Not For Sale Read Free Page A

the hour.” That way, he’d have time to hand the Sinclair woman cab fare and get rid of her if she turned out to be totally wrong for the job. “Tell her to dress appropriately.” He paused. “She can do that, can’t she?”
    “She’ll dress appropriately, sir.”
    “And, of course, make it clear I’ll pay her for her time. Say, one thousand dollars for the evening.”
    He could see Gordon all but swallowing another laugh. Yes, Lucas thought coldly, why wouldn’t he find his employer’s predicament amusing? If this worked, he could take credit for saving Lucas’s corporate ass. But oh, if it didn’t…
    “That sounds fine, sir.” Gordon held out his hand. “Good luck.”
    Lucas looked at the outstretched hand, fought back a sense of repugnance he knew was foolish and accepted the handshake.
    Jack Gordon hurried back to his own office before he pulled out his cell and hit a speed dial digit.
    “Dani. Baby, have I got a deal for you!”
    He explained as quickly as possible; Dani Sinclair was not one for long conversations but then, that wasn’t what men paid her for. When he’d finished, he heard the slow exhalation of her breath.
    “So, let me get this straight. You told some guy—”
    “Not just some guy, baby. Lucas Vieira.
The
Lucas Vieira. The guy with more money than God.”
    “You told him I’d give him a date?”
    “Yeah. Only, not that kind of date. This is dinner with Vieira, a Russian guy and the guy’s wife. You need to act likeyou and Vieira are a thing. And you need to translate.” Jack laughed softly. “I guess taking a degree in Cyrillic languages was a good idea after all.”
    “I’m taking my Master’s,” Dani Sinclair said, “and a girl has to think about her future.” She paused. “How much did you say he’ll pay?”
    “A thousand.”
    Dani laughed. “Did you forget my going rate, Jack? It’s ten thousand for the evening.”
    “Baby, we go way back. Elementary school. Middle school. High school.”
    “Fine. I’ll give you a special discount. Five thousand.”
    “Jeez. For a meal?”
    “And, of course, my usual fee if your Mr. Vieira wants anything else.”
    Jack Gordon rubbed the top of his head. “If he wants more, you can negotiate the fee yourself.”
    Dani chuckled. “Jack, you wily fox. You haven’t told him about me. What, you want him to be shocked?”
    “I want him to owe me,” Jack Gordon said, his tone suddenly cold. “And he will, no matter how this goes.”
    “Charming. Okay, so when does this happen?”
    “I thought I told you. Tonight. The Palace lobby. Ten minutes of eight.”
    “Oh, but I…” Dani fell silent. Five K to eat a fancy meal, talk some Russian and in between, pretend she was the date of Lucas Vieira, the gorgeous, sexy, take-no-prisoners Wall Street tough guy. And a minimum of ten K if he ended up wanting to prolong the evening.
    So tempting. If only she could do it. Trouble was, she already had a date for tonight, with a Texas oilman who came through the city once a month like clockwork.
    There had to be a way…
    “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.