by Sierra Rose
“You’re an incurable romantic, Magnus.”
“This is all about the bottom line. Job security. Confidence in your leadership, following in grandfather’s footsteps. Look like a worthy successor.”
“I found someone I think I can convince.”
“Never say you intend to wife one of your disposable girlfriends. They’re all publicity mad, and they’ll give tell-all interviews,” Magnus warned.
“No one like that. She’s an employee. Not staff that reports directly to me, of course...”
“Oh, because that would be sketchy, right? Anyone who works for you could be grounds for harassment. Particularly if, as you say, you’re trying to convince her. No means no, man. It’s the twenty-first century. Don’t wheedle and coax.”
“I’m not harassing her. She likes me.”
“Yeah, I bet she does since you asked her and she said no.”
“She offered, then took it back.”
“Either way, she’s said she doesn’t want to marry you. Leave her alone. If she comes back...”
“Then she’s mine forever? That’s a crappy proverb.”
“No, if she comes back then at least you’re not a stalker. You back off, respect her decision. Then if she wants to reconsider, you haven’t used threats, favors or coercion. I want you married off, but I want your hands clean. We have to play this perfect. We can’t have a scandal on our hands. Or everything you worked for will be ruined.”
“She’s agreed to two dates.”
“Agreed as in this was in exchange for something? Job perks? Career advancement? Because that is out of the question.”
“No. Nothing like that. You’re paranoid. Or shady as hell, I can’t tell which one.”
“I’m cautious. It’s good to have the counsel of a cautious mate.”
“There is something about this woman that drives me crazy. I’m not going to pressure Paige to do anything she doesn’t want to do. Now, there are any number of things I want to do to her, but only with her agreement.”
“No. I strictly forbid any sexual overtures toward a woman who has outright refused to marry you. As your publicist and your friend, I don’t want to see you letting your competitive streak lead you down a dark path. You can’t win here. Choose a willing bride, one who understands the terms to begin with, and doesn’t need to be pursued.”
“This isn’t a dark path. It’s foreplay. We’re flirting, getting in deeper.”
“I think I’m going to be ill. I refuse to discuss this further, Luke. You asked for my advice. Now heed it. You can’t date an employee. It’s not happening! Leave this Paige person alone!” Magnus hung up in a huff.
“We’ll see about that,” Luke said.
Chapter 11
LUKE RANG PAIGE’S CELL phone early Sunday morning.
“Are you busy today?”
“I’m not working today,” she said.
“I am, but I can take a break later if you’re free.”
“We’re not going out until Tuesday,” she said stubbornly.
“Yes. Today and Tuesday. Let’s be spontaneous.”
“Why do I feel like you’ve been plotting and that part of your plan is to make it sound spur of the moment?”
“Because you’re an immensely suspicious person?” he said.
“Because I’m RIGHT?”
“Possibly that as well,” he laughed. “Is that a yes?”
“I have some stuff to catch up on at home.”
“Such as?”
“Personal stuff. I need to pay some bills online and shave my legs. It’s Sunday. A woman has things to do!”
“All right, I’ll send a car around for you at noon. That should be plenty of time for you to complete the tasks. Unless you’re vastly hairier than I imagine.”
“Is that the kind of charm that gets you all the ladies? Because it’s no wonder you didn’t have a date for the scholarship thing.”
He let out a deep chuckle. “Reading my tabloid coverage now? Naughty girl.”
“I may have seen a headline,” she said, “when I was checking the weather on my phone.”
“A likely cover story. The weather seldom features gossip links. Anyway, I can have a date any night I want one. Instead, I find myself holding out for you.”
“Oh, are you a born-again virgin now?” she teased.
“Hardly, unless the restrictions are very lax. How long does one have to be celibate to qualify?”
“More than twenty-four hours, so I’m thinking that knocks you out of the running.”
“I wasn’t planning to audition for Mary in the nativity play,” he said wryly, “I’ll see you in a few hours.”
“So what do you have planned?”
“We’ll just spend the afternoon together, see where the day takes us,” he hedged.
“I know you better than that. C’mon! You have plans. Spill. Tell me.”
“You can wear jeans. I understand they are your off-work uniform.”
“No. My pajamas are the off-work uniform. Jeans are special occasion weekend wear.”
“Then I’ll be honored to take you and your special-occasion denim out for the day.”
“Bye,” she said. He heard a bubble of happiness in her voice behind the put-on annoyance she’d affected. She was excited, buoyed up by the prospect of a surprise outing with him. He couldn’t wait.
He sent the car for her too early, then found himself waiting at the park for her to arrive. He’d worn jeans himself and a button-down with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and sunglasses. Carefully tousled hair. He was slightly concerned that he looked like a J. Crew catalog, although the labels he wore were both more discreet and far more expensive. For a moment, he was seized by the notion that he should have brought her flowers. Even though this was the warm up date, not the romantic one.
When she stepped out of the car, teetering on a pair of stilettos with her jeans and a t-shirt that hugged her curves just right, he hurried toward her. No purposeful stride like the CEO he was, but a rush to reach her, to take her hand and lead her where he wanted to take her.
He took her to the west end of the park, past the green space and through a parking lot to the ballpark. Luke showed his season tickets for the minor league team’s home games and led her to his seats behind the dugout. He handed her a program and started to point out the players who were up today.
“This is not what I expected. I thought we’d be feeding swans or something. Like you’d have a servant tearing up pieces of bread from a fancy bakery and putting it in a basket for us to scatter. I imagined I’d have to wear a straw hat with long ribbons and you’d ride a horse.”
“That’s oddly specific and wrong,” he said.
“I think that may be the best description of me ever. I’m often both of those things,” she said lightly.
“I don’t get to come here as often as I’d like because of work, but I manage the odd Sunday game.”
“How on earth did someone like you, who went to, like, Exeter, get into minor league ball?”
“I had a friend in grammar school, a day school near here, who attended on scholarship. His uncle was on the team back then, was a terrific shortstop. He would’ve been in the majors if he hadn’t torn his rotator cuff. We used to go see him play most weekends. I loved it here. It was loose and free, and there were hot roasted peanuts and rootbeer. I have to tell you, I thought I was so tough and grown up, going to a minor’s game with ten bucks and no adult, drinking rootbeer out of a glass bottle,” he chuckled to himself. “I think I liked it better than Tim did, and it was his uncle.”
“What happened to Tim? Are you still in touch?”
“No. I haven’t heard from him in years.”
“You do know about Facebook, right? Or any social media. It’s how we catch up with old friends we knew at camp and stuff. Did you go to camp?”
“No. I went to a tennis clinic for four summers to be coached by pros who’d been in the Olympics, and there was a year I s
pent the summer in Provence learning to make wine.”
“I made lanyards and leaf collections at scout camp. Never did pass my swimming test because I had to swim underwater all the way out to the middle of the lake. Scared of getting water in my eyes—it was crazy,” she said.
“Are you still?”
“What?”
“Afraid of getting water in your eyes.”
“No. I’ve successfully conquered that fear. But the tennis pro thing, did you seriously spend summers learning better tennis swings? Did it help you get girls or were you that good at tennis or what?”
“My grandparents thought it would help me be more well-rounded. I wasn’t athletic as a child. I’d already proven that downhill skiing was not going to be in my skillset. I owed it to them to master a sport. Eventually, I gave up tennis to refine my golf swing.”
“Golf is a lot like taxes: You go for the green and wind up in the hole.”
He laughed. “I love how you make me laugh.”
“Good. I was hoping it wasn’t driving a wedge between us.”
He laughed again. “I love a good golf pun.”
“Do you love golf though?”
“It’s okay. Fair. However, deals are made on golf courses, as cliché as that sounds, and on tennis courts sometimes as well. These were necessary lessons for a boy with a future in his grandfather’s company. I’d be a liability if I couldn’t acquit myself well in such things. I also played doubles squash during the winter season at Exeter, and we went to state my final year.”
“Is squash like cricket?”
“No. Why?”
“I mean, isn’t it just a rich boy sport for people who want to pretend they’re British?”
“No! Squash is like racquetball, but with smaller balls and bigger racquets.”
“Smaller balls? I mean, you’re not supposed to brag about that part,” she snorted.
Luke playfully rolled his eyes, “Cricket is a ball and bat game with the wicket. Team sport. Totally different from squash.”
“But still pretentious and it exists only because you don’t get a lot of polo teams and rugby pitches in the US. Right?”
“There’s polo in the US.”
“The horse kind, not the water kind,” Paige said. “Like in Pretty Woman.”
“Clearly that was set in California, illustrating my point that polo is, in fact, played regularly in the United States.”
“No way. That proves nothing. It’s just a movie.”
“I agree that it’s fictional, and not terribly realistic, but there are, in fact, rich white people in California who play polo as depicted in that movie, silly as it is.”
“Shut. Up.”
“I beg your pardon!” he said.
She squeezed his hand. “That’s a great movie. It isn’t silly. It’s beautiful. Just like Julia Roberts. Her kindness and honesty prove she’s worthy of a modern-day prince.”
“Did I miss the part where the rich asshole who picked up a hooker was too good for her? The man was twice her age and was paying her for sex. How is that supposed to be romantic?”
“Because it was more than that! It’s a very deep story. You obviously didn’t get it,” she said, flipping through the program, “You need to watch it again. Pay attention to the fact that she was poor and entered the sex trade to survive. He gives her a chance to see the possibility of a different life and is willing to give her up and give her the means to start over.”
“That’s a travesty. The film I saw by that name had no trace of noble sacrifice on his part. He boned a twenty-two-year-old, let his creeper friend grope her, and then paid her off. It wasn’t like he made speeches about wanting her to reach her potential or have a secure existence—I cannot think why an adult woman would find that scenario romantic.”
“You lack imagination. It’s a Cinderella story. I love those.”
“Then marry me.”
“What?” she said with a laugh.
“Too soon? I should’ve waited till the seventh inning stretch and taken you by surprise,” he said.
“You need to be educated as to the finer points of romance in film. Proposing during an argument at a minor league ball game...hopeless,” she said with a shrug.
“Rootbeer?” he said.
“Now that’s a better offer than the last one. Sure,” she said.
Luke shook his head and climbed down to go to the concessions. He brought back hot roasted peanuts, rootbeers, and a tray of nachos. When he slid back down the row to their seats, he saw that Paige was turned around talking to the people behind her, a woman with three boisterous little boys. The woman laughed as she wiped mustard off one child’s face, and Paige was tying the shoe of another kid.
She was at ease and smiling. It was the kind of thing he usually ignored—so ordinary and domestic looking. For the first time, he saw how it might be a source of comfort for someone, not for himself obviously, but for someone like Paige. Someone who needed a home and family, a web of friends and their kids around her to feel secure.
She missed her parents. She worried about her sister. He thought all at once that she was probably lonely. That she wanted people around her. He had an urge to throw her a birthday party or something, to surround her with caring people and watch her smile and laugh. Even though it was the opposite of what he would want himself—some room full of loud and boisterous friends.
The warmth in her expression, the kindness in her eyes as she tied the child’s shoe—she looked like a natural. Like a mom. Whatever that looked like. Certainly, Luke’s mother hadn’t been a natural, nor any of the nannies they’d employed to supervise him. But somewhere out there he was sure there were people who wanted to be parents and who enjoyed children and their noise and messes—grilling out in the backyard and letting kids run around with pets. He imagined that was something that happened in the Midwest or on sitcoms. Far from his own life.
But he felt something in his chest just looking at her. Something that responded to her warmth and loyalty. So, when he stepped over to her and handed her a rootbeer, and she smiled at him, he felt a tightness in his chest that he wasn’t ready to think about at all.
“Thanks,” she said, taking a drink.
As he sat beside her and couldn’t take his eyes off her. Off her lips around the neck of that rootbeer bottle in a way that he’d never considered profane before. Two seconds ago, he’d been marveling at how warm and Madonna-like she was, in total awe of her, and now she was taking a drink out of a bottle, and his thoughts shifted to the NSFW.
Luke absently shelled a peanut and nearly choked on the contents because she licked her lips. He was glad he’d worn his aviators because maybe the fact that his eyes were hidden would keep her from realizing he was ogling her like he could spread her legs right here at the ballpark. She had him tied up in knots already. This was ridiculous. He should have listened to Magnus and left her alone. She was too hard to handle. Not that he wouldn’t enjoy handling her.
Shit, he was like a teenager! He wiped a sweaty palm on his designer pants. This woman was extremely smart, loyal as hell, witty, and had a ton of sex appeal. He had a hopeless crush on her.
Man, how did she get a hold of me like this?
Dammit!
She’s the woman he swore he’d never find...and yet she was here slowly stealing his heart.
Chapter 12
LUKE WASN’T SUPPOSED to marry someone he actually liked or felt attracted to. Maybe he should stick with one of those three boring choices that were offered to him earlier. There would be no strings, no complications, the perfect billionaire bargain.
Paige smiled at him. And the feeling he felt when she looked at him like that. He felt this surge of excitement and happiness. She meant more to him that he’d ever know.
“Do you like the game?” he asked.
“Yeah. And I’m having a blast with you, this is fun. I mean, nachos, right? Who isn’t gonna have fun with nachos?”
“I don’t eat t
hem personally, but the people at the concession seemed excited by them.”
“I’m always excited about cheese. Like you could wake me up at three in the morning and ask if I wanted nachos and I’d say yes.”
“Really? If someone woke you at three with snack foods, you’d want them?”
“Totally. Here, try one!”
Paige scooped some orange cheese liquid up on a sharp tortilla chip. She held the dripping monstrosity out to him, urging him to try. Luke wanted to recoil, to protest that actual cheese, the natural sort, had to be aged in a cave in France or Italy—or Spain if you were really wild—and would never have any relationship to this neon-tinted broth on her chip. Except—he ate it. Because Paige held it in her fingertips and offered it to him. So, without a second thought, Luke took it in his mouth, his lips brushing her salty fingertips. He chewed and swallowed, never taking his eyes off her.
“Good, right? You’d eat that at three a.m. with no problem,” she said, brushing her hands off with satisfaction.
“I doubt I’d want nachos at three a.m., but if you woke me to offer them, I’d want something you had.”
Paige rolled her eyes at him, “Again with the innuendo? Can’t a girl enjoy her nachos without you making something dirty out of it?”
“Trust me, the way you eat nachos is objectively filthy. You licked cheese off your thumb. It was a combination of uninhibited enjoyment and the suggestion of you licking other things.”
She laughed. “I might be thinking about what you’re thinking about. But I think it’s best to be friends.”
“Then why are you out on a date with your boss?”
“Why are you having naughty thoughts?”
“You’re attractive. What you were doing looked suggestive,” he shrugged.
“So what I eat or say or do inspires you to think of doing indecent things to me.”
“There’s nothing indecent about two consenting adults enjoying...nachos together,” he said archly.
“But you just said you don’t enjoy nachos. You were thinking about a blow job!”