The Boyfriend Arrangement

Sebastian looked at her with a pointed expression on his face. There was more to it than just frugality, of that he was sure. He’d done his research since they’d met. Her family owned Orion Computers. She lived in a really nice apartment on the Upper East Side. But she only had two grand in her savings account? That didn’t add up in his mind.

His silence prompted her to keep talking. “I’m having a bit of a cash flow shortage. I’m embarrassed about it, so I haven’t told anyone, even my friends and family. Until I get things straightened out, I’m trying to be smart about my money, but I have to keep up appearances.”

“Like blowing a fortune on designer clothes and then immediately returning them?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t they notice you never wear them after you buy them?”

She shook her head. “You need a map to get through my closet. Things disappear in there, never to resurface.”

Sebastian nodded thoughtfully. “Sounds like a complicated charade to keep up. Pretending to have a boyfriend should be a piece of cake.”

“Well, thankfully it’s a short-term thing. I should be back on my feet soon and then no one needs to know I lied about it. And as for you and me...well, I’m sure we will have a sad, but not unexpected, breakup not long after we get back from the trip. Not so soon as to be suspicious, but we can’t wait too long or people might start inviting us to things as a couple here in town.”

“Sounds tragic. I’m already sad.”

Harper looked at him with a smile. “I’m enjoying your sarcastic sense of humor. We might actually be able to pull this off.”

“I think so, too. Of course, over time I think you’re going to become too clingy for me and we’re going to want different things from our relationship.”

She groaned. “Ugh. You sound like Quentin. Don’t do that or we’ll have to just break up now.”

Sebastian laughed. “So since we’re going to be around that guy, should I know what happened between you two?”

Harper winced at the thought. “That is a story that would require something stronger than water to talk about.”

“A cocktail then? My treat,” Sebastian added. He waved over the bartender. It wasn’t until then that it occurred to him she might be drinking water out of necessity, not desire.

“That’s sweet of you. A Cosmo, please.”

Once the man returned with the dark pink beverage, Harper took a sip and sighed. “We were together for three years and we’ve been broken up for two. We met at a party and we really seemed to hit it off. Things went well between us, but I noticed that it didn’t seem to be going anywhere. We’d stalled out at the point where most people take the next step.”

“He didn’t want anything serious?”

“I thought we were already serious, but I suppose that was my mistake. I was thinking we were on track to get engaged, moving in together...do all the things that other couples around me were doing. But he was always working. Or said he was. He’s an attorney and kept insisting he had to put in the long hours if he was going to make partner. I thought it was because he wanted to build a solid future for us, but the truth was that he was perfectly content where we were.”

“He was seeing other women.”

“Bingo. While I was officially his girlfriend in the public eye, I found out there were three of us he was keeping on the hook. He used long hours at work as his excuse to run around town with different women, and I didn’t even question it. I don’t know if he couldn’t decide and thought that he’d eventually know which one he wanted, or if he just liked keeping that many balls up in the air at once. But eventually I found out about the others and broke it off. When I confronted him, all he said was that he just wasn’t ready for a commitment.”

Sebastian frowned. “He told you the other day that he’s engaged now, didn’t he?”

Harper’s posture deflated slightly in her chair and he found he hated that. He wanted to punch Quentin in the face for taking such a beautiful, confident woman and leaving her broken.

“Yes,” she said softly. “He’s bringing her on the trip. You see why I can’t go alone? I just can’t face him and his fiancée in the state I am in. I’m almost thirty. I’m happy with my life on most days, but I have to admit that I’m not at all where I expected to be at this point. I’m sure everyone else looks at me and thinks I’m the sad, single one in the group.”

Sebastian understood. He knew what it was like to be judged by people. While Harper had worked hard to keep up appearances, he’d simply buried his head in his research and tried to block out the rest of the world. It had served him pretty well. Eventually, though, he’d known his avoidance mechanisms would fall apart. His had fallen apart when he’d hit the floor in cardiac arrest. Hers might all come crashing down when her delicately structured pyramid of falsehoods took a hit. He hoped he wouldn’t be the reason it fell.

“I will strive to be the imaginary boyfriend you’ve always dreamed of having someday.”

* * *

“You go up first,” Sebastian said as they stood on the tarmac together. “I prefer to sit in the aisle seat if you don’t mind.”

Harper nodded and climbed the steps ahead of him to board the private plane. The minute she stepped on and turned the corner, she realized the Boeing Business Jet that Violet’s father, Loukas Niarchos, had chartered for the flight wasn’t going to be like any plane she’d been on before. Instead of a first-class cabin, she found herself walking through a lounge with a bar, seating areas with couches and swivel chairs, flat-panel televisions and a variety of tables. To the left there was a doorway leading to an executive office where she could see Loukas already chatting on the phone, his laptop open.

A flight attendant greeted them with a smile and directed them through the lounge into the next room to the right. There they found what could be either a conference room or a dining table that sat twenty for a meal. Each chair was plush camel-colored leather with a seat belt if it was necessary. Harper got the feeling the kind of people who chartered flights on this plane wouldn’t tolerate turbulence.

“This is like being on Air Force One,” Sebastian muttered into her ear as they walked through a narrow hallway past a fully appointed bedroom suite, two full-size bathrooms with showers, and a galley kitchen currently manned by two more smiling flight attendants. “Is this how you’re used to traveling?”

Harper shook her head. “No. I’m used to boring old first class unless I’m traveling with family on the Orion corporate jet. That’s nice, but it only seats eight. And there’s no bedroom. Or office. Or cocktail lounge. My family is normal rich, not filthy rich.”

Sebastian chuckled and nudged her forward. “Good. I don’t think I could handle a filthy-rich girlfriend. I’m glad this is a first for us both.”

At that point, the plane finally opened up into a traditional seating area. Appointed like a large, first-class cabin, there were six seats in each row. They were in sets of two, divided by two wide aisles. Each seat had its own television screen, blanket, pillow, and controls that allowed its occupant to lay fully flat for sleeping on the overnight flight. A flute of champagne and a chocolate-covered strawberry stenciled with the letters V&A in edible gold awaited each guest at their seat as well as a handwritten card in calligraphy with each person’s name.

Violet was certainly out to throw a memorable wedding, if nothing else.

They’d been assigned row thirteen of sixteen, seats A and B, so she made her way down the right aisle through the crowd of familiar faces. They were nearly the last to board, so the area was bustling with activity as guests settled in. Quentin hadn’t been kidding when he’d said this wedding was the event of the year. People salivated over the idea of receiving a coveted invitation, but the guest list had been kept down to less than a hundred by virtue of the plane and the wedding venue.

Even then, Harper still knew almost everyone on the plane. A few friends and family of Violet’s fiancé, Aidan, were unfamiliar to her, but there were far more of Violet’s circle than anyone. She smiled and waved politely as she pressed on, even when she saw Quentin in the back row on the far left. He was sitting beside an attractive brunette who seemed a little young for him, but Harper was trying not to let her bitterness color her opinion.

“Here we go,” she said as she stopped at their row. Emma and Jonah were seated across the aisle from them in the center section, and Harper could see Emma was already heavily appraising Sebastian from her seat. She tried not to focus on that, instead stowing her bag and her coat in the overhead bin to clear the aisle for others to board.

“Introductions!” Emma said before Harper could even slide into the row to sit.

She pasted on a bright smile and turned their way. “Sebastian, these are my good friends Jonah and Emma Flynn. I work for Jonah’s gaming software company, FlynnSoft. You guys, this is my boyfriend, Sebastian West.”

Jonah stuck out his hand and the two men exchanged a firm handshake. “Good to meet you both,” Sebastian said. “Harper has told me how much she enjoys her job at FlynnSoft. I’m sure that reflects well on you, Jonah.”

She tried not to look impressed and instead turned toward her seat. It wasn’t until that moment that she noticed a small, white envelope on the window seat. She picked the envelope up and settled in so Sebastian could take his place at her side. She looked around, wondering who might’ve put it on her seat, but no one seemed to be looking or paying any attention to her. There weren’t envelopes like this one on the other seats. Just one for her, with her name written on the front in nondescript block letters.

While Sebastian put his bag in the overhead bin, Harper opened the envelope and pulled out the single page inside. It was handwritten, and relatively short, but it delivered a huge impact.

I know your little secret. If you don’t want everyone to find out the truth and risk your big inheritance, you’ll do exactly what I say. Once we arrive in Ireland, you’ll go to the bank and withdraw a hundred thousand dollars. Then you’ll leave it in an envelope at the front desk of the hotel for “B. Mayler” by dinnertime tomorrow. Miss the deadline and I’m going to make a big problem for you, Harper.

She read the words a dozen times, trying to make sense of it all, but there was no way to make sense of what she was seeing. Her heart was pounding in her ears, deafening her to anything but the sound of her internal panic. The fantastic plane and everyone on it faded into the background.

This was blackmail. She was being blackmailed.

How was that even possible?

Harper had been so careful about her secret. Aside from sharing some of it with Sebastian yesterday, no one, not her closest friends or family, knew the truth. Not even her brother or father knew about her financial difficulties. She’d kept it quiet for over eight years, working hard to make ends meet until the next payment came and she didn’t have to fake it any longer. Sebastian had been the first to question her curious behavior, and it hadn’t seemed to hurt to share a little information with him considering her birthday was right around the corner.

But someone had found out her secret, and that was a big problem.

Her grandfather on her mother’s side of the family had set up a thirty-million-dollar trust fund for both her and her brother when they were born. It included a two-million-dollar payment on their eighteenth birthdays followed by a twenty-eight-million-dollar payment on their thirtieth birthdays. Harper’s thirtieth was only a few weeks away now. She could see the light at the end of the tunnel. She should be coasting to the finish line, but her foolish youthful behavior had put everything at risk.