Some Like It Ruthless (A Temporary Engagement) (15 page)
She looked down at her jeans. “Is this a punishment?”
“There’s no skin anywhere. Jeans and a t-shirt? Yeah, that’s a punishment.”
“You complained about my skirt riding up, complained about my skirt flying up.”
“I wouldn’t complain if we were alone when those things happened. Now we’re alone and there’s no skin.”
“And you’re complaining.”
He pointed at her legs. “You do this on purpose.”
“Yes, Cole. I plan my wardrobe around you.”
“You plan your wardrobe around turning every man into a blathering idiot.”
“It’s worked for you, apparently.”
He muttered, “Apparently.” Then he eyed her, sitting in her chair. “Want me to climb over there, show you how to play this game?”
“I think I’ve got it.”
“This is just turning into one great morning. Can’t wait to start that paperwork.”
They played for a few hours, Cole had lunch delivered, and then Maggie started taking papers out of the box. Interested to see what he was bringing home.
First thing she pulled out was an invitation to the club gala.
“You’re a member of the club?”
Cole shrugged, rinsing their plates. “Every once in a while some yahoo tries to make me feel uncomfortable by meeting at the club.”
“And you make them lick your boots?”
He shot a grin over his shoulder. “I wear my dirtiest boots, smear a little more mud on the truck, and run up their tab.”
She laughed. “Are you going tomorrow?”
“No need.”
“I have need.”
He turned around, wiping his hands on the dishtowel hanging over his shoulder. “You want to go?”
She nodded and he said, “Boy, this weekend. I was so excited to come home, maybe get to see you naked, relax after a long week.”
“I would probably wear something fairly skimpy to this.” She waved the invitation in the air.
He turned back around. “Great.”
“I could go with Tanner. He’d like that; I think he misses the club the most.”
“It’s my invitation. Maybe I should go with Tanner.”
Maggie tried to picture it, the two men sitting together not talking the whole time.
She said, “I’ll call him for you,” and Cole shook his head. Maggie could see the smile hovering on his lips.
She walked into the kitchen, leaning against the fridge. She watched him drying dishes, putting them into cupboards. She could see he’d gotten more than just a chair. New dishes in the cupboard, food in the pantry. Cream in the fridge.
Cole said, “I’ll go with you on one condition.”
Maggie took a deep breath, then waved her hand. “Let’s hear it.”
“Wear something below the knee.”
“You’re leaving me a lot of room there.”
He nodded. “I know. Just. . . below the knee.”
“You’ve really got a thing about knees.”
Cole said, “I’ve really got a thing about above the knees. It’s called being a man.”
Maggie guessed her smile said everything she needed to about that.
Maggie walked back to the box, setting the invitation down beside it. “I’m sure I’ll be able to find something.”
“By tomorrow?”
When she nodded, Cole said, “Need my credit card?”
A pulse of anger hit her, her vision blurring, her heart speeding up. The insult of it swamped her, as if she could be
bought
. As if she was a child who needed Daddy’s credit card. As if she needed a
sugar
daddy.
She bit out, “No.”
She was a grown woman. A grown woman in financial straits but a grown woman nonetheless. She would provide for herself. Buy her own damn clothes.
“Maggie?”
She looked up at Cole and he took a step back. “Whoa. What happened there?”
Maggie looked down again, fisted her hands and took a deep, deep breath.
She said, “You hit a button.”
“By offering my credit card?”
She nodded sharply. “It’s always there, Cole. Always a question in the back of everyone’s eyes, wondering why I’m working so hard when I could just lay back and be taken care of. Because a woman like me doesn’t have to work. Surely some man would pay for the pleasure of having me at his beck and call. Depends on the man whether it would be marriage or not, but it would still be me being bought.”
Cole said, “I’m sorry.”
At his quiet acceptance, she almost cried. At his understanding that that was how the world worked, she wanted to rest her head on the counter and never lift it back up.
She asked softly, “Would you?”
He walked around the counter. “Pay to have you at my beck and call? In a heartbeat.”
She looked at him and he said, “I, like a great many number of men, would have you any way I could get you. And would expect to pay in a number of painful ways, money being only one of them.”
When her lips thinned, he said, “But just to set the record straight, I wasn’t trying to buy you for the price of a dress.”
Her heart stopped its mad rush. “It does sound silly when you say it like that.”
“Not silly. Especially when you’ve sold yourself to me once already.”
“I didn’t sell myself to you. We traded favors.”
“There’s a difference?”
Maggie said, “There was no money involved.”
“There’s just something about money, isn’t there?”
“There is indeed something about money. Which is why I don’t want yours.”
He nodded slowly as he hopped onto a stool. “This won’t work without a little bit of trust, Maggie. The benefit of the doubt that I’m not plotting ways to get you into my debt.”
“It’s not going to work. I’m using you, remember?”
“You could use me a little more.”
She leaned against the counter, put her chin in her palm. “You mean sex now.”
“I always mean sex.”
She smiled slightly. “Could I buy you?”
He raised his eyebrows and she said, “How much would it cost?”
“It doesn’t work in reverse. I’d do it for free. As we already established, I’d pay for the pleasure.”
She shook her head at him and he said, “I could mean money, too. I have it, you need it.”
“Then I would owe you.”
“You already owe me.”
She took her chin out of her palm, climbed onto one of the bar stools. “No. You owe
me
. This is making us even.”
“And money would tip the scales again?”
“Money would. . . make it something different. Turn it into something not between friends.”
He took her hand, looking down into it as he said, “Friends?”
When he looked back up, she nodded slowly.
He smiled. “Not frenemies?”
She smiled back. “Probably still frenemies.”
He shook his head. “No. I wish you all good things, Maggie. I wish you all the money you need to buy all the men you want.”
He surprised a laugh out of her and she shook her head. “That’s no fortune since I don’t want to buy any men.”
He nodded in agreement. “It’s always been lopsided, Empress. We want you; you wouldn’t stoop to wipe us off your shoe. And that question in our eyes isn’t us wondering why you don’t let some man buy you. We know why. We’re not worthy. There’s no man that would ever have enough to be worthy of you.”
“Then what’s that look I see in every man’s eyes?”
“It’s just us looking at what we can’t have. Just us wanting. Just us hoping.”
She took her hand out of his. “It looks to me like you’re all just waiting for me to get desperate.”
“Oh, there’s that, too. Definitely that.”
Her chin rose. “I never will.”
He sighed. “Yeah. But hope springs eternal.”
She rifled through the box. “You could make it harder for me. At least try to get me closer to desperate.”
“Like Harwood?”
She nearly laughed. “That’s not what he was doing. He wanted revenge, not a repeat of a very poor performance.”
He snorted. “Right.”
She looked at him. “It was a very poor performance.”
“Firstly, I don’t want to hear about it. Secondly, no one will ever believe it. Especially someone who can remember your performance.”
She didn’t argue with him. She didn’t really want to think about her and Jackson either.
She looked through the box some more and said, “I’ve got only two more contracts to go through on Monday and then I’ll be done.”
“Did everyone come in with better terms?”
“Yes. Do you have accounts with everyone?”
“Most. I’m guessing the few that I don’t, want them.”
She smiled. “Lucky for me. And for the first time in a long time, income exceeds expenses.”
“Now we just need to start making you some more cash. Those moratoriums are only for a year.”
Maggie didn’t point out the we. She said, “If only I knew someone running a profitable business light on partners.”
“What are you bringing to the table, Caldwell?”
“Diversification. You’re heavy on oil, Cole.”
He snorted. “That’s an understatement. And it’s called specialization.”
“What happened to Midland in the eighties when the price of oil crashed?”
He nodded, rubbing his mouth. “Bye-bye, empire.”
“Not if you spread it around a little.”
“I’m not looking to get any bigger. Or wider. I’m busy enough as it is.”
“Which is why you need a partner.”
He sat back, his expression calculating. “I may have a few projects I’d be willing to spin off.”
“Trade off.”
“Only if what you’re trading is established and won’t take any of my time.”
Maggie tapped her fingers on the counter. “Real estate?”
“I don’t care because I won’t be doing anything with it.”
“So what you’re saying is I give you something safer than oil, you give me something with higher returns, and I do all the work.”
He grinned. “Yep.”
“And we split profits 60-40.”
“An even fifty.”
“70-30.”
He laughed. “You’re going the wrong way.”
“I’m not going any lower than 60-40. Not if I’m doing all the work.”
She sat quietly, letting him think about it. He finally nodded. “Bring me something you’re willing to trade and I’ll look at it.”
She said “What about your debt? Do you even have any?”
“I have debt. I’ll just be able to pay it all off when the shit hits the fan.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re waiting for the price of oil to drop.”
He wobbled his head. “Not waiting, exactly. But it’ll be my clue to retire. Take a break.”
She thought about really getting into oil and said, “Are you giving me a ticking time bomb?”
“High risk-high reward, but I’m not seeing any hint of a turnaround yet. There’s still plenty of money to be made.”
“Where’s the danger zone?”
“In the eighties. Anything above 82, I’m profitable. I could probably keep pumping until it went below 80, squeeze some costs.”
Maggie tried to remember what the price of crude was but didn’t have a clue. Born and bred in Texas she might be but oil had never been on her horizon. “What’s it at right now?”
“105.”
She smiled at him and he smiled back. A 25 point profit was worth the risk. She agreed with him that oil would drop again. Up, down, up, down. That’s how it went.
Anyone who forgot that ended up knee deep in debt with bankruptcy breathing down their neck.
She wouldn’t forget. She never wanted to get near that monster again.
She said, “And when the price drops below eighty? What then?”
“Unless Uncle Sam goes belly up, I’ll be alright. Take my money, buy a little cottage on the coast, put my feet up and drink some beers. Maybe get a young wife who likes to wear bikinis.”
Maggie sucked in a breath. “Don’t tell me you have money sitting in treasuries earning two percent.”
He shrugged and she said, “Shit.”
He laughed at the expression on her face. He leaned forward. “You know I love it when you talk dirty.”
“I couldn’t help myself. Treasuries? A five year-old with a lemonade stand could make better than two percent.”
“It’s peace of mind. What about the young wife?”
“You’re losing money, Cole. Pay off your debt.”
“I find it helpful to have plentiful contacts, lots of people I owe money to who don’t want to see me having trouble paying them back. It’s not a lot in treasuries. Just enough. I’m not losing money on my debt.”
“Still.”
“You’re not touching my debt, Maggie.”
She sat back.
She wanted her debt gone. GONE. And it might be coloring her assessment slightly.
She would trust that he knew what he was doing. Anyone who’d been as close to bankruptcy as they’d been would have a healthy fear of it and she could understand that his number one goal would be to keep his debt in check. If having treasuries was part of his debt plan, okay. She’d leave it be.
She said, “Why don’t you get rid of the house?”
“I don’t want to.”
“You could buy something in Midland. Go home at night instead of sleeping in a trailer.”
He said again, “I don’t want to, Maggie. And why are we focusing on my money? You’re the one we need to work on.”
“You’re right.”
She threw the papers back in the box. It wasn’t paperwork, it was busy work. Work for an admin to do. He hadn’t brought her anything juicy to look at.