Can't Buy Me Love (9 page)

“That’s
pretty good,” Lena said with surprise. “He normally doesn’t eat from a stranger
at all, and even less so from strange men. He must like you.”

Chase
looked up at Lena. “Does he meet a lot of strange men?” he asked sternly.

Lena
laughed. “Not really, no. But a few. I’m trying to expand his social life a bit
by taking him to the dog park. He’s getting better. The first time I took him,
he cowered in the corner and shook. Now, he runs around and plays, and even
lets strangers pet him from time to time. He’s slowly learning that he’s safe,
I think.”

Chase
stood up, looking after Winston as he headed back to his crate, checking
cautiously to be sure he wasn’t being followed. “I honestly don’t think I’ve
ever seen a cuter dog.”

Grinning,
Lena said, “Me either. I just love that dog to pieces. One of these days, he’s
going to let me hug him for real. OK. He’s gotten his dinner and treats. Now
I’m starving. Where are we going?”

Chase
took Lena to a hamburger joint that Jared had recommended to him when he’d
called him on his cell half an hour earlier in a panic. It was packed, but
after a short wait at the bar, they were shown to a booth in the back of the
restaurant, where they could talk a little bit more easily. After ordering a
couple of burgers, as well as sides of onion rings, sweet potato fries, and salads,
they settled in with their beers, looking around them.

“Interesting
place you’ve chosen,” Lena grinned.

Chase
laughed and took a swig of beer. “A friend of mine recommended it to me. I’ve
never been here.”

“I
assume this is a far cry from your usual dining spot?” she teased.

“No
foie gras on the menu. So yes. Quite different.”

“You
feeling out of sorts?” she asked, this time seriously. “We don’t have to stay
here if you’d rather not.”

“Nah.
I’m good,” he smiled. “Jared and I go to sports bars pretty often, so this
isn’t that unusual for me. And now that you put ‘burger’ on my brain, that’s
all I can think about eating.”

Laughing,
Lena took a sip of her beer. “I’m glad you were up for this tonight. I needed
something casual and relaxed.”

“With
some good beers on tap,” Chase added. “So tell me about Winston.”

So
Lena filled Chase in on Winston’s background, and how he had come to live with
her just a few months ago. By the time their food arrived, Chase was up to
speed on everything Winston-related, including his vaccination record, his
weight at his last vet visit, and the number of times he would retrieve a ball
at the park before deciding that he was done.

“I’m
sorry. I get a little carried away when I talk about my dog,” Lena apologized.

“Hey.
I asked,” Chase grinned, just as their food arrived.

Lena
moaned as she saw the heaping mound of onion rings and the array of sauces to
dip them in. “I
love
it here,” she proclaimed as she reached over and
slid a bunch of the rings onto a knife and then onto her plate. Taking a bite
of her burger, she grinned. “Now
this
is a burger. Tell your friend that
he or she gets huge points in my book. I’ll be coming back here again. Maybe
kind of a lot.”

Chase
took a bite of his burger and closed his eyes. “Wow. Agreed. Holy cow.”

Lena
reached for her salad. As she pulled the bowl closer to her, she said, “OK. So
fill me in. Tell me how you came to Helping Hands, and why you are so different
from the original Chase that I knew and didn’t totally love.”

So
while Lena polished off her salad, Chase took a deep breath and explained his
motivation to her, starting with his initial conversation with Jared, and
ending with his walking into the shelter where she worked.

Having
moved on to her main plate, Lena’s hamburger was halfway to her mouth when she
realized what Chase was saying. She dropped the burger back down to her plate.

“Wait,
you
what
?”

Chase’s
half-smile was mischievous. “You heard me.”

“Yeah,
maybe,” she said as she wiped her mouth carefully with her napkin. “But I can’t
quite believe you’re serious. Most of the women I know are halfway in love with
you already.”

“Me,
or my money?” Reaching for the bottle of mustard at the back of the table, he
continued, “If I were to lose everything by making one bone-headed business decision,
who would stand by me? Anyone?”

Lena
leaned her elbows on the table and looked over at him, thinking of their mutual
acquaintances. He sort of had a point, she thought. “Well. Hmm. OK, let me
think. Mrs. Greenly, definitely. She’s got more money than Midas, so you could
easily be her boy toy. And probably Monica Hall. She’s a really nice girl. And
I think she’s got her head screwed on straight.”

“She’s
12 years old,” Chase pointed out.

“Yeah,
but she’ll be legal in six years.”

“Lena,
you’re pretty much proving my point here.”

Lena
grinned. “OK. I’ll be serious. Here’s the thing. There are a lot of women at
these events who love money. That’s part of the fun of going to these things,
if you don’t take yourself too seriously. You get to watch all the craziness
around you, but you can just take all of it in stride. But you're talking about
one small microcosm of life. Most of the women I know don’t care about money. Sure,
it would be nice to have plenty, but they’re not going to marry for it.”

“But
they could be seduced by what it can buy,” Chase argued.

“Maybe,”
Lena considered. “But only over the short term I think. Most of my friends
think that Donald Trump has an ugly soul and a bad comb-over. If he were to
pursue them, they’d not only say no, they’d say
hell
no. No, I don’t
think it’s your money that’s the problem here. I think it’s the combination of
your money, your looks, and your charm.”

“Excuse
me?”

“You’re
a handsome guy, and you have good manners. Most women I know would date you
whether you were poor or wealthy.”

“But
not you?” Chase said, pinning her with his gaze. Heat flickered in his eyes,
and then disappeared so quickly that Lena wondered if she had imagined it. She
studied him carefully for a moment, her own heart beating faster than usual,
but her head telling the rest of her to
be careful
.

Finally,
she stated, “Chase, we dated for six months.”

But
Chase wasn’t willing to just let it go. “We didn’t put much effort into it,
Charlene. And I want to. Especially after Saturday night,” he added. He smiled,
then. A big sexy grin, meant to tease more than to persuade. “Chase and
Charlene didn’t work out. But Ed and Lena may just be getting started.”

Lena
rolled her eyes, but laughed.

“OK.
So your turn,” Chase turned the tables as he shoved several sweet-potato fries
into his mouth. “Explain how Charlene and Lena can be so different, and why it
took me stumbling into Helping Hands shelter to realize that you were more than
just another pretty face with a completely uninspiring personality.”

“Geez,
thanks a lot!” she complained.

“Lena...”

She
sighed loudly.

“Look.
Chase. When we first met, what did you think of me? Be honest.”

“That
you were incredibly beautiful.” Despite his teasing tone, Chase’s eyes were serious.

Trying
to keep it light, she smiled over at him. “I said ‘be honest’, not ‘be
flattering’. But thank you. So other than my looks, what did you think?”

“Hmmm.
I met you at the benefit for the Natural History Museum, right?”

“Yes.
How could you forget the dinosaur skeletons?”

“You
were there with your parents.”

“Right
again.”

“Your
stepmother...”

Lena
sighed. “Yes. She had a few too many that night. It’s probably when I first
started really understanding that she had a problem. But right again.”

“And
your father was steering her away from the open bar and toward the food.”

“That
sounds right.”

“Quite
a fun night that must have been for you,” he said softly, understanding that
this was a hard subject for Lena to talk about.

Her
smile was tight as she replied, “It was a night to remember.”

“So
let’s see. If I recall, you were standing toward the side of the banquet hall,
talking with an older gentleman. Your eyes were on your parents, but your smile
never left your face, and your expression never changed. You stayed fully focused
on the man you were with.”

“I’m
well versed in hiding my feelings. Go on.”

Chase
hesitated. “This isn’t really a flattering part. Can I go back to the part
about you being beautiful?”

But
Lena shook her head with a slight smile. “No. Keep going, you coward.”

He
was clearly uncomfortable, but he took a deep sigh and continued. “So I thought
you were remarkably cold for letting your father deal with your clearly
inebriated stepmother while you continued to pursue some rich guy.”

The
words stung, even though Lena had not only asked for them, but had expected
them.

She
nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. But my father would have pushed me into the ice
sculpture if I’d moved to help him. In his mind, it would have called attention
to the state Jeanette was in. But more than that, it would have irritated him
no end that I was letting a perfectly nice man slip through my fingers. Again. Oh,
and did I mention that ‘nice’ means ‘rich’ to my father?”

“Ah.”

“So
you assumed I was a heartless witch, only looking out for myself.”

“Something
like that.”

“So
why did you ask me to dance that night?”

“I
have no idea. It might have had something to do with the beautiful part. Plus,
there were all these dinosaur bones looking down on us. I needed a
distraction.”

Lena’s
eyes narrowed as she ignored his attempt at humor and asked, “More importantly,
why did you ask me out after that night? And then continue to ask me to these
inane events?”

He
shrugged. “There’s that beautiful thing. But also, it seemed easy at the time. You
were low maintenance, and I was enjoying that for a while. You never asked me
for anything. You know, the first night that I asked you to one of these
benefits, I asked you to meet me there. I was flying back into town that
evening after a business trip, and I knew that I’d barely have time to shower
and change, let alone pick you up, and still make it to the event on time. You
just agreed without question. It was such a relief to be going out with someone
who didn’t need to be attached at the hip to me.”

“You
do realize that I thought you were insulting me by asking me out, and then
treating me like a stranger.”

“Really?”
Chase looked genuinely surprised. “You never let on. I just assumed that you weren’t
the demanding sort.”

Lena
laughed then. “Great. Easy, low maintenance, not demanding. And you assumed
that I had an IQ of about 12.” She looked over at him skeptically. “We saw each
other for months. If you thought I was so beautiful, how come you never tried
to get me into bed?”

He
laughed then. “You never gave me any encouragement,” he pointed out. But his
expression turned serious as he continued. “Plus, it turns out that I need to
respect the women I sleep with. Or at least like them a little bit.”

Lena
threw her head back as if to dodge a blow. “Wow. The hits keep coming.”

“You
asked. Besides,” he added as he took a bite of his burger. “It was your fault. You
cultivated my incorrect impressions.”

“Yeah,
I guess I did,” she said with a sigh. “But it was so damn easy. You so clearly
thought I was a moron, so I played that up. It made my evenings with you kind
of fun.”

“The
gardening discussion again?”

“Hey.
Like I said, you got off lucky. I was running out of ideas. If it wasn’t Jersey
Shore, I’d be asking you who you thought the bachelorette should pick this
season.”

He
looked at her sternly. “You’re not a nice woman.”

The
easy grin she threw back at him hit him right in the solar plexus. “No,” she
said. “I’m not.”

Chase
chewed on his burger, buying himself time. This attraction he was feeling
toward Lena was growing stronger every time he saw her, and every once in a
while, it walloped him across the back of his head. This was one of those
times. Taking a sip of beer, he leaned back in his chair.

“Huh.
So you haven’t told me why yet.”

“Why
what?”

“Why
do you go to those society events, when you so obviously don’t care about them?
Why do you date these ‘nice’ young men that your father wants you to date? Why
did you date me, particularly if I insulted you on our first date? And even
more particularly you weren’t going to show me the real you?”