ALYSSA

"You know, Alyssa, your sister really fucked my brother up," Ben didn't even look up from his phone as he scolded me for the actions of Rebecca. It's not like a forced her to act the way that she did and I didn't demand that she walk out on the man while she was pregnant his baby either.

"I can assure you now that I am not Rebecca. The only reason I am here is for the job and I am aware that the only reason The Board hired me is because of the fact I look exactly like my sister, but I have no interest in helping to bring Andrew down," I sat down on the arm of the chair which Andrew had occupied not five minutes before. Just because first impressions had told me that I wasn't going to like the man didn't mean that I wanted to have any part in his downfall; it all seemed like childish games to me and I really didn't have time for those

"He may be a total dick, but he really isn't the bad guy. In all honesty, our relationship hasn't been the same since he was given the company and I was pushed to the side without a second thought for what I may want, but that doesn't mean I want him to suffer in this way. Truthfully, I just think he needs a friend," Ben's eyes finally found my own and that was the moment where I truly realised just how different the two brothers were from each other; they were nothing alike and because Andrew was such a dick to anyone he met, the only people he really had left now were Ben and Robert.

"I don't think I am that person, Ben. After the way he's treated me today, if he was to jump off the balcony tonight, I wouldn't really give a damn. I would be the first one there to dance on his grave," if there was one thing my parents had taught me as a child, then it's that being brutally honest was better than glossing over the truth. I didn't bother hiding and I certainly didn't tiptoe around behind people's back in the fear that I would hurt their feelings, I told people precisely what I thought of them and I didn't care whether they liked it or not.

"I understand. I more than anyone understand just how hard it is to like Andrew but, please, at least give him a chance? For me?" I had to admire the way in which he was pushing this and how he was insistent that I be the friend Andrew needed, there weren't many people who would look out for their younger siblings in the way Ben watches out for Andrew.

"Why are you so concerned anyway?" curiosity got the better of me and I wanted to know why he cared so much. Other than the fact they were family and family was supposed to look out for each other, I didn't really understand why Ben would go to all the trouble he goes to, no matter how admirable it is, when Andrew clearly doesn't give a shit. "I mean, it's not your problem that he's the way he is and, if wants to drink and smoke himself to death, surely you should just let him?"

"If I don't care then he'll have no one, Alyssa. If he has no one, he's got no one to distract him and, if he's got no one to distract him, then I wouldn't put it past him to make an attempt on his own life again," Ben spoke softly and there was so much care in his tone. For a relationship which hadn't been the same for a while, he really didn't want to lose his brother because he couldn't hold himself together.

"S—Suicide?" the word was so foreign to me. I'd had a bad life, but I'd never contemplated killing myself, that would mean that I had allowed everyone else to win. All the people who had brought me down would know that they had gotten to me and they had beaten me, while I was in a wooden box six feet under, they would be carrying on with their smug lives as though they had never done anything wrong.

"It wouldn't be the first time. I've stopped him from killing himself once and Robert managed to get to him just in time on the other three occasions. Running the company, Robert and myself are the only real distractions and, without one of them, I don't even want to think about what could happen," Ben put his head in his hands and I couldn't begin to imagine the thoughts which were going through his mind, but I would assume that they all had to do with losing his brother because of the heartlessness of one bitch who couldn't stand the thought of putting her heart on the line for another.

"Have you ever considered, and forgive me if I am stepping out of line here, that he may need help? Like, professional help?"

"Tried it. Seven times. Andrew has run away each and every single time and then disappeared for weeks on end," Ben sighed. His eyes were glossed over as they flicked between myself and the same spot on the floor which he had spent the last fifteen minutes staring at. "I just, I don't know what to do, Alyssa. I don't want to lose my brother, but I'm at a loss with everything. Even I know that I can't keep doing this."

"Fine. I'll try but I'm not going to promise anything. If he acts like an arrogant ass tomorrow who thinks he's better than I am just because he sits in a chair behind some desk, then I am going to bite back. I hate men who think they're superior to women," after the incident with Dean, I had never trusted men and I hated it when they tried to tell me what the hell to do, hence the reason I liked to pretend that I was married.

If you tell a man that you are married to someone with a highly possessive streak and who loses his shit easily if he so much as sees another man talking to his wife, said man will quickly back off and leave you the hell alone, the fear that he is going to have several bones broken greater than the risk of continuing to hit on you. The man never actually sticks around long enough to find out that you're lying and that your violent husband doesn't actually exist.

"Thank you, Alyssa. You have no idea how much this means to me," Ben's smile didn't quite reach his eyes but I could tell that he was trying to be optimistic about the situation.

"So? Breakfast? Tomorrow?" I cleverly changed the topic.

"I'll send one of Andrew's cars for you. Half eight too soon?"

"Andrew wanted me in the office at half six, so that's fine with me," I chuckled. I was one of those people who loved my sleep far too much to ever want to give it up so, when Andrew told me that he wanted me in the office at half six, you can imagine the horror which I felt that I was only going to be getting a limited amount of sleep.

"You really do have no idea how much this means to me," Ben's quiet voice said from behind me as I opened the front door slightly and paused for a moment. I don't know what the hell I had just agreed to, but I hoped it was worth it in the future and I wasn't wasting my time with someone who was never going to be worth it.

I don't know how I managed to wake before my alarm the following morning, but I would assume it had something to do with the fact Ben's revelations were still running through my mind and there was no way I could sleep with something like that weighing on me. The sun was only just beginning to come up and, despite being on the ground floor, some sunlight still managed to sneak into the room.

My apartment wasn't anything like Ben's place and, after what Andrew had said, I guessed it was nowhere near as impressive as the place he lived in. It had a single bedroom, a space which could hardly be called a living room but that's what it was, a room with a shower and a toilet which you could barely move in and the kitchen was bigger than the living room and bathroom combined. It wasn't anything flashy and it certainly wasn't expensive at $225 a month, but it was good enough for me so I didn't really mind living here.

The area was quiet, in that there were no drug dealing teenagers or rowdy alcoholics around, and the crime rate was relatively low. The last time someone took the time to actually break into an apartment around here was well over a year ago now, my neighbour returned from visiting his sick mother to find that his place had been ransacked and his most previous valuables were all gone. He moved out a week after it happened, and after the police told him there was nothing they could do because the perp left no evidence behind, so there was some family living in there now.

They had never caused me any problems and their daughter, a seven year old blonde girl who looked exactly like her mother, always smiled at me. I had even babysat her a few times so that her parents could have some time alone and she reminded me of Ella in so many ways, with her innocent laugh which instantly made you smile and her cheeky grin which would get her anything she wanted; I loved spending time with her and she had even spent the night at my place a couple of times – obviously, she was in the bed and I spent the night on the sofa, I'd like to think that I am pretty good where young children are concerned.

"You're late," I jumped when that voice came from the corner of the room. I looked over to where I had managed to squeeze a chair a couple of weeks ago and, sat there like breaking into an employee's apartment at quarter past seven in the morning was the most normal thing he could do, was Andrew bloody Collins. For someone who had passed out due to the ridiculous amount of alcohol he had consumed, he looked pretty damn good at this time of the morning. There was no sign of the weak man who had made an appearance last night, rather the cold and infuriating man I had met yesterday morning to whom I had taken an instant disliking.

"How the hell did you get in here?" I pulled the duvet closer to my chest. I was very aware of the fact I had slept in my underwear and that was a sight I didn't want him to have an eyeful of at this time of the morning, or ever for that matter.

"You should really learn to close your door properly at night. Any manner of person could just walk in while you're sleeping, and they could do more than simply stare at you while you sleep," his eyes moved from his phone until they were in direct contact with my own. The pain and sadness was still evident but, if I didn't know who he was or what he did for a living, then I would say he was just another typical businessman.

"Because that's not at all creepy," I rolled my eyes in Andrew's general direction. It was bad enough knowing that he had gotten into my apartment in the first place, I didn't really need to know that he watched me sleeping as well, that was creepy as hell and I should really report him to the police so that he doesn't have the chance to do the same to another poor, unsuspecting woman.

"I understand that my brother practically begged you to be my friend, and he also asked you to keep an eye on me to make sure I didn't do anything too outrageous," Andrew's smirk was one of those which really needed to be punched off his face because he was too smug for his own good. I quickly checked the time, seeing that it was just a little after half seven, and decided there was no shame in actually following through with my actions to punch his smirk from his face.

It's not like I actually wanted to be friends with the man though, I only agreed to give Andrew a chance last night so that Ben would let me leave his apartment. I also couldn't stand the look which was on Ben's face and I hated the pain he was in because of his brother. It was clear that Ben was trying to do the best for Andrew, but he was having none of it and was only intent on throwing it back at him.

"He tried to make you into some sort of saint. I wasn't really buying it though," I did a quick check of the room to make sure everything was still in the same place as it had been when I got into bed last night. Not that Andrew would be interested in anything I had, not when he had more money than sense and could buy far better things that he could steal from me.

"That's my brother's biggest problem. He refuses to see the bad in anyone, he only ever wants to see the good," Andrew chuckled. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and went to light it but, just as Ben hated him smoking in his apartment, I wasn't going to allow it in mine either; I certainly wasn't going to allow it in my bedroom when I couldn't stand the smell of cigarette smoke in general.

"I don't think so, mister. Not in my room," I jumped out of the bed and walked over to him, snatching the cigarette from his mouth and snapping it into several pieces in front of him, quickly throwing it into the bin beside him.

"This view is definitely better than anything I would get from my office at this time of the morning," I took a step backwards in embarrassment. I couldn't believe that I had, in my anger, forgotten the fact I was only wearing underwear. I was mortified that I had allowed him to push me that far and he had seen something I would never have let him willingly see in a million years; but he wasn't going to smoke in my apartment and he wasn't going to smoke anywhere near me either. If he wanted to kill himself, I wasn't going to stop him, but he could do it when I wasn't in the same room as he was.

"What the fuck do you want?" I crossed my arms across my chest and glared at him. I would have covered myself up, but it seemed pointless when I had already shoved my practically naked body in his face, there wasn't really anything he hadn't seen and I wasn't going to show him how ashamed I was of myself for being so damn foolish.

"I told you, Miss Lopez. You're late for work," he shrugged and reached into his pocket to pull out his entire packet of cigarettes. It was too early in the morning for this shit and he really was pushing his limits, it wasn't going to be long before I snapped and it wasn't going to be a pretty sight, all he needed to do was behave and leave me alone long enough so that I could get ready for work.

"If you value your life, Mr Collins, you won't even think about it" I glared at him. I could feel my nails digging into the palms of my hands as I clenched my fists by my side. I could see the challenging look in his eyes and I knew that he was considering it, just to see how far he could push me before I did something stupid, but it was only pissing me off more that he didn't think I was being serious.

"Is that a challenge? I do love a good challenge," his eyes moved up and down my body, eyeing me like he would a dead piece of meat in the butcher shop, but I held my ground and refused to be intimidated by an arrogant ass like himself.

"Here's a challenge for you. Get your fucking ass out of my apartment," I finally turned my back on him and walked over to my wardrobe from which I pulled out one of the dresses Robert had picked out for my yesterday. It was a simple black one which came just above the knee with three-quarter sleeves and covered enough of my chest for the male population to be able to keep their tongues in their mouths.

I couldn't deny that Robert had a good eye for women's fashion. He knew what would suit me and what I should just stay away from. And, as any woman would have done in my situation, I questioned him about his wonderful taste in women's fashion and he told me of how he used to surprise his wife with new clothes all the time. He had even been forced to go on shopping trips with both his niece and his step-daughter more than once.

"And here I was thinking we were friends, sweetcheeks," Andrew pulled a cigarette from the packet and placed it between his lips. His eyes never left mine the moment I turned around and I knew he was waiting to see just how far he could push his luck.

"You seem to think I am joking. I will rip your dick o—"

"Whoa. Kitty got bite," Andrew put his hands up in submission as I turned around once again and pulled the pair of heels from the box which Robert had told me would go perfectly with this dress and I grabbed the necklace from my nightstand, which Robert had bought for me as a way of apologising for Andrew's behaviour towards me.

"Andrew. I sw—"

"Alright. Alright. I won't smoke this. But—"

"But nothing. There's nothing I wish to speak to you about," I rummaged violently through my underwear drawer and pulled something out, being careful not to reveal the array of both lace and Bridget Jones' underwear I owned. He had already seen me in what I was wearing, he didn't need to get excited about other things he was never going to see me in.

"All I want you to do is answer some questions while you get ready. By the time you're done, you can catch a ride to the office with Robert and myself," Andrew made it sound like it was the simplest thing in the world. There wasn't anything I wished to share with him though, nothing about Rebecca and certainly nothing about my life, I didn't need a therapist and I definitely didn't need Andrew Collins as my shoulder to cry on.

"Robert?"

"Of course. How else do you think I found out where you lived?" I was going to have to have words with Robert the next time I was alone with him. It was one thing him trying to be nice to me and trying to make me feel like being Andrew's personal assistant wasn't all that bad, but it was another for him to actually bring that ass to my house and then to wait outside for the both of us to take us to work.

"It wouldn't surprise me if you had some sort of file on all your employees. You seem like the sort of person who would do that, rather than going about things the old fashioned way and actually asking someone what you wanted to know," I didn't even spare him another look as I walked into the bathroom and slammed the door behind me, making sure I locked it so that I wouldn't get any nasty surprises from Andrew while I was showering.

I took a moment to look at myself in the mirror and I looked terrible. My hair was all over the place, it was like I had been dragged through a hedge backwards, my face looked hideous because I hadn't been able to put any make-up on and, from the dark circles around my eyes, I really was someone who was lacking in the sleep department. In short, I looked like hell and Andrew fucking Collins, of all people, had seen me looking like hell and that wasn't something I was never going to be able to live down.

"Hiding in the bathroom won't save you," his voice came from the other side of the door but I continued to ignore him as I turned the shower on and stepped inside. The water filled my ears and drowned out all sound of Andrew demanding that I actually answer the questions he had for me.

But I needed time to think and being under the water allowed me that moment of clarity to digest everything which had happened in the last twenty-four hours. I knew that the only reason I was given the job as Andrew's personal assistant was because of how much I looked like my sister, and it wasn't exactly a secret that The Board were looking for reasons to get rid of Andrew from his position as CEO. There was really no better way in trying to drag him down than targeting his weakness, the fact his pregnant fiancée walked out on him and never bothered to contact him again.

When I agreed to take the job, I knew it wasn't going to be a walk in the park and I was going to have to put up with some serious shit, but I needed the job because I wasn't really in a place where I could turn the position down. Though I wasn't paid anywhere near enough to put up with what Andrew had put me through yesterday, I'm almost certain that his secretary earns more than I do and all she has to do is stand around looking pretty all day long; it was hardly a strenuous job on her part.

"Alyssa. I just want to talk to you. We're not going anywhere until you've actually answered the questions I have for you," I finally heard his voice again as I silenced the shower and began preparing myself for the day ahead. I needed time to mentally prepare myself for what was to come because I was fairly certain today wasn't going to be any different from yesterday, no one changes over night just because they found out about their daughter and realised I was the only way they were going to find anything out about their daughter.

"If it's anything to do with my sister, I'm really not interested," I pulled my underwear on and smiled to myself, until I caught sight of myself in the mirror and the smile quickly dropped. The red frizz on top of my head had me groaning internally as I realised I wasn't going to have time to straighten it and this is how I was going to look for the rest of the day.

"I don't want to talk about that bitch. She can burn in hell for all I care," Andrew didn't miss a heartbeat with his harsh tone and I had to take a step backwards. There may have been a door between the two of us, but he still terrified me, and I wouldn't put it past him to lose his temper in the same way he did yesterday. I took a deep breathe before I pulled my dress over my head, smoothing out the creases at the bottom, before discarding my underwear from yesterday in the laundry basket and then opened the door, only to come face to face with the devil himself.

"If that's how you talk about her now, then I'd hate to think how you spoke to her while you were together," I pushed him out of the way and walked back into my bedroom. I took a seat in front of my dresser and looked at the various products in front of me, planning how I could use each of them to make my appearance slightly livelier than it currently was.

"I just, I don't give a fuck about her, that's all. I want to know about you," the grin on his face was undeniably huge and I couldn't take my eyes off him for a moment as he took a seat on the edge of my bed. The expression told me that he genuinely wanted to know more about me and he was acting like he gave a damn about me, but I was sure it was all an act and he would be an ass again the moment we stepped foot in his office.

"Me? Why the hell would you want to know about me?" I turned to look at you and, for a moment at least, I thought there was a flicker of a real smile.

"My brother gave you my life story. It only seems fair that I get to know about you," Andrew moved his shoulders around slightly. He unbutton his jacket and slid it off his shoulders, resting it across his lap and readjusted his tie, his muscles were now a whole lot more noticeable and there was certainly something worth staring at, if only I didn't dislike him as much as I do.

"Well? What do you want to know?" I turned to face the mirror once again and picked up the foundation. I needed something which was going to make it look like I hadn't only stepped from bed to work in the space of five minutes.

"Why do you tell people that you're married? It's obvious, just from looking around this place, that you live alone," I wanted to give him a medal for how observant he was being. You didn't need to be a genius to know that I loved alone. Not when there were china cats covering the mantel in my bedroom and a series of romance novels littering my bedroom floor.

"Bad experience with a guy. Next," I didn't want to tell him what had really happened. I didn't want to tell him that I was terrified of men and thought they were all after one thing and one thing only. I didn't even want to tell him that I was petrified of being romantically close to a male, unless he was a work of fiction, because I didn't know how to love and there was no way in hell a man could love me either.

"What experience?"

"I don't see what business it is of yours. It's not like you give a damn about me anyway," I snapped as I turned to face him once again. It's not like a sat with my legs crossed on the carpet of Ben's apartment and asked me to tell him Andrew's story, I had my own problems to deal with so it's not really like I wanted to extra pressure of Andrew's problems alongside my own.

"Ask me something," his tone changed once again. He wasn't cold or bitter, he wasn't even harsh or resentful, it was like he actually wanted to talk to me and he wanted to answer any questions I might have for him.

"Why would you want to tell me anything?" I pulled my heels onto my feet and grabbed the hairbrush so I could pull the mess on the top of my head into a bun; it wasn't perfect but I needed it out of the way for work and I didn't want to look like I had come from a one-night stand to work either.

"I don't know. You seem like you'll understand me and like someone who will actually listen to me without judging me or telling me how god damn crazy I am," his gaze shifted from me to the ground beneath his feet, and this was the Andrew I had seen last night. He was fighting an internal battle against himself as he fought with the idea of giving up on himself and continuing to fight for himself.

I mentally slapped myself as I thought of something I wanted to know. I didn't whether this was going to come back and bite me on the ass because I was too nice when I wanted to be, or whether he was going to remember this when I needed someone as much as he needed someone now, but I guess it was worth it to see the side of Andrew I had told existed.

"Why have you tired committing suicide so many times?"

"Honestly? I didn't feel like I deserved to be alive. I felt like there was something wrong with me because, no matter how hard I tried to be the person everyone wanted me to be, every single person I loved walked out of my life and left me," Andrew paused and I caught the tears in his eyes as he looked from the ground and towards me, "I felt so alone, especially after Rebecca walked out on me, and I didn't think it was ever going to get any better. The first time was a spur of the moment thing, I saw the pills on the side and I just took them, but Robert got to me just in time and I had to spend the night in hospital after having my stomach pumped. It was at that time that I realised I wasn't good enough to be alive and was better off dead because my life was pointless."

"Why didn't you talk to anyone? Get help before it went that far?" I asked. I stood up from the stool and walked over to sit down beside me, his attention was all on me and I was strangely nervous to hear what he was going to say. Ben had made out that they had always tried to help him, and that they had always tried to be there for him, but there was something which told me there was a whole lot more to story than he was willing to share with me.

"No one ever listened to me, they all thought I was doing it for attention, and not because I really did need help. People only started listening to me after my overdose and when they realised I was serious about killing myself, that was also when they thought the only solution was to have me locked up in a mental institute, apparently it was just some faze I was going through and I needed help to snap out of it," I actually felt sorry for Andrew in that moment. I wasn't an expert on depression, but then I had my parents to help me out when things went south with Dean, but I knew locking someone up wasn't the answer. They needed help, something or someone who could really help them, they didn't need people who were going to abscond for all responsibility as soon as it got just a little tough.

"The reason I pretend to be married—"

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I can see how painful the memory is for you and I don't want you to relive something you don't have to," Andrew took my hand in his much larger one and gave it a gentle squeeze, but I needed to do this, I had never told anyone about what happened to me since the day I had to relive it in court and Andrew was better than no one; he had also shared his past with me so I knew this wasn't some ploy to force me to tell him something I didn't want to necessarily tell him.

"I haven't spoken about it since it happened and there are days where it all gets too much, where all I want to do is scream from the roof tops that I'm not as happy as people think I am. There are days where I just want to give up because I feel so damn guilty over something which wasn't even my fault. If I didn't want to tell you, Andrew, then I wouldn't tell you," I admitted. He was a fool and I still wanted to punch him, but there was a whole other vulnerable side to him which I assumed very few got to see, so I wasn't about to take advantage of that when he was showing me his one biggest weakness.

"So, the reason you pretend to be married is," Andrew prompted. My hand was still wrapped in his and the slight smile on my face told me that I didn't have anything to worry about. Later would be a whole different story but, for now at least, he was actually willing to listen and talk without being an ass.

"—Because my husband, well now ex-currently serving time in prison-husband, forced himself on me. I wasn't ready to sleep with him, not even when we got married, but he got tired of waiting for me to put out and, in the end, he just took it from me. My own husband raped me and all because I wasn't ready to have sex with him," I subtly wiped away a tear which had betrayed me and rolled down my cheek. When it first happened, I actually tried to make excuses for it and I actually tried to defend Dean, but it took talking to my mother for her to tell me that it was wrong; it took her telling me to go to the police for me to actually report him and that was three weeks after it had happened.

There was no evidence and he would have gotten away with it, had it not been for the other two women who came forward at the same time I did, and told their side of the story. He had walked out of the house after he had taken my virginity, left me in our bed with tears streaming down my face, and went to some bar in the city where he acted like he had done nothing wrong; he didn't even tell people he was married and he went about picking up girls like it was the most normal thing to do.

I was naïve to think that he actually loved me and wanted to be with me for anything other than sex. But it was done now, it was the past and he couldn't hurt me again, I could attempt to move on with my life and actually find a man who appreciated me and what I wanted. It wasn't as easy as that though. Dean had raped me five years ago now and, in that time, I'd never been with a man and I hadn't even bothered to interact with a male; Andrew was the first man I had given the time of day to in over five years.

"Why marriage though? If that's what you had to endure in your marriage, then why wouldn't you tell people you had a boyfriend instead?" Andrew had a point and it was a perfectly valid point. I had gone through hell in my marriage and I still told people that I was married to the man, just so I didn't have to put up with males attempting to chat me up and get me into their bed for the night.

"When a guy starts hitting on you, boyfriend or not, he's going to keep hitting on you until you do something stupid. But, if a guy comes up to and starts hitting on you, and you tell him you've got a husband who has a reputation for being violent towards people who so much as speak with his wife, then he's going to run for the hills," I shrugged. The excuse had worked more than I could even remember and I had successfully enjoyed many nights without a male so much as looking at me, out of fear that my fictitious husband was going to come after them and kill them

"Perhaps I misjudged you Alyssa Lopez," Andrew raised an eyebrow and slipped his jacket back on.

"Perhaps you did, Andrew Collins, perhaps you did," I actually managed to smile at the guy as I pushed myself from the bed and grabbed my jacket from the back of the door. I tripped over my own feet as I walked out of the room, luckily Andrew wasn't watching or it would have been highly embarrassing, but I used the wall beside my front door to steady myself. "We had better get to work. I would hate for my boss to sack me after just one day."

"We could always go for that breakfast Ben promised he would pay for?" I would like to think that this Andrew is going to stick around for a while and I was going to have the pleasure of experiencing the real man behind the mask but, from what I had already seen, I knew that wasn't going to happen and the Andrew I had quickly come to loathe would be back before too long. And all it would take for him to appear was the wrong word, in the wrong place, and asshole Andrew would be there.

© 2015 Emma Norman. All Rights Reserved.