LOVE CONTRACT (Rules of Love Book 1)

by Lindsey Hart

  Nina couldn’t believe she was actually considering the idea. It didn’t make any sense. It was as out there as out there ideas went. She did need the help. Her parents did what they could to support her, but her dad didn’t make a lot of money as a teacher and her mom still had her younger brothers to help out. James wasn’t even out of high school yet. While her parents didn’t struggle, they didn’t really have anything extra. She was twenty-four and she was drowning in debt. That fifty grands would help out. Having the last two years of school paid for would be a huge help. She’d graduate loan free.

  “I have one condition. No, I have one more condition,” Nina amended.

  “Shoot.” Shane sat pensively, staring at her as though she was his last hope in this world.

  “I want all that, but in addition, you can take some extra money for the house. I know you wanted to put a basement suite in. I want you to do that and let me stay there for the next two years until I’m done with school. Rent free.”

  Shane nodded slowly. A stray lock of blonde hair fell into his eyes with the movement and he brushed it back on instinct.

  “Alright. I can do that.”

  “I’m not agreeing to anything,” Nina rushed on. “Until I see a contract drawn up.”

  “Of course.” Shane was nodding his head, blue eyes shining like they always did when he was about to test out one of his crazy, horrible, no good ideas.

  Nina just knew, that no matter what that damn contract was going to say, she was in deep trouble.

  CHAPTER 3

  Chet

  Chet knew it was fucked up that he was putting conditions on giving Shane a share of money that he felt was his just for the fact that he was his brother. Shane was a good kid. At least, he always had been back when Chet lived at home. He hadn’t kept in touch like he wanted to. He’d never had much in common with a brother who was eight years younger. He hadn’t kept in touch with a dad who bailed on him either. A dad he barely remembered, and somehow, he wound up being left a fortune.

  No, Chet might not have been the world’s best big brother. He wasn’t going to win any awards anytime soon. He did follow his brother on social media. And that was where he’d seen the pictures.

  Pictures of Shane’s grad, his beautiful best friend hanging on his arm, dressed in a tight, form fitting, emerald green prom gown that outlined every single curve and silhouetted the body of a goddess. He remembered Nina, from when they were kids. She wasn’t annoying. She was the voice of reason to Shane’s bratty little brother act. She tagged along with him wherever he went and he followed in her shadow in turn. They were like night and day and somehow their friendship worked.

  He’d forgotten about her, until six years ago, when those grad photos surfaced.

  He hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind.

  Even half way across the world, no matter how he threw himself into work, no matter how many other women he might date, no matter how he tried to forget, her face was there. She didn’t haunt him exactly, it was just that her emerald green eyes and long, flowing blonde hair, her pixie like face never really left.

  He was ashamed to admit it, but he’d tattooed designs based on her. He’d painted women, characters from his imagination who weren’t her, but looked a little like her. In every aspect of his art, he incorporated details of Nina. She just had that kind of face. That kind of body. The kind of look that a man sees once and remembers for the rest of his life.

  When he found out about his father passing, over in Ireland of all places, and the will, he’d been in shock. Slowly he got everything sorted out before he returned home to Houston, a place that never truly had felt like home to the wanderer’s spirit inside of his body. He didn’t think asking for a few dates was too much. Innocent things, a dinner, a chat. What he really wanted was to convince her to sit for a few paintings. Paintings that were truly her. Maybe then he could banish her face. He could stop haunting his brother’s social media postings for another sighting of her, another photo, another memory that wasn’t his to intrude in.

  It was impulsive. It didn’t truly make sense. It came from a place inside of him that he didn’t dare venture into.

  Yet there he was, a contract drafted and signed, in an extended stay hotel room that felt like anything but home, doing up the buttons of a black cotton dress shirt, freshly pressed because he’d just bought it and hadn’t bothered with washing it. He opted for a pair of black pants that weren’t formal at all. He just wore them all the time, the kind of thing that he knew his brother detested just by looking at the way he dressed. The kind that thinned out near the bottom. He didn’t tuck his damn shirt in because that would be too much.

  He could have purchased a pair of dress shoes, but he’d always hated them. He opted instead, for a pair of black canvas high tops. It completed the dark hipster kind of look he didn’t know where he’d actually picked up. He didn’t own a stich of clothing that wasn’t black, if you didn’t count jeans and he owned precious few pairs, none of which he ever wore.

  Date number one. Dinner and drinks. Something simple. Get to know his younger brother’s best friend and the woman who was, in all aspects of the word, his muse.

  After checking his outfit in the full length mirror glued to the hotel wall, Chet headed out to the parking lot. His rental car was a shit sedan that didn’t have enough leg room in front so that his knees bumped the steering wheel every single time he got in.

  He’d definitely had worse in his life. A car was a car. He only needed a point A to point B mobile at the moment. He’d get something better if he planned to stay. Which wasn’t likely. Houston never had held his interest. He wasn’t the kind of guy who put down roots and stuck around for long.

  The restaurant he’d picked for their first meeting wasn’t fancy. It wasn’t a dive either. He went for middle of the road, not wanting to impress or intimidate Nina. He didn’t need to go upscale, since that would be presumptuous.

  Like this whole thing isn’t already?

  He was shown to a back booth by a hostess wearing a knee length pencil skirt and a white blouse. Apparently, the place was fancy enough for the male counterparts to wear ties and black aprons tucked around their waists. The women servers had on the same ensemble as the hostess.

  The whole idea was ridiculous. Chet freely admitted it. He folded his hands on the black table top and waited. He stared at the place setting beside him, the glass of water in front of him, the flickering candle to his right.

  He wondered if she’d even come. Although, that contract they’d drafted was serious. If she wasn’t going to follow through, she wouldn’t have bothered with it. It was legal and binding and she’d signed it of her own free will. All it stated was that the dates were to occur in a public place and that physical intimacy was not involved. It had been written in black and white, as if he was some kind of animal. Three hundred grand was a lot of money. He wondered what Shane was giving her in exchange for the favour. He doubted it was nothing. No one did anything for nothing.

  His five-minute wait turned into a ten-minute wait. Then fifteen, then twenty. Thirty minutes later, he’d pretty much given up hope on Nina showing, when he spotted her trailing behind the hostess, heading his direction.

  Chet straightened without trying to make it obvious that he did. Nina slid into the booth across from him. She didn’t look up right away but made a production of settling her purse off to the side and arranging her dress. It was a beautiful dress and fit her just right. Gold and sparkly, it somehow wasn’t overdone. It was somehow seductive and modest all at once, cut just low enough to reveal the swell of small, pert breasts, but cut high enough not to reveal any more than a glimpse.

  Her stunning hair was curled into ringlets. She’d left it down, which Chet liked. He wanted to reach across the table and run his hands through it. Purely from an artistic standpoint, of course. Like hell it is. He wanted to feel how soft that hair was, determine the texture and the exact hue, so that when he painted her, it wou
ld be perfect.

  Her perfection, the utter flawlessness of her skin, her tiny frame, her ethereal beauty, hit him like a sucker punch to the gut. He thought she was pretty in the odd photo Shane sometimes posted to his page. Chet was completely unprepared for the real-life version of Nina, the raw reality of everything that she was composed of. Something hard and hot unfurled in his stomach. His heart started slapping at the underside of his ribs, beating so loudly he could have sworn she’d be able to hear it. His mind went fuzzy and he had to curl his hands into fists under the tabletop, just to keep a semblance of composure. He couldn’t remember the last time, if ever, any woman elicited such a strong, primal response.

  “I’m sorry I’m late.”

  As her large, round, ethereal emerald eyes flashed to his face, he realized how flushed she was. Her cheeks were flushed pink and not just from blush. High cheekbones set off a dainty jaw, a delicate nose and a sweet forehead. She had that heart shaped, pixie, fairy like face that went so well with any kind of art. He’d almost call her waiflike, but she had more curves to her than that. Her breasts and hips were delicate, her legs long and shapely. He’d perused them for just a second, as long as he dared, as she walked in.

  He felt strangely lit up, like he was glowing from the inside out, burning, on fire. His skin felt hot and achy, strangely feverish.

  “I- my car broke down halfway here. No, that’s not true. It got a flat. I could have fixed it but not in these damn shoes.” Her eyes snapped with annoyance as she glanced under the table at her footwear. His eyes followed, landing on five-inch gold heels that matched her dress. “I tried and then I gave up. I couldn’t do it with these or without these on.”

  “I’m impressed.” Chet leaned back. He folded his arms over his chest.

  “What? That I tried to change it myself or that I’d know how in the first place?”

  “I suppose that you’d know how. I don’t know many guys who can change a tire.”

  “Let alone a woman.” She rolled her eyes and he could see immediately why Shane was drawn to her and why their friendship worked. She was the perfect match to Shane’s wild spirit. She had that indomitable inner strength that few people had. She wasn’t just a spitfire. She was more balanced than that.

  “Let alone a woman,” he admitted. “So, what did you do with it? Abandon it at the side of the road and walk the rest of the way?”

  “No. I called a tow truck and they put the spare on and sent me on my way.”

  “That’s a pretty incredible excuse for being late.”

  That blush on Nina’s high, sweeping cheek bones darkened. It wasn’t just pink, but a full-on stain of red. “Not as incredible as the excuse for getting me here in the first place.”

  “That wasn’t an excuse.” Chet privately admired her wit, but he wasn’t going to let her know that.

  “No I guess not. I don’t know what to call it. Bribery maybe. Dates in exchange for money?”

  “There’s a word for that, or several, but I don’t think they’re what you had in mind.”

  The blush spread over her entire face, over her cheeks, done her neck. Even her nose reddened a little. Her lips parted, but no sound came out. Finally, she inclined her head, ceding the victory.

  “You remind me of Shane a little,” she admitted. “He always has something ridiculous to say and he always wants the last word.”

  “I don’t always need to have the last word.”

  “So says you right now, as you’re trying to get it.”

  It was his turn to feel flustered. He reached for the menu off to the side. “Order whatever you like,” he instructed without looking up. “I’m paying.”

  “I should hope so.”

  He glanced up to find Nina staring at him. Though she kept a straight face, he felt like she was laughing at him. “I heard the steak is good at this place.”

  “I’m a vegetarian.”

  She took him off guard again. He was thankful his darker complexion wasn’t given to easy blushes. “Oh?”

  “I’m kidding. I just wanted to see what you’d say.”

  “I’d say that on a quick glance, there are a lot of salads to choose from.”

  Nina shut her menu after a moment of looking at it. She pushed it aside, to the end of the table. “You know, Shane told me that you were crazy. Of course, he just thinks that because you have your hands and neck tattooed.” Her beautiful green eyes swept over him and an odd rush of heat warmed his stomach. It spread out, travelling up to his chest and out to his groin, before he pointedly gave himself a mental shake and banished it.

  The point of this is art. My art and my art only. He less than halfway believed his mental rationalization.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say to that. Shane hardly knows me.”

  “Because you left and never came back. He wants to, you know. He missed you.” Nina’s lips pressed together like she’d said too much. A wave of guilt hit Chet right in the stomach. He set aside his menu as well, shoving it alongside the discarded one at the end of the table.

  “I didn’t mean that as a bad thing. Shane probably does think I’m crazy. I think I’m crazy half the time. I don’t know, I had this thing inside of me, ever since I was young. This urge to go places and see the world. The thought of being trapped here for the rest of my life was enough to make me go truly insane.”

  “You didn’t have to leave when you were so young. Shane barely remembers you. You could have stayed in touch.”

  He shrugged, trying to give the impression of casualness that wasn’t real. He felt strangely done in, his breath locked somewhere between his lungs and his throat. “Some people aren’t good at that kind of thing. I wanted to write to him, but what do you say to a brother who is still a kid?”

  “He’s not a kid anymore.” Nina’s brow wrinkled in thought. “I guess that’s how you’d have remembered him though. I guess it would have been hard, to just come out of nowhere and start talking to him again and figure out who he is now and how much he’s changed. Hard but worth it.” She leveled a direct gaze at him and he knew immediately that getting on Nina’s bad side wasn’t a good place to be. He also realized how fucking hot it was when she looked at him with a little bit of steam underscoring her glance.

  A uniform clad server who had impeccable timing, came around to their table at that moment, cutting off a conversation Chet wasn’t sure he wanted to continue. Nina settled back and smiled sweetly at the woman, all grace and charm and prettiness once again. He admired the way her eyes snapped as she defended his brother. What would he do to have a friend like her on his side? No, not a friend. He didn’t see her as a friend. He wasn’t sure how his brother managed, all those years, to maintain a friendship and that was it. He would have crossed the line a thousand times if he was in Shane’s shoes.

  “I’ll have the spinach dip and pitas and I’d also like to try the battered mushrooms, a side Greek salad, a French onion soup, and a pint of whatever is good and amber on tap.” Nina sat back, clearly satisfied with herself.

  Their server’s pen flew over the paper. Chet almost pitied the poor woman. She probably had writer’s cramp after that order.

  “And I’ll have the steak. Medium rare. And the same beer for me, that good amber stuff on tap.” Their server hurried away. Either the woman sensed the tension in the air around the table or she just wanted to get going on the massive food order.

  “You said to order whatever I wanted. Maybe I wanted to try all of it.” Nina shrugged. “I couldn’t decide. So sue me.”

  “Oh, that’s fine. You didn’t order any meat though. Are you actually a vegetarian?”

  Her lips curled up in a wickedly coy smile, one that shot straight to his groin again. He hardened painfully and was fucking thankful that the table hid what was going on underneath.

  “Yes. I just knew what you’d say if I actually admitted to it. I’ve heard the ‘you’re going to die from lack of protein’ speech so often that I could choke. Seriousl
y, I’ve been this way for half my life and haven’t died of protein deficiency yet.”

  “Oh?” He arched a brow. “That’s not what I would have said.”

  “No?” Her eyes held his in a direct challenge.

  “No. I would have asked why you haven’t had the balls to man up and become a vegan yet.”

  “A vegan?”

  “Yes. If you’re vegetarian, why not go all the way and become a vegan?”

  Nina’s lips pursed. “Maybe I can’t give up chocolate and cheese. Maybe I’m weak.”

  “I was just kidding.”

  “No, I’ve thought about it. I’ve tried.” Nina crossed her arms. “So, enough about me. Let’s talk about you. Why three?”

  “Three dates?”

  “Yes. Three dates. Why three? You could have picked any number.”

  “Honestly…” Chet sighed. “Because I thought that three was as many as you’d agree to.”

  “I didn’t want to agree to one. I wouldn’t have, if it hadn’t been for the money.”

  “Oh yes. I assumed my brother was going to give you something.” Chet wasn’t stung. He expected as much.

  “It’s not your business. I agreed to three dates. I didn’t say they had to be pleasant.”

  “They don’t have to be unpleasant either. I’m not a bad guy. I might have been a shit brother and have been a little fucked up inside, but does that actually make me someone you don’t want to know?”

  “I don’t know if I want to know you. I’m being paid to be here right now. That’s all I know. I’m open to you changing my mind though. I’m not a bad person either. I don’t make snap judgements about people, especially not my best friend’s brother. Because, deep down, Shane probably wishes this could be a weird as hell gateway to you two having a better relationship.”

  “And if I can promise that will happen, will you be more open to the next date idea I have planned?”