Chapter Two
Luke
Thirty fucking days.
That was how long Luke Turner had. He had thirty days to find someone, pop the question, and appease Roderick Turner’s lawyer, who had delivered the news that Roderick’s last request had been that his son be married before receiving his inheritance. Luke’s father was adamant that monogamy was right and natural. He had been married to Luke’s mother for over twenty years before she’d passed away from heart disease. His mother’s death had been a nasty and grievous divide between his father and himself.
Roderick had turned to the bottle to cope. Luke had turned to the open legs of a woman to cope.
He had never heard the end of it either. Since he was sixteen, Luke could remember his father’s stern lectures about treating women with respect. They were not sexual objects to gratify his desires. He needed to find the “right” woman to settle down with.
Luke grimaced inwardly at the thought. Settling down was not, and never would be, on his to-do list. He was twenty-nine years old, and he had no intention of finding a woman to marry and start a family with.
Except, he had thirty days to do it now. Even after death, Roderick Turner had found an effective tool to bully his son into marriage. If he wanted Turner Oil, or even a penny of his inheritance, he had to be engaged and on track to be married.
That was why Toby Patel, his long-time friend and publicist, had suggested letting his sister find a naive freshman student at NYU to do the trick.
And staring across the table at Paige Scott as she twirled a finger through a curl in her hair nervously, Luke had to give props to Toby and Shannon. They knew his tastes very well.
Paige was every man’s fantasy, including Luke’s. She was a freshman student who’d never once been in a city like New York until college. She was a home-grown girl with waterfall curls and an innocent expression that took in everything around her with a sense of amazement. She didn’t come from wealth, either, from what Toby had told him on the phone. Both her parents were blue-collar and worked on a farm in Wyoming.
And she was attractive, but either didn’t believe it or she didn’t see herself the same way Luke saw her—petite, nice-shaped breasts and ass, and a slender face peppered with adorable freckles. She constantly tugged at the hemline of her dress.
He caught sight of Toby’s eyes. A wordless question echoed in them. Luke gave a sharp affirmative nod before turning in his chair to face Paige, who looked up at him with wide eyes.
“So, I’ve been told you are from Wyoming,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “I grew up on a farm with my parents there.”
“Wyoming is beautiful.” Luke grabbed his drink from the table. That part was not a lie. He did find Wyoming beautiful, what with its rugged, windy, and grassy landscape. “I regret that I never get to spend much time up there, but when I need a retreat from the city, that’s where I find myself gravitating too.”
He saw the tension in Paige’s shoulders lessen a bit. She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, and he had a flash of wondering what it would like to nibble it himself.
“It’s a good place to get away from everything and everyone,” Paige said, her voice so quiet that he had to lean in to hear her. “Although, New York City is beautiful in its own way.”
“It is,” he agreed, nodding. “If you’re into the hustle of it, New York is beautiful.” He caught sight of paint on the tips of Paige’s fingers. “Shannon tells me you’re an art student at NYU. You were accepted through a scholarship.”
Paige glanced over at Shannon, who was busily talking to the people at the table next to theirs, not paying attention to their conversation. Toby wasn’t even paying attention. He looked bored as he scrolled through his phone with a whiskey in one hand.
“How do you know so much about me?” Paige asked a bit coolly. She gave Luke a long and intense look. “No offense, but I still don’t understand why I’m here with you, or why you seem interested in me.”
Smart and observant. He mentally added those two qualities to the list of things he did genuinely like about Paige.
“Who wouldn’t be interested in you?” he asked bluntly. “You’re attractive. You’re smart. There’s a difference between a hot woman versus a woman who is beautiful and has actual goals in life.”
“While I agree with you on the last part of that sentiment, I still don’t think I’m exactly your type.”
“Why not?”
He leaned in even more to close the distance between them. He could smell the pleasant aroma of sugar and vanilla on her skin.
Paige scooted away while clearing her throat. “Because I am not from the same circle you’re from.”
“That’s why I like you,” Luke said. “You aren’t from the same circle I’ve been in my entire life.”
“You don’t even know me.” She shook her head at him. “We’ve only been talking for thirty minutes. You only know details about me.”
“Enlighten me then.”
“Why should I?”
Luke chuckled deep in his chest. He had to give it to Paige. She wouldn’t make it easy for him, and that thrilled him beyond measure. She’d make it a challenge, unlike the other women who jumped easily into his bed.
“I like you,” he said, and he did. He did like her. “You’re able to see through people’s bullshit.”
“I suppose I can,” Paige said cautiously. “Look, Shannon is my senior sister. She asked me to come here with her, so I’m here only for that reason.”
He rolled his eyes. “Do things like that really matter to you freshman students?”
Shannon spoke up then, defensive. “It’s a tradition,” she said. “Don’t knock it down, Luke. You never went to college. You just did online courses.”
“I was a bit busy running a business,” Luke replied, shooting Shannon a look that instantly quieted her. “Online courses were the only thing I could do at the time.”
“And you’ve got life experience that most people would only dream of having,” Toby added, clapping Luke on the shoulder with a grin. “No one is knocking that down. The oil industry isn’t easy to navigate through.”
“Not usually,” Luke said darkly. That was the last thing he wanted to talk about—work. The oil industry was always liquid gold, but there were constant bumps in the road. The economy affected a good part of his operations. Some were shut down while others kept going, and it flipped constantly. He lost money and then made money.
He took a long drink before setting the empty glass on the table. Paige looked away from him to gaze out across the dance floor, where sultry jazz music had started up. The only reason he had picked this VIP lounge was because of the music they played. He hated the thumping nightclubs that Toby and Shannon frequented with Toby’s other clients.
He needed to do something fast to win over Paige’s favor. Resting a hand on Paige’s forearm, he relished in the way her skin felt, so soft beneath his fingers. It sent jolts up his hand and arm. She looked down at his hand before catching his gaze.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m being an ass. Do you like to dance?”
“Maybe,” Paige said slowly. “I like this music.”
Luke grinned. “So do I. Come on.” He stood up and offered her a hand. “Have one dance with me. I’m a pretty fun guy. Ask anyone in this lounge.”
Paige glanced over at Shannon, who nodded encouragingly. She hesitated for a moment before placing her hand in Luke’s. Those delicate fingers that were stained with paint had his mind wondering what they would feel like on other parts of his body.
He helped her out of her chair when she wobbled a bit on the heels she wore—a Shannon touch he was sure.
Once they were in the middle of the dance floor, Luke twirled her expertly with a pleased grin when she followed his command without question. He pulled her close to him, closer than he knew she was comfortable with judging from how stiff her spine was against the palm of his hand. The hand resting on his shoulder tensed briefly, as though she were about to push him away.
“Relax,” Luke murmured, resting his forehead against hers. “This dance doesn’t work if you feel like a stiff board.”
“I can’t help it,” she said over the music. “You’re feeling me up.”
He forced his hand from drifting lower to grab at her waist instead. “Sorry. We’re just up here to dance.”
“Just to dance,” Paige said firmly.
The corner of his lips quirked up in amusement. She thought she had control over him, or at least of the situation.
The music took over. Luke led her expertly in a dance that Paige quickly picked up on. Her hips were fluid underneath his hand whenever he slipped down to guide her. For an innocent freshman, she knew how to dance, and she had no awareness of how sexy she appeared while doing it.
Her body felt so taut but fragile in his arms. He could easily throw her across the room without any effort. His mind drifted to wondering what it would be like to have her underneath him, naked, squirming in pleasure with those perky breasts bouncing in time with his thrusts.
His hand tightened on Paige’s waist after the song ended. He refused to let go of her right away when she took a pointed step back. Paige looked up at him in confusion, and he let all the desire he felt boiling in him show.
It rendered Paige motionless in his arms, the way he wanted her to be. Her lips appeared soft and were a ruby red color. He leaned forward, ready to taste them, but Paige’s hand shot out to thump him on the chest with surprising strength.
“One dance and you’re already trying to kiss me?”
Annoyance filled him.
“Do you have problems with a man wanting to kiss you because he thinks you're beautiful?” he asked, his tone sharper than he’d intended. He was drunk from the whiskey and aroused from Paige’s proximity.
Paige promptly let go of his hand. Her eyes narrowed at him in indignant anger.
“I realize that you never get rejected, but I’m not the type of girl to let a strange man just kiss me and then hop into bed with him.”
He ran an aggravated hand through his hair. “You’re against that sort of thing?”
“Yes, I am,” Paige said. “I refuse to be a whore.”
“I never thought you were one.”
“Because you would know what a whore looks like, right?”
“I won’t lie about knowing what whores look like,” Luke said blatantly. There would be no charming Paige by dishonesty. She liked the truth, judging from the expression on her face. “Do you really want to know about my past with other women? I’m not going to lie to you. I’ve had my fair share of fun.”
“So what are you expecting from me exactly?” Paige asked, crossing her arms.
Luke sighed inwardly. Maybe Paige would be a bit complicated and hard to appease in thirty days. He had a gut feeling that she wouldn’t accept an engagement within a short amount of time, but he couldn’t let her know the real reason why Shannon had brought her here. He needed Shannon to be on Paige’s side to know what was going on.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I just thought that we were having a good time and—”
“Well, you thought wrong then.”
“Apparently,” he snapped, and her eyes widened. “Wait. I’m—”
Paige ripped away from him to stalk angrily across the dance floor. She didn’t listen to Shannon, who was out of her chair, trying to console her, and walked out of the lounge without sparing him a second glance.
****
“What the fuck?” Toby demanded when Luke sat down in his chair and snapped his fingers for another drink. “You’re supposed to be charming the shit out of her, not revolting her with being a sleazeball.”
Luke glared at him. “Are you calling me sleazy?”
“I’m saying that you can’t just make advances on her like that,” Toby said. “The reason Shannon picked Paige as a freshman sister is because she isn’t the type of woman to like that sort of thing. That is the type of woman Peter is going to approve of.”
“She’s a fucking headache,” Luke growled, grabbing his drink from the waiter’s hand. “Too much work, Toby. Way too much work for this arrangement.”
“I don’t think so,” Shannon responded, shaking her head. “Paige is perfect for this sort of thing. You know it too, because I saw the interest in your eyes.”
“Well, of course he’d be interested in her,” Toby said. “She’s a female who is attractive and has some goals that she wants to achieve in her life.”
“It’s fucked up that my father did this to me,” Luke said, rubbing his aching head. The rest of his body ached as well. “I know he wanted me to get married, but this is a bit far in my opinion. There has to be a loophole somewhere that I’m not figuring out.”
“That’s because there isn’t a loophole,” Toby said. He shook his head. “Look, man, I’m trying to tell you that this is your best bet. It is. If you want that inheritance money, and your dad’s business, you have to do what the will is telling you to do.”
“I hate it when you’re right.” Luke sat back in the leather chair to take another long drink. He needed something to calm him down. “You’re positive that this is going to work?”
Toby nodded. “Positive. If it doesn’t work, you won’t have to cut me a check out of that inheritance of yours.”
“I’d do it anyway,” Luke said. “You’ve been my friend since I was fifteen, man. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“I appreciate that sort of sentiment coming from you.”
“So, Shannon.” He directed his attention to the busty blonde clothed in a gold sequin dress sitting alongside her brother, calm and quiet while they talked. I wish bro code didn't prevent you from banging your friend’s younger sister. He had a feeling that Shannon knew her way around a man’s body. Clearing those thoughts out, Luke leaned forward in his seat to look at her. “I guess I’m stuck with this Paige Scott, then, if we all want to get paid here by the end of the month. I have thirty days to get her to fall in love with me, accept a proposal, and possibly get married while convincing the old lawyer. Any suggestions?”
Shannon gazed up thoughtfully at the ceiling. “For starters, I picked Paige because she isn’t from money. She’s got some humble roots that would look good. From what I’ve heard, she spends most of her nights locked up in her apartment. This was the first time in two months that she went out into the city.”
“She likes to paint too, right?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “Talented painter, and I mean that seriously. It’ll be interesting to see what she does in four years.”
None of it interested him. It was things he could work off though.
“I’m pretty sure Paige is a virgin too,” Shannon added. “I know her family is strictly Christian. I remember seeing her parents the weekend before classes started.”
A virgin. Luke rubbed a hand across his jaw in contemplation. He had never slept with a virgin before. It was the one thing that he had personally steered clear of, because he knew there were certain emotions attached to it. He was an asshole, but not that big of one.
It was tempting, though, the more he thought about it. If Peter knew that Paige was a virgin who had possibly vowed to stay that way until marriage, he’d be impressed. That was something his father would’ve liked to hear. Not to mention, it gave him a bit of a thrill thinking about being a first to someone.
Paige Scott would work for a lot of reasons.
“That seemed to arouse your interest even more,” Toby said with a grin. “Do we have a deal that Shannon has picked someone out for you?”
“I’m in on this,” Luke said, nodding. “The only problem is that I’m pretty sure she hates my guts now.”
He shrugged his shoulders indifferently. Maybe he had been a bit forward, but there was something different about Paige that drew him in. He craved a woman like her in a lot of ways. She was attractive, filled with goals, and couldn’t have cared less about the line of Turners he came from.
“I’ll work on that,” Shannon said, flipping her hair up. “I’ll go outside to see if she’s waiting for a cab, or at least call to make sure she did get back to the apartments okay.”
She stood up from the table. Luke watched as a few heads turned to watch Shannon stride confidently across the room to make an exit through the front door.
“Your sister should be a publicist too,” he said, looking back over at Toby, who narrowed his eyes at him in warning. “I’m just saying. She’s damn good at what she does. Maybe even better than you.”
Toby leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his flat stomach. “I’ve tried telling her that a few times. I think she has this idea that if she graduates doing what our parents wanted her to do, they’ll take more of an interest in our lives.”
“And people think rich kids have it easy,” Luke said darkly. He reached up to rub at the scars along the side of his neck. “No one ever guessed that my father liked to extinguish cigarettes on the side of my neck because I was being a shit to him. No, my father had money, so therefore I had money too. Everything was sunshine and daisies according to some people.”
“The price of the rich and famous, bro. That’s our price. We were the punching bags of our parents’ misery from it all.”
“No shit.”
They fell into silence while the music continued to play in the background. Shannon didn’t reappear, but Toby didn’t seem too concerned about it. He knew Shannon knew New York City better than anyone else.
“So, you’re honestly going to be okay with this arrangement then?” Toby asked.
“I don’t have a choice in the matter,” Luke replied, sipping more slowly at his drink. He still had to navigate his way home and get up early for a few meetings. Even if he wasn’t yet in charge of Turner Oil, he ran it like he was in charge. Business never slept. “I love this business. I’ll never want to do anything else besides oil. I’d be lost out there trying to find something else I’m good at.”
“You’ll get the business,” Toby said confidently. “We just have to put on a good show for Peter in thirty days is all.”
Luke dragged an exhausted hand along his face. Thirty fucking days is not enough time to fall in love. He had a creeping suspicion that his father had planned it that way for a reason.
“I don’t know if it’s even possible to do all of this in thirty days,” he said, exasperated at the thought. “I’m not a go-on-a-date type of man. You know that, but now I have to play a chivalrous gent to a woman who already has formed an unpleasant opinion of me.”
“That’s where you can hook her, bud. Apologize to her. Make it up by explaining that you had too much to drink and you’re grieving the loss of your father, so it’s been hard for you. Play that emotional card.”
“How though?” He narrowed his eyes at Toby. “When have you ever seen me be emotional? I didn’t even shed a damn tear when I buried my father.”
“Yeah,” Toby said, bouncing his legs anxiously, “but you did disappear for about a week with no phone or any way to reach you. That says a lot in my opinion. Where did you even go without telling me?”
“Alaska.” At the shocked glance Toby gave him, he continued. “I went to Alaska because it was the only place I felt I could get away from all of it. Including my father’s ghost. I swear, he’s trying to haunt me from behind the grave.”
“I wouldn’t do it,” he said dryly. “What did you do up in Alaska? Find some local native woman to bang?”
“I didn’t fuck anyone while I was up there, since you’re so curious about it. I looked at a few places to set up for drilling. I talked to people who mine up there for gold too.”
“Are you planning to branch out into gold?”
“I’m thinking about it. If I get this inheritance in thirty days, I am investing in a mine up there that needs an extra boost in the money department.”
Toby sat back with an impressed whistle. “You’re good. I don’t see how your father thinks you’d do horrible things to the company. You’re smart. You get how the world of business works.”
“I don’t even care anymore,” Luke replied. Bitterness swelled up in him at the thought of his father. He had gone to Alaska to deal with his emotions privately, but also to look into expanding in the future. It had provided him the much-needed distraction from having to bury his father along with years of watching him decompose from the inside out. His mother’s death had been what had started all of Roderick’s violent and alcohol-fueled cycles. Before that, it’d been years since he had drank, but the day they buried Luke’s mother in the ground was the day Roderick had gone back to the bottle. Nothing could fix it, or convince him to do otherwise.
It hadn’t been a surprise to get that phone call from the hospital in the middle of the night when one of the staff members had found Roderick passed out on the floor. There wasn’t one person Luke knew in the oil business who drank themselves until they were rich and happy, but his father had tried like hell to do it.
The only reason Turner Oil had stayed afloat was because of Luke’s decisions. He had poured in the hard work to keep it going when his father had been too drunk to recognize what decisions he needed to make.
And now, his father seemed to think a marriage would keep him from doing what he wanted to do.
If he had to play the gent in order to win over Paige Scott’s trust, he’d do it, and maybe he’d get something more out of it. He wasn’t going to complain if Paige ended up in his bed by the end of the thirty days. If she did, he’d have his money by then, and none of it would have mattered.
It was just business. That was all this arrangement would be. Just business until the end of the longest thirty days of Luke’s life.