Can't Buy Me Love Read online

  “I think I’ll just go make my bed.” She turned on her heel and practically fled from the room.

  Blake cut himself again and swore, grabbing a tissue. If this was how it was going to be between them, the next twelve months promised to be awkward as hell.

  Chapter Four

  “We made the society pages, but I’m really looking forward to our picture on the cover of the Scope and the National Tattler.” Blake tossed the morning paper onto the table in front of Paige.

  Although his suit was an expert cut and of high grade material, she didn’t think anything could look better on him than the towel he had been wearing when she had barged into the bathroom earlier. All that tanned skin and the hair that softly dusted his chest and legs....

  Paige snatched up the paper and stared at the picture of her and her husband. They looked like anything but a loving, newly married couple. Blake’s eyes were hard—even through the grainy black and white of the newspaper print. His lips were set in a grim line as he dragged Paige by one arm and used the other to push his way through the crush of reporters.

  “It’s not exactly flattering,” she said.

  “No, it’s not.”

  Blake sat in the chair across from her and crossed one leg over the other, ankle to knee. As if prompted by some internal timer, a tall, thin woman with large breasts crammed into a super tight, pink T-shirt joined them on the sun porch. The tray she carried was so laden with food, Paige wondered how her skinny arms could handle the weight. The rich scent of breakfast wafted in the air as she set the tray on its stand.

  “‘Mornin’, Master Blake. Mrs. Caldwell,” Sylvia greeted in her thick Cockney accent and nodded to the both of them. She set a large plate piled high with food in front of Paige.

  “Paige,” she corrected, her smile wavering as the greasy smell of sausage and eggs assaulted her. “Please call me, Paige.”

  Blake folded the newspaper and laid it beside his own overflowing plate. “Where’s Dancy? She usually serves breakfast.”

  “Well, now, Master Blake. Dancy is feeling a mite under the weather this fine morn.”

  “Have Anthony take her to the doctor.”

  Sylvia smiled. “I don’t think that’s the problem, sir. Her pain lies more in here.” She pointed to her more than ample bosom, her finger tapping close to the vicinity of her heart. “What with the wedding yesterday and all. Then the papers this morning saying you married to get your inheritance. Why I guess she figures you could’ve married anyone to do that.” She smiled at Paige as if to say, No offense, revealing one gleaming, gold-capped front tooth.

  Blake’s eyes darkened. “I don’t know why anyone would think such a thing. Would you, darling?”

  Paige choked on the scalding hot coffee, then somehow managed to swallow it. Darling? Had he just called her darling? She tried to will away the heat that blazed in her cheeks.

  “No, of course not.” She smiled, then blew a kiss across the table. Blake caught it and sat back in his chair with a satisfied smile.

  Lord, they were in trouble. They had to keep up this charade for an entire year. At this rate, they wouldn’t be able to convince a blind man they were in love.

  “That’ll be all, Sylvia.”

  Paige watched the too thin, too busty woman leave then chanced a look at her plate. It was covered beyond capacity with a mountain of eggs, three biscuits, what appeared to be four servings of sausage. She shuddered at the thought of dead animal flesh on her plate and snatched up one of the biscuits. Blake appeared to have no problem with his identical breakfast and ate his food like a well-bred—though starved—man.

  Paige picked up a sausage link and slipped it under the table. Bruno gobbled it down, much like his master then braced his feet up on the side of Paige’s chair. She slipped him another bite.

  “Was it necessary for you to call me darling?” she asked. “It’s so...cheesy.”

  “Endearments should help convince them our marriage is based on love, not money. That is part of our contract, darling. Besides you were pretty cheesy yourself, blowing kisses over breakfast.”

  “You didn’t have to catch it.”

  “And allow my wife’s kisses to float around in the air for just anyone to catch?” He shook his head. “Not a chance.”

  “What did Sylvia mean about Dancy and the wedding?”

  Blake wiped his mouth on his napkin and dropped the sausage link he was about to devour. “Dancy imagines herself in love with me.”

  He looked so utterly human as he sat across from her, a scrap of toilet paper covering his nicked chin. So human Paige forgot to be awed by his presence.

  “Oh, great! Now I’m stuck with a homicidal upstairs maid who’ll probably want to score a hit on me so she can be the next Mrs. Caldwell.”

  “She’s the downstairs maid, and I never said she was homicidal.”

  “You said she carried a gun. Why do people carry guns other than to kill other people?”

  “I never said she carried a gun; I said I thought she carried a gun.”

  “Some difference.”

  “If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll talk to Dancy.”

  “It would make me feel much better. But is there a lock on my door? Just in case,” she added.

  “There’s a lock on the outside door to your room and one on mine, but the adjoining doors don’t lock.”

  “Good enough.”

  A silence fell between them, interrupted only by the scrape of Blake’s fork and Bruno’s whines for another piece of sausage. Now was as good a time as any.

  “Blake, what am I supposed to do today? I mean, I don’t have a job. You have plenty of people to take care of the house...” her voice trailed away. “As your wife are there any charities that I should contact?”

  “No.” Blake stopped chewing and shook his head. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. The fewer people you have contact with the fewer people we have to convince. The things from your apartment will be delivered today. All you need to do is settle in and relax. There’s a heated pool out back.”

  Paige felt like a prisoner, confined with a murderous maid. “Do you have an air mattress too? Maybe a bright red one. Or perhaps yellow. I’m sure I’d make a great target for Dancy if I laid on one in the center of the pool. It’d be just like one those games at the State Fair.”

  Blake frowned, but didn’t voice the objection she could see in his hazel eyes. “You can take Bruno out with you,” he said instead.

  “Yes, he’s the guard dog of my dreams.” Paige patted the poodle on his top knot and slipped him another bite.

  Still Blake ignored her sarcasm. “Anthony and Maurice will pick up your car.”

  “Who’s Anthony? My bodyguard?” she asked hopefully.

  “He’s the chauffeur.”

  Just what she needed: a cutthroat maid and she with only a tiny poodle and a chauffeur for protection.

  “What’s his story?”

  “Grand theft auto.”

  “You surprise me, Blake.” The words were out of her mouth before she had even thought them through.

  “I do?”

  Paige muttered something unintelligible and hoped he accepted it as her answer. How could she explain? The papers had only shown him as a working playboy, too busy to slow down and do more than write a check for the less fortunate. Yet he had hired these people to work for him, trusted them with his home and all his priceless possessions.

  “People change, Paige.” He interrupted her thoughts as if he could read her mind.

  She looked down at the ring on her left hand. Yes, people did change, but for better or worse?

  Paige finished one biscuit and fed most of the meat on her plate to Bruno. Blake scraped his plate clean. She didn’t know how he could eat so many fatty foods and still keep his waist line so narrow. She remembered his waist. The way he looked as he stood in front of the sink wearing nothing but shaving cream and a towel.

  “Blake,” she started, then worried
her lower lip with her teeth. “About this morning. I’m sorry I barged in on you.”

  “Think nothing of it.” He waved one hand in the air and looked up, but he didn’t meet her eyes. “Even in a house this size, incidents like that are bound to happen.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Paige said. “I can shower in the evenings if it’ll help.”

  “I’m sure we can work out some sort of arrangement. Any woman who can face the jungles of Africa can surely find a way to share the bathroom with her husband.”

  Paige’s heart beat hard in her chest. “H-how do you know about Africa?”

  He raised one brow, a half-smirk lifting one corner of his mouth. “You didn’t think I’d marry you without knowing anything about you.”

  It wasn’t a question. “What else do you know?” She willed her breathing to return to normal. Why did his knowing so much about her affect her so?

  “I know that you have a sister. A twin. Her name is Lydia. I know your parents divorced when you were toddlers. Lydia was raised by your mother, while your father raised you. You spent your formative years in a tiny mission in Africa.” He shrugged. “It’s a matter of public record. Noah did a bit of old-fashioned detective work before the ceremony.”

  “So that’s why we waited the three days even though we didn’t need to. You were investigating me.”

  “I had to make certain I wasn’t marrying a psycho or a felon.”

  “Sure, it’s okay to hire them to be your chauffeur and your downstairs maid, but not your wife.”

  “Dancy is not a felon.”

  “What do you propose to do about the bathroom?” Paige asked to change the subject.

  “Even if you shower at night, you’ll still need in the bathroom in the mornings to brush your teeth and such. We can share. I have a brother, but living in a house this size, we never had to share a bathroom.”

  “Your brother’s name is Devin, and he’s five years younger than you,” she smugly informed him, more than happy to turn the tables.

  “How did you know I have a brother?”

  “Why, Blake, did you expect me to marry you without knowing anything about you? I could have been marrying a psycho or a felon. But if it makes you feel any better, all that I know about you is a matter of public record.”

  Chapter Five

  Paige looked out the window at the early spring rain that gently beat against the panes. After four days she decided that there was nothing more boring than marriage. Nothing more boring than lying by the pool all day and hoping Dancy wasn’t in the mood for target practice. Now that it was raining she couldn’t even do that.

  Or perhaps it was just marriage to a rich man that was boring. Perhaps if Blake were poor and didn’t have servants to cater to his every whim, then marriage wouldn’t be so bad.

  Or maybe something would change between her and Blake. The terms of their marriage could become...traditional. Then he would come home every night and make wild, passionate love to her on the over-expensive, never used dining room table...

  “Mrs. Caldwell.” Holmes lightly tapped on the partially open door of her bedroom. “May I come in?”

  Paige swallowed back the rest of her fantasy and nodded. The rain was apparently stalling out her brain.

  Holmes cleared his throat. “I was going through some of Madame Caldwell personal effects, and I found this. I thought it was only proper that you have it now.” He handed her a heavy tome covered in dark red, age-worn leather. “Good day.” He bowed at the waist and left.

  Intrigued, Paige carried the book over to the bed and sat. She lifted the cover and found herself looking at a birth announcement, Blake’s birth announcement. The next page boasted kindergarten finger paintings. And after that little league baseball newspaper articles.

  Soon Paige was lost in the scrapbook. She found a comfort, a knowing of Blake among the articles. She had read many of them during her pre-martial investigation, but it was different now, seeing them collected together. She could even add the headlines that she and Blake had made together to the book. Once it was complete she could give it to Blake, sort of a farewell present once their contracted marriage was over. And in the meantime it would give her more insight on the man she had married.

  ****

  “I can’t decide which is worse.” Blake tossed the current issues of the Scope and the Tattler onto the breakfast table. “One thing’s certain. We don’t look anymore in love in color than we did in black and white.”

  Thankful for the diversion, Paige grabbed the papers and scanned them. “Who Is This Multi-Million Dollar Bride?” The Scope blared the question in big red capital letters above a picture of Blake shoving Paige into the backseat of Noah’s car. The Tattler had captured Blake as he pushed his way through the crowd of press with Paige in the background. Their likeness took up the entire front cover with the caption that boldly declared, “Heir to Caldwell Fortune Forced to Marry.”

  She opened the paper to another picture of her and Blake, this one superimposed to make it look as if they were captured together when they weren’t.

  “I don’t believe this,” she said holding it up so Blake could see. She shifted in her seat and re-crossed her legs, careful not to kick Bruno who had decided his rightful place in life was at her feet. He had been her only and constant companion in the four days since she had married Blake.

  Paige rather liked the little dog, mostly because he hated Dancy and growled seconds before she entered the room allowing Paige ample time to duck behind the furniture and dodge bullets if need be.

  “At least it’s a good picture of you,” Blake said. “It was taken at your sister’s graduation, wasn’t it?”

  “How did you...Oh, yeah,” she said warily, turning the paper around so she could study it. Two could play his game of What-I-Know-About-You. Thankfully Holmes had armed her with a scrapbook full of ammunition. “Did you have fun at the party?”

  “What party?” he asked, then checked his watch. “Where’s Dancy with our breakfast?”

  “The Dalton’s Christmas party,” Paige replied trying not to shudder at the thought of what Dancy might be doing with their breakfast—especially her breakfast. “That’s where the picture of you was taken, wasn’t it? At the Dalton’s Christmas party last year?”

  “Let me see that.” Blake snatched the paper from her and studied the picture. “Yes, I suppose so, but how did you—Where’s Dancy?”

  Paige hid her smile and picked up the Scope. “Listen to this. ‘The Beatles sang ‘Can’t Buy Me Love,’ but their wisdom has been challenged. Blake Caldwell, heir to Caldwell Manufacturing and the Caldwell millions married last Thursday to the tune of 176.3 million dollars. Rumor has it he was forced to marry, but our Scope scoop sources tell us differently.”

  Inside the house the phone rang, and Paige heard Dancy answer it.

  “Where’s our breakfast?” Blake asked as Paige continued to read.

  “‘Our sources from inside the Caldwell household tell us that Blake the Rake—’” She looked across the corner of the paper at him. “Blake the Rake?” He shrugged, and Paige continued. “‘Tell us that Blake the Rake is very much in love with his new bride. But who is the new Mrs. Caldwell? And where did she come from?’“

  Just then Bruno growled, and Dancy slithered into the room. Paige resisted the urge to duck under the table just in case this was one of her gun carrying days. If it was, Paige had no idea where Dancy would have hidden the weapon. With her small compact body wrapped in a skin-tight, black jumpsuit, she looked like Cat Woman with dark Gypsy eyes. Her hair was dark too, with a bad perm that made it as kinky and frizzy as Bruno.

  “Blake,” she purred, coming up alongside him with lethal grace and running her hand along the back of his chair. “It’s her mother on the phone. She’s seen the Scope. I tried to tell her it wasn’t true, that you don’t love her.” She turned her obsidian gaze to Paige. Her voice grew hard then softened again as she tossed her fried-out ponytail over her
shoulder. “She doesn’t believe me.”

  “Dancy, where’s breakfast?”

  The maid shrugged in one fluid, concise motion. “Sylvia isn’t here. She left last night. She said she’d come into some money and was going back to England.”

  “Why wasn’t I informed?”

  Dancy shrugged again, seemingly unconcerned. “You weren’t here.”

  Paige looked up from her paper, stalling so that she wouldn’t have to answer the phone; she wasn’t ready for the confrontation with her mother. “And before she left she talked to the Scope. That’s where the money came from. So much for loyalty.”

  Blake tossed his unused napkin on the table. “Tell Mrs. Parker that Paige is on her honeymoon and cannot be disturbed.”

  With another swing of her ponytail, Dancy left.

  Paige turned to Blake, anger filling her cheeks with heated color. He had no right to dismiss her phone call, even if she didn’t want to talk to her mother—yet. He had over-stepped his bounds. “How dare—” her words trailed off as Blake stood. “Where are you going?”

  “To the office.” he said. “Don’t hold dinner...Well, I guess without Sylvia there won’t be any dinner. Don’t wait up.”

  He bent and lightly brushed his lips across hers, then he disappeared into the house.

  Paige looked down at the paper spread out before her, and her anger drained away into reality.

  Some honeymoon.

  ****

  “What’s this?” Blake asked, looking over the top of the morning paper the next day.

  Bruno growled as Dancy glided out on the sun porch with their breakfast tray.

  Paige picked up the tiny black dog and placed him in her lap. “He doesn’t care for Dancy.”

  “It’s mutual.” The maid turned her dark eyes on the dog who cowered in Paige’s lap.

  Secretly, Paige thought Bruno didn’t like Dancy because he thought she looked too much like a very big version of himself, and that Dancy, in turn, didn’t like Bruno because she did look like a very big poodle.