The Girlfriend Arrangement, page 1
The Girlfriend Arrangement
ANNA STONE
HILDRED BILLINGS
© 2022 Anna Stone and Hildred Billings All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be replicated, reproduced, or redistributed in any form without the prior written consent of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover by Cormar Covers
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
Also by the Authors
About the Authors
Chapter One
N othing was more stifling than the confines of an office.
Yet here Parker Black was, entertaining the white-collar world she signed up for when she started her successful lingerie label.
“We’re primed to move into the upscale market.” Those were the subdued words of Parker’s Head of Sales, a middle-aged man who had come into her world at the recommendation of her sister. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that my older sister has a head for numbers but no heart for personality. With a giant mole on his nose and a comb-over on his head, Wilbur Brehm was as exciting as his name sounded.
But he was the best in the business. And as the CEO of Parker Black, the eponymous lingerie label that was taking America by storm, business was the one thing Parker took seriously.
And it showed. Profits were up. Reviews were glowing.
Women loved her sexy but practical lines that made them feel like queens and goddesses.
Parker Black—both the woman and the label—was flourishing.
Her past was well and truly behind her. She’d straightened out her act, had become the respectable person her family always wanted her to be. She was one of the most successful businesswomen in Seattle. Her high-rise office, with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the city and the vast walnut
desk she sat behind in her leather executive chair, all reflected that, as did the fashionable but business-appropriate pantsuit and heels she sported. She’d made it.
So why was she so damn bored?
“Three-hundred million.” Wilbur gave her a toothy smile as he presented Parker with more printouts. Her desk was covered with them, because Wilbur was incapable of sending anything in an email. “That’s how much we brought in last year. Imagine how much bigger we could make that number if we moved into upscale department stores. Imagine it.
Nordstrom. Macy’s. Bloomingdale’s. ”
The crowning jewel of Wilbur’s folder was an artistic rendition of what was possible in a place like Nordstrom, with PARKER BLACK emblazoned in pink neon on the wall and sexy lingerie on headless mannequins.
“Foot traffic is forecast to increase this year,” Wilbur said.
“Online sales? Through the roof. Can you imagine it, Ms.
Black?”
Parker imagined a lot of things. Like jumping out the window behind her or running screaming through the parking lot while she unleashed all the boredom inside of her.
“Imagine it.” As Wilbur spoke, Parker replaced his words with her own in her mind. “You in your brand-new Porsche 911. Cruising to the coast with the wind in your hair and the hottest woman in Seattle in the passenger seat.” It didn’t matter where they were going. Her mind was fixed upon that image of her racing through the salty wind. Just her, the beach, and a beautiful woman, eager and ready to go whenever Parker was ready.
But that was the old Parker Black. The life of a womanizing party girl was long behind her.
“And sex on the beach is so impractical,” she murmured.
Wilbur’s visage lost its vigor. “Excuse me, Ms. Black?”
“Hm?” Parker swept her fingers through her short, feathered hair, pretending to study the drawings before her.
“Yes, Bloomingdale’s.”
“I thought you said… Never mind.”
The way his voice cracked would have been amusing if Parker weren’t trying her hardest to be the professional she now swore she was. Can anyone blame me? I’d rather be in Port Orchard.
Wilbur was about to continue when Parker’s phone vibrated on her desk. An incoming call from her older sister, Scarlett. Whatever she wanted would have to wait. Parker was busy being the consummate businesswoman who accidentally mentioned sex on the beach in front of her sixty-year-old Head of Sales.
“My apologies.” Parker flipped her phone face down again. “You have my undivided attention.”
Her phone buzzed again. She attempted to ignore it, but Wilbur wasn’t saying a thing until she addressed the rattling on her desk.
Call me now, Scarlett’s text read. Only she had the audacity to demand Parker’s attention whenever she wanted.
But out of her five immediate family members, Scarlett was the only one Parker could stand to talk to for more than five minutes. Which said a lot, because Scarlett Black was as adept at boring Parker to tears as Wilbur was.
Another text came through.
CALL ME NOW, PARKER.
Parker continued to ignore Scarlett’s messages. The only reason she didn’t turn off her phone altogether was because it would take even more time away from the meeting she had scheduled a whole month ago. She had important CEO
business to take care of. Wasn’t this what her family wanted from her?
She’d come a long way since her days as the rebellious troublemaker she had been for most of her adolescence, and a good part of her 20s. Was it only five years ago that some goon her family hired had dragged her home from Prague because, in the space of 24 hours, she’d spent an obscene amount of her parent’s money at nightclubs around the city?
Or how about seven years ago when her younger sister Bianca walked in on her doing shots off a stripper? Or the time she gave Bianca and her friends a ride to the mall and they ended up in Canada instead?
And those incidents weren’t the worst of them. There was the incident, after all. The one that occurred shortly after she’d been dragged home from Prague.
That had been the wake-up call she needed. In the five years since, she had completed her internship at Black Diamond Holdings, her family’s billion-dollar company, and struck out on her own as a high-end lingerie designer.
What do I know better than cars and women? Those women’s bodies. Parker had seen enough naked women, both up close and from afar, to know what they wanted to wear beneath their pantsuits and bodycon dresses. Hell, what they wanted to rip off for sex. Parker had done it all on her own, too, with only a small loan from Scarlett to get her started.
She’d paid it back twenty times over.
“As I was saying, Ms. Black—”
When Parker’s phone rang this time, it did it with such a mighty shake that it could have only been one person on the other end of the line.
Her mother.
She glanced at her phone. Sure enough, the call came from Vivianne Black, the family matriarch. To say that Parker and her mother didn’t get along was an understatement.
Since cleaning up her act, most of Parker’s family had begrudgingly come to respect her and all she’d achieved. Her father, head of the family company, had told her that she may have a head for business, after all. Her older sister Scarlett, the golden child and heir to the Black Diamond throne, was finally off Parker’s back about being a “screw-up.” Her little sister still looked up at her with sparkling stars in her eyes. “You’re soooo coooool, Parker,” she could hear Bianca saying, as if she were still in middle school.
But her mother? Her mother continued to think Parker was the same hot mess she’d been years ago.
“Do you need to break for a few minutes, Ms. Black?”
Wilbur asked. “I could step outside while you take your call.”
Parker folded her hands on her desk and straightened her back. “That won’t be necessary.”
Another message flashed on her phone. FOR THE LOVE
OF GOD, CALL ME!
Wilbur drummed his fingers against his folder, sweat beaded on his brow. Both he and Parker looked at her phone while another message from Scarlett arrived.
THIS IS AN ACTUAL EMERGENCY. LIFE OR DEATH.
Life or death? Had something happened to someone in her family? Was Bianca in the hospital?
Parker picked up her phone. “I should take this.”
With a sigh of relief, Wilbur pushed back in his chair and showed himself out.
Parker dialed her sister’s number.
“There you are.” Scarlett, who was usually so cool and collected that Parker o
Was she breathless? What was that sound in the background? Her Prada shoes marching down the hallway?
“I was in a meeting with my Head of Sales,” Parker explained. “What did you want me to do?”
“When I say it’s life or death, I mean it!”
“So what the hell is wrong? Is it Bianca?”
“I think you know exactly what it is,” Scarlett hissed.
Someone in the background offered to hold a door open for her. The cars of Capitol Hill honked. “I don’t have time for
this. I’m heading to your office right now. Don’t. Move. If you really don’t know, check the first text I sent you.”
She hung up. Parker stared at her phone. I should know what it is? Parker barely knew what day it was. Her life had been so mundane these past few years that the worst it could be was video evidence of her sleeping at her desk.
Instead, it was video evidence of something much graver.
CCTV footage from five years ago. Parker, younger and much dumber, hurtling toward disaster.
All the blood drained from her face. Soon, she would be as pale as the black and white footage haunting her phone.
The shoes on Scarlett’s feet were Gucci, not Prada. And there they were, pacing back and forth on Parker’s floor, every step leaving behind a sizable indentation in the carpet.
“How the hell could this happen?” Scarlett’s long brown hair dramatically swished every time she pivoted to resume her pacing. “I thought everything was behind this family! Do you know how Mom is taking it right now? She’s a mess.
Absolutely inconsolable. And Dad? I found out because of him! He called me up in the middle of my meeting to froth at the mouth about you.”
Parker, sitting stark still on the couch in her office, looked up and met Scarlett’s eyes, brown like her own, but larger and wilder. I swear, they grow bigger the angrier she gets. Soon, they would take up the entirety of Scarlett’s face.
Scarlett stopped in front of her. “Do you know what I thought had happened when I got that phone call?”
“Dow Jones dropped five hundred points?” Parker offered.
“This is no laughing matter!” Scarlett let out a pent-up sigh as she resigned herself to sitting beside Parker, the couch sagging with her added weight. “Did you know that copies of that tape still existed?”
Parker shook her head. “I thought the master had been destroyed, along with any copies.”
Scarlett kicked herself back up. “We need to do damage control right now, before this spreads like wildfire. It’s already out there on the internet. Every tabloid from here to China is going to run it. This family has dealt with enough of your shi
—” She stopped herself. “I’m sorry.”
Parker waved a hand in her sister’s direction. “No, no.
Please, continue. I love it when you rip me a new one.”
“You watched the video, right? That’s you in it, Parker.”
Scarlett flopped down onto the couch again, cursing. “It’s that hair of yours. You’ve had that exact haircut since you were 20.
And you’ve been bleaching it blonde for even longer. There’s absolutely no doubt who it is in that video.”
“I know.” The first few frames continued to play in Parker’s mind, over and over. “I know. ”
She leaned forward, hands sliding down her face as she attempted to scrub memories from her brain. There was one surefire way to do that, and that was with copious amounts of alcohol. Parker had given up drinking years ago, but she’d never been more tempted to take it up again than she was right now.
Everything she’d built for herself over the past five years was threatening to come crashing down.
Scarlett remained silent for a moment. “You’re actually taking this seriously, aren’t you?”
“Of course I’m taking it seriously!” Parker had thought her sister had finally stopped seeing her as the family screw-up, but apparently, she’d been wrong. “Did you forget that I have a successful business to maintain now? I was just in a meeting about the millions I made last year. Me, Scar!” Her fists clenched, her fingernails digging half-moon imprints into her palms. “I grew up. I built something. And now that’s all at risk!”
Despite the boring business meetings, the mind-numbing talk of profit margins and sales targets, her growing lingerie
empire was one of the few things in her life she cared about.
Hell, it was the only thing. She couldn’t lose it over her stupid, careless actions five years ago.
“Okay. Here’s what you’re going to do.” Scarlett punctuated every sentence with a finger as she revealed her master plan. “You’re going to hire the best PR agent in Seattle, maybe America. You’re going to spin this until the public is so dizzy they don’t even know who you are anymore. You’re going to make sure Black Diamond’s investors will think twice about canceling contracts and pulling money from our coffers.”
Parker nodded. “All right. Fine.”
“I’ll have to do some research. Perhaps Adrian knows someone. Plenty of people owe his family favors.”
Parker scoffed. “I am not accepting help from your fiancé.” And marching in here, trying to take control of everything, was Scarlett all over. She’d been doing it since they were children, and it irritated Parker just as much now as it had back then.
She plucked Scarlett’s phone out of her hand. Already, her sister had been texting him about Parker’s latest scandal.
Thanks, Scar. Love your faith in me. “I’ll do it myself. I have connections too, you know. I have an assistant I can pay overtime to do some research.”
Scarlett attempted to take back her phone. Parker stood up and held it above her head. Even in those Gucci heels, Scarlett wasn’t tall enough to get it back.
“Trust me.” Parker moved the phone behind her back. “Do you trust me?”
Scarlett crossed her arms. “Do you really want me to answer that? Because right now I barely trust you to hold my phone, let alone get yourself out of the monumental heap of trouble you’re in.”
Parker winced. Just because Scarlett was practically her third parent, it didn’t mean she had to share her parents’
opinion of their middle daughter. “I know how PR agencies work, Scar. I have one for my business.”
“Personal PR is completely different from corporate imaging.”
“I know you’re old and all,” Parker said, going straight for the low-hanging fruit that was Scarlett’s age, “but I’m thirty myself. I’m a big girl. I can handle it. And it’s my mess to clean up.”
Scarlett blew the bangs out of her eyes. “‘It’s your mess to clean up?’ Who the hell are you and what did you do with my sister?”
“I’m still your sister. But I’m a better version of her, one who takes responsibility for her actions.” She handed Scarlett her phone back. “I will fix this. On my own.”
The skeptical look in her sister’s eyes told her that she didn’t believe Parker one bit. Because to Scarlett, like everyone else, Parker would always be a colossal screw-up and the black sheep of the Black family.
Chapter Two
W ith every minute that ticked by, Julia came closer to meeting the biggest client of her career.
That said a lot, considering she’d already made quite the name for herself. At the tender age of twenty-five, Julia had started her own public relations agency and single-handedly rehabilitated the images of some of Seattle’s most incredible screw-ups.
Now, two years later, she had amassed enough clout to attract the attention of Parker Black. The Parker Black .
Julia took a deep breath. Every time she got in over her head with thoughts of Parker, she reminded herself that this would simply be another day at work. So what if Parker Black was one of the biggest names in Seattle? Everyone knew who the Blacks of Black Diamond Holdings were. There was even a skyscraper downtown with their last name on it.
And they were always in the papers, funding this and that.
It was the Black family who donated to many of the programs Julia had used during her childhood in the foster care system.
From food banks to job training, there was hardly a corner of public service the Blacks hadn’t touched in the greater Sea-Tac area.
