Not For Sale

“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—”

“Lucas,” Dani said impatiently. “Lucas Vieira. Okay. Five hundred.”

Caroline stared at her. “Five hundred dollars?”

“We’re running out of time. What’s it gonna be? Yes or no?”

Caroline swallowed hard. And said the only thing she could.

She said, “Yes.”

CHAPTER TWO

LUCAS went home, showered and changed clothes. White shirt, blue tie, gray suit. A little casual, a little businesslike. Now, all he had to do was calm down.

The hotel was fiftieth and Madison and he lived on Fifth Avenue, only a couple of blocks away. There was no need for his car; like any New Yorker, he knew the fastest way to cover that distance was to walk.

Besides, walking might give him time to tame his temper. He’d snapped at his driver on the way from the office to his condo; he’d barely responded to the doorman’s pleasant “good evening, Mr. Vieira,” he’d scowled at his housekeeper in response to a simple question.

He was breathing fire, and what for? Ultimately, he was the one responsible for this mess. Why turn his anger on everyone else?

He’d made a mistake, not recognizing that Elin was trying to make more of their affair than it ever could be, but the way to recover from a mistake was to learn from it and move on.

The Palace’s elegant lobby was crowded. Lucas found a relatively clear space that gave him an unimpeded view of the entrance, then checked his watch. It was seven forty-five. On the chance Dani Sinclair might have arrived early, he scanned the room for a late-twenties, tall woman with light brown hair, blue eyes and what Jack Gordon had slyly described as “a body that just won’t quit” when Lucas had phoned him for a description an hour ago.

“A total babe,” he’d said, with a low laugh. “Built for action, if you get my drift.”

Lucas’s mouth twisted. He didn’t like Gordon’s increasingly smarmy tone, and he had no interest in knowing if he and the woman had been intimate. As long as she looked presentable, seemed credible as his date and spoke Russian, he’d be satisfied.