Can't Buy Me Love by Molly O'Keefe Page B

the land that belonged to my family?”
    “The will doesn’t mention any other land.”
    The room was held hostage until finally, white-lipped and controlled, Eli nodded once and everyone took in a breath of relief.
    Good God
, Victoria thought, giddy with nerves,
we’re off to a rocky start
.
    “For Celeste.” Jenkins cleared his throat and opened a safe-deposit box at his elbow. He took out a dozen velvet jewelry boxes of various sizes and slid them toward the front of the desk.
    Victoria could feel Celeste’s hard-wired stillness. The woman practically rattled in her seat.
    “You gonna get that stuff?” Jacob asked in a whisper.
    “Why don’t you go get it for me,” Celeste said with a smile that hummed with sorrow.
    Victoria closed her eyes for a moment. The restrained and repressed emotions in the room were threatening to cut off all air supply. They’d all just asphyxiate in silence.
    Jacob came back with the velvet boxes stacked to his chin.
    “There’s a note. From Lyle,” Jenkins said, his eyes darting up to Celeste’s and then back down to his paper. “These are yours,” Jenkins read. “They always were. They always will be. Divorce changed nothing. Not for me.”
    With trembling hands, Celeste took the boxes from Jacob and set them on her lap. She didn’t open them. Her eyes, full of tears that dared not fall, stared straight ahead.
    Diamonds
, Victoria thought, her desperation turning her into an ugly, grasping mercenary.
Lots of diamonds
.
    Victoria could live off one of those boxes for a year, she had no doubt.
    Jenkins turned another page and Victoria held her breath, waiting for her name.
    Half a million. She’d sell the last of her jewelry. She could live frugally. Plant a garden. Get rid of the car.
    “Wayne Luc Baker, you are the sole inheritor of the twenty-five hundred remaining acres of Crooked Creek Ranch, including all mineral and water rights and all other assets, which includes a fifty percent interest in the Angus herd and sixty percent control of Baker Leather.”
    The words detonated like a bomb.
All of it? Luc got all of it?
    “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Luc said, staring slack-jawed at Jenkins.
    “Yeah,” Tara Jean piped up from the back of the room. “This is a mistake.”
    Jenkins shook his head. “It’s all Wayn—Luc’s.”
    What about me?
Victoria thought.
    “Good Christ.” Luc ran a hand down his face. “This is a nightmare.”
    Yes! It is!
    “I’ll sell it,” Luc said, his face growing stormy. “Fuck him. I’ll sell it.”
    “I’ll buy it.” Eli sounded hard and sure and confident.
    “Great.” Luc nodded. “Name your price—”
    “It’s not that simple,” Jenkins said.
    “It is,” Luc insisted. “For me it’s that simple.”
    “What about us?” Victoria asked, her voice the weak, pathetic cry of a weak, pathetic woman.
    Luc turned, and she refused to look at his face. She knew he didn’t understand her and she knew she disappointed him, but she couldn’t be like him. She couldn’t not care.
    “Jacob and me?” she asked. “There’s nothing in there about us?”
    “May I continue?” Jenkins asked, staring at Luc as if he were a child behaving badly.
    Luc nodded, his control regained.
    “Victoria Schulman and her son will receive a trust of one million dollars.”
    She collapsed back against the seat, her body boneless, her mind empty with relief.
    “On the condition—”
    Her body curled upright. “What condition?” she asked. How like him, how very like her bastard father! Even after he was dead he wanted her to crawl.
    “That Wayne—”
    “My name is Luc,” Luc said through his teeth.
    “That Mr. Baker acts as CEO of Baker Leather and stays at the ranch without selling it for the duration of his off-season. Five months at minimum.”

chapter

9
    Shock emptied Tara Jean’s body and she was just a crumpled paper sack in dirty sweat pants.
    Luc was her boss.
    Why didn’t she see this coming?
    She’d thought,