“I need a drink after this. Cheers, mate,” Magnus said and hung up.
Paige lingered in the doorway, intrigued.
A million dollars?
She’d just listened to this man discussing his problems with a publicist. About needing a stand-in for a wife and paying a fortune for it. It sounded fun. The charade of it, and also the money, which might turn out to solve Paxtyn’s medical bills. He’d told his publicist to find him a wife. What if one fell in his lap? Or walked in the door of his conference room?
She shouldn’t have been listening. She knew that. But this man needed an actress to pretend like she was his wife? And he was willing to pay for one. Hell, she’d be his pretend wife for that crazy amount of cash. She was sinking in debt. And her sister desperately needed money for her medical bills. This might be crazy, but it was a way to get the money. Just be an actress. Paige could do that. But how the hell should she ask? Hey, give me the job! I desperately need the money. No, that sounded too desperate.
She bit her lip hard as she pondered.
She stepped into the room, cleared her throat.
“Excuse me, I couldn’t help but overhear...” she began.
Chapter 3
LUKE LOOKED OVER HIS shoulder to see who was speaking to him. It wasn’t his employee, Gina. Gina’s voice was higher. This woman had a lower, smokier voice. He was torn between irritation at being overheard and arousal at the lush sound of her voice.
However, when he saw her, it was a different story. This was some barefooted woman with a ponytail. And damn if she wasn’t hot as hell.
“I’m still working right now. But if you could get the trash for now, that’d be great,” he said with a smile, wondering why the janitorial staff had such lax standards. You can’t clean offices without shoes.
“Excuse me?”
“Can you please just empty the trash can? You can come back in an hour to finish the room. If that’s okay. I don’t want to mess up your routine.”
“But that’s not in my job description.”
“It’s not?”
“Nope.”
“Are you new? Because I assure you it is.”
“I’m not the cleaning lady. My name is Paige Waters. I’m working with Gina on the Johnson project,” she said, tossing her ponytail loftily.
“I see. My bad.
I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m routinely mistaken for the janitor all the time. I guess I just have one of those faces.”
He laughed. She was funny.
“I didn’t authorize any assignments of additional staff to that project. You can understand my surprise at finding I’d been spied on by a shoeless water thief,” he said with amusement.
She let out a nervous laugh. “If I were stealing, I’d have taken the entire refrigerator since it’s better than the one in my apartment. But apparently executives are too fancy for water coolers with paper cups, so I had to make do with what’s available. I thought everyone zoomed out of here for the weekend.”
“Not me.”
“My shoes were killing my little toe on the right foot, so I saw no need to keep them on after hours. And I am wearing pantyhose. I had no idea you were even here.”
“Your eavesdropping would suggest otherwise,” he said, enjoying the flush on her apple cheeks at his remark. She was rather delicious right down to her evidently abused littlest toe. Her toenails were painted electric pink. He found himself wondering what color her panties were.
“I didn’t mean to hear your conversation. But nobody is here, and your voice rang through the air.”
“So you know my dilemma?”