11. Paige
Call me childish. Call me stubborn. Call me an idiot, lunatic, weirdo even. But never, ever, say that I am lucky.
Luck and I do not coexist.
“What do you mean you have to cancel?” I say breathily into my phone. I’m scrambling for paperwork, trying to find the file for the party that the photographer I’m currently on the phone with is trying to bail on. It is a 90th birthday party at the end of the week with over three hundred guests downtown. I couldn’t mess this up, there were too many potential clients that would be at this party. I have hardly been in business for a year, the fact that I’d landed such a large, upscale party had been a miracle.
Not luck.
A pure, unadulterated, miracle.
If there are any shortcomings with this party, specifically no photos then it would be a very fast end to my very expensive dream.
“I’m sorry, but something came up.” The photographer says before I hear some shouting on the other end of her line. “I hope the party goes well.” She says finally, before hanging up the phone and I’m left slack jawed to stare at the darn thing.
How was I supposed to find a photographer by the end of the week? It was amazing that I’d even managed to get her on short notice after the family suddenly decided they wanted a photographer at the event. It’s prime spring wedding season and I just know that I’m sunk.
Goodbye Events by Paige, it was nice knowing you.
“You good over there Pages?” Maxon is lounging on my couch and my gaze darts to him. I’ve been trying very hard to ignore the behemoth of a man ever since he decided he’d be working from my office for the day. When I make any comment about him having to go work at his office he simply shrugs me off with indifference and tells me that it was the nice thing about being the boss. He was incredibly annoying like that.
Not to mention he found my Barbie pillow and was getting his spicy, man-scent all over it. I silently made an oath to myself that I will not cuddle it closer tonight because of the smell. I will not.
My eye twitches slightly. “Yes. Everything is just fine.” I say with tight words, focusing back on my computer screen. I can just make out his form from the corner of my eye.
He chuckles, never taking his eyes off his phone. “Sounds like you could use some help.”
I grind my teeth. “I’m fine, thank you.”
“Really? ‘Cause it sounds like you could use my photographer.”
I freeze, my gaze darting to him. “You don’t have a photographer.”
He nods, his focus still on his phone. “I actually do. I had a few investment properties that I needed photos taken of a few weeks back. As far as I know she’s still in the area.”
I narrow my gaze. Was this one of his ex-girlfriends? Or whatever it is a serial dater has… A pang of jealousy slices through me at the thought. Maxon has been on a dating spree ever since he went off to college, I distinctly remember Aspen talking about all the different girls that Maxon would bring to different parties. And every single time I would bristle at his words and find a reason to leave the room entirely. “What’s her name?”
“Laney Douglas.”
My brows shoot up as I watch him. “She’s a photographer?” I pull out my phone, searching for the number she’d given me months ago when we were planning Katie’s bridal shower.
Max gives an elaborate nod from the couch. “Yes ma’am. A pretty good one too. She typically works for a travel magazine but is doing some side gigs. It actually surprises me that you didn’t know this… you know, going off how close the two of you looked the other day at Danika’s.”
There’s a point to his tone, like he’s trying to nail me for the elaborate charade Laney and I had put on in order to avoid him. Instead, I choose to ignore the unsaid accusation entirely. “Do you think she’d be free for the end of the week?”
He makes a humming noise, the deep, rumbly sound setting off a fluttering feeling in my stomach that I couldn’t contain. It was the kind of sound that you hear once and it lives on in your dreams for months to come, haunting and teasing you because you know it’s not as good as the real thing. And goodness knows that sound has been a weakness of mine since we were in high school.
“I bet I can find out if you agree to come back to the estate with me.” He says, still beating on the dead horse that I’d tried to bury this morning. How the man thinks it’s a good idea for us to live together is beyond me. We couldn’t even spend an evening together without getting into an argument. Although, that mostly stemmed from the fact that he has expendable income and I, as we can all plainly see, do not.
“No, it’s fine. I don’t need your help.” I say, turning my attention back to my phone and scrolling through my contacts until I find Laney’s, once again ignoring the man lounging on my couch.
He makes that humming noise again, raising all the thin hairs along my arm and sending a shiver up my spine so strong I have to stifle a quiver. Dang him.
I quickly click on Laney’s contact number and wait for the call to connect.
“Yellow!” Laney’s bubbly voice comes through the phone.
“Hey, Laney, it’s Paige.” I say, grabbing a pen from the jar on my desk and fiddling with it, just to have something to occupy my hands.
“Hey! Cashing in on that coffee we talked about?” She laughs and the stress induced tension in my shoulders melts slightly. I steal a glance towards Max where he still lays on my couch, but now, instead of his focus on his phone, his dark, steamy gaze is locked on me.
“Well, yes and no. I’m actually calling you for a fav-”
“Hold on one second Paige.” Laney stops me before I hear something like the phone being set down, then distant yelling. “Cheddar no! Put that down! GET BACK HERE!” Then there’s a second of silence from the other end of the line before she’s back. “Hey, sorry about that. Dumb cat stole my donut. So, what’s up?”
“I’m in desperate need of a photographer.”
“Oh! I can help with that.”
My anxiety lifts. “Are you available Saturday?”
Another second of silence but this time it’s different, deafening almost as my question hangs in the air and my heart starts to make a steady trek up my chest and into my throat. “This weekend? You’re kidding. I literally just got booked for something else.” She says and I deflate.
Serves me right for hoping.
“Oh.” Is all I’m able to say. “That’s fine.” I lie.
“I’m so sorry, if you were like five minutes sooner.” She says and my brow comes together as I straighten in my seat.
“Oh… five minutes, huh?”
“Yeah. I’ve actually been doing a bunch of work for him lately… and you’ll never guess who he is…” she says and I can practically hear the knowing grin in her voice.
I grit my teeth. “Maxon Grant?” I ask, my voice tight.
“Yes?” He says from the couch the same second she says “That’s the guy,” with a little laugh.
“I’m going to have to call you back.” I say, my gaze narrowing on Maxon before she says her hurried goodbye, because I’m not sure there’s anything about Laney that isn’t hurried at this rate, and focus on the man in front of me.
“How’d the phone call with Ms. Douglas go?” He has the nerve to ask, and I bristle, standing up from my desk and walking towards him still on my couch.
“What do you want?” I say, towering over him and he quickly sits up and his freakishly long torso almost puts us at eye level with each other. I hate him for every inch he has.
“You already know.”
I seethe. “You’re diabolical.”
“I prefer the term ‘opportunistic.’”
“I’m not living with you at the estate.” I say, waiting for him to stand and tower over me but he doesn’t, instead he does the opposite and leans back, making it so I have to tip my head slightly to look down at him.
“I want you to be safe Paige, and you’re not safe spending your nights here. Any creep could watch you while you sleep, or worse.” He says, and his voice holds so much sincerity in it that it almost makes me waver. He’s right and I know it. The shop doesn’t offer any kind of privacy. If either Aspen or Theo knew about my predicament, they would have a massive issue with it and I’d be having to deal with all three of them hauling my butt out of here.
But they’re both halfway across the country and I’m stuck here with Max instead.
And besides that first phone call with Aspen, neither he nor Theo have called me about my situation either, which means Maxon hasn’t told them about my sleeping arrangements and that realization tugs at my heart. I cross my arms. As much as I hate it, Maxon knows me better than anyone, and he knows the lengths I’ll go to in order to show my adopted family that I can make it on my own.
Do those lengths include moving in with Max? Even just temporarily? He’s bound to be having to fly back to LA sometime soon and deal with his clients in person. The man has been incapable of staying in one place for longer than a few weeks for years now. Which means if I move in with him, he’ll probably be leaving soon anyway, and it’ll just be me and his family. Leaving me with his stepmother. I stifle a shiver at the thought of her.
Fiona Grant was a nightmare dressed in Gucci and hated me more than she hated the snakes that Aspen and Max set loose in her garden.
And I would be living on her husband’s property as her stepson’s guest. This idea is absolutely insane. I can’t live with the Grants, I certainly can’t live somewhere in fear. I’d be better off staying in the store window.
If I don’t though… Maxon won’t give me Laney, and she’s my biggest hope at keeping my client happy and having any kind of future for Events by Paige. If I’m willing to sleep on the couch in front of a display window in order to keep my dream alive, aren’t I willing enough to do whatever it takes? Including giving Maxon what he wants? I gulp.
“Fine. I’ll come stay with you, but only until I can find a place of my own.”
He nods with a satisfied smirk that I want to punch him for, and as if he can read my mind, a devious glint brightens within his dark eyes making him look all kinds of handsome and dangerous at the same time. “Come on Paige, is living with me really that bad?”
“Yes.”