“Then marry me.”
“What?” she said with a laugh.
“Too soon? I should’ve waited till the seventh inning stretch and taken you by surprise,” he said.
“You need to be educated as to the finer points of romance in film. Proposing during an argument at a minor league ball game...hopeless,” she said with a shrug.
“Rootbeer?” he said.
“Now that’s a better offer than the last one. Sure,” she said.
Luke shook his head and climbed down to go to the concessions. He brought back hot roasted peanuts, rootbeers, and a tray of nachos. When he slid back down the row to their seats, he saw that Paige was turned around talking to the people behind her, a woman with three boisterous little boys. The woman laughed as she wiped mustard off one child’s face, and Paige was tying the shoe of another kid.
She was at ease and smiling. It was the kind of thing he usually ignored—so ordinary and domestic looking. For the first time, he saw how it might be a source of comfort for someone, not for himself obviously, but for someone like Paige. Someone who needed a home and family, a web of friends and their kids around her to feel secure.
She missed her parents. She worried about her sister. He thought all at once that she was probably lonely. That she wanted people around her. He had an urge to throw her a birthday party or something, to surround her with caring people and watch her smile and laugh. Even though it was the opposite of what he would want himself—some room full of loud and boisterous friends.
The warmth in her expression, the kindness in her eyes as she tied the child’s shoe—she looked like a natural. Like a mom. Whatever that looked like. Certainly, Luke’s mother hadn’t been a natural, nor any of the nannies they’d employed to supervise him. But somewhere out there he was sure there were people who wanted to be parents and who enjoyed children and their noise and messes—grilling out in the backyard and letting kids run around with pets. He imagined that was something that happened in the Midwest or on sitcoms. Far from his own life.
But he felt something in his chest just looking at her. Something that responded to her warmth and loyalty. So, when he stepped over to her and handed her a rootbeer, and she smiled at him, he felt a tightness in his chest that he wasn’t ready to think about at all.
“Thanks,” she said, taking a drink.
As he sat beside her and couldn’t take his eyes off her. Off her lips around the neck of that rootbeer bottle in a way that he’d never considered profane before. Two seconds ago, he’d been marveling at how warm and Madonna-like she was, in total awe of her, and now she was taking a drink out of a bottle, and his thoughts shifted to the NSFW.
Luke absently shelled a peanut and nearly choked on the contents because she licked her lips. He was glad he’d worn his aviators because maybe the fact that his eyes were hidden would keep her from realizing he was ogling her like he could spread her legs right here at the ballpark. She had him tied up in knots already. This was ridiculous. He should have listened to Magnus and left her alone. She was too hard to handle. Not that he wouldn’t enjoy handling her.
Shit, he was like a teenager! He wiped a sweaty palm on his designer pants. This woman was extremely smart, loyal as hell, witty, and had a ton of sex appeal. He had a hopeless crush on her.
Man, how did she get a hold of me like this?
Dammit!
She’s the woman he swore he’d never find...and yet she was here slowly stealing his heart.
Chapter 12
LUKE WASN’T SUPPOSED to marry someone he actually liked or felt attracted to. Maybe he should stick with one of those three boring choices that were offered to him earlier. There would be no strings, no complications, the perfect billionaire bargain.
Paige smiled at him. And the feeling he felt when she looked at him like that. He felt this surge of excitement and happiness. She meant more to him that he’d ever know.
“Do you like the game?” he asked.
“Yeah. And I’m having a blast with you, this is fun. I mean, nachos, right? Who isn’t gonna have fun with nachos?”
“I don’t eat t
hem personally, but the people at the concession seemed excited by them.”
“I’m always excited about cheese. Like you could wake me up at three in the morning and ask if I wanted nachos and I’d say yes.”
“Really? If someone woke you at three with snack foods, you’d want them?”
“Totally. Here, try one!”
Paige scooped some orange cheese liquid up on a sharp tortilla chip. She held the dripping monstrosity out to him, urging him to try. Luke wanted to recoil, to protest that actual cheese, the natural sort, had to be aged in a cave in France or Italy—or Spain if you were really wild—and would never have any relationship to this neon-tinted broth on her chip. Except—he ate it. Because Paige held it in her fingertips and offered it to him. So, without a second thought, Luke took it in his mouth, his lips brushing her salty fingertips. He chewed and swallowed, never taking his eyes off her.
“Good, right? You’d eat that at three a.m. with no problem,” she said, brushing her hands off with satisfaction.