saw him put his phone down for a minute, so I jumped at the moment. I had spotted a 7- Eleven across the street. At least I could ward off my boredom.
“Hey–” I rolled down the window and gestured to the glowing orb across the street. “I was going to run over to the store for a couple minutes, if that’s okay?”
He raised dull eyes to me, lost in thought. “Sure. Whatever you want.”
Even upset, he was good-looking. He didn’t appear that much different from when he was five and he lost his favorite toy. I had seen his nanny look for hours one day because he was so distraught.
Chapter 9
I walked back across the snowy street in my too-big chauffeur uniform to the limo. Devlin seemed to be calling everyone on his contac
t list.
I turned on the radio and started listening and humming along to “Oh Holy Night” as I slurped my chocolate milk and finished off the last scratch off.
No luck.
As usual.
I stared out the window at the whiteout conditions. No other cars were on the road except emergency vehicles that skidded by with their lights blaring. The sky grew darker and more ominous, and I ushered away gloomy thoughts that were having a party in my head.
Two hundred thousand dollars.
Two hundred thousand dollars.
The most I’d won on a scratch-off was two hundred bucks, and I had been thrilled. This was a whole other level. Rich people money. Who the heck just has a hundred grand lying around, let alone two? Not anyone I knew.
Suddenly, I was struck motionless by a squealing banshee scream. It was Devlin. He was in the back, screaming. Yes, screaming like a little girl watching a horror film.
I rolled down the window. This was my chance to set another agenda.
“Are you okay? Would you like me to take you to a hospital? Or a bar?”
“No,” he said angrily. Then screamed again, staring right at me.
I took a deep breath. How to mollify the little pansy in the back? I tried my go-to for narcissists.
“Well, you look good.”
He looked at me strangely, and then nodded thanks. “Do you think this cut will scar?”
I leaned in through the window closer to examine the tiny red dot left on his face from the engagement ring debacle.
I tried to act casually as the full impact of how handsome he truly was up-close hit me. And the smell. Rich smell, of course. Pine, deep hotness…
“I think it will be fine; no stitches needed. So, it’s getting pretty gnarly out here…maybe we should go home–for our safety.”
“Gnarly?” he mocked.
“Blizzard, hello?” I motioned to the whiteout around us.
He shook his head and pulled out a glass, pouring himself a shot of a deep golden liquid from a flask.
“I have no idea what to do. I am in a bad place right now.”
This was getting beyond frustrating. My head was sweating under the cap, so I pulled it off and gave it some air, since we appeared to be going nowhere fast.
He looked at me differently–cocked his head to the side. His grey eyes bore into mine.
“Do I know you?”
I shook my head hoping he didn’t remember running straight into me at the protest that afternoon.
“You have interesting eyes–you could almost be attractive if you wore some makeup and got out of that horrible uniform.”
I sucked back a full sneer.
“Have you ever done any acting—what’s your name, again?”
“Allie,” I said roughly. “Allie Archer.” I obviously did not impact him in my youth the way he had me.
“I took an acting class once as an undergrad. I was horrible; they let me play the elf. I’m working on my Master’s in environmental science now.”
He nodded. “That’s great. Noble.”
I tilted my head. “For the record, helping the environment is everyone’s job, not just for the noble.”
He looked up at me, more serious. I had that impact on people sometimes when I blurted out my desire to protect the world.
“You sound like the protestors we had removed today. You want to save the world and save jobs—you try it.”
He shook his head and sipped on his cognac, looking like a model in a Ralph Lauren ad. Darn him.
“Anyway, it’s getting late, and I’m in a very bad position. I have an unusual—but lucrative— proposition for you, most likely fueled by my current drunk and desperate situation.”
He had my attention.
Lucrative was just what I happened to need.
He let out a deep breath. “I had planned to go home for Christmas to convince my father to resign and sign over all of the CEO duties to me. I’ve been handling all the day-to-day business anyway, but he’s starting to…not be himself.” He ran his hand through his dark hair and stared out the window.
“He’s such a stubborn old coot.” He laughed in spite of himself. “Well, his reasoning as to why he’s reluctant to sign off is because I’m not ready. Not settled down…” His gray eyes met mine again.
“But Somerset Industries is in a bad place. I need to act now. We’re losing profits hand over fist, and I’m fighting off a takeover by our competition–I need to be able to do business uninhibited so that I can save our family company.”
For a moment, I related to him. I knew what it was like to want to save something so badly.
“I told him I was coming home with my fiancé so they could meet, and I hoped this would be the time he signed off for good and allowed me to take over. He’s been grooming me his whole life.” He looked down at the sparkling three-carat gem in his hand.
“As odd as this is, I have a proposal for you, Allie Archer.”
My name dripped off his tongue like silver, and I felt myself blush like a schoolgirl. So not cool.
“If I pay you, will you pretend to be my fiancé for four days?”
He was serious.
I looked at him again.
“Who—me?”
He shrugged. “I can’t find anyone else to do this at such short notice.”
Oh, this was rich. Sure, just pay for me like a piece of cake you’re picking up at a bakery. So typical! So rude!
“Just because I’m the hired help, you think you can make a proposition like that to me?”
“I have limited options, unfortunately, or I wouldn’t ask. The last thing I can admit is that my ‘exotic dancer’ girlfriend left me because I won’t commit.”
Well, I would agree with him there. Still, my cheeks flamed. I had never had such a proposition in my life! One of those dim bulbs suddenly lit in my mind.
Hey–I had never had such a proposition in my life!
Devlin was still rolling the ring around in his hand and mumbling.“ Just tell me how much it’ll cost; I’ll make it worth your efforts…”
Instead of being irritated and insulted, the merest donning of an opportunity shone brightly. I took a breath and looked at him. Maybe this wasn’t such a stupid idea after all.
He was desperate.
I was desperate.
Just earlier, I had been wishing and wishing on how to save the house. Who was I to question the way the universe brought it through? Maybe God had listened to my prayers for once. Here was my chance to help. Not pretty, for sure. Odd and uncomfortable, for certain. But It’s not like I had to prostitute myself out, or…
I blurted out, “I don’t have to–to touch you, do I?”
Devlin looked taken aback. “Well, not–not all the way, of course, but I’m going to need to hold your hand, maybe kiss…you know, it has to look real, like we’re in love. You’ll have your own room at night, no problem.”
Hmmmm. Maybe we could make a deal that involved no broken legs or moral sins.
“Two hundred thousand dollars,” I said flatly.
“Two hundred thousand dollars!” he echoed, outraged.
I tried to keep my face composed as if I bargained for two hundred thousand dollars every day. “Yeah, two hundred thousand dollars.”
“Two hundred thousand dollars is ridiculous! I could get the best escort in New York for ten grand a night, and you’re…”
I eyed him.
“Here,” I said, “and your only option.”
Devlin’s eyebrows shot up together.
“Balderdash! Highway robbery.”
“Maybe you could get an escort last minute at Christmas to lie to your whole family for four days. Or maybe not, since you’ve been calling people for the last hour and still don’t have any options.”
He looked up, incredulous. “You’re serious? You want me to pay you two hundred thousand dollars?”
I stuck to my guns.
“I’m in a personal situation w
here I need two hundred thousand dollars, so yes, that’s the price for four days of kissing and lying.”
“You’re impossible!”
“And you’re a billionaire! What’s the big deal? Stop being cheap. How bad do you want this?”
His gray eyes clouded.
“I’m not cheap.”
“Then give me the two hundred thousand dollars to be your fake fiancé and let’s go have a Merry Christmas!”
Chapter 10
Devlin’s eyes bore into mine.
“Fine. Two hundred thousand dollars. But I’m going to have to fix you up before I present you to my father. You need to at least seem worthy of having my children.”
I remained silent.
To my credit.
Two hundred thousand dollars.
Before leaving town, he insisted we stop at an over-the-top, high-end shop on the Westside. They weren’t open, but Devlin had called, and, like magic, a troop of attendants stood ready to help and the doors were opened.
I looked around, overwhelmed by the glitzy store filled with designer goods. I normally couldn’t afford to walk in the front door of a place like this–now I was here in this bizarre Pretty Woman throwback, only instead of Richard Gere wanting to make me feel like a princess, Devlin seemed determined to kill the last smidgen of self-esteem I had.
He looked me up and down, as if seeing me for the first time. He examined every inch of my face, and then ran his glorious lash-fringed eyes down my frame bit by bit.
I swallowed uncomfortably.
He finally stopped and picked up a lock of my hair. “Seriously. You’re a girl. Why would you ever let your hair be this–” he looked at my hair and shook his head in disgust—“boring?”
