His Hired Girlfriend (6 page)

She pushes her cup away
and puts on her jacket.

Jay and Peter both watch her. Jay thinks she’s getting
colder. Peter, however, thinks differently. He knows she’s backing
out, and there’s nothing he can do right now.

She picks up her satchel and says, “I’m sorry, Jay. I don’t
think I can help you.” She gets up and rushes to the
door.

Jay shoots up. He’s about
to go after her when Peter stops him.

“
What the hell happened?” he asks, confused. The girl is
truly odd. One minute she was sitting there, listening and
questioning them, and then the next—
poof!
She’s
gone.

“
She needs time to think.
The offer is too much for her.”

“
Ludicrous, more like it.
I think she thinks I’m nuts,” Jayden says, lifting his coffee cup
to his lips.

“
Maybe.”

“
So tell me about her,”
Jay begins, setting his cup down. “What is she like?”

“
Sweet, innocent, and
loyal,” Peter says. “There, I’ve summed it all up for
you.”

Jay narrows his eyes. “Very funny, Pete. Has she had any
boyfriends before?”

“
Nope. Zippo.”

Jay cocks his head to one
side. “Maybe that’s why she’s scared.”

“
What?”

“
She’s afraid of men. That
explains her nerves around me. She’s probably afraid I might hurt
her. That explains why she never has a boyfriend. Tell me, has she
been abused?” He was actually thinking about last night. Perhaps
that kind of things is common in her life.

Peter has to try hard not
to laugh in front of his friend’s face. As far as he knows, Alex
has a loving family. Jacob is the best. He loves his wife and
children to bits.

“
No, at least I don’t
think so.”

“
You have to convince her
to help me, Pete.”

“
Me?”

“
You’re close to her.
She’d probably run away again if I approached her.”

“
You’re right,” Peter
agrees.

“
Do something.
Anything.
”

“
Anything
, huh?” Peter
says, nodding his head. He knows just how to go about it.
Oh boy, this is going to be
fun.

* * *

Four

Alexandra is going nuts! She can’t concentrate or do anything right
after that damn hot-choc with Peter and Jayden. Once she ran out
the door like the devil was on her heels, she was nearly run down
by a car as she crossed the road. This was because she hadn’t
looked both ways. How stupid of her. Then she drove her car into
the wrong lane and got honked at twice plus a
“Learn how to drive properly, Asian, and go back
to your own country”
from one
of the obese truck drivers. Yeah, right. Under normal circumstances
she would have shouted back,
“This is my country, you moron. I’m a Kiwi!”
But of course she hadn’t been able
to think properly at the time.

Dammit! It’s all
Mr.
Hot-Choc’s
fault. She just
can’t stop thinking about him. His handsome face keeps appearing in
her mind, his voice, and even the rhythm of his speech keeps
echoing in her head.

Once home and alone in her
bedroom, she throws her satchel on the floor and collapses on the
soft bed.

“
You’ve sent me the wrong
man,” she mutters under her breath, looking heavenward at the white
ceiling. She sighs and rolls over to lie on her stomach. “He’s not
even interested in me. He’s interested because I can help him.” She
pouts her lips. “His girlfriend must be very hot.” Then she thought
to add, “And very stupid.”

She rests her chin on her palm as she stares at her pink
netbook screen.
Well you
better stop thinking about him and start paying bills, Alex,
she tells herself
internally.

Nodding her head and determined not to think about that
handsome American dude, she logs into her internet banking and
starts paying her electricity and phone bills. The balance in her
bank account after that makes her feel terribly depressed. She
sighs. Oh, well, at least next Wednesday will be payday. Her spirit
lifts with that thought; she moves on to check her e-mails. She
stares up at the ceiling as she waits for her login. When she
glances back at the screen, she gasps.

“
Oh, my God!”

She blinks and stares at the screen harder. On the white
screen it reads:
Jayden has
requested to be your friend. Press accept if you know
him.

She nibbles her lower lip, excitement bubbling up within
her.
Should she
accept?
Her finger moves
toward the link below that would lead her to the Facebook login
page.
Click!

Oh, Alex, you’re not a
stalker, are you? No, no, Alex, you’re not a stalker. You’re simply
checking this American guy out, a guy who asked you to be his fake
girlfriend. What type of request is that, anyway?

So
, okay, checking
him out means she is simply doing her research. After all, she
doesn’t want to get into an agreement with a weird creep who’d
probably harm her now, would she?

His profile picture is of him skiing at the top of a
snow-covered mountain.
Queenstown?
She can’t
even make out his face. But he still looks hot even in that winter
jacket, wool hat, and sunglasses.

Browsing through his Facebook, she finds he loves extreme
sports and he’s a fan of many sports clubs. She concludes he is
real. She notes he does not show his relationship status. He’s
probably still too heartbroken from the breakup.

After she’s had enough,
she logs out of Facebook and turns off the laptop. She rolls
herself over her double bed and sits up. Just then her cell phone
rings. She wonders who it is as she reaches for it. She flips the
phone on and sees that it’s Peter.

She grunts under her
breath and says, “Hey, Pete.”

“
Hey, Alex, how’s
things?”

Before Alex could say that
“Everything is not all right”
because she keeps thinking about Jayden and seeing his
handsome face in her mind and that she has just finished stalking
him via Facebook, he says,
“Look, Alex, so sorry about this afternoon.”

Alex bites her lip. “That’s okay
, Pete. I know you want to help your friend. At least
Margaret isn’t matchmaking you. Well, she doesn’t have to since
you’re already engaged anyway.”

She hears him laughing,
loud and clear from the other side.

“
Hey, so no hard feelings,
right?”

“
Yeah, no hard feelings. I
forgive you.”

“
Thing is Jay is
gay.”

Alex blinks. “Say what?” she shouts into the phone. She
draws back, shocked at herself for bellowing like that. She
can just imagine Peter rubbing his
sore ear as he stared at the phone in a bizarre way.

“
Yeah, he’s gay. And there’s no girlfriend. Jay made it up,
so people think he’s—you know—
straight. Anyway, you get the idea. You know, his family is
well known in New York. If this gets out—”

Alex just sits there, her mouth agape in
shock
. Oh my God! Jay is gay?
That hot dude who loves extreme sports is gay?

“
If his family knows, he’s
in deep shit. Pardon my French.”

Alex blinks and asks,
“That’s why he wants to hire me to pretend to be his girlfriend? To
prevent his family from finding out that he’s gay? So that they’d
stop matchmaking him?”

She looks heavenward and shouts internally,
You totally sent down the wrong guy,
mister. He’s gay! Did you accidentally stuff up his genes before
you sent him down to earth or something? Is he supposed to have two
X's instead of an X and a Y for his sex chromosomes?

She says into the phone,
“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“
Well, aren’t you going to
help? Hey, he’s rich. This means more to him than making a million
bucks. Besides, you could use the money for your dad.”

Alex thinks that Peter is right. She could certainly use
the money, and her dad’s condition is getting worse. He
had started to have fainting spells
again. Not to mention chest pains, palpitations, and his depression
is getting worse. She shouldn’t be selfish in such a situation. Not
that she has ever been selfish in her life anyway.

“
It’s like killing two
birds with one stone, Alex. You’re helping a man in need, and at
the same time, you’re helping your father.”

Bull’s-
eye!
Alex thinks Peter hits the target
right there.

“
Hey, Peter, can I phone
you back in like an hour or something? I have to think this
over.”

“
Yeah, sure. Talk to ya
later then.”

“
Yeah,” she says and then
flips the cell shut.

She sits there on the side of the bed, deep in thought. She
doesn’t want to do this. She doesn’t want to have to ask for help.
And this is the weirdest help she has ever received. But then
again, this isn’t help, is it? Jayden is, after all, hiring her. So
in effect it’s a job.
A weird
one.

She leaves her room and comes into the living area. She
spots her dad taking his many medications. He
’s still young, at the age of fifty-five, and he
has to go through all that?

“
You okay
, Dad?” she
asks. She knows he hates it that he, as the breadwinner of the
family, is now depending on his family for survival. The very
thought hurts him, and it threatens to kill him.

“
Just a migraine,” Jacob
says.

She knows he’s lying. She
glances at her mom and asks, “What’s for dinner?”

“
Sweet and sour salmon soup and beef and mixed veggie
stir-fry,” Mali replies. “Honey, why don’t you go lie down?” She
suggests to her husband.

Jacob grunts and nods. Then he makes himself comfortable on
the La-Z-Boy chair, a birthday present from Peter and his family
for Jacob last year.

Alex grabs the blanket and
wraps it about him. “Comfortable?”

Jacob nods and closes his
eyes. Alex lowers her face to his and then gives him a peck on his
cheek. “You’re not very good at lying, you know.”

“
You’re not
either.”

“
It’s genetic,” she
retorts.

After helping her mom with the veggies, Alex goes back to
her bedroom. She throws herself on the bed and slouches on her
stomach. Then she grabs her notebook and a pen. She writes down on
top of the page: PRETENDING TO BE
MR. HOT-CHOC’S
GIRLFRIEND. Then on the right side of the page she writes:
ADVANTAGES, and on the left side she writes:
DISADVANTAGES.

A lot of thinking,
mumbling, writing, and furiously scribbling out later she reads
aloud what she has written down.

“
Advantages:
help Dad
pay for his heart surgery, pay off the mortgage, help
Mr. Hot-Choc
, get to see New York, get to go to a wedding, get a
holiday, and get to see
Mr.
Hot-Choc
everyday for two
weeks or so.”

She frowns at that last one and furiously scribbles it out.
He’s gay, she reminds herself. Then she looks at the list below the
word disadvantage.
She reads,
“Away from home and family.
Mr. Hot-Choc’s
family
might not like her.
Who
cares!
”
She cocks her head to one side. “Decision made.”
That means she’ll have to hand in her annual leave on Monday. She
smiles at that thought. Finally, it’s holiday time.

* * *

Margaret Thompson glances at Peter and Jayden from where she stands
in the kitchen, armed with a knife and chopping board. She wonders
what they’re doing, sitting there for almost an hour now, staring
at the Blackberry that’s on the coffee table. It looks as though
they’re daring it to ring, so intense they are at their task. The
air is thick with tension and anticipation.

The telephone on the side
table beside Peter shrills out, causing the two men to jump. They
glance at each other. Jayden shakes his head and returns his
attention back to the motionless Blackberry. Peter ignores the
ringing phone beside him that seriously demands his attention and
leans closer to his Blackberry. A second later, the continuous
buzzing is starting to annoy the men. They both frown at the damn
thing and demand it to shut up.

Peter says, “Mum, aren’t
you going to get that?”

Margaret
looks up,
her green eyes peering above her spectacles at Peter, her red hair
bright and glowing under the light. “I’m busy, Peter, aren’t you
going to pick it up?”

“
I’m waiting for an important call, Mum,” Peter says,
signifying that this could be a life-and-death
situation.