The Billionaire's Alibi: The Proposition (3 page)

In his experience, there were only a few successful 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 deeper 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?

You still bought drugs
, he reminded himself. The drugs he had tossed into Alexa’s cart along with his other purchases. No, anything else would have been too suspicious. All he needed to do was take pictures with a few other women, his typical spread of blondes, to put the Alexa Romo news cycle to rest.

“Turn here.” He pointed to the right. She swerved quickly, running through a yellow light and nearly hitting a group of teenagers who were trying to cross the street.

“Is this where you want me to drop you off?” she asked.

Will shook his head and kept his eye on the side mirror, noting that the reporters were still on their trail. “I know you have a lot to do, but I need that ride home.”

“You knew this would happen, didn’t you? You knew they would chase us.”

“I didn’t know for sure.”

“I can’t. I told you, I have to pick up the kids. In fact, I’m already late. And Frannie will fire me if I don’t get this food to her chef.”

“Okay, let’s lose the reporters, pick up the kids, drop off the food, and then you can give me a lift back to the grocery store,” he said.

“Seriously? Frannie will
kill
me if I bring some random guy to her house. She’s going to think that we’re involved and I’m hanging out with my boyfriend on her clock.”

“I’ll explain it all to her. Turn left here, and then start making rapid turns. We can lose them, I’m sure of it.”

“I don’t have time for this!” she cried out, swerving to the left and narrowly missing oncoming traffic. “Seriously, just let me drop you off. We’re still within walking distance of the grocery store.”

“You can’t drop me off on the corner in some scrappy neighborhood. They’ll find me in a heartbeat, and they might figure out that I paid you to take me on a car chase.” He couldn’t let the reporters know that they were getting to him—especially if it got back to Morgan.

She swerved sharply to the right, the tires squealing in protest. “Actually, you didn't pay me for the ride. You paid me for my silence, which, by the way, I gave back to you. And part of that deal was that you would leave me alone, which you haven’t made good on. So no, I don’t feel obligated to drive you around like a mad person when I already told you I couldn’t!”

“What do you want? Is it more money? I can pay you for your time.” He didn’t understand why she couldn’t just do what he asked. So what if she was late to pick up some bratty kids, or if the food didn’t make it back to her employer on time? He could pay for any damages, he just needed her to do this for him, now, without questions or harassment.

“It’s not about time! I could lose my job over this!”

“So I’ll get you a new job! It’s not like you have a great one to begin with.”

“UGH!” she exclaimed, beating her hands against the steering wheel. She opened her mouth to say something more, but then shut it; she was seething mad, though he couldn’t figure out why. Was it such a big deal to just help him out, when he could afford to give her anything she wanted in return?

“Turn right,” he instructed, and she glared straight ahead as she swerved around the corner.

Other books

The Death of Nnanji by Dave Duncan
Project Daddy by Perry, Kate
Brawler by K.S Adkins
Samantha James by Bride of a Wicked Scotsman
Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag
A Taste of Ice by Hanna Martine
No Stone Unturned by Helen Watts
Lady in the Veil by Leah Fleming