The Billionaire’s Marriage Of Deception

“Yes” she said immediately and he found his heart breaking a little about how much pain was contained in her large brown eyes. “That’s the problem”

*****

The thing with Michael was, he was attentive and caring; he said all the right things, didn’t cheat on her or squander her money. Hell he hardly touched his allowance. It drove Amanda up the wall. Sure he was great at ensuring she was safe all the time; revamping her security and adding features not necessarily available to the general public. He went off by himself for extended periods of time. When she inquired where he was, all he would say was that he was ‘working’. When she asked for details things got really evasive.

The first time their lips met after he returned from one of his trips, was always soft and gentle. Warm. Chafe. It was over as soon as it begun. Amanda dreamt of Michael’s full lips, of kissing them again, kissing them deeper, those lips kissing other parts of her. She tucked those thoughts away, because it had been a year of togetherness, after all.

Memories of Amanda’s mouth worked their way into Michael’s brain when he was away from home – hunting Calvin – fleeting thoughts taking him away from his work and into a warm, dark room. He thought about kissing her again, and again, and again, and his cheeks turned hot. He hid them under sunglasses, face turned down and away. He wasn’t fooling anyone. He thought of numbers to calm his pounding heart but he kept tripping over the exact curve and shape of Amanda’s lower lip, the temperature of her breath through her nose, ghosting over Michael’ face, the chemicals and electricity dancing in his head.

Nobody was allowed to hurt her on his watch. And Calvin was still trying; though Amanda had no idea of it. Michael didn’t want to scare her with just how far Calvin was willing to go; he had his suspicions about her parents’ accident but it was all just conjecture at this point. He would not burden her with this without proof. Still it was difficult seeing the hurt in her eyes when he left; the hope when he came back.

The next time they saw each other, after Michael’s latest ‘trip’, Amanda kissed him in a rush, their lips crashing together not quite right, noses knocking into each other. It was quick and not nearly enough. After that they kissed more, when saying goodbyes and hellos, the kisses still short and sweet.

At the end of their second month together they tend to linger, and their skin ran hot with heated blood, rushing and pounding through their veins. They both swore the other must had felt their pulse through their lips, and then it was over, and they’d retreat, say their goodnights and drift away with the memory of each other dancing over their mouths.

One night after Michael had been gone for three weeks with just an ‘I’m following a lead’ as explanation; they were laying together on a couch, Amanda’s couch, an old movie playing on TV, forgotten.

They stayed up all night sharing words and hopes and dreams, sharing heat and each other’s mouths. They shared one last sleepy kiss before drifting off to sleep.

*****

The minute he laid eyes on the guy, Michael thought, This has got to be a mistake. There was no way this was his guy. Michael sat in his car with the file across his lap, staring from the full page color photo to the guy sitting at the sidewalk café six feet away, and he couldn’t make it add up.

He went over the details again. Name: Calvin Hobbes. Age: Twenty-eight. Physical description: six-one, one-ninety, light brown hair, hazel eyes; faint scar on right shoulder blade, but otherwise no distinguishing marks. Occupation: Head of A&R at Rose Amber Hair Weaves. Marital status: single, previously engaged to Amanda.

Michael knew the file couldn’t be wrong. Admin didn’t make mistakes with the data. It was just strange; this guy didn’t much resemble any of the photos in his file. Michael flicked through the rest, pausing now and then to study them, and once to let out a low wolf-whistle. They were high school and college yearbook shots mostly, family snapshots, and a couple of catalog ads that looked about ten years old. He seemed to have blossomed rather suddenly into a pin up poster in the intervening time. Almost perfect abs, artfully tousled locks, perfectly spray tanned skin; he was every insecure girl’s dream. Michael couldn’t understand what Amanda had ever seen in him.

He was sitting at a darkened café at the moment, talking to the guy Michael had noticed trailing Amanda in recent weeks. He’d waited for Wyatt to say something about it; just to see how sharply he was paying attention – or to see if he was also in on this…whatever this was. Wyatt had come to him, shown him the pics…which was a good sign. Or else Wyatt had noticed that he’d noticed the guy and was coming to him to avoid suspicion…either way, Michael had decided he couldn’t trust anyone but himself with Amanda’s safety.

He had a routine for the special jobs, the ones that called for something more than two rounds to the back of the head. He always was willing to put in the extra effort for the clients who wanted a little finesse; and of course he was happy to pocket the extra cash those services cost.

Michael had a talent for the specials. They called for a little ingenuity, a little imagination, a little risk, and he enjoyed a challenge. It was like the profiling exercises they used at Quantico, only he got to put them into action. If he thought of it like that – a training exercise – it didn’t bother him much.

This was different though; this was personal. This guy was coming for the woman he loved. And he didn’t want to either spook him, or cause him to act preemptively by showing just how much he cared. He had a feeling that Calvin knew the nature of their marriage; or rather thought he did. Hopefully he had no idea the feelings were real. Michael had worked real hard in recent months to give that impression. He knew Amanda was confused, but it was a choice between her life and her peace of mind. He couldn’t afford to go soft right now.

Michael’s rules for the special jobs were simple. One: he got to know the mark. Learned his routines, habits, preferences. He became a second shadow, until he knew the mark so well he could predict what he’d do without even thinking about it. Two: he chose a suitable method of execution, something that fit the situation. Three: he planned for everything. Michael made his plans, then he made backup plans, and backup-backup plans, just in case he needed them. He always knew at least two exit routes from every kill site, and at the first sign of trouble, he aborted. He’d learned from experience it was easier to start from scratch than to try and fix something that went wrong at game time.

Four: he never, ever got caught.

Michael watched Hobbes constantly over the following weeks, familiarizing himself with the guy’s life. He broke into his house and set up the usual surveillance equipment on the second day – phone taps, sound, camera, internet monitoring – and started collecting information. He followed Hobbes to work and all the way to New York, Philadelphia and even once, all the way to India to watch him confer with suppliers; not just his own – Amanda’s too. He read GQ while watching him in the reflection of the windows. He took notes, and discreet photos, and slowly started to piece together a picture of Hobbes’ life.

What he learned puzzled him, and Michael didn’t like puzzles. He re-read the file a dozen times, trying to make sense of it, and he kept coming up blank. He couldn’t identify what it was that made Hobbes so obsessed with Amanda and her empire. There was no previous connection in their lives before the aborted relationship. Her family had nothing to do with his. She hadn’t stolen a thing from him. Her business was many times more successful than his; it was also ten years older than his. Was this just a question of money? Power? Respect? Michael knew that finding the answer to that question was the key to ending this farce.

He didn’t usually go in for this kind of deep thought about his marks. Generally speaking, people deserved what they got, even if what they got was him leaning over them while they gasped their last; he didn’t lose much sleep over it. Employees with moral hang-ups didn’t last long in this profession; there wasn’t room for what-ifs and whys and second guesses. You did the job, or you got out of the way of someone who could.

Michael could do it. He was good at it. His marks never clocked him; half the time they never even knew what was happening until it was already over. He figured that every successful job he did was one less fu*ked-up job in someone else’s hands. He didn’t take any particular pleasure in it; it was just what he did. He’d learned long ago to detach that part of his conscience, humanity, whatever; had shoved it in a box and forgotten it was there. He didn’t miss it.

Also, there was the tiny detail that he didn’t really have a choice.

From the minute he’d filled out the enlistment forms in the recruiter’s office in San Antonio, this was the work he’d been trained for. He had no legitimate job history after leaving the army, no qualifications, no credit rating, and a suspiciously large fortune in a foreign bank account he couldn’t explain to the anyone. Six years later, he was out of the life; at least as out of the life as he could be and his future happiness was threatened by some ponce with a manufactured body. It was pretty ironic.

He’d kept mostly to himself when he started working for Admin, quietly doing whatever jobs he was given, and garnering something of a reputation for finesse. Soon he had more work than he could properly handle, it also meant he got to choose the jobs he wanted. And that he had a lot of favors accruing to him. It was how he’d managed to get hold of Hobbes’ personal history, his social security, credit card and medical history. Pretty much everything on the guy. The answer wasn’t there. He was beginning to think the answer wasn’t anywhere…

A week later he still had no answer to the question, but he had a greater knowledge than he’d ever wanted to have about the range of ugly, sloppy, neutral-toned sweater vests available for a man Hobbes’ size. The man needed a fashion consultant, stat, to save Michael’s sanity if nothing else. Michael decided the situation required deeper investigation. If something wasn’t kosher, he was better off knowing before he really got started. He would have to clue Amanda in.