“There’s another more important reason too. I want this to go smoothly. I don’t want to get out there and end up spending the whole week bickering and breaking my aunt’s heart because I only realize when I’m there that I don’t get on with the person I take.”
“How do you know we won’t get there and realize we don’t get on and end up bickering just as hard? You might have heard stories from Lord Alstree’s business manager about my work ethic, but you don’t know me as a person.”
“Well it won’t matter, will it?” he says with a shrug.
His blunt response takes me by surprise. I frown. Does he think that I am someone who will just swoon at his every word?
“It’s a business deal, Cindy. You’ll be getting paid handsomely to do a job. And that job is being nice to me and acting like you’re my fiancée in public. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like me as long as you do what you’re being paid to do.”
“Ok, that makes sense,” I concede. At least he’s not arrogant enough to assume there’s no chance of me not liking him. “But I still don’t understand why you’ve chosen me. You must have female friends who could do this as a business arrangement.”
“Would you believe me if I told you that you … are exactly the kind of woman my great aunt would fall in love with?” Alex asks with a twinkle in his eye.
My eyes widen. “What kind of woman is that?”
He laughs. “If I tell you I will spoil it. Just be yourself and she will fall for you hook, line and sinker.”
I scowl. “It sounds wrong when you say it like that.”
“Wrong?” he queries, one eyebrow arched.
“Deceitful. We would be fooling an old lady.”
“All of life is deceitful. When you wore your push-up bra this morning you made the decision to deceive every man that looked at you.”
I blushed. He couldn’t possibly know about my push-up bra. He had to be guessing.
He watched the color that flooded into my cheeks with interest. “My aunt wants me to be married. I don’t want to be married. You want a casino and you don’t have one, I think my proposal is an elegant solution that will keep everybody happy.”
“Why did you offer me half the casino? I would have done it for less.”
“Other than the fact that I find I get a startlingly better performance when I overpay my staff, I also didn’t want to risk the deal because the bait I offered wasn’t juicy enough.”
“Actually, the job sounds too good to be true. Too easy.”
“There’s a little more to it.”
My heart drops a little. I knew it was too good to be true.
“One of the reasons I chose you,” he continues, “is because I’ve seen how you handle difficult customers and keep the peace. I’ve seen how you read people and instinctively know how to handle them. You’re going to need those skills.”
“You’re not exactly making your great aunt sound like the sweet old dear I was imagining,” I say with a frown.
“It’s not my great aunt. She really is the sweet old dear you’re imagining. The problem will be the rest of my relatives. Let’s just say they won’t exactly be welcoming.”
“Why?”
“It’s too complicated to go into, but it is also surplus information. Just manage them the way you would your most belligerent customers and you’ll be fine.”
I’m still not sure what to make of any of this and I don’t quite know what to say. I guess I am intrigued enough by the offer that I don’t want to just flat out turn it down, but I’m not quite ready to agree to it either.
On the one hand, my instincts are telling me to run away from this deal and never look back. But on the other hand, they’re also telling me this might be the doorway through which a whole new world of adventure opens up.
Just imagine … I’ll be able to buy him out in five years!
Oh my God!
I’ll be the owner of my own casino!
The Macau will be mine! Mine! Mine!
Put like that I have no problem dealing with awkward people and I can talk myself into fooling a little old lady especially since it is all for her own good.
“Are you afraid of me, Cindy?” Alex asks suddenly, cutting through my thoughts.
His question is so far out of left field that I just answer it honestly without even thinking about it. “No. Should I be?”
“No.” He smiles. “A lot of people are but let me tell you this, I’m the only person in my family with the sort of past and connections that could make people afraid of me. So if you’re not afraid of me, the rest of my relatives will be a walk in the park.”