Fallon had arranged for the crew to stay three days and to leave on the fourth morning, but on the third morning, Harrison got word that they needed to take an unscheduled break. The revised plan was to rest on the third day, work again on the fourth day—get the shot they needed—and then leave on the fifth morning.

Harrison gave Paige a little grin when he told her the new arrangement.

“Why are you so happy?” Paige asked suspiciously. “I didn’t think you liked sleeping in the hangar.”

“I don’t,” Harrison explained. He was leaning against the kitchen counter as Paige prepared breakfast. “But they can’t change their booking without a penalty and Fallon’s willing to pay the extra charges. He gave me an extremely large tip in cash to help ease the pain of their continued stay.”

“It must have been a pretty big tip to make you smile like that.”

“It was.” He smiled again. “Here’s what I was thinking. You deserve a day off and one of us needs to drive into town to pick up another load of supplies, so why don’t you take the truck and go?”

Paige hesitated. Harrison had never offered her the vehicle before. “U-huh,” she stuttered. “You’ll have to do a slight modification on my wrist band. I can’t go as far away from you as town without your permission.”

“I know,” Harrison said, taking her arm in his and slipping a new information pack into her bracelet. The information pack was tiny, smaller than a memory card, but Harrison wasn’t clumsy and got in it the right slot on his first try. When he was done, he let go of her hand and looked at the floor rather than at her face. Paige knew that look. Was he still shy around her?

“Thanks,” she said, “but I don’t understand why you want me to go. Wouldn’t you rather I was here to see to our guests’ needs?”

“They don’t have any needs,” Harrison said simply. “I’ll make lunch for them and besides, you shouldn’t take all day. Just drive out, pick up the stuff and come back. Oh, but be sure to stop by the café and have a snack. The drive is unbearable if there isn’t anything fun to do at the other end.”

“This is really nice of you, Harrison.”

“It’s not as nice as I could be,” he admitted, suddenly grouchy.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I should be offering you a portion of the tip I got from Fallon, but…”

Paige knew what he was talking about. He was worried about how unfair it was for her not to get a cut of the money.

Paige smiled and got back to work. “Don’t think about it. I already sold myself to you, so you don’t have to pay me. You’ve already paid for all the work I have done and will ever do. The money is going to my debt anyway, so don’t worry about giving me anything extra.”

Harrison shrugged his shoulders and gave her the passkey to the truck. “I’ve already sent in the order, so they should have it all packed up for you by the time you get there. Go after you eat breakfast and I’ll stay here and keep the hooligans in line.”

***

Paige opened the door of the truck and got in at exactly the same time Zaphier got in on the other side.

Paige stared at his blond hair, tied neatly into a navy and white scarf in a ponytail at the base of his neck. Her eyes moved to his strange blue-tinted circular sunglasses and down his designer-clad body. For a second, she honestly couldn’t process that he had got in the truck with her.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

“Wherever you’re going,” he answered smoothly. “I have nothing to do today. I hoped you’d let me tag along.”

“I think you should get out,” she mumbled.

“I think you should let me stay,” he said as he reached into the front pocket of his shirt and pulled out an electronic money dispenser. “It’s not like I expect you to take me for free. I’ll pay you.”

When Paige was a teenager, she always thought Zaphier looked so cool when he flipped open his money dispenser. Back then, it seemed like a show of power. Now Paige felt the same way everyone he paid off felt—disadvantaged.

She bit her lip. Harrison had already made it quite clear that even though the two of them were in business to do business, that didn’t mean that they had to bend over every time something was asked of them. Some requests were too much, and Paige knew that Harrison would consider this request way too much. If that was what Harrison wanted her to do then why was she stalling?

There were two reasons. The first reason was that there was a part of her that wanted to question Zaphier about her missing years and the second reason was the money. The money they were trying to pay off was her money—not Harrison’s. She wanted to do more to help pay it off.

Finally, she found her voice and asked quietly, “How much?”

“How much do you need?” Zaphier countered, amusement lingering in his tone.

“Twenty thousand dollars.”

Zaphier whistled. “That’s more than Harrison is charging for this whole trip and you want me to pay that much for a simple ride to town?”

“I thought you didn’t know where I was going?”

“Fallon told me. I wanted to get out of that stuffy house,” he whined.

His calling the house she had slaved over and loved ‘stuffy’ was going too far. “You think the town is nicer? This place is a palace compared to town.”

“Anyway, twenty thousand is too much. How about a hundred?”

“How about you get out of the truck and find your own way?” Paige said stiffly. “You’d pay a shuttle in the city more than a hundred for the distance we’ve got to travel.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Frustrated, Zaphier scanned the dirt road in front of them. “Well, I don’t see why I’ve got to pay you anything if I just refuse to get out.”

Paige reached for her door handle. “Then I’ll get Harrison.”

Zaphier grabbed her arm before she could get any further.

Paige’s whole body convulsed with fear.

“Say, what’s your relationship with that guy?”

“None of your business,” she breathed and tried to push him off.

He grabbed her other wrist and pulled her toward him. Paige could feel his breath on her from her ear to her collarbone when suddenly Zaphier’s door was opened from the outside. Harrison stood there, disgusted to the bone.

“I didn’t know you wanted a trip to town, Zaphier,” he said drolly. “What are you doing?”

Zaphier took his hands off her and stepped out of the truck. “Nothing.”

Paige looked at her bracelet. A pink warning light was blinking.

“Come here, Paige, and I’ll turn the alarm off,” Harrison said kindly as he beckoned her toward him. She obediently went and with his thumbprint on one of the links, the alarm stopped. “Zaphier, you shouldn’t touch other people’s property.”

Zaphier tilted his head to the side, still trying to look cool as he was reprimanded by Harrison.

“Obviously, I shouldn’t have touched her,” he said condescendingly.

Was that his version of an apology?

Harrison didn’t say one word back to him; he simply took Paige by the wrist and led her back to the house. Paige’s face was aflame as he neigh-on dragged her through the kitchen to the dining room. It was obvious from the way Harrison’s hawk-like head scanned the west wing that he was looking for Fallon. When Harrison couldn’t find him, Paige was lugged back down the hall and into the south wing. She saw the stylist’s little knowing smile and wanted to die, but there was no point struggling against Harrison, so instead of digging in her heels, she flapped around behind him like a kite on a string.

The door to Fallon’s room, which was actually Harrison’s room, was wide open. Harrison knocked twice on the door frame, but there was no answer.

Harrison groaned something inaudible that sounded like a plea for patience. Then he seemed to lose his temporary control and he practically spat, “Why did you let him touch you?”

Paige gasped in unbelief. “You think I let him touch me! Of all the…”

“What’s going on out here?” Fallon asked, suddenly emerging from the bathroom.

Harrison turned to him and started talking while holding a death grip onto Paige’s wrist. “We need to talk.”

Fallon’s head lolled back. “What has he done now?”

***

Two days later, Harrison stood on the helocarrier pad in town. He was on the threshold of finally saying goodbye to the guests that had plagued his house... if it wasn’t for one stupid hitch. Against his will, he was forced to take Fallon and Zaphier to town before he took them to the international air dock, where he would be rid of them forever. He was in a foul mood because he shouldn’t be there. There was nothing for Zaphier to see in town. The only reason they were there was ridiculous. When Fallon questioned Zaphier about his misbehavior toward Paige, the bastard wouldn’t stop whining about how he truly wanted to see what the rural community looked like and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and so, as a consequence, Harrison was forced to make a stop there on their way back to the city and wait for them while they looked around.

He was half-finished charging the spare battery when he saw Wystan strut up to the side of the chocker.

Harrison took a deep breath and braced himself for whatever the old man would say. Inside, he was totally peeved. Why did it have to be sleazeball week?

Wystan’s white hair fell on his gray face as he stopped in front of Harrison and wheezed his breath. He didn’t say ‘hello’ or anything conventional, but instead, simply said what he came over to say. “Nessa told me about your situation with your woman.”

Harrison looked neither surprised nor interested in anything Wystan might think. Even though that was his attitude, a part of his brain flickered. He’d never heard Wystan refer to Narissa as Nessa. It seemed too affectionate for the old coot and hearing it made Harrison feel weird. He should be angry or annoyed, because he liked Narissa himself, but instead, he felt nothing.

“All I have to say is that a purchased woman who has a past before you is a tricky thing, but it’s even worse if you don’t know what kind of past it was. I know this guy,” Wystan started to say as he began rooting around in his grubby plaid shirt pockets. “He’s a private investigator or something like that. He’s resourceful. Last time I saw him he said something about memory recovery. Maybe you might want to get in touch with him.” He finally found the card in his back butt pocket and handed it over to Harrison.

Harrison took it and looked at it, but before he could read it, Wystan had already begun limping away. “Hey!” Harrison shouted.

Wystan turned.

“Thanks!” Harrison called, and for one second he was grateful to Wystan.

All Wystan did was smile, but it was a twisted smile that seemed to say, “You should thank me! You have no idea the trouble you got yourself into.” Technically, he didn’t say anything and just kept on his way to his truck.

After that, it was just the wind and the sun until Harrison finished charging the battery. When he was done, he decided he’d go to the café, have a sandwich, and ask Narissa what she knew about the P.I. Wystan recommended. He’d find Fallon and Zaphier afterward.

As Harrison approached the café, he saw Zaphier sitting on one of the bar stools in front of the counter and did a double-take. Narissa was standing over him. It looked like he was the only customer.

Immediately, Harrison changed his mind about going in the front door. Instead, he circled around the building and went for the backdoor. It was locked, but he knew the key code from the days when he had been dating Keziah. After punching the numbers in, the door came loose and he went in. The kitchen was empty as he snuck around to the door to the dining room. He perched by the entrance and tilted his ear to listen.

He heard Narissa’s voice. She sounded tired as she said, “I was thinking about you the other day on your birthday. Fessed up to being forty-six yet?”

“Shhh,” Zaphier hissed.

There was a pause while Narissa chuckled. “I’m not going to tell on you. Besides, it looks like your surgeries are going well. You look scarcely a day over thirty. You were always fearless that way. No knife could ever scare you.”

“Well, Aunt,” Zaphier said like he had something stuck up his nose.

“Well nothing,” she said, cutting him off. “I never thought I’d ever see you or any of your kind again as long as I lived, but since we have met again, I want to ask you one thing.”

“What?”

“Was my husband really dead when you woke me up for the last time before you sold me to Sleeping Beauty Inc.? I always thought it was a ruse meant to get rid of me for good without killing me. Tell me, was he really dead?”

The air in the dining room seemed to weigh a thousand pounds while Harrison waited for Zaphier to answer.

Finally, just when Harrison thought he wasn’t going to, he said, “No. He wasn’t, but we didn't lie to you because he wanted you out of the picture.”

“Oh, really?”

“He’d lost all his money again and he had like twenty loan sharks coming for his skin. He used the money he got selling you to pay them off. He was planning to raise enough money to buy you back, but he didn’t make it before he died.” Here Zaphier paused. Then he continued talking like he hadn’t. “For what it’s worth, I think he was being sincere. If he had the money, he would have spent it on you.”

“When you darlings sold my contract to Sleeping Beauty Inc.,” she clicked her tongue, “how much was I worth?”

Zaphier’s voice became suave. “Who can judge a woman’s worth?”

“I’m sure you can,” Narissa said heartlessly.

“Well, enough about all that. You must know that none of that was up to me. Tell me about the man you’re with now. Is he good to you?”

“And if he’s not? Would you come help me out of it?”

“Certainly!”

Then Harrison heard the sound of a drink being poured. “Well,” she said icily, “I won’t hold my breath.”

After that, Harrison heard some insincere pandering to Narissa, but he blocked it out and pulled out the business card Wystan had given him. Osric Fountain was the name on the card. Harrison decided he’d give him a call.