Can't Buy Me Love

by Rin Daniels

  Fair enough. “It’s sort of a hassle, isn’t it?” Kat’s smile slipped to rueful sympathy. “Especially the reds and purples.”

  “Yeah.” The edge to Kira’s features softened. “You do your own?”

  “Every chance I get,” Kat said. “My mom is always like, ‘Oh, good, you’re coloring your hair again.’” A small fib. Her mom barely noticed. But the calculated act scored a win. Kira brightened.

  “No doubt,” she laughed. “It drives my grandmother insane, too.”

  In for the kill. Er, the close. “You know,” she said, “I’ve got like a million ways to stretch out your color without all the maintenance. You want me to email you?”

  Kira’s eyebrows lifted. “Totally.” Kat caught Nadine’s smug grin in the corner of her eye as the girl added, “Nadine, give her my contact info, okay?”

  “Okay,” Nadine confirmed cheerfully. “Wait, wait,” she added to the redhead, who hid her face behind the rim of her cocktail. “He wanted you to do what?”

  Hit it and quit it. That was enough of a positive start to ensure a foundation—one in the bag. If she made a good impression with Kira, she’d tell her friends.

  Word of mouth. In Sulla Valley, it moved faster than the internet.

  Kat cradled her wide martini glass in her palm, gesturing towards a random direction. “I have to go talk to someone, I‘m sorry. It was nice meeting you all.”

  “Yeah,” the slender brunette replied. Real warmth. Everybody had a hook. Kat just needed to find it. “Call me, we’ll do lunch.”

  And become a lady who lunched? She almost laughed out loud, but swallowed it and nodded instead.

  Ladies who lunched needed their hair done, right? She so had this.

  Kat extricated herself, confident Nadine would find her again. All she had to do was set up on a sideline, close enough to look like she was mingling, but not so close that she’d inadvertently tromp all over everyone else’s conversation.

  Listen, Kitty. The smooth cadence of her father’s voice filled her head. There’s comfortable, and there’s filthy rich, and they don’t think alike. Never grift the filthy rich.

  Kat shook her head. Whatever his rules, and Jack Harris always had them, they didn’t apply here. She wasn’t out to scam anyone.

  And he hadn’t listened to his own advice.

  Kat found a place near a wooden support beam wrapped in more of those delicate fairy lights. The drink she sipped was too sweet, exactly the kind of sugary rush Nadine would find palatable.

  Kat had learned to hold her booze by fourteen. She had gotten over the syrupy stuff about the same time she’d given her last stuffed animal to a neighbor kid.

  She leaned against the pillar, tucking her free hand under her elbow and holding the dangerously pink concoction with care. She kept having visions of spilling the stuff over Nadine’s shoes. Like she needed more anxiety.

  Her gaze roamed over the loose knots of people rubbing elbows with their own kind. Women tended to band with women, businessmen with other men. Couples lingered here and there, but the real power seemed focused around the far right table. A handful of loiterers all but fawned over two older men, a cool blonde Kat mentally designated a trophy wife, and a younger guy—a son, maybe, or heir apparent. Whatever they called their scions.

  Kat could practically graph the social dynamics at work. Pluck one string, and watch it ripple.

  When a seated collection of women turned as one to look at the wide arch entry, she idly sipped at the saccharine drink and studied the pair of men who joined the scene.

  Designer suits, no surprise. Armani and... What, Ralph Lauren? Black Label, of course. That seemed par for the course. The older of the two had sandy hair trimmed short, a navy blue pinstripe suit with a pale blue shirt and a patterned charcoal tie. A glint of silver was probably a plain tie tack. Classy. Understated, but expensive.

  Her brain ticked through a list as second-nature as breathing. The guy’s posture was excellent, but not commanding. He held a small leather-bound case in the crook of one arm—a tablet, she figured, or maybe an old-fashioned notebook for note-taking. Older than his companion, but probably an underling of some kind. Definitely a successful one. He’d have his own staff, she figured, while he answered directly to the boss.

  Which made the guy he spoke to in lowered tones, his face turned away to hide his words from prying eyes like Kat’s, the boss.

  His carriage practically screamed elite. His suit was light gray, and his shirt a shade lighter and one step towards blue. Definitely not the kind of outfit men of Kat’s acquaintance knew how to put together without help. His tie, dark blue and shot through with thin diagonal stripes in baby blue and aqua, looked tastefully trendy and equally as expensive.

  His lean shoulders, set with unmistakable confidence, struck her as the athletic kind developed in a swimming pool; he obviously cared about his appearance, enough to work for it. He had brown hair, longer at the top and swept back from his face. No choir boy middle part for him.

  It was just long enough to give him playboy good looks, she guessed, edgy enough to wear in a board room while showcasing his manly business acumen. The one tanned hand he slid into the pocket of his slacks said he feared nothing from anyone here. He probably thought himself way too cool to be played.

  She doubted that. In her experience, everybody was a potential mark. A good grifter just needed to find the right vulnerabilities to exploit, and the confident ones were usually the easiest.

  Of course, only the terminally deranged would go after this crowd. Money wasn’t the issue when it came to the filthy rich. Dollars were just numbers to them—but numbers were a way of keeping score. People like this hated to lose.

  That’s why Jack Harris stayed away from the filthy rich.

  Why they’d moved so suddenly from Sulla Valley five years ago.

  Never stay where they know your game, he’d said as they drove away.

  Yeah, right. More like pissing off a billionaire is bad for your health.

  Kat wrinkled her nose. How long would it take before her brain stopped going there?

  Probably as long as it took her father to teach her, she guessed, and sighed. Going legit was super hard work.

  She glanced again at the men as they approached an older couple not far from Kat’s fortified pillar. The boozy syrup she sipped was starting to mellow out her taste buds, thankfully. While the drink suited her look, one part trendy and a little bit ditz in an unthreatening way, she’d have preferred more citrus. And something other than rum.

  “Laramie,” boomed the older man. “You made it.”

  A blistering burn of alcohol trickled down her windpipe as she sucked in a startled breath—and then expelled it on a choking cough she couldn’t stop.

  Adam Laramie—billionaire’s son, wealthy entrepreneur in his own right, routinely on top of every woman’s Most Want to Lick All Over list and ex-mark in a failed game—shot her a curious glance from around his companion.

  She held her breath.

  No recognition flickered in his chiseled, handsome features. Just mild concern. Absent study.

  And then his gaze focused with acute intensity. Not on her face.

  On her legs.

  Abruptly reminded that she was mid-choke, Kat turned away, covering her mouth with a hand as she hacked with as much circumspect dignity as she could manage. The pillar mercifully blocked her view.

  It didn’t help.

  Even through solid wood and sparkly lights, she felt the powerful weight of his eyes. Brown, but the shade of brown that warmed like a light behind stained glass. She’d spent a lot of time staring into those eyes. Flirting. Laughing.

  Laying down a game.

  Falling hard.

  Her heart pounded in her chest, forcing more than damp chills into places that hadn’t thought about Adam Laramie’s intense scrutiny in a long time.

  Why was he here? He was supposed to be in Seattle or New York or some other enormous city making b
illions of dollars with his brilliant mind. She’d checked.

  In her perfectly planned world, he wouldn’t come back until her salon launched. Until she was flush with clients and her own money—not rich, no, but comfortable. Confident. With roots that she could rely on, independent from the need for his money—anybody’s money but her own, hard-earned income.

  Nothing like the bleached mask of a girl she’d been before.

  She was supposed to have time.

  Damn. Damn. She flattened her back against the pillar, closing her eyes as she swallowed the rasp of her rum-abused throat. If she’d known he’d come back this early, she’d never have risked it. Never have gone back to the scene of a con gone wrong. Breathing the same air as the man she had already failed to win over seemed like the worst idea she’d ever had.

  Hit it and quit it.

  The motto stuttered against the remembered warmth of those candle-lit eyes, collided with the memory of his wide, masculine mouth as it hiked up at one corner and hoarsely rasped her name.

  So much for plans.

  * * *

  Adam Laramie hated these things. Ordinarily, they never made sense to him—what was he supposed to do? Show up and make a point to congratulate the focal character of whatever pony show his assistant signed him up for, apparently. Play nice, smile, shake hands, laugh with the old men making bad jokes, flatter the women.

  Pretend like he had nothing better to do than waste time listening to bad music and boring stories he didn’t care to hear.

  Same old, same old.

  Except this time, everything counted on doing just that.

  “How’s the party?” He clapped Jeffery Woodhauser on the shoulder, always surprised by the meaty resistance in the old man’s carriage. For a man in his sixties, he still looked more like a linebacker than a financial genius on the cusp of retirement. Not that he’d ever commit.

  Like most of the men Adam knew, he suspected Woodhauser of planning to die in the chair.

  “Not enough drinking and too many old men,” boomed Woodhauser, smiling so wide that his eyes vanished underneath bushy gray eyebrows. “Speaking of which, your old man here?”

  Think of the devil.

  Of course, Woodhauser was used to seeing Adam’s father at scenes like this. Unlike him, David Laramie enjoyed the social demands of the CEO position, leaving Adam to his preference—his torrid love affair with his own work in the research and development division.

  Hell, Adam hadn’t even thought about taking over as CEO until he was much older. Way more experienced. Now, thanks to his dad’s predilection for anything in a skirt and subsequent resignation, Adam had no choice but to suit up and play the intracompany political game.

  The fact he hated it didn’t matter.

  He’d play. He’d even play by the rules, if that’s what would earn him the win. If the conservative board got their way, they’d have him relegated to the sidelines—claiming his youth and inexperience—while instituting some other jackass as keeper of the keys. Keys that belonged to Adam’s castle.

  No matter how he felt about his dad’s behavior, he’d be damned if he watched the board drive Laramie Industries into the red. If that meant he had to step into the social arena, well, let the blood flow.

  Metaphorically speaking, anyway.

  “Sorry,” Adam replied, easily enough even though his stomach clenched at the reminder. “Dad sent me in his place. Said you’d never notice the difference.”

  The tycoon laughed, a thunderous report that earned a long-suffering sigh from his wife.

  Adam smiled at Petunia. “You look stunning, Mrs. Woodhauser.”

  “Oh, stop, now,” she demurred, waving him away with nails done up in a pale pink. Her cheeks colored up to match, stark against her white bob. “You’re as bad as your father.”

  Not a compliment. The fact everyone around him thought it was set his back teeth to grinding. Laughter peppered the small circle.

  And a muffled cough rippled through a pause in the retro soundtrack.

  His head tilted. A glance over his shoulder revealed only an innocent support beam and colorless lights. Unless he missed his guess, a brunette with magenta lips hid on the other side.

  Was she still choking? Did he remember how to do the Heimlich?

  A quiet clearing of her throat suggested she wasn’t ready to pass out any time soon.

  Too bad. There went his excuse.

  “Have you seen Goldberg yet?”

  The fact that Woodhauser made an effort to lower his voice told Adam exactly how much gossip had overlapped Laramie business. His jaw locked, but he managed to force a smile as he drew his eyes back to his companions.

  Playing it cool was all part of the game. Even if the subject made him want to drink. Heavily.

  It was no secret that David Laramie got caught with his hands in a twenty-one-year old cookie jar. Ordinarily, that would barely qualify as sideline gossip to this set, but not this time. That cookie jar called Rudy Goldberg, the Laramie Industries board chair, daddy.

  Which complicated everything.

  “Not yet,” Adam replied. “I figured I’d wait until after the speeches before I corner him with my abundant charm.” If it didn’t come out as amiably as he hoped, the sympathy on the Woodhausers’ features said they didn’t hold it against him.

  Everybody knew everybody’s business in Sulla Valley, and it wasn’t the first time David’s antics had made social headlines.

  Adam was used to it. It was all part of the curse. Women flocked to the Laramie men like ants to honey, and Adam couldn’t even say it was all about the money. The name came with more than its fair share of raw charm. Three stepmothers and an endless stream of girlfriends had taught him that David Laramie wasn’t going to slow down anytime soon.

  At fifty-six, the man’s potency hadn’t dwindled.

  Another muffled cough scraped from behind the pillar.

  Woodhauser’s voice cracked through Adam’s wandering curiosity, forcing his attention back to the topic he wanted to forget—and couldn’t afford to. “Goldberg’s tough, but fair,” the old man said, lowering his voice to a dull boom. “You impress him with that mind of yours, and everything else is just paperwork.”

  If only it was that easy.

  “Thanks,” Adam said, but his eyes flicked to the right as a slender figure in black slipped away from the pillar. Long legs. Much longer thanks to the eye-catching shade of her ridiculously tall heels.

  “Goldberg knows you’ve got the innovation and determination to drive Laramie Industries,” Woodhauser was saying. “I’ve heard you talk, kiddo, you’re cutting edge out here.”

  Adam could only nod as he watched the gleam of flickering lights slide down smooth golden legs. He liked women in heels. He liked women out of heels.

  He liked women who wrapped their heels around his back.

  Of course, the things women liked about him had less to do with Adam than it did with the family’s monetary worth. Now that he was gunning for CEO, taking his father’s place, he couldn’t imagine anything changing.

  This wasn’t the place to make those kinds of introductions, anyway.

  “Only problem you’ll face is the monetary problem,” Woodhauser mused, stroking his thick mustache. “Your dad holds a steady ship, but it’s risks that succeed in this world.”

  Adam looked away. “If you look at the trends,” he said, forcing himself to focus completely on the topic, “it’s not as high risk as it seems. The modern American is sinking more money and more time into technology. Middle-class families aren’t stopping at phones. At this point, it’s dangerously shortsighted not to invest.”

  “See, and that’s why I think you’ll do fine,” Woodhauser said, draping an arm around his wife’s shoulders.

  He missed the fact that Adam’s searching gaze kept sliding around him.

  Probably better that way. He didn’t know what he’d say if the old man asked him what the hell he was looking for.

  Al
l right, so maybe Adam had a bit of the Laramie eye himself. He could appreciate a passing woman without making it a big deal. He’d never claimed otherwise. He just didn’t make it a habit to put a woman in front of his work, was all. Possibly the only Laramie man to ever think that way.

  Except... Except something about that mystery girl wouldn’t let him go.

  Was she familiar? He didn’t remember what her face looked like. Just dark hair, pink lips.

  And legs. So he’d always been a leg man.

  A waiter paused to offer a tray filled with beverages—most looked like a candy unicorn vomited pink sugar into a martini glass. A few tumblers of amber liquid suggested whiskey. Maybe bourbon. He couldn’t see a damn thing in the pretty but useless lights.

  Was she going to go freshen her lip gloss? Women did that. Obsessively, he thought. He didn’t mind, except when they tasted like chemical strawberries or bubblegum.

  Adam almost turned the waiter away, but then found himself plucking one of those pink glasses from the tray. And a second tumbler. “Excuse me,” he said abruptly.

  Woodhauser raised his eyebrows at the prepared offering, then crinkled his eyes. “See you soon, son. We’ll talk later.”

  His wife, taking her time selecting a drink from the tray, beamed up at Adam with clueless kindness. “Do give your father our regards.”

  Those legs vanished under the far trellis. What had she been wearing? Black? Her and every other would-be sex kitten in the area. But she’d gone for magenta lips, not red or bare. Shockingly deep pink, like summer flowers.

  A whisper of excitement, of something almost familiar, curled in his chest.

  “I will,” he promised, and extricated from the group.

  His assistant casually angled his body to block Adam’s exit. “No.”

  He couldn’t help his grin. Jordan was never not serious, but Adam had learned to differentiate exasperation from professional intensity.

  Exasperation came with the Laramie curse, too. And he’d known Jordan for most of his life.