*Harry*
I looked out my office window at the white flakes making their way down to the busy streets of Seattle. I sipped my coffee still wondering why I was able to fall asleep last night without drinking a drop of alcohol. Josie. I couldn't stop thinking about her for the rest of the night after hearing her sing. What a beautiful voice. She didn't need music to go along with what she was singing. Her vocals were enough.
I dreamt of her beautiful voice in the background as I relived that day in London. I've never talked to a girl so fluently. This is why I don't have a girlfriend. Because I'm a shy guy. But with Josie, I'm far from that. Giving her my card.
I looked at my phone and I didn't have any missed calls or messages from her.
I went to my meetings for the day until it was lunch time. I texted her out of wanting to see her green eyes again and asked if she wanted to go. We met on the 17th floor and we only received more looks from my employees. I wanted them to back off but in all honesty, I don't have the defiant guts to do it.
Josie told me about a tomato soup so I ordered it.
"Did you eat yesterday?" I shook my head in response to her question. "I need to keep to my promise and make sure you eat everyday."
"Have lunch with me everyday, then."
"I plan on it." I smiled and took a sip of my soda.
"When do you plan on treating me instead of me treating you?" She stopped in mid motion with a spoon in her hand to take a bite.
"He-he. I'm honestly broke. I live pay check to pay check and I had a doctors appointment recently so I'm living pretty tight right now." I nodded with understanding wondering if me offering to help her out would be too weird. I mean, we've only technically known each other for three days now. We're just friends.
"What was the doctors appointment for?" I asked instead. I took a sip of my soup and missed the nervous look on Josie's face.
"I'm pregnant." I choked on my soup and the spoon clanked back into the bowl. I wasn't wearing my suit coat and the red sauce of the soup got little spots on my white button up. "Ooo," Josie added. "Sorry,"
"No apology needed. I just didn't think you would say that." I chuckled nervously. I looked down at the mess I made out of my surprise. I whipped out my phone and texted Liza to get me a shirt from my apartment. "I'll just ask my secretary to get me a new shirt."
Josie nodded. "Do you like wearing big clothes?" She suddenly asked, as if telling me she was pregnant never happened.
"Well, I've lost a lot of weight over the past five years and just haven't had the time to go out shopping."
"That's a lame excuse. What size do you wear? I'll go out and buy you a new suit."
"What?"
"I'll be honest, you may be a multimillionaire, but Harry, you look a bit tacky wearing oversized suits." I gave her a blank stare. "I'm sorry, did I go too far? I was just saying that as a friend."
"No, thank you, I'll Uh ... "
"How 'bout this, we can talk about me becoming a star while we go out shopping later today. I get off earlier today at four. And your the boss man, so you should be able to leave whenever you want. Yeah?" I blushed and looked down at my food. She was pregnant. And she's treating me as a friend. I guess it was too good to be true for me to be falling for a poor, blond singer.
I nodded and texted Liza to cancel my five o'clock meeting.
"Might I ask why sir?" She later asked.
"I'm going out shopping with a friend." Her eyebrows raised.
"Is this new friend a mailroom girl?" I sighed and looked at Liza in my office. I was sitting at my desk and she was sitting in a chair in front of me.
"Yes, Liza, and it is none of your business to poke your nose in my personal life."
"Since when did you have a personal life?" She scoffed. This is what I get for being so easy on my secretary.
"Since I met Josie, thank you." I got up and she followed me to my two o'clock meeting.
It was with a very important, potential client for accounting.
"Mr. Robinson, thank you for meeting with me." Mr. Halliday greeted me with a hand shake once I entered the office.
"Please," I gestured to the chair in the vast office. The tall, plump man sat down and so did his male assistant and Liza. I sat down last and began the deal I created for Mr. Halliday.
"So," I began once I finished my lecture, "what do you think?"
Mr. Halliday looked out the window and sighed heavily. "You seem to be in a good mood this evening, Mr. Robinson,"
I chuckled a business laugh and admitted, "I have a date this evening." Liza shifted in her chair and I ignored her. Halliday's compacted face shifted to a smile.
"Mr. Robinson, this is a family business I run. I have been married for forty-two years to the same woman and she has given me six beautiful children. I now have twenty-six grandchildren. I would hope that you yourself are married. I don't think I could trust placing my company's money into the hands of a single bachelor who has no support system at home. I mean, wouldn't you agree that the wife is the true backbone of a business company as she herself is the backbone to the man in charge?" I swallowed hard and pulled at my sweaty collar. I needed this company to sign over to my accounting firm. I can't afford losing him, especially to something as marriage!
I simply nodded.
"You are married." I nodded again. Liza started writing profusely on her notepad. "Well, before I sign over, I would like to have dinner with you and your wife. I can't wait to meet the Mrs. Robinson behind this massive incorporation." I nodded again and stood up. Mr. Halliday stood up as well, then our assistants.
"I'll have Liza here schedule a dinner with you when possible for you, of course," Halliday nodded.
"Splendid." Right when the door shut behind him I fell into my chair and pored myself a glass of water with the pitcher on the table.
"Good one. Where are you going to find a wife in less than forty-eight hours? Pay someone?"
"No," I turned to Liza. "I'm gonna get me a companion for life."
*Josie*
I got to the highest floor, ready to pick Harry up for a little date to the mall. As I climbed the floors of Robinson Incorporation Building, I couldn't help but think about the reaction Harry displayed at lunch when he found out I was pregnant. I made sure to quickly change the subject so that he didn't go and ask me ten million questions.
The elevator doors slid open and I made my way to his office at the end of the floor office. Whispers and looks were directed towards me and I just wanted to yell to the world that Harry and I are just friends, nothing more.
I reached his office and knocked on the door.
"Oh, Mr. Robinson is on a phone call." The beautiful brunette who I assumed was Harry's secretary said.
"Oh, thanks for notifying me." I walked in anyway and the woman stood up. Harry's weak accent flooded my ears and I smiled unintentionally. His lean frame was leaning against the window looking off into the distance. When he noticed me, he stuttered and blushed.
"Sorry," I mouthed. A smile grew on his bored face. Liza was behind me and Harry kept talking as he shooed her out. I knew he wasn't shooing me out because his lovely golden-brown eyes weren't locked on mine. Once the door shut behind me, he turned back to the window. I sat silently in a comfortable chair in front of his nice, dark desk. I looked around his office and my heart suddenly began to beat fast. I was in a multimillionaire's office. I, Josie Mills, was in a really rich guy's office not as an employee or a client but as a friend!
Harry turned around and placed his phone in his pocket. "You ready to go?" He asked with a cute smile on his skinny, long face. I got to my feet and nodded. He grabbed his suit coat then his snow coat. He then placed a few papers in a leather briefcase then we left.
He had a car in the parking garage and we drove that to the mall. It wasn't snowing but the Christmas decorations in the various shops and on the streets were really pretty.
"I love the Christmas season." I said out loud while looking out the window of the passenger seat.
"Yeah?"
"What's your favorite holiday?"
"I don't have one. Maybe Boxing Day in Europe. Or U.S. Independence Day. I like celebrating my country's birthday." I smiled.
"We beat the British you know," I folded my arms and turned to him with a smug look on my face. He smiled and nodded.
"That is true. But you and I were born in this day and age. Don't allow our ancestors to get in the way of this friendship." He turned to me with a cute smile and I blushed. I simply nodded and he turned back to face the road.
We got to the mall and not only did I help him pick out five suits to wear for work, but also a few pair of jeans and slacks and regular shirts and shorts and jackets and shoes. Let's just say I gave the man a good make over. I even got him to get a hair cut.
"Now it's your turn." He turned to me in the hair cut chair and I went blank face.
Two hours later, Harry's car wasn't only full of his shopping bags but mine as well. I mean, I'm a woman with needs. I need clothes to cover myself up. I need a lot of clothes to cover myself up as well as shoes to cover my feet.
"Thank you for today. I can't think of a way to thank you." I said.
"Let me take you to dinner."
"Oh, no, please, I couldn't. You just bought me a new closet."
"I can get you a new closet."
"Harry," I shoved his shoulder and he snickered.
"What do you like to eat?"
"Um, I guess we are going to dinner then. Uh ... I like anything." He just nodded. 'Anything' to Harry, and I guess any man with his kind of money, is a fancy restaurant full of couples where the food is very very very expensive and not even as much food as a cheep Mexican restaurant serves. Am I right?
Harry pulled my chair out and I sat down across from him.
"Order what ever you like," he said as he opened his menu. "I went here often when I first started making money."
"Alone or with girls?"
"With girls of course, I'm not that weird." I giggled.
"No, you're really weird."
"I blame it one the ears." He blushed.
"Naw, your ears are cute. I think what makes you weird is the fact that you've been wearing the same clothes for five years after losing a ton of weight." He laughed. "How did you lose so much? I haven't been able to lose a pound since I began to get fat at twenty."
"You're not fat, Josie. You're just ... curvy." He shrugged. I rolled my eyes. "I dieted. Growing up I couldn't stop gaining weight because I was always stressed and food was my comfort. When I lost all the weight and got to a reasonable weight, every time I got stressed I just stopped eating, in fear of gaining it all back."
"Stopped eating? You don't eat, Harry. You're saying all this as if it's past tense."
"What can I say? I'm a really stressed man."
"Right, because a company like yours doesn't build itself over night."
"Exactly." I smiled down at my menu. The waiter came around and took our orders.
"So," Harry began, "the other day I asked you if you had a boyfriend and you said no and that you had another person in your life that you need to worry about. Is that ... your baby?" I nodded shyly. "Is your ex not in the picture?" I nodded again.
"I don't want him anywhere near my baby or me."
"Did he ... was he mean?"
"No, he was actually the nicest guy I dated, but he cheated on me, and I should have seen it coming. He was unhappy. And he didn't have the balls to tell me." Harry just nodded.
"I'm sorry about that." I waved my hand and took a gulp of water.
"Enough about my pity party. What about you? I bet you have a lot of juicy stories about women only after your money!"
"Hah," he sat back in his chair and just looked at his glass of wine. "I've never had a girlfriend. Like I admitted earlier. I always took a different girl here and not one twice. I don't know what it is. I'm not very good with women."
"Are you ... Are you like a player or something?"
"No!" He sat up in his chair and fixed his loose suit. "Gosh no. I'm being honest. I meet a girl and I just stutter or don't give them all the attention they want. And yeah, I've met a lot of gold diggers. But ... women aren't exactly throwing themselves at me all the time. I'm not your ordinary millionaire bachelor. I'm not that good looking as you can see." He took a sip of wine and I leaned forward on my elbows.
"I think your eyes are really pretty. And everything else doesn't really matter. And your ears are cute." I giggled and he looked away with red in his cheeks and a goofy grin on his own face. Our food soon arrived and it wasn't surprising when I moaned at how good the chicken I ordered melted in my mouth.
"Oh Harry, let me be the one exception to being the girl you bring here more than once." My eyes were closed but burst open when I heard a sincere "okay" come from the man across from me.
"Josie," he began, looking unsure and running his fingers across his wine glass, "I'm trying to sign a client over to my accounting firm and he won't sign over unless I'm married. I stupidly lied and said I was and now he wants to have dinner with me and me wife."
"Hah, you want me to act for you?" I took another bite of chicken but nearly choked on it at the millionaire's next words.
"No, I want you to really marry me." I coughed into my napkin after choking on my chicken. "Will you marry me, Josie Mills?"
I took a few gulps of my water until there was no more of it. "Wow, that was ... um ... really out of the blue. Harry, marry you?" He looked anxious and sad.
"I know we've only met three days ago and haven't seen each other in over five years but why not? Josie. I can give you anything you could ever wish for. I need a wife and ... I can get you a record deal. If you marry me, I'll make you a star. I'm not asking for a romantic relationship. Just that ... you let me take care of you and your baby. I can give your kid a good education with the best teachers and schools. You don't have to ... love me but I will take care of you. I'll stay faithful to you if you stay faithful to me. You can leave me whenever you want ... but maybe you can give me a chance."
"Harry, I ... don't know what to say. I've never been asked to marry someone let alone a multimillionaire. I mean, this kind of stuff only happens in cliche movies and novels. But ... I mean, I guess what you're giving me is once in a lifetime offer, right?" He just simply nodded. I stayed quiet and looked down at my delicious food. I took a large bite of it and chewed on it as I thought the deal over. I was definitely getting the better end of the deal. I would suddenly become rich and famous. What is Harry gaining? An important client? Is that it? I guess he would also make money from my CDs if I even sell any. "For a business man," I began, "you're not very good at making marriage deals." He didn't smile and the smirk I was wearing slid off my face.
"Josie, marry me. I don't have time for a wife so it's perfect. You don't have to see me all day if you don't want to. But in return, all I ask is that you stay faithful to me. If you ever go behind my back, I beg you to have the heart to tell me before the press does or a friend of mine." His voice was serious. And his British accent was very strong so suddenly. It must be his serious tone.
I nodded. His face relaxed.
"Is that a yes?" I nodded again and gave a small smile.
"Okay," I shrugged. "I mean, call me a gold digger. But a man in over sized slacks and a money tree in the back yard just said he'd commit himself to helping me raise this baby of mine." He smiled.
"Yes."
This is going to be easy. I mean, I might not love Harry but ... just maybe ... our friendship can turn into such a thing.