Her Forbidden Millionaire

“Yeah, you definitely need some excitement in your life, and I don’t mean getting robbed again!” Pam snapped. The women laughed at the oddity of their day. So much had happened over the past ten hours. “I really think that this Banks guy the guard mentioned is the source of his hundred K a month habit.”

“It’s a hundred and fifty a month,” Phoebe corrected. “But you’re not even supposed to know any of this. I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t file a complaint against me for breach of confidentiality. I could lose my job.”

“You’re just doing what you thought was best. And I’m an enabler.” Pam chuckled. “But like I said, I won’t say anything. There isn’t much of a story here. Just a used to be famous child actor, now more famous for his fu*k ups than his talent. It’s sad that he’s being taken advantage of like this.”

“Yeah.” Phoebe sighed. “Too sad. He’s really going to have to confront whoever this guy is and put an end to this. I can’t do it for him, but I just have a feeling that if I tell him what I know so far, he’s either going to deny it or shut down completely. How am I supposed to help him? How am I supposed to do my job when I can’t trust him to be honest?”

Pam simply shrugged her shoulders. She could tell this was really bothering Phoebe. Although it was hard to tell whether it was because she didn’t like to fail at her job or if she genuinely cared about her clients. Pam imagined it fell somewhere in between.

The furiously heavy knocking on the door both made the women jump as they talked. “What in the hell?!” Pam exclaimed. “Who’s knocking on your door like that?!”

Phoebe glanced through the peephole to see Lincoln Gold standing there. “It’s Lincoln,” she said, opening the door.

Lincoln barged into the space angry and shouting. “What the hell did you two think you were doing today? You always snoop into your client’s personal matters? Why the hell would you even go to Grover Pines? What did you think you were going to find there?!”

“Calm down,” Phoebe said.

“Yeah, chill out, she was just doing her job!” Pam snapped, rising from the table to come to her friend’s defense.

Lincoln finally looked at Pam and his eyes grew wide with fear. “Oh sh*t, you’re that reporter! Damn! Please don’t print any of this!”

Pam shook her head with confusion. “I had no intentions of it. There’s nothing to report, the guard wouldn’t even let us past the front gate and the warehouse was abandoned.”

Lincoln breathed a huge sigh of relief. “Okay, then you have to leave now.”

“Excuse me!” both women exclaimed in unison.

“I need to talk to my adviser and while I’m sure Phoebe trusts you, I don’t. This conversation needs to be finished under the confidentiality clause of our contract,” Lincoln insisted. Phoebe looked at Pam, silently pleading for her to understand.

“Okay, fine, I get it. The reporter has to go.” Pam smiled devilishly behind Lincoln’s back before making kissy faces to Phoebe.

Phoebe shook her head with a chuckle before mouthing to her, “Thanks, girl.” When she turned around, Lincoln was pacing around her kitchen. “So are you going to tell me how you found out where I lived?”

“Ellis,” he said quickly as he continued to pace.

“Okay.” Phoebe raised an eyebrow at him, making a mental note to curse Bobby out for giving out her address. Phoebe wasn’t one of those people who believed celebrities deserved special treatment. High paying clients didn’t get her address, and Lincoln Gold should have been no different. She was in no mood for any diva behavior. “And how did you know we went out to Grover Pines today?”

He stopped just long enough to stare at her not amused with her question.

“Right.” Phoebe pursed her lips together and nodded. “The guard probably called you. So what are you doing here, other than to yell at me?”

“I came to give you that! I was on my way to your office with the new file but I got a call from the security station. I had to drive all the way out there to assure them everything was fine and not to disturb my tenant about anything in reference to me. By the time I did all of that, I called your office and they said you’d gone for the day. I told them I had the updated file to give you and that’s when your boss gave me your address,” he told her.

Phoebe looked at the file sitting on her table. She opened it up to where the pages about Jimmy B. Vault would have started. There were none. She flipped through page after page after page, scanning each to see if it would show up on any of them. Her intuition from that morning was right, he was trying to hide it.

“So this is the updated file?” she asked him without looking up from the pages.

“Yes,” Lincoln answered emphatically.

“And you added some information from the file you took from me this morning?” she asked, setting him up.

“Yes,” he answered with certainty again.

Phoebe finally looked up at him. With her eyes locked onto his, she asked him, “How are you okay lying so blatantly like that?”

The shock on his face wasn’t surprising to Phoebe at all. He was confused and scared. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re lying to me! What I want to know is why?” Phoebe demanded.

“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about!” Lincoln shouted, throwing his hands in the air.

Phoebe didn’t take that as an answer. She began to follow him as he paced around the room once again. “Why are you lying to me? What do you think I could possibly do to you if you tell me the truth, Lincoln? I’m trying to help you! Help me help you!”