The last thing Johnny wanted was to screw it up for Mr. Farrell. He highly respected the man. And when he’d agreed to house-sit for Mr. Farrell, Johnny had also made a special promise to him…a promise he didn’t dare go back on.
As he zipped his truck out of the exclusive community of Bel Air, he took a deep satisfying breath of normal workingman air. No way did he feel comfortable in posh surroundings. Sure, it was a blast playing the role of a multibillionaire. He didn’t mind playacting as Mr. Farrell with the real estate broker who’d come to the mansion door, or the homeowners’ insurance guy who’d come by for an appointment Mr. Farrell had forgotten. He’d proudly pulled off both encounters without a glitch.
But for some mysterious reason, his gut burned like a blazing fire, knowing he’d lied to Professor Rachel Smith.
To Johnny, telling the truth was synonymous with being a solid honorable human being. And with Rachel, pretending to be Zane Farrell somehow felt low and dirty.
Johnny jammed on his brakes for a red light on Sunset Boulevard. He was right next to the university campus where Rachel worked.
Johnny felt a slow grin lighten his face. Rachel Smith was definitely not the professor he’d imagined she would be.
On the phone with her, he’d envisioned a high-nosed academic with an uppity attitude, stiff demeanor and brisk manner. But the second he’d yanked open Mr. Farrell’s front door to greet her, he’d smelled intoxicating gardenia perfume in the air.
Rachel’s soft velvet-brown eyes made him want to stargaze forever. Her silken chestnut hair was pulled tight in a bun, and he’d ached to release her tresses and run his fingers through the smooth strands.
He’d immediately sensed a soft vulnerability about her and felt the instant urge to hold her protectively in his arms.
When she’d spoken about the sexuality study, his gaze was trained to lips which were like flaming red rosebuds ready to be parted with his kiss.
A blaring car horn awakened Johnny to the now-green light on Sunset Boulevard.
He bitterly laughed to himself. Why fool himself? He was definitely no match for Professor Rachel Smith. Once she knew who he really was, she’d immediately take a rocket flight to Venus to get clear of him.
Rachel was from a universe of higher education, renowned books of literature, knowledge of calculus and scientific theories, the privileged world of the scholarly. Zane Farrell’s cosmos. But Johnny Wells? He didn’t even graduate from high school.
He angrily pushed down the accelerator for a sharp curve. His tires made a screech as if in protest to who he really was.
Why did Mr. Farrell have to volunteer for that sex study, anyway? Johnny had no idea what the man’s sexual attitudes were. He certainly didn’t want to make him sound like a fizzled dud in bed. Yet, he couldn’t portray him as a worldly stud, either. He had to find an acceptable sexual image for the man.
Because Johnny owed Mr. Farrell. He owed him big-time. If it wasn’t for Mr. Farrell, Johnny would have remained a runaway teenager on the streets of Los Angeles and maybe ended up with a nowhere life.
It was Mr. Farrell, through his chauffeur, George, who found him on the streets and placed him in a private group home for teens. It was Mr. Farrell who had George enroll Johnny in an auto mechanic’s course to professionally learn the kind of work Johnny felt natural doing.
It was Mr. Farrell who had put up the money for a loan for the automotive repair shop that Johnny had dreamed of owning, though Johnny had fought the idea the whole way. He wasn’t one to take from anybody, especially someone like Mr. Farrell, whom he’d never even met.
When Johnny requested to meet Mr. Farrell face-to-face, George had immediately told him no. He said Mr. Farrell avoided direct contact with everyone. He refused all social invitations. He lived in total isolation. He never left the grounds of his huge mansion except when he traveled alone. And he would only communicate with Johnny through George.
Johnny tried to figure the man out. He couldn’t understand why an eccentric person like Mr. Farrell would shed such kindness upon him. When he asked George, he learned that Mr. Farrell’s only son had had a bad drug problem, and one night during a drug deal, he was fatally shot in the head. His son’s brutal death had devastated Mr. Farrell. Divorced and alone, Mr. Farrell had spotted Johnny as a runaway teen, and George said that Mr. Farrell wanted to give to Johnny what he’d neglected to give his own son.
Johnny vowed to pay back Mr. Farrell every cent and more. Unbeknownst to Mr. Farrell, Johnny even kept a secret bank account with hard-earned money he was saving to pay back his benefactor for every favor Mr. Farrell had ever done for him. Yes, Johnny owed Mr. Farrell, and he’d never let the man down, not ever.
So when Mr. Farrell asked him over the phone to housesit while he went on a relaxing worldwide tour, Johnny immediately said yes. And when Mr. Farrell indicated that he’d also given his entire personal staff a vacation but didn’t want any corporate competitors to know he was gone, Johnny said he’d make sure even the president didn’t know he was away.
But Mr. Farrell had another idea. He asked that Johnny “be him” during any unfinished business he’d forgotten before leaving the country. Even though Johnny wasn’t sure if he could pull it off, he didn’t hesitate to accept Mr. Farrell’s request. Especially when Mr. Farrell told Johnny that he considered him “family” and trusted him implicitly to make all the right business decisions for him.
Johnny steered his pickup into the small parking lot of his shop. His chest expanded with pride as his sign came into view, Johnny’s Foreign Automotive Repairs. He loved the black grease of that place, the oil smell, the grime. It was his business, his power in the world.
“Yo, Johnny baby!” called out Tito, his South American mechanic. Tito ran toward Johnny with a face smeared with car oil.
“Tito, any problems while I was gone?” Johnny asked as he turned off his engine. Loyal Tito had been with him from the start.
“You just missed a call from Mr. Farrell,” Tito told him with a Spanish accent.
“Man, oh, man, where the hell’s my luck?” Johnny bellowed, running frustrated fingers through his curly hair. “I’ve got to talk to him. He’s got me involved in a sex study.” Johnny gave Tito a quick rundown on the university project.
“Maybe you should not have made that promise to Mr. Farrell,” Tito remarked.
“Tito, I had to—”
“But you have never met the man, Johnny,” Tito cut in. “Sure, he helped you in life, but why has he not allowed you to see him? He either talks to you on the phone or through George. He does his business on a computer notebook, cellular phone or through his communications people. Nobody knows who the man is.”
“I know him, Tito,” Johnny said without a doubt in his head. “He’s a private man. He has no wife and no kids to depend on. And he asked me to do him a big favor. And I’m going to do it, Tito, no matter what.” “But how can you, Johnny, when you are not him?” Tito shook his head with confusion.
“I can do it, Tito,” Johnny said. “Mr. Farrell’s never revealed his age to anyone. Nobody’s ever seen his face—”
“Someone will discover you are not Mr. Farrell,” Tito cut in. “Somebody you do not want to find out.”
Johnny immediately thought of Professor Rachel Smith. She was the only one he was worried about. He didn’t like pretending with her. He felt a connection with her, an inner link he’d never felt with any woman before. That’s why he was so frustrated that he’d missed Mr. Farrell’s phone call. He had to talk to him about that sex test.
Rachel quickened her towel strokes as she dried the dinner dishes in Kim’s kitchen. “Kim, I’m taking