Marriage Made on Paper

He shrugged his broad shoulders and his shirt pulled tight across his muscular chest, exposing the outline of his pectoral muscles. She looked away. “It doesn’t matter to me what the vocal minority thinks. No matter how many protesters show up at a construction site, the general public still patronizes my hotels and I can still sleep at night. Anything else is an incidental. It wouldn’t matter at all if weren’t for the shareholders. The curse of going public.”

“Why did you choose to go public then? You don’t strike me as the sort of man who likes to be accountable to anyone.”

He leaned back in his chair and pushed his dark hair off of his forehead. “You noticed.”

“Hard not to.”

“I went public because it’s a great way to increase visibility. And at the time I had debts to pay off from the start-up of the company. It helped increase my capital immensely, and enabled me to pay off the business loans I’d taken out.”

Gage was from a fairly affluent family, that was general knowledge. It surprised her that he’d had to take out loans to start up his company. She’d imagined him having full family support, both financially and emotionally. The fact that he started the same as she had, by herself, with nothing and no one standing by to bail her out, made her stomach tighten.

“But now you have to play the diplomacy game,” she said.

“I would anyway. I develop resort and hotel properties, the public has to have a favorable view of me.”

“That’s true.”

For the most part, the public did have a favorable view of him. He was charismatic and charming and dated the most eligible women in Hollywood, which put him on the front cover of a lot of magazines and made him very high-profile for a businessman.

He was also a slave-driving taskmaster, but only his employees knew that. And in fairness, he never expected anything from her that he didn’t expect from himself. In fact, he seemed to expect more from himself. Which was why, even when her phone rang at 3:00 a.m., she managed to resist hurling obscenities at him.

“Anything else on the agenda?” she asked.

“I need a date for an event tomorrow. Fundraiser. Art gala.”

“And you’ve misplaced your little black book?”

“No, it’s in a safe somewhere so that no one can ever get their hands on it and use it for evil.”

“You use it for evil,” she said.

“On occasion. But the real issue is that none of my black book entries are suitable.”

“Well that sounds like an issue of taste to me,” she said. It bothered her sometimes—okay, all the time—that a man with his drive to succeed dated women who were such bubbleheads. But then, she didn’t imagine he was interested in the contents of their minds.

“No, it’s an issue of venue. I want you to go with me.”

“What?”

“But you need something else to wear.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What?”

“You’re intelligent. You know how to make conversation.”

“So do most women. You just tend to date women who can’t talk and walk at the same time without injuring themselves.”

“I didn’t know you had an opinion on my choice of companion.”

She gritted her teeth. “Doesn’t matter, what matters is that I shield the public from the full horror of it. And what’s wrong with the way I dress?”

She spent an obscene amount of money buying good quality clothing and having it tailored. She always, always, looked polished and ready for a press conference. Always. It was essential to her job and she took it very seriously.

“Nothing. If you have a business meeting. But you look more like a politician’s wife than a woman I would take to a fundraiser.”

“Politicians’ wives go to fundraisers.”

“But I’m not a politician.”

“And I’m not for hire.”

His dark brows locked together. “No. You’re not, because I already hired you. You work for me, and if I need you I expect you to make yourself available. You signed a contract agreeing to it.”

“To be your PR specialist at all hours, which is quite enough, thank you very much, not to hang on your arm at art galas.”

“This is PR. I could skip the fundraiser and look like a capitalist pig with no conscience, or I could go with Shan Carter. She gave me her number the other night.”

An image of the spoiled blonde heiress in her thigh-high boots and cling-wrap dress flashed before Lily’s eyes.

“You can’t do that,” she said, all of her PR training recoiling in horror at the thought.

“I know. I didn’t even need you to tell me.”

“Fine. I’ll go. But you’re not picking my dress.”

His icy gaze swept her up and down. “You’re not.”

“Why not? You’ve never seen me in date clothes. You don’t know what my date clothes look like.” She didn’t own date clothes, but he didn’t have to know that. She had confidence in her taste in clothes. She knew what she looked good in and she really didn’t need some wafer-thin personal shopper to try and tell her what she already knew.

“All right, but no tweed.”

“I don’t wear tweed. Well, I have a jacket that’s tweed, but it’s chic. Lycra isn’t the official fabric of fashion, you know. Though I know you couldn’t prove it by your dates.”

He shrugged in that casual manner of his, that shrug that seemed especially designed to provoke her. “I like to have fun. I work hard. My obligations are met. I see no issue with conducting my personal life in the way I see fit.”

He had a point, as much as she hated to admit it. Although she couldn’t imagine why any woman in her right mind would date him. Well, that was a lie, it was obvious visually why a woman would want to date him. He was tall, broad-shouldered and perfectly built. But on a personal level, while he was smart and fun to banter with, he was also totally uncompromising when it came down to it, and she knew she could never deal with a man like that. She’d seen the kind of toll a man like that could take on a woman’s life. And she’d vowed she wouldn’t become like that. She wasn’t letting anyone have control over her life.

Although, obviously Gage had some modicum of control over her life since he was her boss, but that was different. When a woman gave a man her body he owned a piece of her. She thought the whole thing was just entirely too unsettling. And no matter how gorgeous Gage was, it wasn’t enough to erase the memories that she carried with her. Warnings. Her mother’s mistakes had to count for something, otherwise they really would be a complete tragedy, and as contentious as her relationship with her mother was, she didn’t want that.

“If you expect me to buy new clothes you have to give me time to shop.”

“You can have the afternoon off.”

She shook her head, her tight bun staying firmly in place. “Morning and afternoon. I need sleep.”

“Morning to lunch hour,” he countered.

“Deal.”