Hard Pressed

Hard Pressed
A Billionaire In Disguise Romance
By Vivien Vale
Copyright 2017 by Crimson Vixens
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is
entirely coincidental. This work is intended for adults only.
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Xavier
I try not to do this too much. ‘This’ being whisking people up and away, taking them to
far-off lands for multicourse dinners. It’s a little too Aladdin. It’s a little much and, honestly, not
the glamorous fun it seems in the movies.
Here’s the basic truth: I drop more than a hundred grand to make people feel
uncomfortable. They’re rarely enjoyably wowed. This might be my fault.
I don’t tell people to bring their passport, bustle people into my private (but shared) plane,
and get a last-minute reservation to a Michelin-starred restaurant overseas all because I love
them and want more of their company.
I do it only because I see doubt in their eyes. Or, no. It’s not doubt I see, but a look of
discovery when they suddenly realize who I am is not what I seem.
Like this one sitting across from me. Her name is Jane, but she seems like an Amber or
Topaz. Someone either born into luxury or someone so hungry they grab at opportunities,
determined to make one stick.
We met at an event at a TriBecA gallery yesterday. She handed me a glass of sparkling
wine and when I went to grab a cocktail napkin, she handed me her headshot folded into a sharp
square, small enough to slide into my trouser pocket.
She winked at me. I laughed. Chutzpah can be sexy, but mostly it’s annoying.
Later, I followed her as she walked around the room with a tray full of canapés, each one
capped with perfect mounds of shining caviar. When she stopped and turned to look at me, I took
one and, before I popped it into my mouth, I asked if she’d get a drink with me when she got off
work.
Jane-Amber-Topaz smiled and then she nodded. She turned on her heel and walked to the
back of the gallery and through the doors hidden behind a towering sculpture of a faceless man
carved in onyx.
A minute later she was next to me. She was wearing dark lipstick and her navy trench was
belted tight.
“Let’s go,” she said. I arched a brow and smiled down at her; she was tall, maybe six feet,

ut I’m taller still and bent slightly toward her.
“Your boss is okay with that?” I asked, my voice low.
“I’m hoping to convince you to be my boss,” she said.
We left, slid into a cab. I let my hand brush her thigh.
“This is about work,” she said, so I removed my hand and nodded, looking out the
window. I brushed my hair out of my eyes and tried not to be annoyed. “Ok, let’s start with
work. Which one of my businesses are you trying to break into?”
“I’m an investigative reporter,” Jane said, “and Hard Pressed has one of the best teams
working right now: the Russian dossier, the CH Jones scandal…well, I guess, I don’t have to tell
you about the scoops your team has racked up over the past few years.
I nodded curtly.
“No,” I said, “You don’t.” Jane’s forefinger pulsed on her thigh. She was nervous, but her
eyes gleamed with excitement. I asked her, “Are you good? Where have you published?”
“Mostly in mid-market newspapers, but yeah. I’m really good. I’ll send you my clips. But
also consider the facts: We didn’t just run into each other, obviously. I sought you out. I hope it
doesn’t make you uncomfortable,” she said. She wet her lips with tip of her tongue and
continued. “In order to find you, and get you to talk to me, I had to do a small investigation.”
“You could have just made an appointment with my assistant,” I said, feeling fascinated
and wary. The air in the cab had gone still.
“We both know you wouldn’t have seen me,” Jane said.
The cabbie leaned on his horn. The moment broken.
The evening went on. We didn’t talk about her investigation. I planned to leave her at the
bar and head back to my apartment alone. But she was beautiful and tenacious. I found myself
fascinated and curious about what she wanted to happen next.
I listened to her talk and answered some of her questions. We both drank our bourbon neat.
When the server brought the bill, I put down my black AmEx card over the bill for our drinks.
“I’m not going to hire you,” I said. “Not like this and not for that team. You want me to
admire your gall and I do—to an extent. But finding out where the CEO of a major media group
will be on a Wednesday night isn’t a deep dive investigation, a two-penny PI could have done
just as well.
“On our investigative team, there are five Pulitzers between them. By asking questions and

digging through thousands of files, they brought down one major bank and an online sex
trafficking ring. What do you know about these kinds of investigations? You’re a cub reporter,
tenacious but green.”
Even in the dark of the bar, I could see the blood rush to her face. At first, I thought she
was embarrassed, and expressing it like a kid by blushing from her toes to the roots of her hair,
but as the moment stretched I realized she was furious.
“I haven’t told you what I know about you, Stanley,” she said.
I was getting up from the table, but sat back down when I heard her.
“I changed my name,” I said, trying for nonchalance. “I’m not exactly the first person to do
that.”
She nodded, smiling slowly.
“Sure, Xavier, that’s true. People change their names and you absolutely look the part of a
debonair business god throwing around his black card in a dive bar in the East Village. Xavier is
something else, but Stanley is…nothing much.”
I forced a laugh.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, taking care to keep my voice so low she had to lean slightly
forward to hear me.
A slight look of surprise flashed across her face.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
I smiled coolly.
“To your house to grab your passport,” I said. “I assume you have one, Jane.”
She looked me dead in the eye, and belted the last of her bourbon. A sharp nod and then
she took off for the door.
We didn’t talk much and then we both slept on the plane. I had the flight attendant bring
out Dom Perignon and a bowl of caviar from the Caspian Sea. I told her to use the crystal
champagne flutes.
When sudden turbulence caused the plane to jolt, I watched Jane’s full champagne glass
fly and smash against the side of the plane. I smiled and asked the flight attendant to bring her
another crystal glass filled close to the rim with champagne.
“Let’s try that again,” I said.
“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Rome,” I said.
I watched her swallow the wine, the caviar in front of her untouched. She looked out her
window and I, finally feeling calm, looked out mine.
Once we landed, I deposited her in the penthouse of the Ritz. Then, later, I sent a
chauffeured Rolls Royce to pick her up.
I didn’t prepare her for the luxurious glamor of the dinner. I didn’t offer to buy her a
wardrobe full of designer dresses. I was dressed impeccably, tailored suit, cufflinks, a square of
silk tucked into my pocket.
Now, she’s seated across from me in a dress that looks like it was bought in a Midwestern
mall in 2003. She’s still beautiful, but she’s lost her cocksure attitude.
“You’re not eating, Jane,” I remark, taking a sip of the rare vintage I ordered for us. “Is it
okay? Should we call the chef over?”
“It’s perfect,” she says, a note of bitterness obvious.
I incline my head.
She picks up her fork and puts it down again.
“You’ve made your point, Xavier,” she says.
I lift my eyes to hers.
“Let me be very clear, little girl,” I say. “You may think you know me and understand
some part of who I am or where I’ve come from. You learned I came from a small town, was
raised by a single-mother. You might know every facet of my life, but I am and will always be
more than you are: smarter, richer, more powerful, more accomplished. If you cross me, threaten
me, follow me, I will—” here I pause and lean back in my chair for effect, “crush you.”
I watch her wilt. I feel both shame and satisfaction.
“Now,” I say, dabbing my lips with the napkin. “We have a few minutes before the plane
will be ready to take us back home, should we get dessert?”
I watch her as she lifts her head and squares her shoulders.
“Whatever you like, Xavier.”
Back on my plane, she’s staring out the window while I’m smiling to myself.