Jayda was floored. “Youownthe building? The whole building?”
“Yes. My name is Harrison Arthur Bainbridge the Fourth. Sound familiar?”
“You’re a Bainbridge?”
“Yes.”
“And you own the Bainbridge building?”
He smiled. “Yes.”
“But that’s amazing. That name is like the Rockefeller Center or Carnegie Hall. Or rich people like that. And you own it?”
“Yes.”
Jayda was beyond floored. “I know that building so well. I ride by it all the time. I had no idea youownedit. I mean, I knew you were rich. You live at The Shalimar and in the richest apartment in the whole building. So I knew you had to be rich. But owning that whole building means you’re another level of rich.”
Harrison was amused that she seemed more impressed by the fact that he owned the Bainbridge building than that he was a Bainbridge himself. Which only added to her innocence to him. “Yes, I’m another level of rich, that is true. But my father, Harrison Arthur Bainbridge the Third, is far richer. He owns Bainbridge Oil.”
Another shocker for Jayda. “That’s like ExxonMobil Oil, isn’t it?”
“Number two behind ExxonMobil, yes.”
“Wow,” was all Jayda could say.
Harrison could see her shock all over her easy-to-read face. “Too much to hear?” he asked her.
“You would think it would be,” she said. But then she looked at him. “But it’s not. I mean, to me rich is rich. You and your father are on another level of rich, I understand that now, but it’s not bothering me like I would have thought it would.”
Harrison smiled. He loved how honest she was. “I’m pleased to hear that,” he said. “Because that brings me to the second part of this experiment.”
Jayda braced herself. “What is it?” she asked him.
“My father is retiring from Bainbridge Oil and will turn over his entire empire to either me or my brother. The reason he’s retiring is because he’s also very ill.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry to hear that.”
It seemed so genuine to Harrison, unlike the others in his circles who said it to him, that it touched him. “Thank you. But because he’s ill, he’s decided to retire. He has a decision to make. I am the oldest son, and I have a younger brother named Felix. Normally, the family fortune is passed down to the oldest son. That is how my father became the owner of Bainbridge Oil and his father before that. But my father, who has never played by the rules, feels I’m a bit lacking and it’s no longer obvious that I will inherit the bulk of his estate.”
He could tell that Jayda didn’t know where on earth this was headed, but she continued to listen.
“I have been informed, by numerous credible sources, that the reason my father has decided to give my younger brother a chance, is because I am not married, have no prospects for marriage, and is, to him, unsettled. He wants a family man to be in charge of his assets.”
Now Jayda was getting nervous. “What does any of that have to do with me?”
“My brother and I have been summoned to his estate in Kennebunkport in Maine, and we’re slated to arrive next Thursday evening. It’s my father’s retirement bash. I have beenadvised that if I’m engaged by next Thursday and show up with my fiancée on my arm, then that can tip the scale back into my favor.”
Jayda was floored. “What are you saying? Are you saying that. . . That you want me to pretend to be your fiancée?”
Again, she was quick. He liked that. “Yes, Jayda. That’s what I’m saying.”
Jayda was frowned. “But I can’t do that. I can’t lie to a dying man about something that important just so you can get richer than you already are.”
“I appreciate your candor,” Harrison said, “and I wish it was as simple as me getting richer. But there’s more to it than that. My company is on the line. If I don’t get my hands on my father’s company, which will automatically increase my stock because it will show that my father has complete confidence in me to hand over the reins of power to the second-largest oil and gas company in the world.”
“And if he doesn’t leave it to you?”
“Then BCT, my company, will more than likely be declaring bankruptcy in a matter of months, and tens of thousands of employees will have to be laid off.”
