So now she was simply a business deal. She squared her shoulders. That was what she wanted, right? “You’re welcome.”
“My accountant will take care of the money, and Shirlene will get you settled with the marketing department.”
“So we’re going to pretend to be dating now and then have the fake engagement start right before we fly to Snow Valley?”
Callum glanced over his shoulder at her, his dark eyes unreadable and his back ramrod straight. “That should work. I’ll have Shirlene tell everyone that you ran out this morning because we’ve been dating and had a little fight.”
“Okay.”
“Have a great day.” He gave her a brief smile, pushed the elevator open button, and strode out, looking every inch the important and super-wealthy businessman he was.
The air rushed out of Lexi. How was she going to pretend to be engaged to that man? The sheer power he exuded intimidated the snot out of her, when he wasn’t making her fill with heat and want to kiss him. Yikes.
She walked slowly out of the elevator and toward Shirlene’s desk. Callum was talking to her. He straightened and looked over at Lexi. He gave her a brief and undeniably forced smile, then disappeared into his office. Her rejection in the elevator had definitely cooled him off. That was for the best, no matter how badly she wished he’d give her a genuine smile. What would it take from him to beg her for a kiss? She blew out a breath and tried not to think about an answer to that riddle.
Chapter Seven
Lexi settled into work at Hawk Enterprises more quickly than she would’ve expected. The marketing department buzzed with energy and purpose, and nobody made any kind of fuss about her leaving Monday and then coming back a few hours later with the owner. The head of marketing, Isabel, was a singularly impressive woman. She assigned Lexi to work with the division that promoted the Hawks’ vast real estate holdings, especially the vacation properties. It was interesting and fun, and Lexi had a whole bucket list of places she wanted to go visit now.
Lexi prayed so hard her knees hurt and was ecstatic and relieved when her mom’s surgery went well. She was recovering and stable, and Lexi couldn’t wait to see her and her dad. She was grateful for the money that had changed her family’s situation and stress level, but she was even more grateful Callum was willing to fly her home before they left the country.
The money arrived in her account, and Callum’s accountant even called her and advised her on some investments for the money left over after the bills and debt, working with the IRS on the paperwork for that large of a transfer, and how much to set aside for taxes. Even though it was a huge hit to his pride, Lexi’s dad was relieved to no longer have money issues. He paid off the farm debt and hired two more hands for the farm. Hannah was thrilled to be able to stay in school and have her student loan debt gone. Lexi saved and invested everything that she didn’t transfer to her family or pay medical bills and farm and house debt off with. She did take five hundred dollars and order a few new swimsuits, cover-ups, dresses, and sandals for next week.
A security specialist showed up at her apartment the evening that she and Callum made their deal. He explained he’d been sent by Callum Hawk to install better locks on her doors and a special sensor on her phone she could activate by simply holding down the home button and saying “Help,” and a security team would be en route to her location. He told her that while Callum didn’t think she would relocate, he wanted to make sure she was safe. That thawed her heart.
The only disappointment in the past two and half weeks of work—and it was a big one—was Callum’s lack of interest in her personally. Nobody at the office would believe he knew she existed. If Shirlene spread the rumors about them being in a fight that first day, everyone probably thought they still were fighting or at least not dating anymore. The few times she saw him, he was striding around with Shirlene and a group of employees in tow. He looked important and wealthy and much too handsome for her poor heart. He’d catch her eye and give her a significant look and sometimes a grin that she’d feel all the way down to her un-pedicured toes, but that was it. He didn’t call, text, or even email her. He hadn’t come to see her after work, ask her to dinner, or act like he was romantically interested in her at all. In all fairness, he probably wasn’t interested in her, especially after she’d shot him down the one time he came close to kissing her, but they were supposed to be fake dating before they got fake engaged and he was messing it all up.
On the Monday before they were supposed to fly out, she noticed Callum had a faded black eye, and she wanted to rush over to him and ask what happened. It didn’t fit for this professional richie to have a black eye. Could he have gotten in a fight over the weekend? Maybe he’d had some sort of accident?
She forced herself to stay her ground and look away from him and his entourage. Being this man’s fake fiancée was difficult and confusing. At least she would feel like she earned a small portion of that quarter of a million dollars.
On Tuesday she got a break for lunch and headed for the elevator. She stepped in, relieved to be getting outside for a bit, even if it was cold. She could hardly believe she’d be on a warm beach by this weekend. That part she was truly excited for. She’d never been to a warm ocean and had long dreamed of the experience.
As the elevator door started to close, a hand smacked it and it popped back open. Lexi startled, and when she saw the face and body attached to that hand, her stomach filled up with a whole colony of butterflies.
Callum stepped inside and gave her a warm smile. “Lexi.” It was such a simple thing, just her name, but she felt the impact of that smile and him saying her name deep inside her abdomen.
“Cal,” she whispered back.
The doors shut and he stepped closer, facing her. His eyes swept over her face and body. “How are you? Still wearing the cowboy boots, I see.”
Lexi wanted to grab him and hug him, but the way he was acting—teasing her about her cowboy boots and being all warm and making her tingle after ignoring her for over two weeks—made her temper flare up. “You have no clue how to playact, do you?”
His eyebrows lifted. “Usually I just act the way I want to act.”
“Well, you’re messing this all up.” She pushed at his chest. Big mistake. How did a workaholic businessman have chest muscles like that? Pulling her hand back, she rushed on before he could say anything. “We’re supposed to be dating, and you’ve acted like I’m a leper and stayed as far away as you could. How is anyone going to believe we’re getting engaged and flying to my hometown tomorrow and Cancun the next day when you act like you don’t know me from Chelsea?”
He smirked down at her, acting like her verbal tirade was cute. “Chelsea does a fabulous job as Isabel’s secretary.”
“Oh. You do know Chelsea.” She stewed in disappointment. He knew Chelsea but had ignored Lexi for two weeks? This really was just a business deal for him.
The elevator stopped at the main level, and Lexi moved to get off. Callum wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her back into the elevator. Lexi gasped. His strong hand and arm encircling her waist, the smell of his spicy cologne, and the sheer power of this man were too much for a farm girl from Montana to deal with.
The elevator door closed again and Callum pushed the button for the garage with his left hand, keeping his right firmly around her. He bent down close and his warm breath brushed her cheek. “How do you suggest I show people we’re dating?”
She made the mistake of glancing up at him. The twinkle in his deep brown eyes made her legs weak. “Well, maybe we could actually go on a date,” she shot back at him, drawing on all her farm girl sass to keep up her end of this conversation. Farm girl sass wasn’t truly that impressive, but if she could cuss the cows, she could cuss a handsome billionaire.
“Sorry. Things have been busy prepping to be gone for the holidays.” He had the class to look apologetic. “I told you I don’t date, except for high-profile events where my date is provided by your s
upervisor Isabel.” He shrugged as if he was embarrassed.
Lexi shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You are a true doofus.”
“A doofus?” Callum let out a half-laugh, half-grunt. “What does that even mean?”
The doors opened at the garage, and he escorted her out of the elevator and toward his motorcycle. Lexi was powerless to do anything but let him lead.
The garage was empty, so Lexi decided to let him have it without any worry of someone overhearing and realizing they were a façade. “It means you’re this brilliant, successful businessman, but you can’t even open your eyes. Any single woman in this city would give up their cowboy boots to date you, but you let Isabel set up your dates and pay me to be your fake fiancée? Doofus.” She shouldn’t have included herself in that. His money for being a fake fiancée had changed her family’s entire life.
Callum did laugh then. “Well, considering the fact that you might be the only woman in Manhattan wearing cowboy boots, there must not be that many women dying to date me.”
“You are thick! Any woman would want you.”
Callum’s eyes brushed over her face like a caress. His voice lowered to a husky depth that made her tremble almost as much as his gaze and the fact he still hadn’t released his claim on her waist. “Would you want me, Lexi?”
Lexi’s eyes widened and she forced herself to step away from his touch. She would want him, if he wasn’t her boss and she hadn’t taken a huge sum of money from him. They couldn’t be anything but this fake gig; otherwise she would mess up her future and feel like he’d bought her or something.
“Anyone would,” she admitted, “but you paid for me to be your fake fiancée. Let’s keep this professional so I can have a successful career after Cancun and you can return to your workaholic life and Isabel setting you up with models and actresses. Unless you decide to step up and ask women out who actually interest you.”
“You interest me,” he murmured.
Lexi’s chest tightened and she couldn’t meet his gaze. Callum Hawk was interested in her? If he hadn’t just transferred all that money to her account, she would be squealing with glee right now. She couldn’t allow personal feelings to mess up the gift he’d given her family and her chance to prove herself as a businesswoman. They could pretend to like each other and she would stay strong from his looks and his touch.
The silence stretched, but she refused to look at him or acknowledge his words. After a while, he said, “So you think we need to prove to the world that we’re dating before we get engaged?”
She snorted and finally focused on him. Dang, why did he have to look so good? “A little late for that. You’ve wasted the entire month of December when we could have been building a relationship.” It was only the eighteenth, but it felt like much too long since they’d met, and she’d hoped every evening for a phone call or a visit.
His eyes bored into hers.
“Or a fake relationship, as it may be.”
He nodded. “We can’t change the past,” he said, all analytical and businesslike. “What do we do right now to ‘pretend date’?”
“Take me to lunch or something.” She rolled her eyes. Was he truly this clueless about dating? Did she need to hold his hand through the process? Hmm. She liked the thought of that.
“You want to go to lunch with me?” he asked.
“Sure. You’re supposed to ask me to marry you soon. Lunch should be a normal part of our day.” She shot him a challenging look.
“My lunchtime is a little … unconventional.”
She shrugged. “I’m a farm girl. I scoop out poop and don’t blink. I think I can handle unconventional.”
He studied her as if trying to put her in a cylinder while she was determined to be a cube. Finally, he smiled. “I guess we’ll see what you can handle.” He pulled out his helmet and hers. Why did she think of his extra helmet as hers already? She couldn’t get attached like this. “I’ll take you to my standard lunch appointment, and then we’ll get some food.”
Lexi blinked at him. His standard lunch appointment didn’t include food? She strapped her helmet on and climbed on the bike, grateful that today she was wearing fitted dress pants with her cowboy boots instead of a skirt. She zipped up the beautiful and warm coat she’d bought with his money and pulled her gloves out of her purse. She’d been prepared since that first day to get on this motorcycle again, and truthfully she’d been more than anticipating it, but today was her first opportunity.
Leaning into him, she wrapped her arms tight around his midsection as he gunned the bike up the garage ramp. The helmet made it impossible to settle in like she wanted to. They were fake dating and going to be fake engaged, but playing the part wasn’t torture—that was for sure. She’d been right to cuss him, though. Callum needed to act the part too, or his quarter of a million dollars would be a waste. You didn’t waste money where she came from. But judging from the tailored suits Callum wore like a second skin, and how he acted as if they’d come off the clearance rack at Target, money didn’t mean a whole lot to him. Yet if that was true, why did he work so hard?
Traffic was thick, and by the time they stopped the bike, she was cold and stiff despite her gloves and coat. Callum had pulled up to a large warehouse on a street in lower Manhattan she’d never been to. Callum parked the bike and waited for her to swing off.
“My legs feel like ice blocks,” she muttered, pulling off her helmet.
He stood next to her and stretched. “Sorry. I’d offer to warm them up, but …”
Lexi flushed, remembering how he’d touched her cold legs that first day. “Let’s just get inside quick. What is this appointment?”
Callum grinned, stowing their helmets. “My standard lunch date.”
Date? He had lied to her about dating. So this was some date and Lexi was going to have to be around another woman or a group of women fawning over him? If he thought she was going to stand for that, he was in for a real smackdown.
Yet this place didn’t look like any kind of restaurant, and he’d said they’d get food after. Her mind raced with all kinds of reasons a multibillionaire would come to a run-down neighborhood for his lunch break every day. None of her ideas were good; most made her stomach squeamish. Scooping out poop was so much easier than this. Even fighting to succeed at Cornell was easier than this.
Callum took her elbow and escorted her through a door. The clanging of metal and the smell of rubber and sweat assaulted her. She glanced around the huge open area. A gym? She swung her gaze to Callum’s and saw he was smirking at her. “You lift weights at lunch?”
“And before or after weights, I spar with some friends.” He nodded. “What did you think I was taking you to?”
Lexi refused to answer that. She let her gaze wander around the huge open area filled with mostly men, and obviously these were some serious bodybuilders. This was a hard-core gym, not a place for people who pretended to work out so they could wear cute workout clothes, chat with their friends, and drink a green smoothie after they broke a sweat.
“But today I’m going to skip the weights and just spar. I don’t want to make you wait too long, but I can’t stand up my opponent, and you wanted to come, right?”
Lexi swallowed hard. She wouldn’t have minded watching him lift weights, though it might’ve been awkward. But to watch him spar? Oh, my. She pulled off her gloves and shoved them back in her purse. Her hands were much too sweaty for them.
Callum escorted her past the weight equipment, greeting a few men who nodded or returned his greeting and stared openly at her. She noted there were no cardio machines, only lots and lots of heavy-looking weights and top-of-the-line cable and weight machines. He led her to the corner where some men were fighting in a boxing ring. He helped her get settled on a hard bench, and she took off her coat and set it beside her.
“You’ll be okay here?” he asked.
Lexi didn’t know what to say. “I can handle a little sweat and punching.”
�
��Glad to hear it.” He winked at her. “I’ll go change and see you in a minute.”
Lexi watched him go. He cut a beautiful figure in that Brioni suit. Who knew a custom-tailored suit could be so stinking appealing? He disappeared through a swinging door, and she bit her lip, unsure of where to look. Men were slugging it out in the ring and she could hardly watch. It was so brutal and primeval. She’d been raised tough, but she didn’t have brothers and had never really enjoyed watching wrestling or boxing. Pulling out her phone, she deleted emails to avoid focusing on the fight.
A bell clanged, and the punching and kicking sounds stopped. Glancing up, she saw Callum climb into the ring, exchanging greetings with the men who were leaving. He straightened to his full height. He wore loose-fitting shorts, boxing gloves, and black protective headgear, and he conspicuously lacked a shirt. His chest, shoulders, arms, and abs were the most beautifully tempting display she had ever seen.
“Please help me, saints in heaven above,” she whispered. She wanted to climb into the ring and inspect him closer, maybe even allow herself one touch of those muscles.
She could see some scars on his shoulder, arm, and abdomen. Were those from his sparring or something else? She wanted to know so much more about this fake fiancé of hers—she wanted to know everything.
Callum looked at her and lifted his chin at her with a slight smile. Lexi swayed on the hard bench. How was she going to stay detached from this man?
“How’s my wussy billionaire today?” A massive man had also stepped into the ring, but Lexi hadn’t noticed as she had been so focused on Callum’s brilliant shape.
Callum grinned. “Ready to kick your butt, Joseph, my friend.”
Joseph threw back his head and laughed. He had to be six-six and three hundred pounds, and not an ounce of it looked like fat. Lexi’s heart started racing for reasons other than how good Callum looked. Had he fought this monster before? Was there a ref that would keep Joseph from killing Callum? She squeezed her hands together, terrified for Callum. She didn’t want to watch him get pummeled.
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