The Pretend Girlfriend (16 page)

Beatrice waited with her until the limo pulled up to the curb. She gave Gwen's hand a squeeze as the driver stepped out to open her door.

"Remember, he likes you," B said.

"I'll try."

"Hey, look at it this way. You had a dream about him last night. After he gets a look at you in this dress, I can guarantee he's gonna have a similar experience tonight. That, or he's gay. I know what I'm going to dream about!"

"B!" Gwen said. But her friend just grinned at her and winked.

"Ma'am," the driver said, pulling the back door open and offering her a white-gloved hand.

"'Ma'am,'" Beatrice mocked. Before Gwen could admonish her, she started walking away down the street, laughing.

Her heart thudding so that she could hear the blood rush past her ears (and make her glad she'd applied some antiperspirant to her armpits) Gwen accepted the driver's hand and stepped into the car.

This time, the first thing she did was check to make sure that Henry Manning didn't sit across from them.

But it was only Gwen and Aiden this time.

The light coming in from a lamp outside reflected off the polished toes of his shoes. This time, he wore a tuxedo. Black, with a slight shimmer to it. Though, if he dressed to match her, she realized it was probably actually the same deep blue.

"You look... really good," Aiden said.

Well, Gwen thought, that was interesting. She must really be having an effect on him, if he was at a loss for words. She actually kind of wished Henry sat across from them. It would have given her an excuse to hold his hand.

He'd shaved. She could smell his aftershave, and his cheeks looked touchably smooth. His fingers drummed a tuneless, nervous beat against his thighs. Why was he nervous? Wasn't he expecting this?

"You aren't too bad either, I guess," Gwen said, unable to keep from smiling. She kept thinking about what B said, about him looking at her at the Starbucks.

"I have to apologize about this," Aiden said as the limo started moving.

"Well... you did interrupt girl's night," Gwen said, "But this dress definitely scored you a few points." She reached for his hand.

Aiden eluded her grasp, however, reaching up to rub at those smooth cheeks. "It's Henry. He still thinks he knows what's going on."

"So... he's making you take me to this event?" Gwen asked. She saw then how her dress had been riding slowly up her thighs, and she tugged it back down.

"Yes. He's determined to undermine this whole thing."

Gwen still couldn't see what made him so nervous. Surely he'd been attending similar functions all his life?
Unless
, she thought,
there's something I'm missing.

"What's the big deal? Is there going to be dancing or something?" Gwen said, still trying the humor tack. It always seemed to work for Beatrice. Besides, that actually sounded nice: spending a few hours in Aiden's arms as they spun in circles.

And she felt curious about that, too. Did Aiden like to dance? She couldn't quite tell if he was the type who loved dancing and could do it quite well, or hated it and kept tripping over his own feet.

Aiden shook his head and sighed in frustration. Apparently the limo was a no-joke zone. "This isn't 18th Century Vienna, Gwen. There's no dancing."

"Okay, okay. No need to get so touchy about it. What is there, then?"

"Reporters," he said.

"As in news reporters? Cameras and microphones and stuff like that?" Gwen said, beginning to feel a slow, cold drip of anxiety in her stomach. She plucked at the hem of her dress, her body beginning to pick up on Aiden's nerves.

"Yes, cameras and microphones and stuff. Normally, I try to avoid these types of things. All the celebrity, all the fakery. But he insisted..."

"Insisted? Why?"

"Because he knows that as soon as the press gets wind of this, they're going to dig their claws in. Gwen, there will be pictures of us together in half a dozen magazines tomorrow. And then there will be the interviews," Aiden said.

"There are interviews?"

"Yes. Everyone gets interviewed there. He's testing us, don't you see? Tossing us into the meat grinder so he can find out what we're made of. Or to try and expose us. Probably both," Aiden said. His balled his hands into fists and slammed them down onto the seat. Gwen jumped.

"Why is he doing this? What is it that he's holding over you that gives him this power?" Gwen said.

"Not yet. I can't tell you about that yet. We're not ready for this, Gwen. And he knows it. He's going to win again..."

Gwen put her hand over his fist. It shook beneath her palm, but he didn't try to snatch it away, at least. She got a hint of the anger and frustration boiling inside him.

"No, he's not going to win," she said.

"Just stop it. It's over, Gwen. Oh, don't worry, you can keep the money. This isn't your fault..." he broke in.

She wasn't going to let this happen. Not when she knew now that this could be real.

"He isn't. We're going to go and do these interviews. We're going to go and let them snap all the pictures they want. Who cares if we don't get every question right, or have trouble answering? This has only been going on less than a week, remember. What could they possibly expect, except a couple of young people trying to discover each other?"

"I don't know..." Aiden said. His jaw started working.

Gwen squeezed his hand until he looked at her. "We're going to give them exactly what they expect. which happens to be the exact opposite of what your father expects."

"You're right," he said finally, "I've just been used to him being half a dozen moves ahead of me my whole life."

"Well tonight you're going to get your money's worth," Gwen replied.

Aiden glanced out the window. "We're almost there."

The gala took place at a Hilton. Spotlights around the building bathed it in shifting lights. And, as Gwen saw when the driver pulled the limo up, there was an honest-to-God red carpet!

The valet offered his hand and she accepted. She stepped out, instantly aware of two things. The first was the sheer number of people cordoned off behind red velvet ropes along the carpet. Most of them pointed their cameras at the car, setting off a series of flashes that left Gwen half blind, her eyes filled with multicolored afterimages.

The second was how chilly it felt out there. Somehow, she resisted the urges to throw up a hand in front of her face and hug herself. How do celebrities do this? Gwen wondered. She always saw them on live streams and YouTube videos smiling and posing, waving at people and signing autographs.

Aiden put his hand gently against the small of her back. It felt nice and warm. The only warm spot on her at the moment, really. He gave her a gentle nudge and she started forward. Her first couple steps were a little wobbly, as she'd forgotten about the heels.

Her feet didn't though. They ached and panged in protest, and she realized that she hadn't taken them off in the car to give her feet a break as she'd intended. Tonight was going to be a long night.

"Just smile for the cameras," Aiden said, "Don't worry, as soon as the next car comes up they'll shift their attention away from us."

"Okay... It's just, wow, I'm almost blind," she said, hoping that she'd twisted her lips into a smile and not a grimace. She dreaded thinking about how she must look right then, despite the dress and shoes.

"Don't worry, I'll guide you," he said. And he did, leading her gently with that warm hand of his against her back. Thankfully she just needed to keep moving in a straight line.

They walked past a pretty reporter staring into a camera lens, "And this is Aiden Manning, son of business magnate Henry Manning, coming up now. Aiden, who is this ravishing creature with you tonight?"

Gwen didn't actually expect Aiden to stop, but he did. He smiled at the camera. He was in his element now, she realized. Putting on a show for the viewers, moving people over to his side of things. She thought of how he'd held her father’s hand in his. What other little rhetorical tricks did Aiden keep tucked away?

"Hi. Please let me introduce Gwen Browning..." he started.

"Are you two seeing each other? And that is a stunning dress!" the reporter asked, shoving the microphone in Gwen's face.

"Yes, yes we are," Gwen said. She'd never been aware of the sound of her own voice in her life. Did it sound a little raspy? It was cold out, after all.

"How wonderful!" the reporter said. Then she lowered the microphone and leaned in a little, "Are you okay, sweetie? You look a little cold."

"She forget her jacket again," Aiden said. He pulled his tuxedo jacket off and draped it over her shoulders.

"So you can see, chivalry isn't dead," the reporter said, looking back at the camera.

Just as Aiden told her, as soon as the next limo pulled up and a beautiful woman stepped out, all those flashes redirected back towards the street and away from them.

She tugged his jacket closer. "I'm beginning to get quite a collection of these."

"Well, I'm going to need this one back when we get inside."

The rest of the walk up the carpet wasn't bad at all. And then they were in the hotel. Another man in a tuxedo, his black hair slicked back, came up to show them to their table, which was in the hotel's largest conference room. Inside, there had to be about a hundred round tables draped with white cloths, all with four chairs around them.

It reminded her of their "dinner" with Henry.

The large room reverberated with dozens of conversations and the occasional light tinkling of champagne flutes touching.

They were seated. Waiters came around with trays of champagne glasses and hors d’oeuvres. Gwen didn't accept any of them, her stomach still too tangled to let anything in.

And, just as Aiden said, a number of reporters worked the room teamed up with a cameraman.

A pretty woman verging on middle age, the wrinkles in her face nearly obscured by her Botox treatments, took a seat at the table. Her cameraman pointed the lens in their direction and gave her the thumbs up.

This is it
, Gwen thought. Then she felt Aiden's hand find hers beneath the table. He squeezed her fingers lightly, and she squeezed him back. It soothed some of her nerves, but not all. She'd never been interviewed before, not even one of those random street corner things where the reporter asks you what you think about the crazy weather the city's been having.

So it was disconcerting to see the large, singular lens of the camera glaring at her. She could see her reflection in the glass slightly.

The reporter gave the cameraman a thumbs up and he started recording, a little red light beneath the lens glowing light the ember of a cigarette.

"Mr. Manning, my name is Sylvia Draper, with Channel 11. I hope you're doing well this fine, if somewhat chilly, evening."

"Yes, Sylvia, quite well. And please, call me Aiden. Mr. Manning is my father."

Sylvia nodded, pleased that Aiden seemed to be cooperating. "We're sorry that he can't join us tonight. Let me get down to it, Aiden. Do you really think your recent philanthropic efforts on behalf of Carbide Solutions will really improve the company's image on the world stage?"

Gwen gathered from the reporter's tone that the woman didn't seem to think his efforts amounted to much. This annoyed her. What right did this over-the-hill witch with her plastic face have to question him like that?

But Aiden just let her insinuation roll off. "Yes, I do. I am not my father, and I will see to it that the company's bottom line doesn't become more important than people's lives."

He really meant it, too. He grew more impassioned, and Gwen could see in the set of his jaw how important this was to him. And while the camera could catch that, it couldn't catch the way his hand squeezed hers again beneath the table.

"Bold words. I understand you're seeing someone now. Miss Gwen Browning, if my sources are correct. Care to answer some questions for our viewers?"

"Not at all. Gwen and I are quite happy to, in fact," Aiden said.

Gwen could figure out who Sylvia's source was pretty easily. She wondered what else Henry had told Sylvia about her, aside from her name. It's okay, she thought, we can get through this.

"How did you two meet?" Sylvia said.

"At a party thrown by the Astors," Aiden said.

Pretty easy so far.

"Tell me, Aiden," Sylvia said, "What do you see in Gwen that attracted you to her? Aside from her pretty face, I mean."

Aiden looked at her, then straight back at the camera. "Gwen is kind-hearted and passionate, trusting, optimistic. And she can be quite stubborn, too."

Gwen couldn't help smiling. Although the only part she really agreed on was the last one. It felt nice when he paid her compliments.

The questions went on like that for some time, relatively innocuous fluff things. Gwen did notice that their interview seemed to drag on considerably longer than any other. A few of the others reporters moving through the room finished two or more in the time Sylvia spent grilling them.

But she and Aiden managed to answer all her questions. Until they got near what Gwen thought (hoped) was the end. She had to keep making her hand relax, trying not to squeeze all the feeling out of Aiden's fingers.

"Gwen, is it true that you're experiencing some financial difficulties? My sources report that you were in arrears on your rent to the tune of thousands of dollars."

The smile dropped from Gwen's face. "What?"

"What kind of question is that?" Aiden started, trying to rush to her defense. This little "interview" had to be set up by Henry. It was the only explanation. He must have told Sylvia to hold off on that bombshell until last.

"Yes," Sylvia said, ignoring Aiden, "That's what my sources tell me. Isn't it a little strange that one week you're just a college student struggling to get the bills paid, and the next you're hanging off the arm of one of New York's most eligible bachelors?"

"I don't like what you're insinuating," Gwen said. She could feel her composure falling apart. Wasn't this just supposed to be a fluff piece? She hoped that no one she knew was watching. She hoped it wasn't live, that it was just a recording.