Can't Buy Me Love Read online

  “No. This.” Blake pointed to the tray Dancy set on its usual stand.

  “Breakfast,” Paige answered.

  The plate Dancy placed before each of them was covered with fruit and freshly baked banana oat bran muffins. Reluctantly, she set the third plate in front of the tiny poodle. It was piled high with a dog food which Paige had made out of the various meats she found in the refrigerator.

  “You’re spoiling that dog worse than my aunt ever did.”

  Paige scratched the dog in question behind the ears as he devoured his breakfast. “What difference does it make? You can spoil animals all you want and not have to worry about how they’ll act when they go away to college. It’s not like he’s a child.”

  “No.” Blake’s eyes darkened, then he turned away. “When did you hire a new cook?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Don’t tell me Dancy did this, and I know Julie didn’t. She was originally hired as a cook and to make an un-digestible story short, she’s now the upstairs maid.”

  “I baked them,” Paige said.

  “You?”

  “Yes, me. Average girls learn how to cook, Blake.”

  “Remind me to thank your mother.”

  Her mother didn’t teach her how to cook, but Paige didn’t bother to correct Blake. Instead, she batted her eyes at him in mock innocence. “When we get back from our honeymoon?”

  “You didn’t look like you wanted to talk to her.”

  “I didn’t, but that was no cause for you to dismiss her that way. She’s my mother, and you should show her more respect.”

  Momentarily Blake looked taken aback, but he recovered quickly. “Like you did by not mentioning our wedding, darling.”

  “I told her yesterday,” Paige snapped defensively.

  Blake devoured the rest of his muffin in one bite, then swallowed. “Call the paper today and run an ad for a live-in cook,” he ordered.

  Oh, the arrogance of the man! First he praises her cooking abilities, then he tells her to hire a cook. “Shouldn’t I call the police station instead? Perhaps they have a rapist or a drug lord who can fill in on short notice.”

  Blake reached for another muffin. “Suit yourself.”

  “Then I’d rather not hire a cook.”

  He looked up, surprise lighting his hazel eyes. “You wouldn’t?”

  “No, if I hire a cook, and you don’t like him, you’ll be stuck with him after our contract is over.”

  “Him?” Blake raised one brow in her direction.

  “Or her,” Paige added. “Besides, I don’t have anything to do other than lie by the pool with Bruno since you resigned me from my job. It might be kind of fun to cook for my husband.” She smiled largely at him.

  Bruno growled announcing Dancy was near, more than likely eavesdropping on the other side of the French doors.

  “Very well.” Blake tossed his napkin on the table beside his cleared plate. He stood and kissed Paige full on the mouth for Dancy’s benefit. Paige hated the tingling that shot through her every time he was near.

  “I like to eat at six-thirty. I expect dinner to be ready then...darling.”

  ****

  “I made your favorite: lasagna.”

  “How did you—”Blake shook his head and smiled at Paige down the polished length of the dining room table—which seated twelve—to where she sat at the opposite end. He knew Dancy had seated them so far apart to put as much distance between her beloved and his bride. At least at this distance he had no fear of falling into the depths of Paige’s magnificent, turquoise eyes.

  Bruno growled and as if on cue, Dancy appeared with dinner.

  “I hope you like it,” Paige said.

  Now was the time. He should ask her now. She was vulnerable and totally susceptible to the plan he and Noah had formulated. “I’m sure it’s delicious.” He smiled again, wondering where his courage had gone, but his face froze as Dancy served his plate.

  The pasta dish sort of resembled lasagna. It was square and in layers like lasagna with ripplely-edged noodles and tomato sauce, but it was filled with zucchini and maybe eggplant. And were those shredded carrots? Where was the meat?

  “Uh, Paige, I know we’ve had trouble with the press, but that doesn’t mean you can’t send Anthony to the store for groceries.”

  She swallowed the bite of whatever it was she had made and cut another piece with the edge of her fork. “We have plenty of food. I went shopping today.”

  Blake sat silently, wishing his dinner would disappear. She cooked this on purpose?

  “You’re not eating your dinner.” Paige took another bite.

  Blake looked down at his plate. He was no stranger to taking chances. He took chances in the board room every day. He took chances every season with new designs. He had even been known to play the stock market like a mad man. But food was not something to take chances with. He liked it to be a constant in his life. Always the same.

  Bravely, he picked up his fork and took a bite. It tasted worse than it looked. Like a grainy noodle salad gone bad. Should he risk swallowing the bite whole or just spit it into his napkin?

  He looked up at Paige. Their eyes met and Blake lost all rational thought. She expected him to say something. Carefully he chewed. At least at this distance she wouldn’t see him grimace as he swallowed. Well, he hoped anyway.

  He wrenched his gaze from hers and managed to swallow without gagging.

  “Did, uh…your mother teach you to make this, too?”

  “I have a confession to make.” She laid her fork aside and delicately wiped her mouth with the linen napkin. For a girl raised in the wilds of the jungle, she had impeccable manners. This just might work after all. “My mother never taught me to cook. I learned in the field and on the trips we made to different places.”

  “I see. Where’d you learn to cook this?” Surely his words didn’t sound as derisive to her ears as they did to his.

  “This is my very own recipe.”

  “You don’t say.”

  Despite the distance between them, he could detect the blush rising into her cheeks. She placed her napkin back in her lap and retrieved her fork.

  “I don’t think I have ever tasted anything quite like it. What kind of lasagna did you say it was?”

  “Vegetarian,” She said proudly, scooping up another bite.

  “Vege—does that mean…”

  “That I’m a vegetarian? Of course.”

  “Of course.”

  She watched him as she chewed. “You’re not eating. Is there a problem with your dinner?”

  Well, yeah. He was a meat and potatoes kind of guy and now he was married to, and had consented to eat the food of, a broccoli and tomatoes kind of gal. Yes, there was a problem. “No, no, no, it’s…fine.” He took another bite to prove his point.

  “It’s even low fat,” Paige said. “I made it with tofu instead of cheese.”

  No wonder. He reached for the glass Dancy had set in front of him, and somehow managed to choke down the liquid. “What is this?” he sputtered.

  “Iced Japanese green tea. Do you like it?”

  “The tea?” It tasted like liquid grass.

  “No, the lasagna.”

  “Yes,” he lied, unwilling to hurt her feelings for anything, not even the steak he so desperately craved at that moment. Why he was so loathe to hurt her was anybody’s guess. Damn his aunt for teaching him to be a gentleman.

  But he had to have her on his side if this plan of his was going to work. And it had it to.

  “Good.” She smiled. “There’s plenty.”

  Blake’s smile felt stiff on his lips. Somehow he’d make it through this terrible meal and somehow he’d talk Paige into hiring a new cook, but first he had to get through dinner without hurting her feelings. Then he had to convince her to pretend—really pretend for all of Chicago to see—that their marriage was real.

  ****

  “Let’s take our coffee into the den,” Blake invited.
r />   Paige looked from her plate, down the length of table to where her husband sat. Husband. So strange to use that word to describe Blake. After all, what they had wasn’t really a marriage, despite her efforts to pretend otherwise. That’s why she had offered to cook for him, she wanted to feel if even at dinner time that a portion of their marriage was real. It was stupid, but she couldn’t help herself.

  “But you haven’t finished your lasagna.”

  Blake patted his trim waistline. “I’m stuffed. Really. I ate a big lunch.”

  Reluctantly, Paige placed her napkin beside her half-eaten dinner, picked up Bruno, and followed Blake into the den.

  The warm, friendly room held two big leather sofas that faced each other in front of the huge sandstone fireplace. Paige sat on one couch while Blake sat on the other. He crossed one leg over the other as they waited for Dancy to serve their coffee.

  He looked as cool and guarded as always, with the exception of that first time she had seen him in Noah’s office and the fiasco with the press on the steps of the Cook County Courthouse, but something was up; Paige knew it. He hadn’t eaten his dinner. He wouldn’t look her in the eye. Those things by themselves weren’t out of the ordinary, but still she knew. Something was up, and it was bad.

  Fortunately Dancy entered and poured their coffee and filled the silence with her presence and Bruno’s growls. With a caustic look in Paige’s direction, Dancy left the tray and slid from the room.

  Blake took a drink of the hot brew, then another. His eyes were fixed somewhere near her ear as he took yet another sip of his coffee. “This is really very good,” he said obviously doing his best to melt the ice forming between them. “Is it a new blend?”

  “You didn’t ask me in here to discuss coffee. What’s on your mind, Blake?” Paige tried to make her tone casual, but her heart raced. Suppose he had reconsidered and now thought that a marriage to someone like her was not worth a large fortune.

  “No, I didn’t.” Blake sat his cup down and clasped his hands together between his bent knees. “I need a favor from you,” he said with a confidence that suggested he knew she would comply.

  “A favor?” It was the last thing she had expected to hear.

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of favor?” She wasn’t going to like this.

  He took a deep breath, and Paige could almost see him mulling over the exact words to use. It was probably a class he took at college. Exact Wording 101. “I need you to go to an opera fund raiser with me and play the part of my wife.”

  “What?” she squeaked, then managed to recover. “This wasn’t part of our deal.”

  “Our deal has changed.” His voice held a note of finality.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Paige stood and crossed her arms cover her middle as if to protect herself for what was to come next.

  “It means that the news of this marriage was supposed to get no farther than the two of us. Now the entire country knows. Everyone in the greater Chicago area is chomping at the bit hoping to get a glimpse of us together.”

  “I hope they don’t chew it in half while they wait.”

  “Paige, you’re not looking at this at all logically.”

  “Logically? What’s logical about any of this? I became your wife in a business deal, nothing more.” She turned to look at the empty fireplace. Anything was better than looking at him and knowing he didn’t think enough of her to meet her gaze when he spoke.

  “True. However, now your name is linked with mine. For better or worse.”

  She whirled around to face him, hating the fact that he still sat, legs crossed, and he hadn’t moved once during the whole conversation. He was making her crazy and flustered with his words and his presence, and she had no effect on him what so ever. “Would you mind explaining that remark?”

  “I wanted to keep the terms of this marriage a secret....” He spread his hands expressively. “Now one of two things can happen. We can go out together, pretend we’re a happily married couple, and no one need ever know differently. In six months we pretend to have an argument—in public. It snowballs, and six months later we get the divorce, as planned. Or I can come clean in the papers, tell them all about the will and how I married you to get my inheritance. Everyone will think I’m a greedy bastard, but they’ll pity you.”

  “You’d do that to me?” Her voice was a whisper.

  “I don’t have much choice, and neither do you. You see, Paige, our names are linked together no matter what either of us do. Your only choice now is how your name will be linked with mine.”

  Paige sank to the couch. “What about Anna Rivera? How does she fit into all of this?”

  “Anna? How did you—”Blake shook his head. “Anna won’t play a part at all. As long as we’re married, I’ll remain faithful to you. You don’t have to worry about other women making you a fool.”

  No, Paige thought, I just have to worry about you making me a fool.

  “This is a little like blackmail,” she said shakily.

  Blake sighed. “Life’s a little like blackmail. I need for you to do this, Paige. Please.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “We’ll accept just a few engagements. The season always slows down during the summer months. Then, of course, in a few weeks we’ll have to have a birthday party for you.”

  “Birthday? How did you—oh, never mind.”

  “What’s it going to be, Paige?”

  She paused a moment not wanting to answer, not knowing how to answer. “All right,” she said against her better judgment. “I’ll do it.”

  Chapter Six

  On display. That’s how Paige felt two weeks later as she and Blake stepped into the ballroom at the Ritz-Carlton. Despite the floor to ceiling windows that offered a fantastic view of the city, all heads turned in their direction. Briefly Paige wondered if perhaps the fund raiser had really been held in support of the Chicago Opera, or merely so that everybody who was anybody could see her in the flesh.

  The group gathered in the ballroom was no less intimidating than the twelve-course, two-hundred-dollar-a-plate meal Blake had declined. The tuxedo-attired men were the epitome of debonair as they danced their ladies around the floor. And the ladies...they were like a fairy tale dream in their formal dresses, perfectly made up faces, and manicured nails.

  Paige had never felt as plain as she did in that moment. She had never been one to wear makeup or curl her hair or paint her fingernails. Frivolities like that had no place in the jungle. That fell into Lydia’s department. What was she, Paige Parker, doing here, an ugly duckling among these swans?

  She should have told Blake no, refused his heartfelt request to attend this ball. What did she care if people pitied her? In just under a year she was going back to Africa. Back where she belonged.

  But she hadn’t said no. So there she stood in a half-homemade dress wondering how in the world she had gotten in the door. Not that the dress wasn’t fabulous; it was, even if she said so herself.

  Once Blake had secured her acceptance, he’d handed her a credit card and told her he’d someone by with “some dresses for her to look at.”

  She might not know everything there was to know about fashion—being raised in the jungle could do that to a girl—but she had a sister who did. Paige had taken one look at the dresses, channeled her inner-Lydia, then grabbed a pair of scissors and went to work.

  There were some benefits of being raised the plain sister. She had learned how to sew. She could make clothes out of scraps if necessary. And tonight she needed the confidence the garment could afford her.

  The dress was basic black—not exactly one of her best colors since its severity paled her ivory skin even whiter—and had a simple, form-fitting bodice. The skirt fell to the floor in full pleats that started a good six inches below her hips. Standing still the dress appeared merely black, but when she moved, the pleats opened and revealed the inlaid cuts of pearly-white satin strewn with iridescent sequins. Whe
n she moved, she shimmered.

  “Smile,” Blake asided as they entered the room. A wide, false smile stretched across his lips. “Everybody’s looking.”

  “I know,” she shot back. “This is a bad idea, Blake.”

  “I know,” he said still smiling. He nodded to a few of the people standing at the fringes of the crowd, then took her arm and escorted her deeper into the ballroom. The crowd parted like the Red Sea for Moses.

  Paige inhaled sharply when he swept her into his arms and out on the dance floor amidst the other dancers.

  “Relax,” he whispered. “Loosen up and enjoy yourself. It’s only a dance. You probably weren’t even this nervous at your prom.”

  She smiled at his cajoling, but even her lips were nervous and wobbly. “I didn’t have a prom, remember? And I’m sure the Opera High Brows will be happy to know you’re comparing a high school dance with their ball.”

  “They’ll never know unless you tell them.”

  “Just like everything else?”

  “Yes,” he murmured into her hair. “Just like everything else.”

  Shivers of awareness shot through Paige. The heat of his thighs burned through the material of her dress and scorched her own sensitive legs. This was a really bad idea. She should have never agreed to come here with him. This wasn’t part of their contract. But then she wouldn’t have given up the chance to have him hold her in his arms for anything in the world. Still she had to remember her place; she wasn’t his real wife. She was merely a professional wife, and she had to act it, professional, that was. But it was hard with the way he was holding her, close and with loving hands as if she were truly his bride. Lord, he was a good actor. If he kept this up, she wouldn’t have to act at all in order to convincingly fall at his feet and...and make a complete fool of herself.

  “Why didn’t you?” Blake asked, his warm breath tickling her ear.

  “W-w-what?”

  “Have a senior prom.”

  “I was in Africa.” As crazy as it was she felt the pang of jealousy at not having a prom. After all, Lydia had gone with all the bells and whistles while Paige had been miles from the nearest phone, much less formal dance. She and her father had done noble work in Africa helping the Zumbai Tribe build houses and schools, learn hygiene and basic farming principles. And she wouldn’t trade that for all the proms in the world.