Friday, 4:07 pm
Four hours later, I had a new bodyguard, and her name wasn't John. I wasn't convinced that choosing her over one of the Johns was the right call, but she seemed more than capable, and I felt more of a connection with her than I had the others; that had to count for something. Granted, that connection was probably my attraction to her, but I was still hiring someone qualified. As soon as she accepted my offer, Erin notified Helen, who had been finalizing the paperwork for a security team.
Chloe filled me in on the details she could. Hannon Security hired her after she left her last job, thanks to Henry Psalter. Her first assignment was part of the security detail stationed at his main office, but her attention to detail helped her quickly work her way to his personal security. The person in charge of the Gerrard account had been the owner's son, John Hannon. That's right... another John.
She enjoyed her job and found the work easy compared to her previous life. She enjoyed her team and the people Colin surrounded himself with but didn't care for Colin himself. He was stubborn and short-tempered. Chloe admitted that her interaction with the man had been limited; he was never that communicative with his security detail, preferring to interact with John alone. Despite that, she managed to stop an actual assassination attempt on Colin as well as several assaults against various personnel.
She couldn't answer many of my questions about the old man... specifically why he left me with nearly a trillion dollars and complete control over his entire estate. Among security, John was likely the only one to have that kind of privileged information. Unfortunately, John was dead. At first, the doctors had claimed a heart attack, which was strange because the man died at thirty-five in perfect health. His father had taken the initiative to do an autopsy and extensive analysis of the body, only to discover a poison that had been difficult to detect. That triggered a closer examination of Colin, the discovery of the true cause of his death. Considering how recent the event was and the sensitivity of the information, none of what Chloe was telling me was public knowledge.
With Chloe's suggestion, I decided to go with another security firm that didn't have a history with the Gerrards in case someone at Hannon was guilty of foul play. I challenged the fact that she had worked at Hannon, but provided proof that she'd been off when the murder occurred and provided an alibi. In fact, her innocence was the reason she knew as much as she did. Hannon Senior needed someone he could rely on to help him piece together what had happened. Satisfied, I put Chloe in charge of selecting the team. She asked for the resumes and files of all the other candidates to consider as well.
After finishing the interview, Chloe said she would take the weekend to move into a room in my house. That surprised me, but Chloe insisted on it before accepting the job offer, stating that the only way to ensure she could do her job properly was to live as close to me as possible. We discussed her having access to my email accounts, passwords, codes, and all the same keys, but the invasion of privacy felt too great. Helen showed up during the privacy discussion and took Chloe's and Erin's side, insisting that my bodyguard would need as much unencumbered access as possible to do her job well. It took being outnumbered three-to-one, but they eventually convinced me that Chloe needed access to all of it. Erin already knew almost everything, and now, so would Chloe. Helen assured me that the firm's paperwork would ensure my bodyguard's discretion, and Chloe assured me that if I could trust her with my life, I could trust her with anything.
The price of safety was steep.
After agreeing on the living arrangements, Erin left with Chloe to familiarize her with the house, find her a room, arrange for her credentials, and make sure all the paperwork was filled. Once all of that was complete, Chloe would immediately set up a detail to start working by the end of the day. We shook hands once more, and then the two ladies departed. That left me and Helen on our own. She set her things down on a chair and sat on the couch next to me. I smiled at her, and she smiled back, clearly feeling awkward about something. "How are you doing, Marcus?"
"I had a visitor last night," I said.
"I heard," she said quietly.
"Yeah? Who told you? Erin, or your daughter?"
She winced a little under my question's sharp tone. She didn't answer immediately, staring at the floor in thoughtful contemplation. Finally, she looked up at me. "My step-daughter."
We stared at each other in long silence, and I was trying to decide how mad I should be. Helen was a stickler for details. The entire time I had known her, she considered all the angles and anticipated things that would have never crossed my mind. She had been my go-to and my confidante. She found Erin for me, and I didn't appreciate that Erin was quickly usurping her as the woman I could trust the most. Sure, it was bound to happen, but finding out she was withholding information from me was a shitty way for that transition to occur.
"You didn't think that was something to mention in the bathroom on Monday?" I asked. Had it only been Monday since Helen gave me a blowjob in a YPV bathroom? Jesus, a lot had happened in five business days.
"I miscalculated," she said.
"How?"
"I didn't think she would be so interested in you, and I wasn't aware of her visit at the coffee shop."
"Why didn't you just tell me? Why did it have to be a calculation? She's told me more about your family than you have, and I felt blindsided. You could have avoided that, Helen. You should have told me about Ashlee, and you should have told me that Roger was having issues with what we're doing."
For the first time in a week, Helen looked rattled. Her blue eyes were surprised, and I realized she hadn't expected me to know that.
"Marcus," Helen finally said, "As you can imagine, I'm not exactly thrilled about sharing the details of my family with you, and I've done just as much to keep what happens between us from my family as well."
"Roger does know about us, right?" I asked, my stomach in knots at the thought that her husband ignorance from the beginning. What if he hadn't known? Could things become problematic between me and my lawyers? Did I need to get other lawyers?
"Yes," Helen said, "But I don't think he expected my involvement to be so... thorough. The time away from the office, and the time spent with you... it's been gratuitous."
"So he just expected this to be a temporary thing until he got me to sign on the dotted line?"
Helen tilted her head to the side, obviously weighing her words carefully. "I think he expected me to start weining you off my affections a bit sooner. It was one of the reasons to push for an assistant the day after you signed. We needed to find you a new toy to play with so you could relinquish the current one back to its 'rightful owner'."
"Jesus, Helen," I said, "you make it sound like you didn't have a choice in the matter."
"Oh I most certainly did," she said, leveling a gaze at me that backed up her words. "I just went a further than Roger might have wanted."
When she didn't immediately offer more I offered to fill in the gaps, "The deal we made. He doesn't know about it, so now that they have my business, and I have Erin, he doesn't seem to understand why we keep seeing each other."
Helen nodded. "At first, I was able to convince him that you were primarily interested in staying with us because of our relationship, but I haven't been the only voice whispering in his ear."
"Ashlee?"
Helen nodded. "You're handsome, young, and Ashlee's type."
"She has that kind of sway over Roger?"
"Normaly, no," Helen replied. "That's where I miscalculated. Your account was so important that there was no way any of us was going to let Ashlee within ten feet of you. They needed someone more seasoned to handle you. When I interrupted Ashlee in the bathroom, I thought that would be enough. I suspect she's been saying things to her father about the amount of hours I've put in with you this week."
"As I've said, Roger and I have an arrangement. I've been useful in the past at securing agreements, and we've both had our share of extramarital affairs. We've even shared a few. When it comes to me, he's not a particularly jealous man, but he does care about his pride. Roger has made sure that every man I've been with was aware that he knew. He's even watched me with a few of them, but he keeps me on a tight leash. Anyone I'm with has to be on his terms. He was more hands-off with us because of your importance."
"And our deal happened," I concluded.
"He still doesn't know about that," Helen said. "No one does. As far as they know, I'm simply more enthusiastic about you than some of the others, and Roger's starting to lose patience that I haven't been at his beck and call lately."
I turned and leaned back into the couch next to Helen and mulled over what she was telling me. The situation she described to me sounded an awful lot like a form of forced prostitution, but even after giving me all the details, Helen didn't seem upset, ashamed, or scared. She still seemed cool, collected, and ready for business. It was a testament to her strength and made her seem even more formidable.
"Do you want out of our deal?" I finally asked.
"No," Helen said. "Unless you'd prefer to not have me. I'm not interested in being in a relationship where I'm not wanted."
The word 'relationship' threw me for a second, but based off the context, it was probably a reference to our deal. "Why did you make it in the first place? Don't you like your life? Doesn't this put you in the possible position of losing everything?"
"I like the money," Helen admitted. "I like the power and prestige of being on one of the best firms in the world and managing the money of powerful and influential people, but as much as I enjoy those things now, I'm limited by whatever Roger lets me have. I married him when I was twenty-seven and he was fifty. He was handsome, intelligent, and powerful. He swept me off my feet with all sorts of promises and expensive gifts. For the first five years, I was happy. I even tried to take on the roll of Ashlee's mother, but after the first few years, he started getting bored with me. I caught him cheating a few times, and then there were the extended nights away. By then, I knew what I'd married into, but I was stuck. If I left him, I'd have nothing. Within a decade of our marriage, we came to the arrangement I told you about."
"Meeting you, and seeing how you looked at me again... I liked it. Not only that, but you were naive. I saw you as someone I could leverage to get out of my current situation. When I saw how relaxed Roger was with us, I assumed I could use it to my advantage. I thought I could work for you, slowly turn you against the firm, and then when it came time to renew your contract with them, I could convince you to leave them for another firm and become your primary manager. I convinced them that you wanted a stipulation to renegotiate the contract in a year. I basically gave them a trial period. It's relatively standard. A year would have been enough time to convince you that the relationship with YPV wasn't for you. Bringing someone like you to any other firm would probably make them grateful enough to bring me in as a partner."
"Wow," I said. "You had it all figured out."
Helen nodded, her face an emotionless mask, but her body language was tense. I could tell this was making her uncomfortable.
"Why are you telling me all this?" I asked. "I just asked about your daughter and husband. You didn't have to tell me about trying to use me."
"Because I like you, Marcus," Helen said. She turned toward me, our knees touching as she gave me a small smile. "Don't get me wrong. I'm not in love with you. Honestly, I don't know that I can be in love again. Roger did a lot of damage to the younger me, but I enjoy you."
