Chapter 5
Quinn
I ’m working at the bakery on Saturday morning when I get a random text.
Unknown: Where are you?
I consider deleting it, but reply, Who is this?
When the answer comes in, I just about drop my phone.
Unknown: Harlan
Oh. My. God.
I’m not even sure why I text back an answer—What business is it of his where I am? But my fingers actually shake when I do. The level to which this man excites me is beyond sensibility. I try to convince myself it’s terror.
Me: I’m working at the bakery.
He doesn’t reply, but I save his number to my phone and label it Harlan .
There’s something deliciously intimate about that.
I shouldn’t like it as much as I do.
Luckily Justin isn’t in today, because I’m stupidly distracted, and drop an entire cake on the floor in the back room.
Does this mean I can text him now whenever I want to?
Not that I want to.
About an hour after he texts me, a courier arrives.
Wear something presentable.
Those are the three incredibly daunting words scrawled onto the envelope the courier hands me. Inside the envelope is a prepaid credit card with ten thousand dollars loaded onto it.
Ten. Thousand.
That is a hell of a lot of money to spend on a dinner outfit.
I guess Harlan changed his mind since we spoke in his office and he said it doesn’t matter what I wear.
So… not only am I getting paid for the shift I’m missing at Velvet tonight, he’s buying me an outfit for this dinner that will cost more than my entire existing wardrobe. I guess he assumes whatever I was planning to show up in won’t be good enough.
This is a job.
The whole thing suddenly feels so transactional, I’m disappointed and simultaneously pissed at myself. This man does not have a thing for me. He didn’t pick me because he actually likes me.
I still don’t know why he picked me; surely there are oodles of employees at his many companies who need their jobs as badly as I do, who could be paid, blackmailed or otherwise compelled to do his bidding.
But I need to remind myself that no matter how chiseled-ice-sculpture-handsome he is or how many times I’ve wondered since meeting him what he’s like in bed—and if he wants me in his —that this is just business.
Business and blackmail.
I’m tempted to get myself a fifty-dollar dress and spend the rest on my desperately outdated kitchen at home.
But that would be wrong.
So instead, as soon as I’m finished my shift at Crave in the afternoon, I call Dani while delivering a cake to West Vancouver for a wedding reception, then hustle it back downtown to meet her. Dani is a personal stylist with a social media following in the hundreds of thousands, in other words, way more qualified for this task than a woman who buys most of her clothes pre-loved and as cheaply as possible.
I spend the next two hours just trying to keep up as my most beautiful and fashionable friend—who should probably be the one going on a date with a billionaire, quite frankly—stalks through Holt Renfrew, yanking designer items from racks and tossing them into my garment-laden arms.
“What does ‘presentable’ even mean to a billionaire?” I lament as Dani stuffs me into a fitting room for the fourth time and tosses in shoes.
“Oh, we’ll make you presentable, all right,” she mutters. She sounds lowkey pissed, as if the scrawled command on the envelope was a personal slight against her.
“I’m sweating so bad, I can’t get this dress on,” I pant, my voice muffled from inside the Givenchy dress that’s stuck over my head. I glimpsed the price tag and I’m terrified of ripping it.
Dani helps me pull it on. “This is just him exerting control. It’s a power play. Don’t let him win.”
Maybe she’s right.
Maybe he’s exerting control because that’s just what he does.
Or maybe he’s more worried than he let on about my ability to pull this off, and the clothes are supposed to help.
That finger thing he did, picking at the edge of his desk? It seemed like a nervous tic, but who knows. Maybe he had an itch.
I’m nervous as hell. It’s not just the prospect of having dinner with Harlan Vance’s billionaire siblings that freaks me out. Or the part about lying to them, pretending to be this Darla person.
It’s very specifically the part about pretending to be Harlan’s lover .
Maybe because I can’t even seem to decide if I’m more afraid of him or intrigued by him. It’s not on purpose. I can’t help it if my sex parts are curious about the man.
The rest of me still finds him ridiculously intimidating.
And extremely confusing.
Though he ordered me to do this job for him like there would be no taking no for an answer, he was quick to accommodate my needs when I said I couldn’t do the dinner last night. He respected my boundaries and my cake business.
Justin never does that. He seems to think my employment at his bakery means he owns me and my time, for a fraction of what I’m worth.
The panic is real and it’s growing.
What if I actually like Harlan Vance? As in, want to bang him?
A lot ?
What does that even say about me?
I don’t know.
But I definitely don’t tell Dani that he blackmailed me into this. Just that he ordered me to do it. Fine line.
I know I wasn’t supposed to tell her anything. NDA and all. But come on. I tell my besties everything. I’ll tell Nicole, too, when I see her in person; some things just don’t belong in a text.
And like the ride-or-die friend she is, Dani proceeds to calmly assist me in procuring a new dress, shoes, lipstick, liquid eyeliner, a satin handbag, and finally, when she realizes we have almost five grand left, a diamond tennis bracelet.
I personally think the bracelet is a bit much. But when I express this to Dani she replies, deadpan, “Well, I think that your boss ordering you to lie to his family that you’re his woman because he doesn’t have one is a bit much.”
We spend the remaining balance on a blow out for each of us, the two smoothies we slurp at the salon, and an Uber back to Crave bakery, which is now closed but conveniently close to Vance Tower.
Dani puts on “Love Is a Battlefield” courtesy of my Lorraine Forever playlist and does my makeup; while Dani couldn’t give a crap about eighties music, if any woman truly believes love is a battlefield, it’s her.
Then I get dressed in the cramped staff washroom.
When I step out for the big reveal, she looks triumphant. “You look gorgeous. Way too good for some spoiled billionaire boss.” She takes me by the shoulders and instructs me, “Make sure he works for it before you serve up any sugar. You’re too sweet for your own good, Quinn Monroe.”
I roll my eyes a little, way more nervous than I want to let on. “I’m still in a relationship with Justin. Technically. There will be no serving of sugar.”
Now Dani rolls her eyes.
I am in a relationship, but only because I haven’t told Justin yet that the relationship is over. He didn’t ask me how I’m doing, or how Mom is doing, the last time I saw him. Or the time before that. Or any of the times before, in weeks. I barely see him. He rarely takes me out.
All he does is call me over to his bed in the middle of the night, when he feels like it.
Harlan was right. We are sleeping together.
Rarely are we actually dating.
I used to tell myself he just doesn’t have time because he’s so focused on making a success of his bakery business. That used to be a good thing. Admirable.
I don’t have much time for a relationship, either.
I keep telling myself I don’t want anything serious. And Justin was the perfect casual boyfriend. Successful in my field, easy on the eyes, and he doesn’t judge my music preferences.
But Justin has never given me a hot flash with just a look in his eyes or a lowering of his voice.
I’ve never lusted after him.
Suddenly, I don’t know why I thought that was okay.
When did I set the bar so damn low?
I mean, maybe it’s still low if I’m now lusting after a man who would blackmail me into a fake date with him, but we’ll sort that out later.
I retrieve the cake I stored in one of the fridges, ready to go, then Dani walks me over to Vance Tower, hugs me goodbye, and says, “Remember. Don’t let him win.” Then she turns me by the shoulders and sends me off toward the gleaming entrance.
She definitely thinks I’m going to fuck him.
That this dinner is just a ruse. Foreplay. That he’s inviting me to dinner with this fake-date scheme just to get me into bed.
I guess that’s more believable than the real explanation.
As I approach the giant gold VANCE sign, a driver mobilizes from his post near the valet stand, and strides over to a black Mercedes SUV that’s parked in front of the entrance. He opens the rear door and nods at me.
On second glance, he looks more like an assassin than a chauffeur. I think I can see his eight-pack through his suit. All the security guys around this building look like this; like they take their jobs very seriously.
“Miss Monroe,” he greets me.
“Oh. Hi.” It’s truly pathetic how disappointed I am that it’s not Harlan himself who’s here to meet me. He’s not waiting in the back of the car, either; it’s empty. As I slide into the backseat, I wonder what he told the driver about me.
Though I don’t know where we’re going, I’m surprised when we leave downtown. From the sleek black glass tower we head southward, over the Granville bridge, straight down South Granville, then make a couple of turns as we wind into Shaughnessy. It’s barely more than a fifteen-minute drive, but it feels like we’re in a completely different world.
I’ve only driven through this tree-lined neighborhood a few times over the years, ogling the huge estates and mansions, both old and new, many of them walled-off and gated.
We stop in front of an ornate black iron gate, and it opens for us. Then we roll past the stone wall that looks like it’s been there for a hundred years, and up the gently curving drive, past lush, formal landscaping. The house is immense. Old stone, a sprawling two stories.
Harlan told me our dinner wouldn’t be in public. But I didn’t expect it to be at someone’s home.
The driver parks us in front of the entrance and comes to open my door for me. He offers to take the cake box for me as I slide out, but I prefer to carry it myself. It feels like a sort of security blanket as I follow him up the wide front steps.
The door opens from inside before we get there.
Harlan Vance has opened it himself, wearing a black suit and black collared shirt with a black tie. My breath lodges in my throat.
This feels intimate, too. Him. Me. Seeing each other outside of Vance Tower.
And in his home, presumably.
“Hello,” I say nervously, when he doesn’t greet me, just stares. I’m getting maybe one percent used to his staring. It’s like he’s too busy running calculations in his head to speak. “You live here?”
“I do.”
I feel the driver ebb away, leaving us alone, as Harlan’s eyes rake over me—from my hair, side-swept in a loose knot, and down my new black sheath dress, which features zero cleavage, a knee-length hem, and just a slight side slit. It’s flattering, classy, but Dani insisted he hasn’t “earned” anything sexier. I tend to agree with that.
“I brought cake,” I say quickly, before he can comment. I’m not sure I want to hear a compliment or a critique on my appearance. Either one would just make me more nervous. “It’s a vanilla cake, always a crowd pleaser, but it’s layered with decadent white chocolate ganache,” I babble, “drizzled in more ganache, piled high with fresh fruit, and topped with edible flowers.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that,” he says warily. The man is more guarded than one really needs to be, what with all the security.
“It’s just what I do,” I say awkwardly. “It’s for your guests. I mean, your family.”
I step inside. He hasn’t exactly invited me in, though he does step aside a bit in a suggestion of welcoming.
He closes the door behind me, shutting out the evening sunlight as I wander into the massive foyer.
The floor is gleaming marble. The chandelier above is vast, the lighting dim and elegant. A massive double staircase curves up to the second floor on either side. The house isn’t modern and sparse like his office, but like his office, I can already see that it’s masculine, meticulously neat, and clean. It’s also hella fancy.
“Please, allow me, miss.” I startle as a middle-aged man in a tidy suit appears like magic at my side. He whisks away the cake before I can recover.
“Was that… a butler?” I say, astonished.
“Of course.” Harlan appears confused, if not slightly irritated, by my wide-eyed awe.
“Oh. I guess I was expecting more of a talking teapot situation.”
We stare at each other.
I guess the Beauty and the Beast reference went right over his head.
I clear my throat, extremely uncomfortable, and look around again.
“My family will be here any minute,” he says. “We should get settled.”
He leads me into a formal sitting room off the foyer. This place is intense. It feels like a vampire lives here, except for the lack of cobwebs and coffins. It’s still bright outside, but all the heavy drapes are drawn. It’s like I’m in another world, or another time.
A place where the same rules don’t apply?
Maybe it’s okay to be bad in here , a little voice inside me says.
I’m pretty sure it’s Nicole’s.
The sitting room opens into a grand dining room through a set of wide double doors. I can see the table lavishly set for our meal.
The sitting room itself is dark, luxurious, and furnished like a relic lives in it. I wonder if some elderly but now deceased relative previously owned the house, because it doesn’t suit a totally fuckable man Harlan’s age. According to Nicole and her internet sources, he’s thirty-three.
There’s not one spark of life in the room, except?—
“Oh, you have a cat. I love cats.”
“I don’t have a cat,” he says.
“Um. There’s one right there.” I point to the petite black cat lounging on the fancy sofa.
Harlan frowns, and promptly shoos it out one of the French doors into the yard.
“What’s its name?”
“It’s just a stray,” he mutters as he shuts the door, then draws the heavy curtain back into place.
Okay… it sure didn’t look like a stray. Its coat was glossy and lush, and it was chilling like a little royal on the sofa when we walked in.
But Harlan looks stressed, so I don’t mention it.
“Do you have something against sunlight?”
“What?”
“The drapes. It’s gorgeous outside right now.”
“Well, we’re not outside.”
We stare at each other again. So awkward.
“Let’s prepare,” he says tensely.
“Okay…”
“Dinner will be in the dining room,” he informs me, as if I didn’t notice. “We’ll eat, and after dinner I’ll have you driven home. My siblings won’t be bringing dates. It will just be the four of them.”
“Okay.”
“Jameson is the youngest. He may seem like a flirt, but that’s just how he is. Don’t let it go to your head. He’s happily engaged.”
Wow. Do I seem that easy?
“Okay,” I say carefully. “Uh… I actually know who Jameson is. My girlfriend Nicole is pretty close with his fiancée, Megan. They grew up together.”
His jaw does this clenching thing that doesn’t seem like a good sign. “You didn’t mention that.”
“I didn’t know I should. I’ve only met Megan a couple of times since she moved to Vancouver this summer. I don’t know her well.”
“You haven’t met Jameson?”
“No. I doubt he even knows who I am. But Nicole’s the one who encouraged me to apply for a job at Velvet.”
He glowers, and I can practically feel his brain processing this new information. I get the distinct feeling he doesn’t like not knowing everything.
Control freaks are like that.
“I’ve never met any of your siblings,” I try to reassure him, “except Damian, at Velvet, briefly. He might remember me. The turquoise hair is kind of memorable.”
His eyes move over my hair the way they did in his office; like his fingers are sifting through it.
“It’s fine,” he says tightly. “As I said, none of them have met Darla. As far as they know, I’ve been keeping you—her—a secret. Which will explain why I didn’t look at you when he saw me at Velvet, and you were there.”
“You did look at me, though.”
His eyes darken as they hold mine.
In response, blood courses through me, hot and fast. My skin prickles, and I take a deep breath.
Oh, boy. I am lusting.
“If Damian recognizes you,” he says, diverting the subject, “I’ll handle it.”
“Okay.”
“My sister, Savannah, is my twin. She doesn’t like anyone I date. Don’t take it personally.”
“I mean, how could I? I’m not actually dating you.”
He doesn’t seem to appreciate my attempt to chill things out with humor.
“Graysen is the oldest. He’s a stickler for the rules, so he’ll be watching you.”
“What rules?”
“All of them.”
I swallow.
Am I really doing this?
“Any questions?” he asks.
So many.
“Yes.” I have one incredibly burning question, which he never really answered to my satisfaction. “Why me? I mean, there must be someone better for this role. Someone else who could play your lover more convincingly than I can. Someone else you can trust.”
“No,” he says darkly. “There isn’t.”
Could this man get any more intense?
If he doesn’t stop staring at me like that, and saying things like that, I’m going to get it all twisted, and start feeling flattered that he picked me.
“Well… can you tell me more about Darla? Like what does she do for a living?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It might help.”
“Just be yourself.”
“Is she like me?”
“I don’t know you.” His switchblade eyes sweep over me. “But I doubt it.”
Yeah. Me, too. “What does she look like?”
After a moment’s hesitation, he says tightly, “Black hair. Green eyes.”
“Is she beautiful?”
“Yes.”
“How long were you lovers?”
His jaw does that clenching thing, and I can tell he’s impatient with the questions. “A while.”
I try to imagine her, dark and sensuous and utterly lovely. Darla. I imagine her getting fucked by the infernal creature in front of me and my mouth goes dry. “What a lucky woman.”
Shit. Pretty sure I said that out loud.
Yup. Definitely.
Harlan studies me, tilting his head slightly like I might make more sense to him that way.
Maybe he thinks I’m being sarcastic.
Wish I was.
“Uh, let’s see.” My cheeks are flaming, and I struggle for a topic change. “You already know I work at a bakery,” I offer, filling the tense silence. “And I have my own little cake design business on the side, with my mom. I make celebration cakes, and she makes cupcakes. Like for weddings, baby showers, birthdays. Engagements. Reunions. Mitzvahs?—”
“I get it,” he growls.
Why does he look like he’s reacting allergically to that list? Does he have something against celebrations?
“So… if you ever need a cake, you know who to call.”
“I already told you. We won’t be seeing each other after this.”
We have another brief staring contest, which he seems to win.
“Right. Well, what else can I tell you? I live with my mom. I never bought a pair of shoes for more than fifty bucks before today, and I have a pretty serious addiction to salted caramel.”
He looks confused. “Salted caramel what ?”
“Anything.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” He seems both suspicious and annoyed.
“I thought you might want to know me? At least a bit. Like, learn a few details about me to make our connection seem more genuine?”
“I don’t need to know you,” he says, his voice low and sincere. “I told you, it’s just a dinner. I’ll introduce you as Darla. We’ve been seeing each other on and off for a while. You like me or you don’t. It doesn’t matter. You can be as vague about our relationship as you want. I’ve always been.”
“Oh. Okay…”
“Just answer their questions, be polite, and that’s it. Then you won’t ever have to see them again,” he says, reminding me that I’m little more than a prop, stage dressing for the lie he’s about to tell.
The doorbell rings, and he orders, “Wait here while I bring them in.”
When he leaves, I take a deep breath.
I don’t know why I find him so attractive. Yes, he’s handsome, and he looks hotter than hell in a suit.
But he’s a liar.
He’s lying to his family. He’s got a secret about this Darla woman, and he’s going to some pretty extreme lengths to cover it up. The man is obviously a cautionary tale. The villain in his own fairytale.
And he didn’t bring me here because he wants me.
It’s not lust I feel in the air between us.
It’s power. Ruthless, uncompromising, and total, drugging in its potency.
It’s his power.
I tell myself there will never be anything between Harlan Vance and me but this brief, shady business deal.
But maybe I’m a liar, too.