Page 15 of The Billionaire's Baby Betrayal

She sat back against the leather seat, somewhat doubting Señor Olivera’s reasoning considering the luxury of the limousine’s interior, and tried to brush her uneasiness aside.

“I appreciate his consideration. It will be an adventure for me as I have never flown in a helicopter.” She smiled nervously.

“Our pilot, Ramon, has many years of experience and will give you a very safe experience. You will enjoy seeing our beautiful country from the air.”

Gregorio introduced Piper to Ramon and helped him load her belongings into the copter. She was delighted to see a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice strapped down beside the passenger seat. Before bidding her farewell, Gregorio poured her a glass of the bubbly liquid.

“It will help your first-flight nerves,” he whispered as he handed it to her and ensured her seat belt was latched correctly.

As Ramon started the rotors, Piper waved to Gregorio, standing by the limo, and took a sip of the champagne. She closed her eyes as they left the ground and became airborne. Ramon pointed out the beautiful coastline and the beach, and as they flew over the city and the countryside, Piper had to agree with Gregorio about seeing Uruguay from the air. She began to relax, and as she drank from her second glass of sparkling wine, she started to reflect on how she came to be in the situation in which she found herself.

“It won’t be difficult to figure out, Caroline Ford, that your life is a sham,” she said to the face looking back at her in the window.

“Perdón, Señorita Marshall? Did you say something?” asked Ramon.

Piper had forgotten she was wearing headphones! She cringed. “No, Ramon, I was just talking to myself.”

She thought about her parents in Wyoming and knew they would be disappointed in her. She hadn’t seen them since assuming the name Piper Marshall, though she had corresponded with them without divulging her new persona. She was born, as Felix had discovered, Caroline Ford, the daughter of a Wyoming rancher and his wife. Her father owned twenty-five hundred head of prime Angus cattle at any one time and made a good living raising and selling his herd. Caroline’s mother was a champion equestrian in dressage and English-style competitions. She was an elementary school teacher, but had started a riding school at the ranch after Caroline was born so she could stay home with the new baby and Caroline’s brother, Jamie. Jamie was two years older than his sister, and they became inseparable.

Jamie and Caroline took after their mother in body type. They were slim, under five feet six inches tall, and were taught to ride and handle several different horse breeds. Jamie decided to be a jockey and enrolled at the North American Racing Academy in Lexington, Kentucky. He was apprenticing at Churchill Downs after graduation, and Caroline visited him the summer before she began attending the University of Wyoming in the Animal and Veterinary Science program. She became so engrossed in the jockey and racetrack life that she put off starting at the university until the second term, much to her parents’ concern.

Jamie had warned her about their parents’ reaction. “You know how Mom is about education. It took all I had in me to get her to agree to the NARA. Even though I would graduate with an associate degree in equine science, I had to promise to attend community college classes during my apprenticeship.”

Caroline had further news for her parents that she had yet to share with Jamie: she wanted to enroll in the racing academy as Jamie had done. Unfortunately, she had a more difficult hurdle than she imagined after Jamie’s first race. He was thrilled that his first race would be at Churchill Downs, and his parents were happy for him. Caroline planned a party to celebrate his winning the race even though he laughed and told her it was too optimistic for his first time out. She was in the stands when she watched him fall out of the saddle on the home stretch turn and was horrified when the jockey close behind him had no room to move. Jamie was trampled. Caroline screamed and ran out of the stands but was stopped before running onto the field to get to him. Racetrack officials would not let her see his body.

Five months after Jamie’s death, the next term at the university was about to start, and Caroline’s parents were expecting her to attend. But that was not her intention, and she was determined to enroll at the racing academy. Her parents were still devastated by Jamie’s death and put up a fight.

“You are not going to the academy,” her father, Gus, declared. “Your mother cannot go through that trauma again.”

Her mother was usually the peacemaker of the family, but the night after dinner when Caroline told her parents, Marianne Ford was shocked and in denial that her daughter could suggest such a thing.

“I believe even Jamie would be against this, Caroline,” she cried. “He would not want you to make us feel such sorrow all over again. To lose you would be unthinkable.”

“There is nothing that says the same thing would happen to me, Mama! You know that the under girth of the saddle was loose, and that was the cause of the accident. And that was as much Jamie’s fault as anyone’s—he should have checked the saddle before mounting, and I would not make the same mistake.”

Her mother gasped, and her father glared at her like she was a criminal. “How dare you blame your brother! This discussion is at an end.”

Gus put his arm around his wife, and they left the kitchen. Caroline knew they would never agree to pay for her to attend the NARA, and she did not have enough money saved to pay for the tuition and a place to live.

Over the next few days, Caroline made arrangements to leave Wyoming. She simply couldn’t stay and live in the shadow of her brother’s death. She emailed her brother’s contacts from the academy and Churchill Downs to gather information about places in South America to look for work. Everyone was happy to help her out of respect for Jamie, and she had the names of a few ranches in the Pampas area near Buenos Aires, Argentina, for a start. Caroline had a reference from one of the trainers Jamie worked with and another from a fellow student who graduated with him.

Her passport was in order, and she emptied her savings account and bought a one-way ticket to Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires. There were many horse and cattle ranches or equine centers where she could find work. Caroline contacted a high school friend who would take her to the airport and left a letter for her parents, explaining everything she felt and her reasons why she had to go away. She began her journey with the necessities in a backpack, a case with her laptop, and confidence. Her classes in Spanish and using it when talking with the cowboys who worked for her father made her more employable.

Caroline was hired at the first ranch she visited. She started as a groom, rode every day, and soon it was noticed that she had a way with horses. They responded to her and took direction from her easily. But opportunities for progression were limited, especially given her lack of formal training, and she was still a groom after a year despite doing the work of a yard manager. Disenchanted, she quit the job on the pretense of wanting to travel more around the country. In an old pickup truck she bought from one of the men at the ranch, she traveled to an equine training center near Córdoba she had heard the men at the ranch talk about. And that was where Piper Marshall was born.

Having a father who was a successful cattle rancher and a mother who was a champion equestrian gave Caroline a certain level of knowledge of ranch life. Still, it got her nowhere in moving into better stable jobs. She thought the name of someone prestigious in horse racing might bring more opportunities her way and remembered Jamie talking about a successful breeding and training ranch in Kentucky owned by a family named Marshall. They had been training champion thoroughbreds for over one hundred years.

Caroline revised her resume with her new name, educational background, and bogus work history in the United States and Canada. She had rented a studio apartment on a month-to-month basis in Córdoba. With a friendly attitude and good listening skills, she found out the name of someone who helped locals get new identification for entry into the United States and other countries. He was expensive but worth it—his work was impeccable. Within a week, Caroline had a new passport, renewed visa, and Kentucky driver’s license under the name of Piper Marshall, and by the end of the month, she had a job as barn manager at a training ranch on the outskirts of Córdoba. She was assistant trainer within a year, and four years after that, she met Felix Bankes and was employed as his head trainer.

And now I’m to be outed as an imposter if I don’t help ruin Olivera’s future in thoroughbred racing, thought Piper, looking out the helicopter window forlornly. She poured another glass of champagne and asked Ramon to tell her about Uruguay. For the rest of the flight, Piper learned that the second most spoken language was Portuguese, the favorite drink was an infusion tea called mate, and almost one hundred percent of Uruguay’s electricity came from renewable resources.

“You must take time to enjoy our beautiful beaches at Punta del Este and explore the Yucamã Falls along the Uruguay River. That is considered Argentina, but we think of it as our river.”

“When I was working in Argentina, I visited the Iguazu Falls. They were magnificent, so I’m anxious to see more waterfalls. And I promise I’ll consider them part of Uruguay,” teased Piper.

“If you look below, we are at the beginning of Señor Olivera’s property. We should be landing in less than five minutes,” announced Ramon.

Piper peered out the window to see rolling green plains and stables, a riding arena, and a separate training ring in the distance. As the helicopter flew closer, she saw a sprawling hacienda with a landing pad on the side away from the stables. And not too far away from the helipad, she saw the now-familiar figure of Andrés Olivera standing next to what appeared to be a table covered with a lace cloth and a bucket of champagne in the middle of it.

---