Lie to Me: A Contemporary Billionaire BWWM Romance (12 page)

“I’m glad you felt you could share that disgusting memory,” said Zoe wrinkling her nose.

“When did you first manage to get drunk?” asked Nick.

“I worked in the local liquor store,” Zoe pointed across the street. “Just to earn a bit of extra cash in the holidays while I was at business school. Everyone else in my family – well, you’ve already seen – worked in bars and I was determined that wouldn’t be me. So I went with liquor store. Big difference, right?”

“Enormous,” nodded Nick. “What’s wrong with bar work?”

“Nothing,” said Zoe, hastily. “I guess you just don’t want to be what your parents want you to be, or what everyone else in your family already is.” She smiled. “Funny really – I went to business school to get out of bar work, you went into bar work to get out of business. Both rebelling against our parents.”

“I wouldn’t exactly say I went into bar work,” said Nick. “I own a bar and I run a bar. I just work behind it every now and then to help out.”

He noticed that Zoe got a funny look on her face when he said this.

“You don’t enjoy it?” she queried.

“Well… Yeah. I guess. It’s fine. But running it is the real… you know – that’s what I do.”

“Sure.” Zoe nodded, that strange look still on her face. “Any of last night coming back to you yet?”

“Not really. Why?”

“No reason.”

“Did we talk about bar work?”

“We touched on it,” shrugged Zoe.

“Did liquor store work suit you?”

“Up to a point. I didn’t really take to the whole ‘customer service’ thing. Or the liquor store particularly. But I was good at running things when my boss was away. I reorganized the store room so it was more efficient and he could better keep track of inventory, and I showed him a better way of doing his accounts.” There was, Nick noticed, a quiet pride in her voice as she spoke. “I really enjoyed it. And - that stuff… I guess it let me know that I was right to go to business school – that I wasn’t wasting my time and I had actual natural aptitude for that side of things. What was your first job?”

“CEO of RothCo,” Nick sighed.

“I guess everyone’s got to start somewhere.” Zoe shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You weren’t kidding when you said you had it easy.”

“No.” Nick admitted. He shrugged. “I guess had it handed to me on a platter. I reckon my monthly salary could by that whole liquor store.”

“I doubt Mr. Bailey would sell.”

“You know,” Nick continued – it was strange how easy and natural it felt for him to speak about these things to Zoe; he was sure he hadn’t felt this way yesterday, “I’d really like to be able to say that that was my problem. I was promoted beyond my experience. If I had come up through the ranks like a CEO should then I’d have been better prepared and better at the job. No one being given a command role, just like that, out of nowhere, with nothing to back it up, would be able to do a good job. But Adam got the same job at the same time and he’s done a great job. A fantastic job. He’s grown the company enormously. He took to it like a fish to water. I took to it like a fish in a deep fat fryer.”

“I guess different people have different strengths,” said Zoe. “There are probably aspects of bar work that better suit you.”

“Yes, yes of course,” lied Nick. He did not want to tell her that he in fact sucked as a bar owner. It was only behind the bar that he showed any aptitude at all and what did that matter? Anyone could do that. He found himself experiencing the strangest sensation of
déjà vu
, and again saw that odd look on Zoe’s face. “To each their own.”

They came to the end of Main Street and looked out beyond it to the very appealing wilderness beyond.

“Looks like you could walk across it forever,” said Nick.

“People have tried.”

“Yeah?”

“Seldom goes well.”

They turned and began to walk back along the opposite side of the street, giving Nick a slightly different perspective for the return journey.

“I’ve been thinking about your bar,” Zoe began tentatively.

“Oh yeah?” Nick had been thinking about it too. It was a subject that seldom left his mind these days, festering at the back of it. How long could he prop the place up with his own money and still call it a business? It was little more than an expensive hobby, and an advert for what a total failure he was in every endeavor. All of which meant that it was not a topic that he especially wanted to discuss with Zoe.

“I had a couple of ideas,” Zoe went on.

“Gleaned from your time as a liquor store assistant?”

Zoe shot him a hard look. “Your bar is failing.”

Nick tried not to look shocked. “Nonsense! What would make you think that?”
How had she known?
“The bar’s doing fine.”

“I do know a little about business,” Zoe said. “And I have a familial bar connection. Bottom line: if anyone is qualified to recognize when a bar is struggling, then it’s me.”

“Nonsense!”

“On the bright side, if anyone is qualified to help it, then that’s also me.” She saw his skeptical look. “If you’ll let me,” she added.

Despite his keenly protected fiction that the bar was doing fine and was not losing money hand over fist, Nick listened as Zoe talked and, after a few minutes, began to
listen
.

She used words he did not immediately recognize, she rattled off numbers like a calculator with number diarrhea, she spoke in concepts and terms that seemed initially more theoretical than practical, but in the end it all boiled down to one simple thing:
I can turn your business around if you will let me.

“It’s all there,” Zoe concluded. “The business is in a good location, it’s got a nice ambience and friendly feel. Everything is right except the business side. Your suppliers are wrong, your marketing is non-existent, you’re carrying brands only fancy people have ever heard of, your promotions suck, your staff rotation is counter-intuitive, I haven’t seen your accounts but I’m guessing they’re not properly managed and you’re getting hosed by your suppliers. All these things seem like nothing when you know you’re providing a good product, but trust me; they make a difference.”

Nick nodded dumbly, then asked the question that had been bothering him for the last fifteen minutes. “Why are you doing this?”

From the look on Zoe’s face, it was a question that she had not asked herself yet. “I… she fumbled. “I guess… It seemed like you needed it.”

She looked away, unwilling to meet his gaze. Was she uncomfortable? There was a stumble in her walk – more than usual. And Nick found that he had started blushing. What on earth was that about? What was he embarrassed of? He was at his most comfortable around the opposite sex – what was different about now? What was different about Zoe? He could not say – or did not wish to – but something was different about her.

“You’re really…” he struggled to find something to say, some way of thanking her that articulated the emotions he was trying to suppress. “You’re really something.” He finished lamely.

Zoe seemed even more flustered as she wrapped her arms around herself. “Thanks. You’re something too.”

Late that afternoon they would fly back to the city and the following morning, first thing, Nick would resume Zoe’s lessons. But it all seemed oddly futile now. What could he teach her?

Only stuff that she didn’t really need to know.

The lessons ought to be the other way around – she could teach him about good business practice for sure, but also about family, about how to live and to follow your dreams without any caveat. Without making am almighty mess of everything you touched. Nick being her teacher just seemed faintly ridiculous now.

But there was still the bet to consider.

For Nick to win that, Zoe had to pass herself off as Vanessa Reese and for that there were still things that she needed to learn, however useless those things might be in the big picture. Making Zoe more like Vanessa had previously struck Nick as difficult (if not downright impossible), now it struck him as an actively hateful and destructive process. Why would he want to change someone as wonderful as Zoe?

But it was just temporary, he reassured himself.

Just for long enough that he could win the bet.

And the bet was all that mattered.

* * *

T
he final week
of Zoe’s training had been set aside for the most important element - the thing on which her impersonation of Vanessa Reese hung: Wine. And of course it was not just wine that she had to learn about, it was specifically French wine, Jourdan’s wine in particular, and there was only one place to go to learn about that.

“Have you been to France before?” asked Nick, as they settled into their seats on the plane.

“Been to Paris with Vanessa a couple of times,” said Zoe.

“Ah, Paris,” smiled Nick, reminiscing to himself. “The most romantic city on earth.”

“You’ve clearly never been there with Vanessa Reese,” said Zoe, darkly.

“I guess trips with your boss aren’t really that romantic.”

Zoe shook her head. When your boss was Vanessa Reese, the ambient romance in a city could be sucked out of it. Zoe could have found herself reclining with a handsome troubadour in a candlelit gondola, gliding down a Venetian canal, as her companion serenaded her, accompanying himself on the guitar – but if she had been there with Vanessa, then the overall trip would still not have been romantic. Other bosses might have been different, they might not have exert such a horrid and pervasive influence as Vanessa did, never giving her employees a moment to themselves, but Zoe wouldn’t really know. Then again, Zoe imagined that Nick would not be the sort of boss to drain the romance from a city.

As the thought entered her mind she found heat rising in her body.
She did not mean that coming to Paris with Nick was romantic!
Of course she did not mean that. She merely meant that if she was to meet someone handsome in Paris, someone whom she liked and who she felt some connection to – then Nick would not ruin it for her the way that Vanessa would have.

She tried to stop feeling guilty for her thoughts as she glanced furtively at Nick, seated beside her. He
was
handsome. And she did – after a fashion – like him. She was liking him more every day. And there had been that night at her parents when it had seemed, if only for a moment (and a drunken one at that) that there might have been some connection between them.

But
, she reminded herself,
he could also be a massive jerk
. Not to mention self-involved, and he was a playboy with a string of women waiting for his attention. And, on top of that, he had shown no interest in Zoe herself whatsoever. Why she was even giving any thought to this subject was quite beyond her. It was all silly nonsense. She was letting her imagination run away with her. Just because he was a good-looking man with a few decent qualities did not mean she was interested in him romantically. After all, he had plenty enough bad qualities to balance out the good.

Just because she was thinking about this now (just to pass the time really) did not mean that she would ever act on it. The brain went in some funny and meaningless directions when you gave it rein and sometimes it was fun just to let it go and see where it might end up. It was like dreaming really; all sorts of weird stuff showed up but it didn’t mean anything, not really. Just because you dreamed about a man didn’t mean that you liked him any more than the next man.

Even if the dream was a certain type of dream – it didn’t necessarily mean anything.

Even if, in the dream, you might find the man looking down at you with fire in his eyes, kissing you as you have never been kissed before. It didn’t mean anything.

Nor did it mean anything if, in the dream, the man went on to gently undo the buttons of your blouse, kissing at the soft, willing body beneath – his for the taking – while you lay beneath him, writhing at his electric touch as his fingers caressed ever nearer to their ultimate goal, before he pulled back and removed his pants to reveal…

“Zoe?”

Zoe nearly jumped out of her skin at the voice in her ear. “I… Yeah?... Something… What?”

Nick looked concerned. “Are you okay? You don’t look well.”

“I…” Zoe could feel the heat throughout her body, and the circumstances, being put on the spot like this, particularly by Nick himself, seemed likely to make things worse rather than better. “I’m just going to pop to the bathroom quickly.”

She unbuckled her seatbelt and raced for the bathroom.

A stewardess held out her hand and approached her. “Hi. You need to remain seated until the pilot has turned off the seatbelt lights. I’m afraid I’ll have to stop you.”

Zoe closed her eyes. “Sorry.” She mumbled as she regained her seat, trying not to feel Nick’s arm rubbing against hers as she sat beside him.

Mortified with embarrassment, Zoe pretended to sleep for most of the rest of the flight. But her mind seemed determined to undermine her, as her thoughts wound their circuitous way back to the same place, and the same man. By the time they landed, Zoe was looking forward to a cold shower and a change of clothes, she was feeling really quite uncomfortable.

“You don’t travel well, do you?” commented Nick as they disembarked.

“Some days worse than others,” Zoe admitted, regretting more than ever that she hadn’t packed her vibrator for this trip.

She tried not to look at Nick as they grabbed a cab to take them to their hotel.

* * *

T
hey would spend only
one night here in Paris (romance capital of the world) before moving on tomorrow into the wine regions so Zoe could learn more about vineyards and about the geography of France, and so she could practice her French and try to lose that distracting accent. They pulled up outside their hotel.

“What do you think?” It might have been Zoe’s imagination but she thought she caught a tone in his voice that suggested he was trying to impress her by splashing his cash. Zoe was not that type of girl. Never in her life had she been impressed by money, or by men who flaunted it to win her affection. She didn’t care how much their suit cost or who hand-stitched their shoes, she didn’t care how big their car was or how fast it went (it was all overcompensating anyway), she didn’t care what they spent on dinner or how hard it was to get into the restaurant, she didn’t care about any of it. On the other hand, it was pretty hard not to be impressed by the hotel outside of which they had just pulled up.

“We’re staying
here
?”

“Just for one night.”

“So this is isn’t the palace of the King of France.”

“There is no King of France.”

“I know, I’m exaggerating to make a point.” And it was a point worth making. It was not just that the building was big, it was that it was grand. In fact, it was
Grand
. It had pillars and turrets, and finials, and other architectural swirls and squiggles that Zoe could not put names to. It had men outside in burgundy uniforms who hurried forward to open car doors and carry bags, not because they expected to get a tip, but as if their lives depended on it. The doors were fitted with brass, so highly polished that it looked like gold, and the deep red carpet that sprawled out to beckon them through the door was so deep pile that walking across it was like wading through cotton wool.

“I’ve got a room here?” Zoe still felt the need to clarify this point.

“Of course not,” said Nick, dismissively, insulted at the thought. “You’ve got a suite.”

“A suite?”

“Several rooms.”

“I know what a suite is!”

As it turned out, Zoe had
thought
that she had known what a suite was, but apparently she had been misinformed.

“This is all mine?” she asked the uniformed bellboy who had shown her up.

“Oui, Mademoiselle,” the man said, politely.

“
All
mine?” She probably sounded like an idiot, but now that Nick was off in his own room and not there to hear her, she didn’t really care.

The bellboy shrugged. “The hotel would like it back at the end of your stay, but until then,
oui, Mademoiselle
.” He spoke perfect English with a very attractive French accent and Zoe realized that she had not seen one unappealing man working here yet. Back home, service organizations preferred to hire pretty girls for men to leer at, here the situation seemed to be reversed.

Zoe decided that was a huge improvement.

“Is there anything else I can do for you, Mademoiselle?” the bellboy asked in deep, sensual tones that made Zoe wonder - if she were to ask for what was on her mind, what might the result be?

“No thank you,” she said, only a little regretfully.

“You may ring for me,” the bellboy said as he nodded his assent, “If you have need of me. Or for my colleagues, should you require more than one.”

As he exited, Zoe tried very hard not to stare at the seat of his tight pants. No wonder Paris was called the city of love, the people here probably couldn’t ask for directions to the bathroom without it sounding like a proposition.

The cold shower was now more needed than ever and Zoe took a long one until she felt the tension drain out of her. She then relaxed in the room for a bit before getting dressed for dinner. She had agreed to meet Nick just before eight.

The knock at the door came at seven fifty and Zoe opened it to reveal Nick, resplendent in black tie and dinner jacket – he looked as if he had been born to wear the get up. He looked her up and down and Zoe felt sure that the look of wide-eyed wonder on his face was genuine.

“Wow. You look absolutely incredible.”

“Thank you.” The dress was one of the stupidly expensive ones Nick had bought her during their shopping spree and, while she might not have admitted it out loud, Zoe had chosen it because it was by far the sexiest of the dresses they had bought. She was not quite sure how it did what it did to her body, but boy, did it do something!

Nick held out his arm. “Shall we go?”

Despite herself, Zoe had been looking forward to this evening and to spending a bit more casual time with Nick, but Nick seemed to have other ideas. He was not one to let an opportunity to teach pass him by.

“You order,” he said, passing her the menu.

Zoe stared. “I don’t know what any of this is.”

“You said you could speak French – can’t you read it?”

“Of course I can,” Zoe snapped back. “But if this was in English then it still might as well be in Greek!”

“What?”

Zoe sighed. “If you read out just these descriptions, without telling me they were from a menu, then I wouldn’t have even guessed that you were talking about food. Why can’t they just say what something is? Why write a novel just to describe sliced ham?”

Zoe had expected Nick to roll his eyes about her shameful ignorance of quality food, but instead he just smiled.

“Try the wine list.”

Truth be told, and it was something that Zoe hadn’t really had the courage to bring up yet, given the nature of her assignment, Zoe was not really a wine connoisseur. In fact, she was not really a wine drinker. In Zoe’s town there were only four types of a wine; there was red and white of course, and they could be divided again into wine that comes out of a box, and the ‘good’ stuff that came in a glass bottle. Those were the only distinctions she knew. She was aware that such things as Shiraz, Chardonnay, and Prosecco existed, but had no idea what they meant beyond the fact that they were gaining increasing popularity as girls’ names.

She picked up the wine list with trepidation. She had read books that were shorter than this. The names and descriptions flooded over her in a tide of curly handwriting and florid descriptions about body, depth, sweetness, dryness and on into more perplexing words: toasty, crispy, impudent, savage. How the hell could a drink be savage? Or crispy for that matter? Or how could something
wet
be called
dry?
It was a mystery to her.

She scanned the list hopefully in search of a wine with a little thumbs up sign or perhaps a smiley face next to it, denoting that it tasted good (a factor that all the descriptions seemed to ignore!). But such prosaic concerns as how the drink tasted were clearly beneath this list. Zoe realized that she was starting to imbue the list itself with human qualities – she considered it to be looking down on her with a sneer– but if a wine could be impudent then surely a wine list could be snobby? In desperation she looked for a price, reasoning that the most expensive was the best and Nick could probably afford it. But the list included no prices, working on the basis that if you had to ask, you couldn’t afford it.