A Billionaire For A Night

Chapter 2: His face.

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I downed the shot glass as the bartender filled it up again. I stared at the briefcase sitting on the bar before me. My head was blank, I didn't know what to think. I wasn't exactly happy but I couldn't feel sad either.

Pam was sitting on a stool beside me absorbing everything I just narrated to her.

When I'd told her that plans changed and something urgent had come up, she came running to the small bar near the hotel where I asked that we meet.

“So he just gave you the money?” She asked, staring at nothing in particular, “he doesn't even know who you are or anything?”

“Nope.”

“And you have to be there again?”

“Yup! To attend the wedding and to get the rest of the money.”

“And he said you're the bride?”

I gulped and nodded.

“Do you know who he is?”

“No.”

“And yet you signed the papers and agreed to everything?” She gave me an uncomfortable stare.

“What was I supposed to do? It all happened so fast! I didn't know he wasn't the one I was supposed to meet, it was too late when I figured it out”, I sighed exasperatedly, “this is all your fault remember?”

“Okay, yes it's my fault”, she rolled her eyes, “but still—”

I didn't let her talk.

“He said he was gonna pay a million fucking dollars Pam”, I lowered my voice when I realized I was talking really loud, “your client wasn't going to pay me that, was he?”

“Well, you were supposed to meet some CEO guy but no, I don't think he was going to pay that much”, she ran her fingers through her hair, “but did you get his name at least? Let's know what we're dealing with here.”

I thought for a while.

“Um, I guess when I was signing the papers, I picked up a name. Cortland.”

“Just Cortland?”

I nodded slowly, “I really can't remember everything. I was really confused Pam.”

I rested my chin on my palm. I was too disoriented to continue drinking.

I'd taken three shots already and the last thing I wanted tonight was to get drunk.

“Well let's see”, Pam sighed and took out her phone, “the name Cortland is a familiar one. Or it could be someone else.”

“Cortland Corporations?” I raised a brow. And then chuckled to myself, “there's no fucking way in hell.”

Pam shrugged and kept looking through her phone.

“We just have to find out which Cortland is getting married tomorrow.”

“There could be a million of them”, I pointed out biting my finger, “Pam, I'm going crazy.”

“Chill. They also have to be wealthy enough to hand over a million dollars to just anybody.”

“They're a lot of wealthy people out there too”, I moaned.

It must've been a minute or five, when Pam responded. I couldn't tell, my head was spinning.

“Zira, do you know what he looks like?”

“Yeah, I do.”

She showed me two pictures, “my sources came up with these guys.”

I groaned after I saw the photos. Neither of them were him. The first one was bald and gray. The second one was a middle aged man with brown eyes.

“He's way younger Pam. You're probably never going to find him on the internet, stop playing detective.”

“Duh, I have reliable sources. How do you think I get all my wealthy clients? Look, we have to figure something out somehow. Since Zaid Cortland is out of the question here—”

I sat up straight, “Zaid Cortland was the name I saw. Yeah, I think it was.”

I nodded as it came back to me.

“You're joking right?”  Pam gave me a long stare and then scoffed loudly, “Zaid Cortland as in the heir of Cortland Corporations? Because yes he's getting married tomorrow. It's popular news.”

“I… I-I think, I heard something like that last week”, it was probably snowing outside but I began to sweat, “can I see a picture of him?”

“You don't know what Zaid Cortland looks like?” Pam stared at me bewildered.

“Am I supposed to? I don't follow celebrity gossip.”

Right now, I was wishing I did. It would save me the anxiousness pulsating through my entire being.

Seconds later, Pam shoved her phone in my face, “how have you never seen a picture of this smoking hot guy? Still think he was the anybody you met?”

All the color drained from my face. My breath was hitched in my throat just like when I'd first seen him.

Or my eyes were deceiving me.

Ah. No, it was him.
It had to be him. I couldn't forget those piercing blue eyes. He wasn't smiling in the photo, of course smiling was probably alien to him.

“Is he?” Pam pressed again when she saw the expression on my face.

I wanted to nod but I couldn't. I just sat there staring into space with a million things running through my head.

I was Zaid Cortland's bride.

.......

“Are you really sure you want to do this?”

I was staring at myself in the mirror but it wasn't my reflection that stared back at me. I couldn't help but visualize how different life would be in the soonest. A smile found its way to the corner of my lips.

Before breakfast, I'd given my cousin, Asher, the rent money he had been trying to come up with for weeks.

I was generous enough to give him more than he needed. He had let me stay in his house these past few months without asking anything in return. 

He tried to ask but I didn't tell him how I got the money. I just told him it was a loan from a friend.

I was also fulfilling Aida’s wish of getting a better wheelchair so she could visit the beach again. Aida was Asher's ten year old daughter, she had been unable to walk after an accident that claimed her mother's life a few years ago. Nevertheless, she was a happy little girl and was such a bundle of joy to her father.

I so badly wanted to give them a better life and I was seeing that better life already.