His Hired Girlfriend (6 page)

“Hmm,” Peter began. “Let’s get
on with it then.”

“No wait,” Jay said to Pete.
“I’ll do this.” He turned to Alex.

Alex glanced from one man to
the other, wondering what was going on.

“Alex, may I call you Alex?” he
asked.

Alex nodded, her eyes on
him.

“Alex, I have a proposal for
you. Just think of it like a business term. Actually it’s more like
I’m hiring you, an employee,” he said, watching her carefully.

Alex blinked as she listened,
not knowing where this was going. “The problem is I already have a
job,” she said, her eyes questioning.

“Yeah, well, I know that. But
this isn’t like a real job.” Jay sighed as though he found it hard
to voice what he was about to say next. “I need your help.”

“What kind of help?”

“It’s kind of personal. It’s
family related.” He leaned toward her. Looking deep into her eyes,
he said, “Can you pretend to be my girlfriend?”

Alex just stared at him. She
got the word girlfriend and that was about it. She blinked.
“Sorry?’ She had to ask. “I don’t get it. I’m lost.”

Jay glanced at Peter for help.
Pete understood and leaned towards Alex. “Look, Alex, Jay is having
a hard time at the moment. His parents, well more like his mum and
nanna are demanding that he brings home a girlfriend. Otherwise
they’d start match-making him again,”

“So?” she queried, still not
understanding them.

“So? Alex,” Jay said, “it’s a
big deal. I’m simply sick of them trying to sort out my life. I’m
thirty.” That last bit he said with an exaggerated frown and a big
shrug of his powerful shoulders, which told Alex of how really
annoyed he was. “I know we’ve just met, but...”

Alex looked down at her now
almost empty cup. Slowly she began to understand everything. She
said, “But what about your real girlfriend?” She did not dare look
at him when she asked him that question.

“We broke up,” he said.

She studied him then, her eyes
questioning him.

Jay understood her quizzical
gaze. “It’s personal.” When he saw her hesitation, he said, “Look
I’ll pay you. Like I said, you’re like my employee. I’m hiring you
to do this. You just name the price. A hundred thousand?”

Alex nearly
chocked. She blinked.
Money!
The dollar sign suddenly appeared before her eyes
along with the ding, ding, ding that sounded like Scrooge McDuck.
She didn’t even buy a lotto ticket and suddenly she was about to
get a hundred thousand bucks just like that? If she was to agree to
this ridiculous proposal that is.

Was Jay rich? Well, she didn’t
need to ask him that question. She could tell by his expensive
clothing and his powerful aura. He walked and acted like he own the
world. Well maybe he did – parts of it anyway.

Suddenly her dad’s heart
transplant didn’t seem so out of reach after all. Maybe she could
also use the money to pay off the mortgage, and her mum wouldn’t
need to work so hard.

Okay, she thought, so what if
she agreed? She licked her lips nervously. “So, erm, what do I have
to do to pretend to be your girlfriend. Hypothetically that is, if
I were to agree with this, erm, proposal of yours?”

Peter and Jay glanced at each
other. This was good. Her asking question was a sign that she was
thinking about the proposal, that she was weighting the pros and
cons, and ultimately that she might agree. Jay said, “You know the
usual girlfriend stuff. I’ll take you back to New York and
introduce you to my family. It’s my sister’s wedding. It’ll only be
two weeks max. I promise.”

“All the way to New York, huh?’
she murmured, her eyes large behind her glasses. Okay, she thought,
girlfriend stuff. Intimate stuff like going out dating –movies,
dinners, picnic and all – stuff that she wasn’t familiar with. Well
considering the fact that she has never had a boyfriend and the
fact that she had never dated, she shouldn’t really blame herself
for being so ignorance about this boyfriend-girlfriend stuff. But
what if she really fell for him when they were fake dating? And
then his ex-girlfriend decided to come back into his life? That
would sure be a real big problem.

She glanced at Jay who was
watching her, waiting for her answer. No, she thought, it wouldn’t
be that hard for her to fall head over heels in love with him. She
thought that she was actually starting to do it right now. Oh God,
she didn’t want to get hurt. Yeah, Alex might be a romantic –
always dreaming about some hot guy like Jay coming into her life
and making a difference – but she was also a realist. Nothing like
that ever happens in real life, and if it did, there’d sure be a
real, big heart-break to follow.

She pushed her cup away from
her and put on her jacket.

Jay and Peter both watched her.
Jay thought she was getting colder. Peter, however, thought
differently. He knew she was backing out and there was nothing he
could do about it. At least there was nothing he could do right
now. But maybe later...

She picked up her satchel and
said, “I’m sorry, Jay, Peter. I don’t think I can help you guys.”
She got up and rushed to the door.

Jay shot up and was about to go
after her when Peter caught his arm.

“What the
hell happened?” Jay asked, confused. It wasn’t like he was going to
eat her up, for God’s sake, he thought. The girl was truly odd. One
minute she was sitting there, listening and questioning them, and
then the next –
Poof!
She was gone.

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

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

“Maybe,” Peter commented.

“So tell me about her,” Jay
began, setting his cup down and relaxed back in his seat. “What is
she like?”

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

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

“Nope. Zippo.”

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

“What?” Peter looked at his
friend.

“She’s afraid of men. That
explains her nerves around me. She’s probably afraid that I might
hurt her. That explains why she has never had a boyfriend. Tell me,
has she been abused by any man before?” He was actually thinking
about last night. Perhaps that kind of things was common in her
life, which explained her nervous around him. Poor girl. She needed
a real man to look after her.

Peter had to try very hard not
to laugh in front of his friend’s face. As far as he knew, Alex had
a very loving family. Jacob, Alex’s dad, was the best. He loved his
wife and children to bits. He was in actual fact very proud of them
for the mere fact that they were half-blooded. Maly, Alex’s mom,
had lost all of her family and relatives after the war in 1979 back
in Cambodia and had been through so much that the mere thought of
anyone abusing her children would probably anger her so much she’d
kill the bastard herself. No, Peter thought, Alex had never been
abused by anyone as far he knew. It was probably more the culture
of which her mother had taught her. The Cambodian culture which
made Alex the way she was.

He said, “No, at least I don’t
think so.”

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

“Me?”

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

“You’re right,” Peter
agreed.

“Tell her
something that’d soften her heart toward me.
Anything.
”

“
Anything
,
huh?” Peter said, nodding his head. He knew just how to go about
it.
‘Oh boy this is going to be
fun,’
he thought, rubbing his hands
together.

*****

CHAPTER 4

ALEXANDRA WAS
GOING nuts! That she was positive because she couldn’t concentrate
or do anything right after that damn hot-choc with Peter and
Jayden. Once she had ran out the door like the devil was on her
heels, she had been nearly run down by a car as she was crossing
the road. This was because she hadn’t looked both ways. How stupid
of her. Then she had driven her car into the wrong lane as she
headed home and had gotten honked at twice plus a
‘Learn how to drive properly, Asian, and go back
to your own country’
yell from one of the
obese truck driver. Yeah right. Under normal circumstances she
would have shouted back,
‘This is my
country, you moron. I’m a Kiwi – hence the accent?’
But of course she hadn’t been able to think
properly at the time.

God damnit! It was all Mr.
Hot-Choc’s fault. She just couldn’t stop thinking about him. His
handsome face kept appearing in her mind; his voice and even the
rhythm of his speech kept echoing in her head.

Once home and alone in her
bedroom, she threw her satchel on the floor and collapsed herself
on the soft bed. “You’ve sent me the wrong man,” she muttered under
her breath, looking heaven ward at the white ceiling. She gave out
a big sigh and rolled over to lie on her stomach. “He’s not even
interested in me. He’s interested because I can help him.”

She pouted her lips. “His
girlfriend must be very hot.” Then she thought to add, “And very
stupid.”

She rested
her chin on her palm as she stared at her pink VAIO netbook
screen.
‘Well you better stop thinking
about him and start paying bills, Alex,’
she told herself.

Nodding her head and determined
not to think about that handsome American dude, she logged into her
internet banking and started paying her electricity and phone
bills. The balanced in her Bank account after that made her feel
awfully depressed. She sighed. Oh well, at least next Wednesday was
payday. Her spirit lift at that thought and she then checked her
emails. She stared up at the ceiling as she waited for her log in.
When she glanced back at the screen, her breath was caught at the
back of her throat.

Oh My
God!
Was she seeing what she was seeing?
She blinked and stared at the screen harder, her eyes large and
round like a saucer.

On the white
screen it read:
Jayden has requested to be
your friend. Press accept if you know him.

She bit her
lip, excitement bubbling up within her.
Should she accept?

Her finger
moved toward the link below that would lead her to Facebook log on
page.
Click!
Facebook log on page appeared. She typed in her email address
and then her password. Then she clicked enter. The screen changed
again into her Facebook page – Alexandra Stewart. She found herself
accepting his request, and not long afterward, she was browsing
through his profile.

‘
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 a request is that anyway?’

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

His profile
picture was of him skiing at the top of a snow-covered
mountain.
Queenstown?
She couldn’t even make out his face. But she thought he still
looked really hot, even in that big winter jacket, woollen hat, and
big sun glasses that covered his eyes.

Browsing through his Facebook
she found that he loved extreme sports and that he was a fan of
many sports clubs thingy-mabob. She had no idea what they were of
course. She found also that he had so many friends she was afraid
to even mention her own number because he might laugh at how small
it was. Well she just liked to keep her Facebook private and to
close friends only, that was all. Nothing wrong with that of
course.

Okay, so she concluded that he
was real, and that he liked his privacy by not posting too much,
but at the same time not posting too little that his Facebook
friends didn’t know what he was like. She noted also that he did
not show his relationship status. He was probably still too
heart-broken from the break up.

All in all there was no
creepiness about him. After she had enough, she logged out off
Facebook and shut off the laptop. She rolled herself over her
double bed and sat up. Just then her cell phone rang. She wondered
who it was as she reached for it. She flipped the phone on and saw
that it was Peter.

She grunted under her breath
and said, “Hey, Pete.”

“Hey, Alex, how’s thing?”

Before Alex
could say that
‘everything is not all
right’
because she kept thinking about
Jayden and seeing his handsome face in her mind and that she had
just finished stalking him via Facebook, he said, “Look, Alex, so
sorry about this afternoon.”

Alex bitted her lip. “That’s
okay, Pete. I know you want to help your friend. At least Mrs.
Thompson isn’t match-making you. Well, she doesn’t have too since
you’re already engaged anyway.”

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

“Hey, so no hard feelings,
right?”

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

“Thing is, Alex, Jay’s
gay.”

Alex blinked.
“Say what?” she shouted into the phone. She drew back, shocked at
herself for bellowing like that. She could just imagine Peter
rubbing his sore ear as he stared at the phone –
at her
– in a bizarre
way.