13

“What? Women are insane. You look different today, but you’re so damn flirty that it doesn’t matter if you’re flirting with me, or him. He probably still admires you. I need you to cross the line and—”

“Make out with you?” Helen finished for him. “I’m not doing that. But if it would make you feel better, I’ll go breakup with him. I’ll go tell him to forget about me. It might take him a bit longer, but then he might decide to marry your sister after all.”

“You’d go that far?” Dominic asked his eyes narrowed.

“Of course,” Helen said, pushing his hands off her and moving away. “Do you think I want our little game to ruin his real life? How stupid. Besides, both of you are forgetting something really important.”

“Which is?” Dominic asked.

“I have a life outside this,” Helen said over her shoulder as she walked away to find Mark.

***

Mark and Laura were eating outside one of the hotdog stands. Helen walked up to them—a total of ten centimeters taller than she was normally—and asked Mark if she could talk to him privately.

Laura looked vexed by that little development but allowed Mark to go without kicking up much of a fuss.

Helen walked with him out of the fairgrounds and to the parking lot. She had no plans to go back to Dominic afterward. She will have fulfilled her obligation to him by then. Besides, Laura had definitely figured out she was Vera—or Laura was an idiot. She had probably already told Mark the truth about her and Helen was just screwing herself over trying to avoid the truth.

“Mark,” Helen said, leaning against the carnival sign. “I hear that Laura wants to marry you.”

Mark looked confused. “Why do you want to talk to me about that?”

“Well, Dominic told me. He’s a devil and a half, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Mark said, turning away.

“I need to talk to tell you something important, but first I want to confirm something with you. Dominic told me that you really like me and that’s why you won’t marry her.”

Mark took a deep breath. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I was using you as a scapegoat. You have nothing to do with it. I was just using your name as an excuse because I thought I’d never see you again. I don’t want to marry her or even date her, but she won’t give up on me. If you were around to get caught up in this mess, I would have made up a different story. If that makes any sense." He paused. “I owe you an apology. I didn’t mean to pull you into something like this.”

Helen smiled. “That’s a relief, but I sort of have another problem I’d like to talk to you about if I could.”

Mark didn’t say anything. He looked grim. Maybe it was just because Helen said it was a relief that he didn’t like her. Helen thought that it must have been her imagination, but didn’t he usually laugh at difficulties when they were at work?

“You see,” Helen began. “I sort of had some trouble last summer. I was planning on going to college, but I missed the deadline for a grant and for a scholarship. My student loan and savings weren’t enough to pay for my second semester or my housing. I was in a lot of trouble and the last thing in the world I wanted was to go home with my tail between my legs. So, I ended up taking a job at an escort service to pay my tuition and my living expenses.”

“Naturally,” Mark said, looking like he was bored and wanted to go.

But Helen was going to make him listen to all of it. “After graduation, I got that job working as your assistant.”

Mark’s eyes bugged out of his head. “You mean, Laura was telling the truth?”

“Yeah,” Helen admitted.

“I didn’t believe her.”

“No, my cousin takes good care of me. She helps me look like this. The thing is, I’m really the girl that works in your office. That’s my true personality. I’m not like this at all. I worked for the escort service for the money. In fact, I have already quit, but I didn’t want to run away from the consequences of what I did. I wanted to face you honestly and tell you I don't want to be an escort anymore. I want to be your assistant quite badly. Please don’t can me over this.”

Mark stepped away from her. “I don’t think I can use this as grounds to sack you, but it could turn into a scandal. It would be especially bad if Laura reports us, and I wouldn’t put it past her."

Helen stared. She had never thought there would be consequences for the company.

“But I might get off the hook since you didn’t disclose that you were an escort on your resume,” he continued. “Also I didn’t hire you personally.”

“You mean you’re thinking about your own hide?” she asked.

“Why would I worry about you?” he asked boldly. “You’re not going to suffer from this, and actually neither am I. The only thing that’s going to suffer is our company’s name and discretion."

The sound of his voice when he said those four words made Helen’s blood ignite—she thought she would explode. “You are so full of crap. You may not have hired me as your assistant in the company, which yes, is a shield you can use to cover your tracks if you like, saying you didn't know who I was when I was hired. But you did hire me personally to escort you to that party. You hired me!” she yelled.

“What if the press gets involved?” he questioned angrily.

“Oh, poor Mark,” she pouted. “Who do you think you are? You’re not the C.E.O. or a vice president. You’re not even the director of our division. You’re just a P.R. officer who couldn’t get an assistant. No one cares about your dirty little secrets. You are not important enough to warrant a scandal. The worst thing that could happen is your boss will call you into his office and talk to you about it seriously, and then laugh. That’s right. I think he’ll laugh.”

That seemed to take Mark down a notch. His shoulders sagged and his face turned beet-red. “What do you know?”

She shook her head. “Of course, I will take responsibility for what I did. Oh golly, I went on one date with you and so now I’m blacklisted for life. Dang!" She paused for a second before she started in again. “And you, Mr. Lewis, think you’re so friggin’ cute and you know what? You are. So cute that it nearly broke my country-girl heart when you didn’t outbid Dominic on Valentine’s Day. I needed the money badly that night and I hadn’t worked since New Year’s. But if you had called me any other night of the week, I would have said ‘yes’ and gone with you for free. You know, I didn’t want to be an escort. It’s not my style! I’m not even sexy without Mindy’s help, but I needed to eat. That’s right! Things had been going so badly I had to skip meals—often. Perhaps you didn’t notice the way I inhaled my meal on Valentine’s—”

“I noticed,” Mark said quietly, interrupting. “I noticed. I just didn’t think it was anything that serious.”

Helen stopped talking and stood there panting for an instant. She needed to catch her breath.

Mark suddenly put a hand over his eyes and said, “Look, Helen, this has been a lot to take in. You’re right. I think I exaggerated how serious this was. I’ll talk to my boss tomorrow morning and see what he thinks is best. Why don’t you go home now and I’ll explain your absence to Dominic? If he doesn’t want to pay you for the whole time because you ducked out early, I’ll cover your fees.”

“Thanks,” she said, turning around and calling Mindy to ask her for a ride. She couldn’t think of a good reason to bother with a taxi now that her alias was shot.