Chapter Six
Luke
“Mr. Turner.”
Luke glanced up from the email he had been reading through regarding one of his rigs drilling up in Canada. Annoyance filled him when his secretary, JoAnne Collins, poked her head through his office door apologetically.
“I know you don’t want to be disturbed—”
“That’s why the phone is unplugged,” Luke snapped, flourishing a hand at the handset he had unplugged to find some quiet. “What is it?”
“I’m sorry, but there’s a woman on the phone for you,” JoAnne said. “She won’t let me go until I tell you to pick it up.”
He tensed. “If it’s Alicia—”
“It’s not. She says her name is Paige Scott.”
He stared at her in disbelief. “You’re shitting me. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. She said it’s urgent, and that the two of you know each other.”
“Thank you, Jo,” he said. He plugged the phone line back in. He couldn’t deny his curiosity over what Paige wanted after what had happened thanks to that damn freshman friend of hers. He picked up the phone after hitting the flashing line one.
“This is Luke Turner speaking.”
“It’s Paige.”
“I’m surprised to hear from you,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Something change your mind?”
She ignored the coyness in his question. “Yes. Something did come up that I need to talk to you about.”
The distress in her voice alerted him that something had happened over the past few days. Something that had changed her mind and would hopefully benefit the both of them.
“All right,” he said. “I’m interested in hearing what you have to say.”
“I’m sure you will be,” Paige said. “Is there anywhere I can meet you? I’m not going to arrange this on the phone.”
Arrange? Hope and relief filled Luke. Still, he was cautious. He had no idea what had changed Paige’s mind. “I’m thirty minutes away from NYU at my father’s office. I’ll have one of my drivers pick you up if you give me the address of where you are at.”
“I’m at the only Starbucks around NYU. I don’t know the streets yet.”
“Just stay out on the sidewalk. He’ll see you in a few minutes.”
He hung up the phone with a smirk tugging at his lips. This little twist worked out in his favor, no matter what Paige wanted to talk about. He had no intention of staying with her beyond the thirty days.
Luke got up to pace around his office after sending one of his drivers to pick up Paige. He called Toby next while he waited for her.
“I don’t know what she wants to talk about,” he told Toby eagerly. “I don’t care either. You realize that this will work out no matter what she says, right?”
“I wonder who gave you this brilliant idea of a fake marriage,” Toby said sarcastically. “They should get a nice hefty bonus for thinking of it.”
“Yeah, yeah. Money is always such a big deal to your greedy ass.”
“No more than for you,” Toby shot back, chuckling. “I’ll be over to your office with the lawyer just in case. I know Shannon said not to underestimate how smart Paige is.”
“I have no doubts about that either.”
He tried to keep his giddiness under control when Paige arrived with Toby and his lawyer, Adam King, in tow. Even dressed in paint-splattered leggings, a pair of flip-flops, and a ripped white shirt, he still found her incredibly attractive. Her brown locks were pulled up in a messy bun that was pinned with what appeared to be the broken handle of a paintbrush. There was a blue smudge of paint above her right eyebrow.
Despite all that bravery on the phone, Paige took a seat nervously in front of his desk when Luke motioned for her to sit down. She chewed on the pad of her thumb while Toby shut the office door behind them to block out the sounds of phones ringing and unwanted eavesdroppers.
“So,” Paige started, bouncing her legs anxiously. “I’m here because of what you proposed to me on Saturday.”
Luke arched an eyebrow at her as he took a seat in his chair. He folded his hands over his stomach while he studied Paige intently.
“I have a feeling there is something you want out of what I proposed,” he said.
She nodded. “Yes. There are some conditions I have thought of if you’re still desperate to get your inheritance.”
The insult dripped off Paige’s words, but he let it slide. He didn’t care what she thought of him at the moment. It didn’t matter in the long run.
“What are your conditions?” he asked, but he already had a gut feeling what she wanted. Money. There was a conflicted look on Paige’s face, and he waited for her to lay everything out.
“My parents called me today to tell me that they are struggling with money,” Paige said. Guilt laced her voice. “They had taken out a second mortgage on their house to help pay for my college, but it’s not enough. If I don’t come up with the money by January, I will be kicked out of NYU.”
“Touching story,” Luke said dryly. “How much are you going to ask of me?”
Paige set her jaw. Anger glittered in her eyes as she gazed at him.
“I need at least three hundred thousand dollars from this arrangement,” she said. “Two hundred thousand of it needs to go directly to NYU. The other one hundred I want to give to my parents.”
He snorted indelicately. “You want to give my money to your parents?”
“It’d be mine if you want me to do this,” she pointed out. “You are the one who is desperate for money too, remember?”
“I already have money, sweetheart,” he drawled out, but he considered her amounts. It was chunk change in all reality compared to how much his inheritance was. “What other conditions are there?”
“Because you’re actually well-known where I’m from, I want you to meet my parents.”
“Fine,” he said, but he had no intention of ever meeting Paige’s parents. Thirty days went by fast, faster than what he suspected Paige thought. “What else?”
“No sex before the date we set,” Paige said firmly. “I promised myself at seventeen that I wouldn’t give in before marriage, and I have no intention of going back on my word.”
Toby coughed in the corner to hide his laugh at the scowl on Luke’s face. He stared at Paige in disbelief. “You’re kidding, right? You don’t believe in that type of shit, do you?”
“I happen to, yes,” she said, frowning at him. “What’s so wrong with waiting for marriage?”
“Nothing I suppose,” Luke replied warily. “If this is going to appear real, there needs to be that physical contact to make it look real.”
Paige tensed. “Take it for what it is,” she said. “I’m not going to hop into your bed despite your best efforts.”
“Is that a challenge?”
Toby stepped in before Paige could reply. He rested a hand on Luke’s shoulder and gave him a warning look.
“I think what she is saying is fair,” he said. “After all, we do owe it to her after everything we did. She knows now that Shannon only picked her as a freshman sister for this reason. We did fuck up her experience in that regard.”
“After everything you did,” Luke corrected sourly. He couldn’t get over how trapped he was between his father’s expectation from beyond the grave and the virgin who was holding the fate of his father’s business and inheritance in her tiny little hand.
He craved a strong drink. A real fucking strong drink.
“If you tell Paige no, that’s it for everything,” Toby said as reasonably as possible. “Think about it, bro. This is your ticket, and you need to take it while you can.”
Luke looked over at Paige as she continued to bounce her legs anxiously while waiting for his answer. If she wanted to set these conditions, that was fine by him. He only had one condition he planned to honor. The rest of those conditions were only a matter of time.
“I guess we have an agreement then,” he said eventually. Looking over at Adam, he nodded his consent to the conditions. “Go ahead and draft up the documents for me, Adam. We’ll sign them here and now.”
“Just give me a minute to type it all up,” Adam said. He excused himself from the office to borrow a computer.
“I’ll leave you two to talk,” Toby said, glancing down at his phone. “I have to make some quick phone calls, start the whole publicity tour for you two.”
Paige visibly blanched. “I just thought this was going to be for his father’s lawyer. There’s going to be press involved?”
“It won’t be a problem, will it?” Toby asked.
“No, of course not,” she said. She added sheepishly, “I’m just not used to cameras like you two probably are.”
“You don’t ever get used to them,” Luke said darkly. He hated those damn reporters that followed him around the city, documenting whoever came and went from his apartment.
Toby shot him a dirty look. “It won’t be anything major. Just a few events here in New York that Luke will be expected to be at.”
He squeezed Paige on the shoulder in passing. For some reason, Luke’s chest burned hotly at the soft smile she gave Toby before he stepped out. He shook the feeling away before he could think about it.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked. “Once we sign that document, you’re stuck with me for thirty days.”
“As long as I get what I asked for,” Paige said. “It seems we both need each other more than we want to admit.”
“So it seems,” Luke replied.
They sat in tense silence for a few minutes while they waited for Adam and Toby to return to the office. It was Paige who broke the silence with a question.
“I know you said before that your father’s office is here in New York, but why? Why not somewhere where there is an abundance of oil?”
“My father came to New York when he was a teenager,” Luke said, shrugging his shoulders. “He loved the rich and the parties here. My grandfather started Turner Oil by himself. When he passed away, it went to my father, and he did return to Bismarck until he married. Once I was old enough to work on an oil rig, he came back here to the office to do the overseas business.”
Paige’s eyes widened. “Overseas?”
“Overseas,” Luke confirmed with a tense smile. “We have oil rigs all over the world, and in the oceans as well.”
“Wow,” she said, sitting back in her chair. “I didn’t realize this business was that well-accomplished.”
Pride filled Luke just thinking about it. For the past few years, he had navigated through the rocky market and international ties. His father had been far too drunk and beligerent to deal with anyone.
The door to his office opened. Adam stepped in with the freshly printed document. He handed it over to Luke to glance over. He signed it after skimming it quickly and then scooted it across the desk.
His heart pounded, much to his surprise, as Paige picked up the pen with a shaky breath. She looked up at him then, a vulnerable tinge in her eyes.
“You aren’t going to screw me over, are you?”
That question added to the small ball of guilt in his stomach. Not with the money portion of it. Ignoring that thought, Luke reached over to lay a consoling hand on her trembling one. Her skin felt clammy and sweaty against his dry fingers.
“I don’t plan on it,” he said. “I can’t anyway, but don’t sign this unless you are confident in what you are about to do.”
She chewed on her bottom lip. “My future is on the line too. I don’t want to lose sight of what I want either.”
She picked the pen up again, and this time she signed her name neatly on the line.
****
Luke stared down at Paige’s neatly scrawled name on the line. He tried to keep the pleased grin off his face, but he knew he had failed when Paige rolled her eyes at him.
“Don’t look too pleased about all of this,” she said. “I still don’t want to sleep with you even if we are going to fake a relationship.”
“I don’t fake sex, darling.” The center of her cheeks reddened. “How long do you plan on teasing me with that condition?”
“I’m not teasing you. That is honestly how I feel about it. You signed the document, so you can’t convince me otherwise.”
He sat back in his chair with a frustrated sigh. If she wanted to play that sort of game, then she’d lose. “We’ll see about that,” he said confidently, and when Paige’s eyes flashed defiantly, he continued. “Moving on though. That event Toby was talking about is this upcoming weekend, Friday night. Then I have to be at another party Saturday night. Right?”
Toby nodded when he looked over at Luke.
“Yes. We are busy this month with appearances he needs to do here in New York before returning to North Dakota.”
“Why are you going back to North Dakota?” Paige asked.
“To tour the oil rigs there,” Luke said, glancing down at the documents he had been going over before Paige’s phone call. “All business, sweetheart. I plan to squeeze a trip to Alaska in there too.”
Paige’s eyes widened. “Alaska? All in one month you plan to do this?”
“Yes,” he said, shrugging. “This is my life. You’re hitched to me, so get used to it.”
“That’s fine and dandy for you,” she said, “but how am I supposed to do any of my homework? I have responsibilities here in New York too.”
“Bring it along for all I care.”
“What Luke is saying,” Toby said, shaking his head at his friend’s roughness, “is that we will work with you if you work with us. We’ve been in business for a long time. You can look at our business friendships if you are worried about us not being willing to work with you.”
“I just don’t think either one of you understands that my schoolwork means a lot to me,” Paige said. She looked over at Luke, who shrugged his shoulders. “Your business means everything to you. My schoolwork means the same thing to me.”
Luke felt Toby’s fingers dig into his shoulder. Wincing, he nodded mutely in agreement with her. “Yeah, I get it. I promise to respect that.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“All right,” Toby said, clapping his hands. “It’s settled then. We’ve got the terms spelled out for the both of you. Let’s just do some publicity leg work before we see Peter.”
“Right,” Paige said, and stood up from her chair. She slipped the strap of her leather satchel over her shoulder. “I guess we’ll be in contact, then, when you need me?”
“I’ll email you a list of everything and a schedule,” Toby said, smiling. “Just so you have a heads-up with your schedule.”
She started in the direction of the door, but Luke stood up from his chair. He needed some air and food.
“I can have my driver take you back to NYU,” he said. “I’ll walk down with you.”
Paige hesitated before nodding. She waited patiently as he left instructions for his employees before they took the elevator down to the lobby. He couldn’t contain his glee, but neither could he contain his nerves. Paige was going to be perfect in Peter’s eyes, but he knew he had to keep things to himself for the next thirty days too.
A group of reporters appeared in view when they stepped out of the elevator. Luke reached out to grab Paige’s arm before they could see them. He tugged her back into a small hallway out of their sight.
“What is it?” Paige asked, confused. “I thought that was the way out.”
“One of the ways,” Luke said, texting his driver to pull around into the private garage. “There are reporters out there. They’ll bombard us with questions the second they see you, along with plastering our pictures all over.”
Her eyes widened. She glanced around the corner to watch the group of them mill about the front of the building with bored expressions. “Are they paid just to sit there and wait?”
“They are paid for a story shot,” Luke muttered grumpily. He was in no mood for them to harass him before they were prepared to face the cameras.
“How does an oil tycoon get front-page coverage?” She blushed when he looked at her sharply. “No offense. You aren’t a celebrity who is seen on the front page of magazines all the time.”
“No, I’m not. I don’t like being there either.”
“What put you there then?”
It was the last thing he wanted to explain to Paige. What was he supposed to say? I got skunk drunk one night, had sex with a complete stranger in an elevator, and the whole thing was recorded on camera. Then, my father released a furious statement about it. That’s why they follow me. They thrive off that drama.
His phone buzzed as the driver confirmed he was in the private garage.
“This way,” Luke said, nodding to Paige to follow him. “I don’t care what people say about me in the papers, but it gets annoying to have cameras shoved up in your business when you step outside.”
“I imagine,” she replied.
Once in the garage, Luke opened the passenger door and helped Paige climb in before rounding the SUV to hop in himself. The second they pulled out onto the street, cameras flashed, but it was too late. They had already merged into traffic.
Luke sat back in his seat with a relieved sigh. His stomach growled hungrily, and he looked over at Paige, who was toying with her phone nervously.
“Do you want to get something to eat?” he asked.
“What?”
“There’s a diner that my mom used to own. No one knows about it besides a few people.”
Paige chewed on her lip in contemplation. “I guess. I haven’t eaten today yet, but I need to get back to NYU soon. I have a class.”
“We won’t be long. I promise.”
They pulled up to the small diner ten minutes later. Just seeing it filled Luke with a painful nostalgia for the days when he would come in with his mother whenever they were in the city. Surprisingly, his father had been supportive of his wife owning a diner. She had a talent for cooking.
The smell of chocolate milkshakes and cheeseburgers filled Luke’s lungs as he guided Paige inside. He nodded his hellos to the few employees who had worked there since his mother had owned it.
“Just the usual?” one of the waitresses asked kindly. “Cheeseburger, fries, and a chocolate shake?”
Luke nodded as he held up two fingers. “Make it double. She has to try my mom’s cheeseburgers and fries.”
Paige looked mildly impressed as she gazed about the diner curiously. “I have to admit,” she said, looking back at him, “I didn’t think you’d be the type of guy to order a cheeseburger. You look like you count calories.”
“Fuck no,” he said. “The only way I ever bulked up was eating meat and working on that oil rig for years.”
“Makes sense.” Paige took a sip of water when the waitress returned with their drinks. “So, your mom owned this place?”
“Up until she passed away,” Luke said, smoothing his hands over the tabletop. “She was a fantastic cook, but she loved dinner food in particular. My father encouraged it because it gave us something to do while we were in New York for business.”
“It’s just so…” She trailed off while searching for the right word.
“Random?” he supplied, and chuckled when Paige nodded. “It is, but it made sense to my mom at the time.”
“Why don’t you own this?” she asked curiously. “If it was your mom’s—”
“My father sold it,” Luke said, sharper than he meant. Anger bubbled in his chest still despite how many years it had been. “I was too young to run it when my mom died, so he sold it because he had no idea how to run it.”
“Oh.”
They fell into silence while Luke squashed the anger in him. This wasn’t the time to hash out the screwed-up things his father had done over the years.
“Your childhood wasn’t the best,” Paige said quietly then. “Shannon told me about your dad. I don’t blame you for being so angry.”
“I’m not anymore,” Luke said, even though it was a lie. “I channeled all of that into everything I do for this business.”
As she ran a hand through the curly waves of her hair, Paige used her straw to stir her water around. “My parents aren’t perfect examples either. They didn’t even want me to come to New York in the first place.”
“They’re strict Christians, right?” When she looked at him in surprise, Luke added with a smile, “Shannon told me about your family.”
“Shannon is the middle woman here,” Paige said. He picked up the anger in her voice. She obviously still hadn’t forgiven them for how they had gone about trying to woo her into his arms. “To answer your question, yes. They got to church all the time. They don’t believe in sex before marriage. They didn’t agree with me coming here because they are afraid that I’ll go back on my vows.”
“Vows?” he repeated, scoffing. “No offense, Paige, but this is the twenty-first century. People have sex before marriage all the time.”
“And you’re a prime example of that,” she said cynically. “It’s a long story how I got to those vows. I’d rather not tell you about it.”
“I don’t care to know anyway. I’m just saying that you’re an adult. You aren’t controlled by your parents here in the city.”
“It’s different for you though. I have to rely on my parents to help me get through college. Their opinion does matter to me to an extent.”
“So, you’re saying they’d disown you for having sex with me before our wedding?” Luke asked.
That pretty red color returned to Paige’s cheeks.
“First off,” she said, “it’s not a real wedding, right?”
“It might have to be depending on what my father’s lawyer says.”
“You’d be stuck with me then,” Paige said. “I don’t believe in divorce either.”
Luke drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “It doesn’t work like that. You wouldn’t want to be stuck in a marriage with me, anyway.”
“Why is that?”
“I’m not a good guy to be with long term,” he said, catching her eyes. “I don’t believe in marriage, or waiting for the wedding night.”
“Don’t you think it would be better to wait for thirty days?” she asked. “Imagine the anticipation behind that.”
He couldn’t tell if Paige was teasing him intentionally, but it aroused him. He had no plans on waiting thirty days to persuade her into his arms. Even if he had to exhaust every move in his book, he planned on getting Paige Scott in his bed well before the date they set.
“You don’t know me very well,” Luke said, grinning at her. “I’m a very impatient man. There is no such thing as anticipation for me. I can build it up in other ways that you don’t even know about yet, baby. Trust me on that.”