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“She knows nothing about you.” Lance opened up his arms, appealing to the ether. “She thinks you’re what? A consultant living in a basic apartment that goes for less than twenty-five hundred a month. In your actual life, your real life, you spend that on…” He paused, probably trying to come up with something ridiculous. “Air freshener for the jet in a week… She thinks you’re gay, man. That you’re in a committed relationship. She doesn’t even know your real name. What the hell does she know about you that’s real?”
The facts, about his folks, his opinions on things they’d discussed. She knew how he took his coffee and that he preferred the chocolate muffins to the lemon ones she favored. But Lance was right. Whatever he’d thought they were building, whatever the foundation, it was an illusion built on a lie.
“I have to tell her the truth,” he said, spinning around, the door in his sights.
“Whoa,” Lance said, rushing around to get between him and the exit. “You tell her now, she’ll be mad. She’ll think we’re some kind of weird, warped perverts.”
“She’ll think you are, and I don’t give a damn.”
“Think about it,” Lance said, trying to calm him. “These past couple of weeks, she’s believed you’re gay.”
Why should that prevent him from being truthful with her? “And?”
“You’ve been no threat,” Lance said, putting a hand on his shoulder again. “Women are weird with their gay friends. Remember in the office when we were doing the deal with Nyholm? When Geoffrey was our point guy?” Xander nodded. “The women in the office flocked around him. How many times did we hear them talking about waxing or dating or laughing about some sex thing?”
“All the time.”
“And Geoff said they went quiet when we came in because he was just another one of the girls. We weren’t allowed in that safe circle. Rainie has believed, all this time, that you are completely safe. She can talk to you about anything. You’re like another one of her girlfriends because you have so many things in common.”
“Not the target audience,” he muttered, replaying the odd things Rainie had said in many of their conversations. So much became clear. “Goddamnit.”
“She’ll feel violated if you tell her. Like you lied to manipulate her.”
“I didn’t lie. You lied.”
“You’ve got to let it go,” he said. “Trust me, you don’t want any of that. If you tell her, she’ll be sad at first, but then she’ll get angry. Angry women want revenge. If she finds out who you really are and exposes this to the press…”
That would be a big story. Billionaire mogul gets his kicks duping beautiful women in coffee shops. Posing as gay to get them to reveal their secrets.
“Rainie isn’t like that,” he said, though he’d never been on her bad side.
“All women are like that, trust me. It doesn’t have to be her; she tells one girlfriend who tells another. They have their own network, believe me, it never works out well for us.”
“So that’s it? Just… over?”
“I’ll give you credit for nineteen days because I’m partially responsible.”
“Partially? No. You’re completely responsible,” he said, a solid weight growing in his chest. “I can’t just give her up. Rainie isn’t the sort of woman a guy can drop cold turkey.”
“There’s no other way,” Lance said. “I suppose you could still meet her for coffee once in a while, but…”
“But what?”
“You still have to find your real woman for the deal.”
He exhaled. “Who gives a damn about the deal?”
“We can forget about it if you want,” Lance said, nodding. “We can get on a plane today and get back to work.” And never see Rainie again. “But you’d owe me a million for BlueGold.”
He didn’t care about the million. He wouldn’t put time into BlueGold; Lance would be responsible for nurturing the budding firm.
A million dollars? It was laughable. Rainie was worth so much more than that. No amount of money could replace her. Riches wouldn’t compel him to willingly hurt her. No figure would be worth her pain.
A desire to tell her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, burned within him. But they’d known each other for nineteen days and didn’t have a strong standing to fall back on. If she got mad or felt used, which she would because truth and loyalty were so important to her, he’d have done her job for her. Revealing himself and the deception all at once would give her valuable information to sell to the press right when she was at her most vulnerable.
Whatever he did, one thing was evident, the optimism of the relationship he’d hoped to have with her was gone. For good. They’d never have a future. The adage was true, money definitely could not buy happiness.
8
