Lie to Me: A Contemporary Billionaire BWWM Romance

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* * *

A
frica
…

Which is an unhelpfully vague way to set the location.

Africa is so much bigger than you think it is.

You know it’s big – that rather goes without saying – but however big you think it is, it’s bigger.

There’s no point in blithely saying, ‘Africa is beautiful’. Which bit? And there’s even less point in saying ‘Africa…’ and expecting the reader to paint themselves a mental picture – you could be talking about a city, a desert, a jungle. Anything from the Pyramids to Table Mountain.

All that having been said, when you just say, ‘
Africa…
’, most people think the exact same thing. They think of the vast plains; of lions, zebra and elephants; the bloated squat of the baobab tree; the savage beauty of the Serengeti. Which, as it happens, was not a million miles away from the landscape at which Zoe Blanchard was currently staring.

It was not the Serengeti specifically, she was in the wrong country for that, but, to Western eyes, the picture as she stared out of her tent was pretty much the same.

She was in fact in a national park in South Africa (the name of which is being withheld for legal reasons that will become all too apparent shortly). She was taking part in a guided, week long safari, and was currently looking out at the sun setting on the most majestic view she had ever seen in her life – the dying red light picking out the highlights of the landscape in a way that would have made Tuner or Monet throw away their brushes in embarrassment. And, on top of all that, Zoe was getting paid to be here. That she was not the envy of everyone she knew said a great deal about the personality of the person whom Zoe was paid to be here
with
.

Vanessa Reese knew exactly what a safari was supposed to be like. She was supposed to be decked out in white, possibly wearing one of those egg-shaped pith helmets favored by Livingstone and other British explorers, being carried on a chair supported by two wooden poles and held up by four native bearers. Behind her, there should be a long line of more native bearers, carrying her luggage (possibly on their heads), maybe an elephant or two for the heavy stuff. Beside her would stride a sunburnt British lord, with a fiery red moustache, corded muscles bulging through his open-necked shirt, and a rifle slung across his broad shoulders, so that he could protect her against vicious lions and recalcitrant pygmies.

In short, Vanessa had been expected to go on safari sometime during the 1870s, and the fact that native bearers no longer carried her travel trunk in return for a handful of shiny beads had come as a tremendous disappointment to her. Zoe hadn’t bothered to point out to her boss that if it was in fact the 1870s, Vanessa would not have been in
quite
the privileged position she was in at the moment.

However, the guides in 2016, who expected to be paid actual money for their time, lacked the respectful deference (not to mention fear) Vanessa had expected and which she enjoyed in the States. One of them had even called her by her first name!

Still, if Vanessa wanted respectful deference and fear then she could always turn to her personal assistant.

“
Zoe!”

Zoe was startled from her admiration of the nocturnal landscape as the howl of her employer temporarily silenced the lions, hyenas and other assorted wildlife, who suddenly realized that there was something scarier than them in town. She hurried to Vanessa’s substantial tent.

“Yes, Miss Reese.”

“There are insects everywhere,” said Vanessa, as if Zoe was personally responsible for the class
insecta
and everything in it.

“They’re not inside the mosquito net are they?”

“No,” snapped Vanessa. “Of course not. But they are
very
noisy.”

“Right.” Zoe paused, not entirely sure what her boss expected her to do at this point. Shushing the bugs seemed unlikely to produce the desired result. “We are in Africa.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

It should go without saying that Vanessa was extremely beautiful – only beautiful people get to be this rude without anyone calling them on it. You had to be very beautiful indeed to be as big a bitch as Vanessa got away with being.

This was pretty much how it had been since day one of their arrival in Africa.

The trip was supposed to be a relaxing holiday for Vanessa, and she did seem to be enjoying it, but in between enjoying it she was also complaining about everything from the size of the insects (too big) to the size of the elephants (not big enough) to the color of the sunset (too much orange) to the lack of a single good sherry in the safari supply chest. All of which was apparently Zoe’s fault, and none of which Zoe knew how to fix.

“Fetch me a brandy,” said Vanessa, since the insects seemed to be going nowhere. “Think you can manage that?”

“Yes, Miss Reese.” Zoe hurried off. One of the reasons that Zoe had entered the business world, and risen swiftly to the dizzy heights as Vanessa Reese’s personal assistant, had been her desire to avoid serving drinks for living – the irony was not lost on her. Privately she rather wished that something terrible would happen to Vanessa. Nothing life-threatening of course (Zoe was not a cruel woman), just enough to reinforce Zoe’s belief that there was at least some modicum of fairness in the universe.

Although, as far as she knew, her dreams and private wishes had no effect upon reality, Zoe did have the good grace to feel guilty when, the following day, her boss was lightly trampled by a herd of stampeding wildebeest, resulting a broken leg.

* * *

“
V
ery funny
,” observed one of the guides as Vanessa Reese was helicoptered off in the direction of the nearest hospital.

“Funny?!” Though she did not like her employer, Zoe found that a little shocking. She turned to him, her dark brown eyes widening in surprise.

“Oh, I am sorry.” The guide held up a hand in apology. “My English is – how do you say? – woefully inadequate. What I meant was: hilarious.” He laughed in a deep, bass tone, then added, “Because she is such a bitch,” by way of clarification.

And, though she did feel guilty about doing so, Zoe could see his point of view. Still, it was rather disappointing to have her own safari brought to so abrupt an end. And from a business point of view there were bound to be other implications of Vanessa Reese being so suddenly out of action. She held a position of considerable power and influence in their company and the business world was like a spider’s web; when you touched one thread, the tremors ran through it elsewhere.

Those tremors could travel across the world.

* * *