Chapter 11
LUKE
On the ride down to the lobby, I became acutely aware of how close we were. Clara’s vanilla scent filled the elevator just like it had filled my nose last night when I’d finally slipped into bed. My senses had rejected it at first. No women ever made it into my personal sanctuary.
My hookups were in hotels and the backs of limos.
The few conquests who actually made it back to my place had been entertained in one of the guestrooms. The idea of someone invading my private space was upsetting, but the reality of it was less so.
After a few minutes, I had been breathing her in like intoxicating smoke. It lulled me to sleep.
When I had woken up, I smelled the vanilla before I even opened my eyes, and wild excitement had filled me, knowing we would be spending the morning together.
That was a terrible sign. Taking Clara shopping was simply an errand to run, not something fun to look forward to.
The last thing I needed was to start thinking our arrangement was the real thing.
That way lies madness.
The elevator doors opened and we got out. Clara looked at me with sleepy eyes. “Before we do anything else, can we please get some coffee?”
I frowned. “We’re on a tight schedule.”
“All the more reason to get me caffeinated,” she said with a smile. “I move a lot faster with coffee.”
I rolled my eyes and nodded. “Fine. I’ll have my driver take us to a coffee shop before we get going.”
“Oh, is Lenny here?” Her eyes lit with excitement and she looked around the lobby like he might be inside, instead of out waiting with the car.
Jealousy stabbed my heart unexpectedly. “Look who’s suddenly awake,” I said, trying to hide the anger in my voice. “Maybe try not to gush about other men when you’re pretending to be my girlfriend.”
I walked toward the exit without waiting for her.
She hurried to catch up. “Sorry, I just like his accent.”
“Well, lucky him,” I groused without looking at her. “If you’d rather pretend to be his girlfriend, go ahead. Maybe he has a spare bedroom for you and an extra hundred grand lying around to pay you.”
I slammed open the exit before the doorman could get it first. He looked like he was going to say something to me, perhaps a greeting or an apology for not being quick enough, but the expression on my face must have scared him. He closed his mouth, nodded, and kept his eyes lowered.
The cold air outside felt good on my heated skin, and I took a deep breath to quell the rage building inside me like a storm. My relationship with Clara was fake, but the jealousy I felt was very real.
She joined me on the sidewalk. “Are you mad at me?” she asked quietly.
“Maybe this idea was a mistake,” I said. “We should call the whole thing off.”
“What? Why? Because I mentioned another guy?”
I shook my head, still not looking at her. “Because you’re way more excited about seeing my driver than seeing me. If you can’t muster up that sort of enthusiasm for our pretend relationship, I think I chose poorly.”
I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting of Clara.
I had known her most of my life and I couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t tucked in a pocket of my earliest memories from boyhood, but that was where she stayed—the studious, somewhat nerdy little sister of my best friend who ran in a crowd so different from mine.
I was the sports star and my life had always revolved around football, even now that I wasn’t on the field, but she had changed.
She was prettier than ever, even in the trendy, slightly baggy jeans I loathed and a green and gray sweater under a khaki wool trench coat.
People walking past kept stealing glances at her as they passed.
Even fucking Lenny, who had just emerged from the SUV, seemed to focus on her in the morning sunshine.
Clara put her hand on my arm softly. “Look at me.”
My instinct was to refuse and keep pouting like a child, but that realization cracked through the jealousy smothering me. No woman was worth getting this twisted up over, especially a woman who was technically my employee. In that respect, she had more in common with Lenny than with me.
Fucking Lenny with his exotic accent. Ladies went nuts for that shit.
I looked down at Clara and tried to soften my glare. “I’m looking.”
She met my gaze. “I’m sorry if I did something wrong. Please know that I’m eternally grateful for this opportunity. And I’ll do my best to be whatever you need me to be to show your bosses you’re reliable. I’m sorry I made you jealous.”
I scoffed and looked away. “I’m not jealous.”
“Okay,” she said, holding up her palm. “Of course not. I just mean, I want to be a good fake girlfriend. So if ground rule number two needs to be don’t talk about other guys, I can do that.”
Hearing her lay it out like that made me feel guilty. I let out a long breath and looked at her again, this time putting my hands on her shoulders gently. “That’s not going to be ground rule two, okay? That’s insane.”
“Okay.” Her shoulders relaxed a little under my grip. “Can we still get coffee?”
I nodded and her smile outshone the winter sun. “However, I just remembered a really good café nearby,” I said. “So we’ll be walking.”
“Oh, my God,” she said, laughing, but she grabbed my arm and leaned against me. It made my anger melt away like snow on the sidewalk in spring.
We walked around the block to a little bistro and grabbed a table. The day’s schedule was already thrown off. Might as well feed the poor girl. Besides, if I wanted her to act like my girlfriend, it would help if we did some couple things, like sharing a lazy morning meal.
Once we had our coffee and were waiting for our food, Clara smiled at me. “Sorry about the mix-up last night. I didn’t know that was your room. You don’t have anything personal in there. It looked like a hotel room.”
“I like to keep things tidy. No crime in that.” I took a sip of coffee.
“Sure, but no pictures, no art on the walls, not even Chapstick on the nightstand?” She shrugged. “How was I supposed to know that’s how you live?”
“I should have given you the tour,” I said. “It’s funny. You’re the first woman to ever sleep in that bed.”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t believe that for a second. Despite your name, you’re no saint, Luke.”
“Exactly. I get around. The last thing I want is for any of these women to know where I live.” Her nose wrinkled and I chuckled.
“In my defense, I’ve had a lot of stalkers in the past. I kept having to move.
Hmm, maybe that’s why I’ve stopped personalizing my home.
Maybe part of me still worries I’ll have to leave with very little warning. ”
Clara’s eyes were wide. “I can’t believe you’ve had stalkers.”
“Yeah, it started way back in college, once I made a name for myself playing ball.” I chuckled and shook my head. “At first, I thought it was great. Woman tracking me down and throwing themselves at me. But, man, I found out real quick what kind of whackadoodles are out there.”
“What kind of stuff did they do?” she asked, coffee in hand.
“Where do I start? Middle-aged women driving three states over to try to bang a teenager. That was kind of gross. One girl cut off a lock of my hair while I was asleep. Another stole all my underwear. And I mean all of it.”
Clara laughed and covered her hand with her mouth. “I’m sorry, I know it’s not funny, but wow.”
“No, it’s kind of funny now,” I said, smiling. “But it forced me to change how I interact with people. It’s tough to trust someone when most people just want something from you. It got worse once I went pro and it hasn’t stopped since I’m still on TV.”
“That sounds terrible.”
The server brought our food over and we started eating. “It’s not easy,” I said. “But it’s the price of fame and I’ll be the last one to complain about my life. I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.”
She nodded. “The view from your penthouse is pretty nice.”
“Right?” I laughed. “Now you see why I don’t want crazy fans to run me out of this apartment. I really like it there.”
After breakfast, I got Clara another coffee to go and we took a cab to the huge department store I had checked out online. Shopping had never been my thing, and all my clothes these days were tailormade for me. I didn’t get out to many stores like this.
Clara looked through some of the racks and saleswomen trotted out their suggestions, but Clara seemed hesitant to pick anything out. I found it confusing. The clothes were on my dime.
I pulled her aside so we could talk just the two of us. “I know this stuff isn’t your style, but there has to be something you wouldn’t mind wearing. Or we can go somewhere else. I just heard the clothes here were phenomenal.”
“Do you bring all your fake girlfriends here?” she asked.
I laughed. “You’re the first.”
“None of this feels like me.” She glanced around. “I mean, it’s all nice, but I’ll end up looking like a little kid wearing her mother’s clothes if I get in any of this.”
I sighed. “You cannot wear those atrocious jeans to any of the functions on my calendar.”
“Let’s go look upstairs,” she said.
We took an escalator up, and her eyes caught the massive Christmas village clogging the entirety of the third floor. She squealed and ran toward it, and I knew I’d lost her.
Clara found a few elves manning the Christmas Village, and I watched in annoyance as she struck up a conversation with the ladies. They talked and laughed with her like they were old friends seeing each other after a few years apart.
Within moments, she had learned the elves were actors.
They invited her to the play they were in, an off-Broadway show that was a modern retelling of A Christmas Carol.
Clara beamed and exchanged numbers with everyone.
Did she realize how easily she just burrowed her way into new friendships and connections?
She had a talent for it, which was something I had never possessed. My talent and decent looks had gotten me far in life, but I always struggled to connect. Trusting people was difficult for me. I tended to push people away rather than let them in.
When she said her goodbyes to her new friends, she came over to where I lingered by a huge cardboard cutout of a gingerbread house. “I’m already meeting people in the business!”
“I’m glad,” I said.
“These remind me of the sets I made for the Christmas Spectacular back in high school,” she said, leaning in for a closer look at the details on the gingerbread house. “Talk about a blast from the past. Do you even remember that?”
“Oh, I remember you dressed as an elf,” I said. “Maybe that’s why you bonded so quickly with those actors. Elf blood runs in your veins.”
Clara smiled. “And you were a decent Santa, even though that costume did not fit you at all. You were way bigger than the rest of us, even back then.”
The way she said bigger made me wonder what else she remembered about the play, especially the part where she sat on my lap. Before she could walk down memory lane to that particular detail, I grabbed her hand and spun her to look at me.
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “We can come back down and look around here, after you let one of the seamstresses here take your measurements. Then we can send them to my personal stylist and you two can figure out what to wear. Deal?”
Clara nodded, eyes bright like this was turning into a big adventure. “Deal.”
While she was getting her measurements, I got an email from my secretary. I wasn’t on air tonight, but there was an update to my calendar. A dinner at a fancy, exclusive Italian restaurant on the west side with a group of investors and several board members.
I clenched my jaw, never a fan of plans changing last minute like this. “Slight change of plans, Clara. We’re going to have to buy at least one dress here. You and I have a date tonight.”