Man Candy

by Tia Siren

  “It sounds like he wants to make sure you and Paige actually get married.”

  “I have no idea,” Luke said, running a distressed hand through his hair. “I just need to get out of here, Toby. I’ve gotta leave before Paige wakes up.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  He let his pointed silence do all the talking.

  “Oh, bro,” Toby exclaimed, sighing into the phone. “I warned you not to cross into that area of being a prick. You slept with her?”

  “I couldn’t help it,” Luke said. “I just couldn’t resist it any longer, and she didn’t fight against it because she thinks—”

  “That you love her and won’t leave her even though you plan to?”

  Luke grimaced at the harshness of it. “Fuck. I’m a piece of shit for doing what I did, but I can’t think like that right now. I’ve gotta get to Peter’s office here before catching a plane back to New York.”

  “And what about Paige?” Toby asked. “You’re just going to leave her there while you drive off in the snow?”

  “Just send someone to come get her,” he said flatly. “I can live in hell with this decision if it saves Paige from marrying a man like me.”

  “What’s so wrong with you staying married?”

  “I just can’t stay married.” He ran a hand over his eyes. “Why can’t you understand that I’m trying to do the right thing here?”

  “You’re not trying to do the right thing, Luke. You’re running away from your feelings. You’re running away from Paige because this is what Roderick would’ve wanted you to do.”

  Luke tensed. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “That means that if your father approved of it, you hated it. You’d do everything you could to fight against it.”

  “I would not. My father is the damn reason I am the way I am.” He glared at the dusty bookshelves around him. “I’m going to go tell Paige good-bye. She’ll understand once I explain it to her.”

  “I doubt she will,” Toby said. “No one understands you. I don’t even understand who you are.”

  “Just arrange a damn car to get Paige to the airport later this afternoon. I’ve gotta go do what I need to do to get my damn business.”

  He put the phone back down in its cradle. Opening the door, Luke stepped out and jumped in surprise when he found Paige standing there wrapped in a thick blanket. Her eyes were narrowed at him with an unmistakable look of hurt.

  “Did I hear you right?” she asked quietly. “You were going to just leave me here in the middle of an icy lodge because you’re too much of a damn coward to face me?”

  “I’m not afraid to face you.”

  “Really? Why aren’t you able to look me straight in the eye then?”

  He brushed by her to continue down the hallway. “You knew this was going to end today. I never once told you I planned on staying committed.”

  Angry footsteps followed behind him. Luke found a heavy coat that smelled of dust and years hanging on the coatrack by the front door. Slipping into it, he checked a pair snow boots for spiders before stuffing his feet into them. The entire time, he couldn’t bring himself to look up at Paige, because she was right.

  He was a damn coward, but he refused to regret what had happened between them. It had been everything they’d both wanted for weeks—it hadn’t been just his own lust and desire.

  Straightening up, Luke finally turned around to face her. There were tears in her eyes, but not the type of tears that fell. These tears were the true and painful ones. He couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “I’m sorry that shit got complicated,” he said. “Last night—”

  “Last night was apparently a mistake,” Paige said flatly. Her eyes glittered up at him. “I hope you’re happy with yourself.”

  His temper flared. “I’m not happy with myself. I think it’s rather obvious that I am not happy.”

  “So you think inheriting this new money of yours will fill in what your precious alcohol bottles can’t?

  “It’s worth a damn fucking shot,” Luke snapped, yanking the door open. Cold and snowy air came billowing inside. “You got your end of this arrangement. Now it’s time to get mine.”

  ****

  Peter’s office was uncomfortably warm when Luke stepped into three hours later with a sullen Paige in tow. He paused before opening the office door to look over his shoulder at her.

  Every inch of Paige’s body was rigid with tension. Her eyes were bloodshot from undoubtedly crying in the shower while he had shoveled off the snow from the SUV and driveway. She refused to look directly at him, and her lips thinned into an angry line.

  “That’s not the look a newlywed has,” Luke said.

  “I don’t care,” she said. “Let’s get this over with. I want to go back to New York.” She paused to look at him. “You don’t have a good look on your face either.”

  Luke gritted his teeth as he forced a smile on his face. “I have something that will fix that on the plane ride home.” He opened the door. “You’re right though. Let’s get this over with before the entire thing falls apart.”

  “It already has.”

  Paige pushed by Luke to step into the office. Much to his relief, it wasn’t Peter sitting in the office. It was his secretary, Chelsea, with the papers for Luke’s inheritance and his father’s business.

  “Peter apologizes for not being able to be here,” Chelsea said, handing Luke a pen. “He wishes he could’ve come in to speak with Ms. Scott, or, should I say, Mrs. Turner." She beamed at Paige, who didn’t even return the smile. “Except he is snowed in at his home right now. I think he personally just didn’t want to come into work this morning. It’s quite chilly.”

  Luke glanced over the papers as he half-listened to Chelsea chatter away about nonsense. He signed his name on the dotted lines as instructed by Chelsea, and then he set the pen down. His relief was short lived when Paige abruptly turned to him.

  “I want more than what I asked for,” she said.

  Chelsea immediately stopped talking.

  “I’m sorry. You want more what?”

  “Money,” Paige said coolly, fixing her gaze on him. “I want more than what I asked you for.”

  “We agreed on what we agreed on,” Luke replied through clenched teeth. “I am not going to discuss this with you here.” He turned to look at a startled Chelsea. “Can you scan these documents so I can have a copy for my lawyer?”

  “Don’t scan them,” Paige said, looking over at Chelsea, who looked between them in confusion. “He doesn’t deserve this money if he isn’t willing to share it.”

  “He should be,” Chelsea said, baffled. “If you two are married, and you didn’t sign a prenup, then half this money is yours.”

  Hot anger seared through Luke when Paige looked at him. Neither he nor Toby had thought of that detail. Judging from the look on Paige’s face, she hadn’t thought of it either until now.

  “That’s a good point,” Paige said, a bit too sweetly. “Never mind, honey. Go ahead and scan those papers. We’ll just go on down to the courthouse to sign our marriage license.”

  Chelsea paused in mid-shuffle of the papers. “You haven’t done the license yet?”

  Desperate to regain control, Luke grabbed ahold of Paige’s elbow to squeeze there tightly. She grimaced in response but yanked herself free to stomp out of the office. The door slammed shut behind her.

  “I’m sorry,” Luke said, forcing a charming smile on his face. “We had an argument this morning. Typical couple fight.”

  “I can’t let you have these papers yet, Mr. Turner,” Chelsea said. “There are some very intricate instructions in here, but Peter warned me that he had his suspicions about your relationship with her.”

  “Suspicions?” he echoed, spitting the word out. “Why would he be suspicious? He only talked to us for a few minutes yesterday.”

  Chelsea gave him a long and critical look.

  “No one believed you in this office when y
ou first appeared with her in the papers. It just seemed to be too much of a coincidence.”

  A headache pounded in Luke’s skull. He needed a drink—a stiff one without any fillers. Just a straight shot of alcohol to help his brain process what he needed to do.

  He didn’t bother replying. Stomping out of the office, Luke fumbled through his pockets to find his phone as he came out into the lobby. He scanned the area for Paige and spotted her sitting on a leather sofa facing the large windows.

  “I hope you are happy now,” he gritted out, pulling up Toby’s number. “They won’t even consider giving me the papers until we get that damn license.”

  Paige looked up at him with tears streaming down the sides of her cheeks. “I don’t care anymore. The money doesn’t matter to me. It only matters to you.”

  “It mattered to you when you walked into my office that day and named your price in all of this.”

  “Then take it. Take it all back,” she said, rising from the sofa. “I’m done. This isn’t my problem any longer. Your problems are no longer my problems.”

  “And neither are your problems mine,” Luke said coldly. “What is the point behind all of this? To get revenge on me?”

  “There was no point to any of it. I’m not going to do this anymore.” She wiped at her cheeks in aggravation. “Not after last night. I’m not going to put myself out there for your benefit.”

  “The last I checked, you didn’t tell me no, and you were enjoying yourself. Don’t act so innocent about it.”

  Paige reeled back at those words. His fingers clutched his phone numbly as she stood up on wobbly legs and gazed at him sadly.

  “I feel sorry for you,” she said, her voice trembling. “I may be young and all, but I know better than to be this stupid when it comes to having a good thing in front of you. I wish you well, Luke. I hope you figure out how to get your money.”

  She looked down at her left hand then. Slipping the ring off, Paige set it on the coffee table in front of the leather couch. Her eyes were distant and cold when she looked back at him.

  “Maybe you can pawn this,” she said. “It’s obviously worth something since money is the center of your universe.”

  Not sparing him another glance, Paige slipped out into the frigid morning. He followed her petite figure with his eyes until it disappeared out of sight before he slowly walked across the lobby to grab the ring. The morning light glittered off the diamond as he twirled it between the pads of his finger and thumb.

  It was indescribable, but another hole had opened wide within him. There was nothing he could say or do to make anything right with Paige. He had pushed for what he had desperately wanted, and now it was gone before he could even hold on.

  The media would have a field day knowing that their arrangement had been a setup for his inheritance.

  Luke sank down into the couch cushions with a heavy sigh. It didn’t matter how much it hurt. He deserved it.

  He had a creeping thought that this was his father’s lesson from beyond the grave. Roderick Turner never missed an opportunity to provide some sort of life lesson he felt was critical for Luke.

  “I didn’t get the papers,” Luke said when Toby answered the phone. “We came into the office, but Paige walked out.”

  Toby sighed. “Do you blame her for feeling the way she does? I told you not to get involved, but you didn’t listen to me, as usual when it comes to things like this.”

  “I don’t need the lecture right now. I just need you to contact Adam so we can—”

  “I think you need to figure some other things out first,” Toby cut in firmly. “You’re turning into your father, Luke. I know you don’t want to hear that, but you are. That’s exactly what you are turning into.”

  “How am I turning into my father?” Luke demanded angrily. “If I were my father, I wouldn’t have seduced someone into a fake marriage. You know how he felt about this sort of thing. That’s the only reason I’m in this damn position.”

  “You’re different in that regard, but the both of you are bastards to deal with. And you both go to the bottle every time to deal with unwanted things. It’s no wonder Paige told you off.”

  Luke opened his mouth to retort, but the reality and truth hit him harder than any shot of whiskey ever could. Along the way of trying so desperately to be different from his father, he had turned into him in a lot of ways. It had cost him something that could have been greater than in his inheritance too.

  “I fucked up,” Luke said, cradling his aching head in his hands. “What do I do now? I lost Paige. I lost this business.”

  “I have a suggestion,” Toby said. “Now, listen to me, and it could save you both things if you listen with an open mind.”

  Luke swallowed thickly. “Anything,” he rasped. “I’ll do anything you say at this point.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Paige

  “Oh, honey. I wish you would’ve come to us before you got yourself into this type of mess.”

  Paige wiped her eyes dry as her mother set a mug of steaming black tea in front of her.

  “I know,” she said. “I should’ve told you both the truth about what was going on, but I just loved New York too much to let it go.”

  “We understand that you wanted more independence to do what you loved to do,” Harry said, nursing his cup of tea. “You’ve done so well on your own, but this mishap is hard to look past.”

  “I know.”

  Tears filled Paige’s eyes again just thinking of the past week. She had no idea where Luke had gone after leaving Peter’s office. The lobby had been empty when she’d returned an hour later after sitting in a small cafe drinking coffee to calm her wavering emotions. And for some unknown reason, that had stung worse than everything that had happened.

  It had left her with no option besides calling her parents for a plane ticket home. She had called Jessica from the airport to explain that she wouldn’t be coming back to New York right away—if ever besides to gather her things from her dorm.

  Luke was a businessman. They had signed a legal contract, and knowing how much money meant to him, he had probably already called NYU to cancel the payments. She had gone back on her word.

  And then she’d done the one thing she knew would sting him just as much as he had hurt her—publicly admitted that the entire thing had been fake just to benefit him.

  “It was my mistake,” Paige said. “I should’ve listened to my heart when it said this wasn’t going to be a good thing.”

  “You’re right,” Harry said coolly. “You should’ve listened to what I told you about the kind of man Luke Turner—”

  “Harry,” Marie cut in, giving him a pointed stare. “Now is not the time to lecture our daughter. She’s having a tough time.”

  “I am not lecturing. I’m just angry at this man for taking advantage of our daughter for his own financial benefit. It’s been a week, and not once has he called to apologize?”

  “I don’t know if he has tried to call,” Paige said. “I turned my phone off after telling Jessica that I needed some time at home to figure things out.”

  “I guess we will wait and see what happens then,” Harry replied, sighing. “I doubt Mr. Turner is going to give up this easily when it comes to contracts.”

  Paige chewed on the inside of her cheek. It had been a week, and no repercussions had come just yet despite her anticipation for it. Nothing. Nothing had happened. She scoured the news every single morning, but there was nothing there to provide clues on what Luke’s temperament was.

  She spent the rest of the day helping her mother clean around the house before they ventured into town together to do some shopping. Even if she loathed the idea of never going back to New York, it still felt good to have the comforting presence of her family around her. It provided a distraction from the horrible ache in her stomach whenever her mind started to wander back to the night before they’d gone into Peter’s office.

  She never wanted to admit it out
loud, but she had fallen in love with Luke in such a short amount of time that it was surreal. She had a suspicion that Luke had fallen in love with her too. No matter what he said, she couldn’t forget that look in his eyes while they had made love. It was the type of look she had read about in books and seen in the movies—a hardened heart letting someone in to get close enough to love them.

  The color of the trees had changed overnight it seemed, Paige noted while walking slowly down the sidewalk as she waited for her mother to finish up the grocery shopping. She took a seat on one of the benches. It seemed so strange that in North Dakota, there was already a couple feet of snow. Winter had hit there first, and while it felt chilly in the shades of the trees, the sunlight was warm.

  A part of her did burn with curiosity to see if Luke had at least tried to call her. Reaching into her purse, Paige pulled out her phone to power it on with a pounding heart. There were a few text messages from Shannon asking what had happened, but nothing else besides a voice mail from a number she didn’t recognize.

  “Paige, it’s Toby Patel.” She held her breath. “I know your phone is off, but when you get this message, call me back. It’s urgent.”

  Don’t call. It’s none of your business anymore. It doesn’t matter. Her finger pressed down on the number anyway to call it back.

  Toby answered within two rings. “I’m glad you finally called me back. I was wondering what the hell had happened to you.”

  “You were?” she asked skeptically. “I figured you were calling to yell at me like I’m sure Luke wants to yell at me.”

  “I have no reason to yell at you,” he said. “I’m on your side here, Paige. I warned Luke not to mess with you, or else it would get very complicated for you both behind the arrangement.”

  “Well, it is complicated. That’s for sure.” Paige tilted her head up to feel the warm sunshine on her face. “What is it that you needed to talk to me about?”

  “I wanted to make sure you’re okay first off.”