If Love Had A Price

Kris was out of her mind. Delirious from too much sun, boredom, and frustration after a month of living and working in L.A.

That was the only reason she could come up with for not only allowing Nate to live after the stunt he’d pulled in the park but also agreeing to dinner with him.

We can nail down the details of the plan without starving, he’d said.

Bullshit. After his arrogant proclamations—I’ll kiss you when you’re begging for it…and when I do, you’re going to remember it for the rest of your life—Kris was sure he was trying to seduce her.

If so, he’d chosen the wrong target. She was immune to seduction, and she’d hired him to ensnare the Stepmonster, not anyone else.

She killed the engine and exited her car at the same time Nate eased out of his with panther-like grace.

Kris leveled him with a glare, which he ignored.

“This place better be good,” she warned. Her stomach cramped, reminding her she hadn’t eaten in over eight hours. She’d gotten into a huge argument with Gloria earlier that day over redecorating the pool house, Kris’s favorite part of the estate, and had relied on her irritation for sustenance until she met up with Nate.

“It is.” Nate opened the door with a flourish. “After you, milady.”

She narrowed her eyes, sure he was mocking her, but she was too hungry to put up a fight.

The restaurant was in a strip mall, squeezed between a Western Union and a discount shoe store. The interior resembled that of any cheap, casual cafe—light brown tile floors, rickety four-top tables crowded with uncomfortable-looking wooden chairs, and a counter in the back for ordering. Miscellaneous announcements and posters papered the green-and-orange walls, and a string of Christmas lights fluttered in the breeze coming from the ceiling fans, even though it was June and the holidays were long over.

“Thursday nights are the chandeliers’ and linen tablecloths’ nights off,” Nate drawled when he noticed her inspection.

“I eat at non-five-star restaurants all the time.” Yes, Kris preferred chandeliers and linen tablecloths, but some of the best restaurants were holes-in-the-wall. Her year abroad in Shanghai had cemented that belief. The soup dumplings in that dingy little hole by campus? To die for. Never mind the fact that the first time Olivia dragged her to that place, Kris had thought she would die of some terrible disease by letting her skin touch the gross chairs.

“If you say so.” Nate’s long legs ate up the distance between the door and the order counter, where he picked up a laminated menu and tossed it at her. “You’ll love the food here. Promise. Best Filipino in town.”

“So you keep saying.”

Despite her disbelieving sniff, Kris’s mouth watered at the sight of the food on the nearby tables, and a wave of nostalgia crashed over her at the familiar, delicious smells. Even though Kris was a third-generation Filipino-American, her family didn’t eat Filipino food often—not since their old cook and housekeeper Rosa passed away when Kris was thirteen. Rosa had been with the Carreras for decades. She’d helped raise Kris from birth and had been the closest thing to a mother figure in Kris’s life.

Rosa’s death had devastated Kris. None of the chefs and housekeepers her father had hired since compared, and none of them could whip up a home-cooked Filipino meal like Rosa could. In fact, their current chef in Seattle, a whip-thin blonde named Charity—yes, that was her real name—delighted in making meals more suitable for rabbits than humans.

After consulting their menus, Kris and Nate placed their orders and snagged a table by the window. Nate insisted on paying, and Kris let him. It was his money; he could do with it what he liked. Plus, according to the handwritten sign taped to the front of the cash register, the restaurant didn’t accept Amex.

Nevertheless, Kris felt compelled to set the record straight. “This isn’t a date. You didn’t have to pay.”

“It was the gentlemanly thing to do.”

“You’re no gentleman.” She wavered between setting her crocodile Saint Laurent bag on the sticky wooden table or the cracked vinyl seat cushion next to her; both options caused her to shudder. She finally hung the bag delicately from the back of the neighboring chair. “You’re far too arrogant.”

Nate, who’d watched her debate the best resting place for her handbag in silence, looked like he was trying not to laugh, and Kris didn’t know why. What was so funny about taking care of her Saint Laurent?

“Those things have nothing to do with the other,” he said.

“Gentlemen don’t need to broadcast the fact they’re gentlemen,” Kris pointed out haughtily.

“Perhaps not.” A mischievous gleam lit up his eyes. “But you don’t look like the type of girl who’d want a gentleman, so I’m not too bothered.”

A lazy curl of heat stretched and yawned in her stomach, filling her insides with warmth. “Save your flirting for Gloria. It won’t work on me.”

Nate smirked.

Luckily, the waiter brought out their food before he could contradict her, which she was sure he would do because he seemed to enjoy contradicting everything she said.

Fortunately, the food was so good they both lapsed into silence as they devoured their feast: tender pork adobo, lechon kawali (crispy deep-fried pork belly), kare kare stew, and sinangag garlic fried rice.

The quiet gave Kris time to regroup. She hated that Nate rattled her so much.

Normally, she had little use for the opposite sex other than, well, sex. Men were untrustworthy, boring, or indifferent—too caught up in their work to pay attention to the women in their lives, like her father—and Kris would rather be alone with her freedom than suffer through a relationship with someone she didn’t like.

She’d quickly tired of the few boyfriends she’d had in the past and had settled for casual flings and one-night stands when the need arose. Luckily, Kris had remarkable control over her libido, and she could satisfy her sexual urges herself most of the time.

However, Nate stirred a lust inside her she hadn’t thought possible. The way his throat flexed when he swallowed his food…

Kris reached for her glass of water. Was it just her, or was it hot in here?

“How did you find out about this place?” she asked. “Long Beach is, as you mentioned, a long way from Hollywood.”

Kris wasn’t one for idle conversations with strangers—and Nate was, at the end of the day, a stranger, considering she knew next to nothing about him—but the warmth and food had lulled her into an odd complacency. She wanted to know what lay beneath Nate’s chiseled good looks, and her conviction that he actually possessed depth surprised her almost as much as her interest in his background did.

“My mom. She loved exploring new neighborhoods and trying new things, especially food. Oddly, she wasn’t great in the kitchen except for baking cookies—” Nate’s mouth curled with amusement. “—but she could sniff out a good restaurant like no other. This was one of her favorites.”

Kris examined the far-off look in his eyes and the smile lurking at the corners of his lips, the kind people only get when they were lost in the wells of memory. “Was, as in past tense?”

The smile fell. Pain clouded Nate’s face before he covered it up with a blank expression. “She died five years ago. Plane crash.”

Something welled in Kris’s throat. The emotion was so unfamiliar it took her a few beats to identify it as sympathy. “It sounds like she lived a good life before she passed.”

That was the only response Kris could think of. She hated platitudes like I’m sorry in the wake of tragedy. Such sentiments were so common and expected they’d lost all meaning. Plus, what the hell was someone supposed to say to I’m sorry? Thank you? It’s okay?

“She did.” Nate’s mouth softened. He appeared grateful that Kris hadn’t showered him with pity the way most people would have. “Sometimes I bring my sister here for old times’ sake, but not as often as I’d like. She’s coming up on her senior year of high school and is swamped with activities and college prep, and I have work and auditions all the time.” He stabbed at a piece of pork. “It’s the first time I’ve been here in months.”

The knowledge Nate had brought her to this specific restaurant, one that meant a lot to him and his family, stirred a part of Kris she hadn’t known existed.

“My mother’s gone, too.” She wanted to snatch her confession back the instant it left her mouth. She never talked about her mother. Ever. Not with her father, not with her best friends, and certainly not with beautiful men who made her heart pound for the first time in God knew how long.

But it was too late. She’d already said them, and Kris wasn’t one to back down from her words.

“She didn’t die,” she added. “She left. When I was two.”

She pushed the rice around on her plate. Her parents had been a love match. That was what her father told her, but if that were true, how could her mother just walk away like that from the man she loved? From her daughter?

To this day, Kris hadn’t received an explanation as to why her mother left. Roger Carrera shut down any discussion of his ex-wife and had removed all traces of her from the house. No pictures, no trinkets, no heirlooms.

Other than hazy memories of dark hair and tanned skin, Kris barely remembered what her mother looked like. She supposed she could have fought her father harder on the subject, but Kris was too proud to dwell on anyone who abandoned her.

Even if that person had brought her into this world.

“Her loss,” Nate said.

Kris’s gaze snapped up to meet his. The tiniest of smiles touched her lips. “Yes, it is.”

She was glad she wasn’t the only one who hated platitudes.

Kris and Nate lingered over dinner, discussing any topic that came to mind—food, movies, music—and exchanging random facts related to their respective areas of expertise long after they’d cleared their plates of food. Nate made an impassioned argument for why the Lakers were the best basketball team in the country—like he wasn’t biased as an L.A. resident—while Kris explained the difference between St. Moritz and Aspen for ski aficionados.

“St. Moritz has more glamour and five-star hotels, but celebrities love Aspen,” she said. “It’s where the beautiful people go.”

Personally, Kris preferred St. Moritz, especially after a dreadful Christmas vacation in Aspen with her father and Gloria this past winter. She would never forgive Gloria for convincing her father to spend winter break in Colorado instead of St. Barth’s like the Carreras always did.

A white Christmas. Who would want such a thing? The whole point of a winter getaway was to get away to somewhere warm.

“Good to know,” Nate said dryly. “I don’t intend to visit either place, since I hate flying.”

Kris’s water glass paused halfway to her lips. “You want to be an actor. That involves a fair amount of flying. Even if you only shoot movies in L.A., you still have to go on press tours.”

He shrugged. “I’ll do it if I have to, but I don’t fly for fun.”

She assessed his unease with a sharp eye. “Is this a lifelong fear, or did it pop up five years ago?”

Nate glared at her, and Kris met his gaze straight-on, unflinching.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“If you say so.”

He made an impatient noise. “We’ve stayed too late. The restaurant is about to close.”

Sure enough, the waiters were stacking chairs on the tables in a not-so-subtle hint for Nate and Kris to leave. It was as clear an end to their conversation as Nate’s abrupt subject change.

Kris glanced at the clock and was shocked to see they’d been here for hours. Normally, that much time in one person’s company would’ve compelled her to either stab herself out of boredom, but she’d actually enjoyed herself.

She had enough cash for a tip, which she insisted on covering since Nate had paid for the food, and they exited the restaurant with full bellies and a strange charge in the air.

“No signs of food poisoning yet, so you’re in the clear—for now,” Kris said, but her voice lacked its usual bite.

Nate smirked. “Lucky me.”

The lights from a passing car swept across his face, illuminating his finely carved features. A thick lock of golden-brown hair fell over his forehead and partially obscured one eye.

The urge to brush the wayward hair back seized Kris, who crossed her arms over her chest to prevent any foolish actions on her part.

Electricity danced in the air between them, so thick and strong her skin buzzed. Was it just her, or had Nate’s eyes changed color? They were no longer emeralds but dark, lustful pools of sin that sucked her in until she couldn’t breathe.

She suddenly realized he had a mole near his upper lip. It was so tiny it would’ve escaped most people’s notice. Far from an imperfection, the mole only drew more notice to the firm, sensual curve of his lips.

Kris’s heart pounded against her chest. They were so close. All she had to do was take one step forward and—

Nate drew back, and a shutter fell over his face. “Saturday at noon then?” The crisp, detached rumble of his voice chased away any remaining electricity.

Kris blinked, caught off guard by the sudden change in the atmosphere before she remembered what they were doing here.

They weren’t lovers parting ways after a date. She’d hired him, for Chrissakes. Their relationship was as romantic as that of a chauffeur and passenger, or plumber and client. Not to mention, a kiss would’ve been so unpleasant.

Hello, they just ate garlic rice.

At least, that was what she told herself.

“Yes. See you then.” Saturday at noon was the only time Kris could guarantee Gloria would be at the house. That was when she had her weekly sessions with her yogi/personal trainer/spiritual teacher—or whatever the fuck he was—in the mansion’s Planet Fitness-sized gym.

Kris flashed Nate a brittle smile and sped walk to her car, furious with herself for the momentary lapse of control.

Nate Reynolds was a means to an end. Nothing more.