Sandra Marton - Not For Sale

“The lobby of the Palace. Eight o’clock sharp. No. Make it ten of the hour.” That way, he’d have time to hand the Sinclair woman cab fare and get rid of her if she turned out to be totally wrong for the job. “Tell her to dress appropriately.” He paused. “She can do that, can’t she?”

“She’ll dress appropriately, sir.”

“And, of course, make it clear I’ll pay her for her time. Say, one thousand dollars for the evening.”

He could see Gordon all but swallowing another laugh. Yes, Lucas thought coldly, why wouldn’t he find his employer’s predicament amusing? If this worked, he could take credit for saving Lucas’s corporate ass. But oh, if it didn’t…

“That sounds fine, sir.” Gordon held out his hand. “Good luck.”

Lucas looked at the outstretched hand, fought back a sense of repugnance he knew was foolish and accepted the handshake.

Jack Gordon hurried back to his own office before he pulled out his cell and hit a speed dial digit.

“Dani. Baby, have I got a deal for you!”

He explained as quickly as possible; Dani Sinclair was not one for long conversations but then, that wasn’t what men paid her for. When he’d finished, he heard the slow exhalation of her breath.

“So, let me get this straight. You told some guy—”

“Not just some guy, baby. Lucas Vieira. The Lucas Vieira. The guy with more money than God.”

“You told him I’d give him a date?”

“Yeah. Only, not that kind of date. This is dinner with Vieira, a Russian guy and the guy’s wife. You need to act like you and Vieira are a thing. And you need to translate.” Jack laughed softly. “I guess taking a degree in Cyrillic languages was a good idea after all.”

“I’m taking my Master’s,” Dani Sinclair said, “and a girl has to think about her future.” She paused. “How much did you say he’ll pay?”

“A thousand.”

Dani laughed. “Did you forget my going rate, Jack? It’s ten thousand for the evening.”

“Baby, we go way back. Elementary school. Middle school. High school.”

“Fine. I’ll give you a special discount. Five thousand.”

“Jeez. For a meal?”

“And, of course, my usual fee if your Mr. Vieira wants anything else.”

Jack Gordon rubbed the top of his head. “If he wants more, you can negotiate the fee yourself.”

Dani chuckled. “Jack, you wily fox. You haven’t told him about me. What, you want him to be shocked?”

“I want him to owe me,” Jack Gordon said, his tone suddenly cold. “And he will, no matter how this goes.”

“Charming. Okay, so when does this happen?”

“I thought I told you. Tonight. The Palace lobby. Ten minutes of eight.”

“Oh, but I…” Dani fell silent. Five K to eat a fancy meal, talk some Russian and in between, pretend she was the date of Lucas Vieira, the gorgeous, sexy, take-no-prisoners Wall Street tough guy. And a minimum of ten K if he ended up wanting to prolong the evening.

So tempting. If only she could do it. Trouble was, she already had a date for tonight, with a Texas oilman who came through the city once a month like clockwork.

There had to be a way…

“Dani?”

And there was. She could clear, say, forty-five hundred without doing a thing besides making a phone call.

“Yes,” she said briskly. “Fine. The lobby, the Palace, ten of eight.”

She disconnected, checked her cell’s contact list and hit a button. A female voice answered on the third ring, sounding breathless and a little rushed.

“Caroline? It’s Dani. Dani, from the Chekhov seminar? Listen, sweetie, I have a translating job that I don’t have time to take and I thought, right away, of you.”

Caroline Hamilton used a hip to shut the door of her Hell’s Kitchen walk-up, then tucked her cell phone between her ear and her shoulder, shifted the grocery bags she held so she could free a hand and secure the door’s three locks.

Dani from the Chekhov seminar? Caroline tried to picture her as she made her way across the six feet of floor space to what her landlord insisted was a kitchen. Yes, okay. Dani, a fellow Master of Arts student in Russian and Slavic Studies. Tall, stunning, dressed in the latest designer stuff. They’d never spoken except to say “hi” and “see you next time,” and to exchange numbers in case one needed to check with the other about an assignment.

“Caroline? You still there?”

“I’m here.” Caroline eased the grocery bags onto the counter, took a Lean Cuisine from one, worked at opening the little tear strip on the box while still keeping the phone at her ear. “A translating job, you said?”

“That’s right. An unusual one. It involves dinner.”

Caroline’s belly rumbled. She had passed on lunch. No time, less money. The phone slipped as she finally got the container from the package. She grabbed it before it hit the Formica counter.

“…as the pretend G.F. of a rich guy.”

“What?” Caroline said, reading the directions. Three minutes on high, peel back the liner, stir, another minute and a half—

“I said, it’s dinner. You meet this hotshot business guy at the Palace Hotel and you pretend you’re his girlfriend. See, there’s another couple and they speak Russian. Your guy doesn’t, so you’ll translate for him.”

Caroline put the Lean Cuisine into the nuker, shrugged off her jacket, pushed her thick, straight-as-a-stick mane of no-real-color hair back from her face, blew strands of it out of her hazel eyes.

“Why would I pretend I’m his girlfriend?”

“You just would,” Dani said, “that’s all.”

Caroline punched in the three minutes. “Thanks but I’ll pass. I mean, it sounds, well, weird.”

“One hundred bucks.”

“Dani, look…”

“Two hundred. And that meal. Then the night’s over, you go home with two hundred dollars in your jeans. Except,” she added hurriedly, “except, of course, you can’t wear jeans.”

“Well, that’s that, then. I definitely don’t have—”

“I’m a size six. You?”

“A six. But—”

“Size seven shoes, right?”

Caroline sank onto the rickety wooden stool that graced the counter. “Right. But honestly—”

“Three hundred,” Dani said briskly. “And I’m on my way. A dress. Shoes. Makeup. Think of what fun this will be.”

All Caroline could think of was three hundred dollars. You didn’t need to be a linguist to translate that into a piece of next month’s rent.

“Caroline! I need your address. We’re running out of time here.”

Caroline gave it. Told herself to ignore the prickly feeling dancing down her spine, told herself that same thing again, two hours later, when Dani spun her toward the mirror and she saw.

“Cinderella,” Dani said, laughing at Caroline’s shocked expression. “Hey, one last thing, okay? Let this guy think you’re me. See, the friend who set this up thinks I’m gonna do the date, I mean, be the date, and it’s easier all around if we keep it that way.”

Caroline looked at her reflection again. Dani’s fifty-dollar-a-bottle conditioner had taken her hair from no-color to pale gold. Her hazel eyes glittered, thanks to the light sparkle of gold shadow on her lids. Her cheekbones and mouth were a delicate pink and her dress…Cobwebs. Slinky black cobwebs that showed more leg than she’d ever shown except in shorts or a swimsuit. And on her feet, gold sandals, their heels so high she wondered if she’d be able to walk.

She didn’t look like herself anymore, and something about that terrified her.

“Dani. I don’t—I can’t—”

“You’re meeting him in half an hour.”

“No, really, it just feels wrong. To lie, to pretend I’m you, that I’m this Luke Vieira’s girlfriend—”