From Enemies To Expecting
Guess that was her answer about what else he had up his sleeve—he was going to be pleasant instead of an obstinate jackass. Strictly to mess with her head, most likely.
But she needed to work with him to benefit both of their goals. She bit her tongue and slipped her hand from his. “I can give that a shot.”
They put their heads together, and true to his word, Logan listened to her ideas. She considered it a plus when he laughed at her jokes. No one had to know she secretly reveled in it.
* * *
By the end of the afternoon, they’d amassed a solid four hundred dollars and change with their McLemonade booth. God knew how. They’d fought over everything: how much to charge, where to set up, how much lemonade to put in the cups. Apparently, Mr. Nice Guy only made an appearance when he wanted something, then vanished once he got into the thick of things.
Finally, the show’s producer asked them to pack up and head to the studio so they could wrap up the day’s shooting. They drove separate cars to the set and met up again in the fake boardroom.
This time, Trinity grabbed a seat. An entire day on her feet, most of it on grass while wearing stilettos, was not doing her body any favors.
“Welcome back, everyone!” Rob Moore called, and the teams gathered around the table.
Logan stood at the back and Trinity pretended like she didn’t notice the vacant seat by her side. All the other teammates sat next to each other. Fine by her. She and her partner got on like oil and water and had only figured out how to work together because they’d had to.
“We’ve tallied all the sales, and I must say, this was an impressive group of teams.” The host beamed at them. “But the winners are Mitch Shaughnessy and John Roberts!”
Disappointed, Trinity clapped politely as the winning team high-fived each other and jogged to the head of the table to claim the giant check made out to St. Jude Children’s Hospital. That was the important thing—the money was going to a good cause.
“The winning team’s proceeds were...” Rob Moore paused for dramatic effect. “Four hundred and twenty-eight dollars. Impressive!”
Oh, dear God. They’d lost by a measly twenty-five dollars? She thought about banging her head on the table, but that wouldn’t put the cameras on her face with a nice graphic overlay stating her company’s name. But what if there was a way to get some additional airtime? The cameras were still rolling, panning the losers as the host launched into his trademark parting comments.
“Fire up the electric chair, boys,” he cried. “We’ve got some executions to perform!”
This was the cheesiest part of the show, which she’d hoped to avoid. She had a good idea how to do that and get some cameras on her at the same time.
Pushing her chair backward with a sharp crack, she bolted to her feet and charged over to her partner, poking her finger in his chest with a bit more force than she’d intended. But she’d gotten the cameraman’s attention, and that was all that mattered.
“This is all your fault, McLaughlin. We would have won if it wasn’t for you.”
His gaze narrowed, and he reached up to forcibly remove her finger from his person. “What are you talking about? This ship started sinking the second we were paired. Bad girl meets all-American boy. Please. What they should have called us was train meets wreck.”
That struck her as such a perfect way to describe the day that she almost laughed, but she bit it back. She could admire his wit later, over a glass of wine as she celebrated the fact that she never had to see him again. “You know what your problem is?”
“I’ve got no doubt you’re about to tell me,” he offered and crossed his arms in the pose that she’d tried—and failed—to ignore all day. When he did that, his biceps bunched up under his shirt sleeves, screaming to be touched. She just wanted to feel one once. Was that so much to ask?
“Someone needs to. Otherwise, you’d walk around with that rule book shoved up your...butt,” she amended, lest the producers cut the whole exchange due to her potty mouth. “Some rules are made to be broken. That’s why we lost. Apply for sainthood on your own time.”
His expression heated and not in a good way. “Are you saying I’m a Goody Two-shoes?”
“If the shoe fits, wear it,” she suggested sweetly. “And that’s not even the worst of your problems.”
He rolled his eyes, fire shooting from his gaze, and she almost caved, because he was really pissed and while she wanted the cameras on them, she also felt like crap for poking at him. But when he got hot and bothered, he lost all his filters and focused on nothing but her.
That, she liked.
“Oh, I’ve gotta hear this. Please, enlighten me.”
“You’re attracted to me and you can’t stand it.” That was like the pot calling the kettle black, though she scarcely wanted to admit that to herself, let alone out loud.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“You heard me.”
Her finger ended up back on his chest. Oops. It was hard and delicious and there was something super hot about how immovable he was. Logan was solid, the kind of guy who might actually stick around when unexpected challenges cropped up. Sometimes a girl needed a strong shoulder. He had two.
“I heard you,” he growled and went to smack away her finger—she’d assumed—but he crushed her palm to his chest, holding it captive with his hand. “What I meant was, that’s the craziest thing you’ve said so far today.”
The cameraman had zoomed in on their discussion. She noted the lens from the corner of her eye and nearly smiled.
You couldn’t buy this kind of exposure. This time tomorrow—with her help—this clip would go viral: Two executives melt down on the set of a reality TV show. Viewers would see a strong woman not taking any crap from her male partner. As long as they spelled Fyra correctly, it should amp up the positive publicity and counter the negative.
“Get ready for more crazy, because not only are you attracted to me, you can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to kiss me. Admit it. You’re curious about the tongue piercing.”
“Of course I am,” he bit out, fuzzing her brain at the same time.
He was? Fascinated, she zeroed in on him, and yeah, there was a whole lot more than agitation in his expression. Logan McLaughlin, official Boy Scout of major league baseball, had never kissed a woman with a tongue piercing. And he wanted to.
Heat and a thick awareness flooded all the places between them. His heart thumped under her palm, strong but erratic, which perfectly mirrored the stuff going on under her own skin.
“What red-blooded male wouldn’t be curious,” he murmured. “When there’s only one reason to have a steel bar through your tongue—to pleasure a man.”
His eyelids shuttered for a beat, and when he opened them, his eyes held so much wicked intent, her pulse bobbled. Caught in his hot gaze, she swayed toward him, her hand fisting his shirt. “One way to find—”
His mouth captured hers before she’d fully registered him moving. And then all rational thought drained from her mind as Logan kissed her. The TV set melted away, the fascinated onlookers disappeared—none of it registered as he yanked her into his embrace.
Exactly where she wanted to be.
Logan McLaughlin was perfection under her hands, because yes, he was that hard all over. His back alone qualified as a work of art, defined with peaks and valleys that she hadn’t ever felt on a man before. Imagine that. Something new to be discovered on a male body.
She wanted more. And took it.
Tilting her head, she deepened the kiss, and he countered instantly, swirling his tongue forward to find hers, taking command of the kiss, heightening the roar of hunger pounding through her veins. His mouth. God, the things it was doing to her. The things it could do.
And then all at once, his lips disappeared and she swayed forward, desperate to get them back on hers. Instead, he leaned in and nuzzled her ear.
“How’d I do?” he murmured. “Close enough to what you were going for?”
Trinity laughed, because what else could she do? “Yeah. That was perfect.”
He’d been on to her scheme the entire time. Of course. What had she thought, that a man with commitment and white picket fences written all over him might actually go for a woman like her, who’d turned her independence into a shield? That he’d been as into the kiss as she had?
Never in a million years would they make sense together—unless it was fake.
This was a great place for goodbye. But for some reason, Trinity was having a very difficult time taking her hands off her partner.
Two
The next morning, Trinity entered the five-story glass-and-steel building that housed the cosmetics company she’d helped build with her marketing savvy and love of all things feminine. She still got a thrill out of the modern design and purple accents she and her three partners had selected, and the location just north of downtown Dallas was perfect for a single woman who owned an amazing condo in the heart of the city.
Cass had been making noises about moving the company to Austin. Trinity kept her mouth shut because Fyra’s CEO had a very good reason for wanting to do so—her husband, Gage, lived there and they were expecting a baby together. Trinity didn’t have anything against Austin, per se. But it was yet another example of something she had no control over. She hated anything that smacked of lack of control.
Plus, what was wrong with Gage moving his company to Dallas? Both CEOs ran large companies with lots of employees. Just because Gage was the man in the equation, why did that mean he automatically won the battle?
Trinity strode toward her office to the sounds of hoots and clapping. She took a moment to grin and wave. Obviously the footage of her kiss with Logan had made the rounds. The game show itself wouldn’t air until later in the week, but she’d charmed the producer out of a clip of the kiss, starting it on its viral journey by posting it to her own social media accounts and tagging everyone she knew to share it.
Trinity wasn’t one for leaving things to chance.
Cass had scheduled a meeting for first thing this morning, probably to get the full scoop. Humming, Trinity grabbed coffee and dug around until she found her iPad in her shoulder bag, then strolled to the conference room where Cass stood at the head of the table.
“Hey,” Trinity called and repeated her greeting to Fyra’s CFO, Alex Edgewood, and then to Dr. Harper Livingston-Gates, the chief science officer, whose faces appeared in split screen on a TV mounted on the wall. Both of them were participating in the meeting virtually since they’d abandoned Dallas the moment their husbands crooked their fingers.
Trinity sank into a seat and mentally slapped herself for being unkind.
Alex was pregnant with twins and on bed rest, so it made sense that she lived in Washington, DC, with her husband, Phillip, a United States senator. Harper’s husband worked in Zurich, and Trinity didn’t blame her for wanting to be in the same bed with a man as hot as Dr. Dante Gates, especially since they’d just figured out they were in love after being friends for over a decade.
Maybe Trinity was a little jealous that everyone else had such an easy time with normal female things like falling for a great guy and having his support during pregnancy. And none of them had suffered a horrendous miscarriage that had left them feeling defective. Well, so what? Trinity had other great stuff in her life, like more men than she could shake a stick at.
Except lately, great men had been pretty scarce. The pitfalls of turning thirty. Made you think more about the definition of “great,” and pseudo–frat boys with Peter Pan syndrome were not it. Unfortunately, that seemed to be the type she met at her usual haunts, which was fine for the short term.
She just wished she knew why that didn’t feel like enough anymore.
Cass started off with a sly smile. “You and your reality show partner got pretty chummy. Do tell.”
“All for the cameras, hon,” Trinity assured her. God, what was with that pang in her gut? The kiss had been fake. On both sides—never mind that she’d liked how real it felt. “We were both interested in getting additional coverage. It worked.”
Alex and Harper both murmured their disappointment that the story wasn’t juicier.
“I know we’ve turned dissecting our love lives into a regular boardroom agenda item, but let’s move on,” Trinity insisted smoothly. “I’m sure Cass didn’t call this meeting to talk about my partner on a reality game show.”
“Actually, I did,” Cass corrected. “We’ve got a publicity issue that’s at the top of everyone’s mind right now. After the mess with the leak and then the FDA approval fiasco, sales went into the toilet. We’ve got new problems daily as articles keep popping up in what feels to me like a smear campaign.”
Felt that way to Trinity, too. Which was why it pissed her off so much. This was her territory. Her company. And someone was after it.
“Yeah, I’m aware. That’s why I did the show, remember?”
“I’m not sure it’s enough.” Cass frowned. “I approved it since the publicist suggested it, but we need to move forward with launching Formula-47. When can you schedule time to present the marketing plan?”
“Next Monday?” Trinity suggested and started calculating exactly how screwed she was...since the campaign didn’t exist. Very would be the precise amount of screwed.
It wasn’t anyone’s fault but hers, but then she’d never had a creative dry spell like this one, and she couldn’t even commiserate with her friends. Recent personal events for all three ladies had driven a wedge between them, with Trinity on the wrong side of the married mom division.
Trinity hated it. She was happy for her friends, but sad that they’d all chosen lives so different from the ones they’d had. So different from the one she’d mapped out for herself. And she was pretty sure that was why her creativity had completely abandoned her when she needed it most.
The sketching she’d done on that pristine white pad while Logan peered over her shoulder had been a welcome flood of ingenuity. Maybe the medium was the key—she’d run out at lunch and pick up one of those easels. It could work.
She could totally get her muse to make an appearance, work straight through and have a brilliant campaign by Monday morning. Especially if the publicity from Exec-ution worked like it was supposed to. With that load off her mind, then she could concentrate on turning Formula-47 into a powerhouse wrinkle and scar cream that would put Fyra at the top of the industry.
Cass nodded and shifted focus to numbers, so Alex took the lead on that, while Trinity sank down in her seat to let her mind wander in hopes of jogging something passable from her subconscious. Didn’t happen, but she had almost a week. No problem.
The easel and pad did not turn into a magic bullet. Neither did the marathon brainstorming session she called to generate ideas from her creative team. At four o’clock, she sent Melinda, Fyra’s receptionist, to the office supply store to get a dozen more blank pads. The remains of the two Trinity had purchased at lunch lay in ripped and crumpled pieces on her office floor. She might have stabbed a couple of the papers with her Louboutin heels, but only because big jagged holes improved the package design she’d started on.
She didn’t even have a product name, which meant she had no business trying to design the packaging. Her creative process required building blocks, and the name always came first, but she’d been desperate to make some kind of progress. Formula-47 would be Fyra’s premier product and as the CMO, Trinity should and would take on the heaviest lifting. Her creative team had enough on their plates with managing the rest of Fyra’s marketing juggernaut while she buried herself in this mess.
Melinda poked her head in the door. “I’ve got your pads. Also, Lara from Gianni Publicity Group is here. She doesn’t have an appointment. Shall I send her away?”
The publicist. Great. That was exactly what Trinity needed right now—a reminder that Cass had hired an outside firm to do Trinity’s job. And Lara’s big contribution thus far had landed Trinity in the arms of a do-gooder Texas boy who kissed like a wicked fantasy.
Logan McLaughlin was a name she should have forgotten by now. For God knew what reason, it still rattled around in her head, heating up places that shouldn’t be heating at the thought of a rugged, lean-hipped outdoorsy guy who wasn’t her type.
She sighed. “No, it’s okay. I’ll see her.”
Lara Gianni rushed into the office, long hair streaming behind her as the chic woman grabbed Trinity by the shoulders and kissed both cheeks, Italian style. “You brilliant, brilliant lady. Logan McLaughlin is magnifico.”
“Back off. I saw him first,” Trinity said drily. Was the woman reading minds now? “Why is he magnificent again? Please tell me it’s because you’ve got good news.”
The publicist laughed. “The best. Your video has already been shared over half a million times, and the response? Amazing. People love you two together. The comments are priceless. Love on the set of a TV show is brilliant marketing.”
“Wait a minute. Love on a TV show? It was an entrepreneurial game show, not The Bachelor.” The look on Lara’s face gave Trinity a very bad feeling. “The public was supposed to see the name Fyra and think positive thoughts about it. That’s how you sold the idea to us.”
“That was before you went in a whole different direction. One I love! You’re truly brilliant.”
Yeah, that part was clear. What wasn’t clear was what the hell Lara was talking about. “I didn’t go in a different direction. We lost the game and I had to do something extra. I kissed my partner. Voilà, now Fyra is all over social media.”
“No.” Lara shook her head. “You are all over social media. They like the romance you unwittingly created. I would highly recommend continuing it.”
Trinity’s stomach dropped into her shoes. “Continue what? There’s no romance. It was one kiss.”
A hot kiss. If she’d watched the footage a couple of dozen times before she’d posted it, no one had to know.
Lara shrugged. “I suggest you figure out how to make it into more than a kiss. It doesn’t have to be a real relationship so long as you get yourself photographed with Logan McLaughlin. A lot. While kissing and making goo-goo eyes at each other.”
The logic of it warred with the insanity. A fake relationship strictly for publicity? She couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Yet...how was that so different than a fake kiss for the same reason? Logan had jumped on that deal like a starving dog on a steak. Maybe he’d be really good at pretending they were a hot-and-heavy couple.
The thought unleashed a shiver that nearly unglued her. The side benefits of such an arrangement held many interesting possibilities that she could not ignore, like enticing a nice guy into a walk on the wild side. How much fun would it be to corrupt the hell out of the all-American boy, especially on camera?
No. A long-term fake relationship was a whole lot different than one fake kiss. Her acting skills weren’t that good. Except all at once, she couldn’t figure out if she’d be feigning she was into him...or pretending she wasn’t.
“No way. I can’t do something like that.”
Lara’s brow furrowed as she pulled out her phone and tapped a few times, then held it out to display a nearly all-red pie chart. “That’s the click-through rate from your video to Fyra’s website.”
All the blood drained from Trinity’s head. Seventy-five percent. Seventy-five percent. The click-through rate of her most successful social media campaign ever was 12 percent.
In the wake of the smear tactics someone had launched against Fyra, she couldn’t afford to pass up this idea.
Looked like she’d be paying Mr. McLaughlin a visit. Tomorrow. Hello, new boyfriend.
* * *
Myra slapped the printed spreadsheet on Logan’s desk and didn’t bother to hide her smirk. “Told you that reality show would work.”
Yes, it had. He didn’t need his publicist to point out the double-digit increase in ticket sales. The Mustangs’ entire front office had been buzzing about it since he’d walked in this morning. And he had Trinity Forrester, CMO, to thank.
Who would have thought that sizzling kiss would pay such huge dividends?
Duncan McLaughlin had never done that to get customers to open their wallets, but in Logan’s defense, it hadn’t been his idea. Yet he’d gotten on board with it pretty dang fast, at least once he’d realized the hot woman he’d been salivating over was not coming on to him. She’d simply found one last way to get the camera on them. As tactics went, he could find little to complain about.
Other than the fact that one bad-girl kiss later, he’d come to the uncomfortable realization that he could not wipe the feel of that tongue piercing from his memory.
His admin, Lisa, popped into his office, eyes wide. “Um, boss? You have a visitor. Ms. Forrester?”
Well, well. He leaned back in his chair as Myra’s expression veered between intrigued and very intrigued. Logan had a feeling his own face might be doing something similar, so he schooled it before nodding to Lisa. “You can send her in. Thanks, Myra. I’ll get back to you.”
And then everything in the world of baseball ceased to exist as Trinity waltzed into his office, her off-kilter hair throwing him into a tailspin. God, how was that so sexy? On her, it was one more in-your-face reminder that she was a force to be reckoned with.
Today’s outfit consisted of a deep purple suit with a micro skirt, black stockings that made her legs look a mile long and silver ankle breakers that he’d like better on his bedroom floor.
“Thanks for seeing me on short notice,” she said.
That throaty voice. He’d underrated what it did to him when the sound slid down his spine. His blood woke up and sluiced through his veins in a rush that made him feel alive—only being on the mound had ever replicated that feeling.
Why her? Of all people? He’d always been on the lookout for a simple, uncomplicated woman who listened to country music and planned picnics. A nice woman to settle down with, who could have his babies and be the love of his life. That was how his dad had done it. That was how Logan wanted to do it. The fact that he’d yet to meet his fictional perfect lady was neither here nor there—she was out there somewhere.
And her name was not Trinity. He should not be attracted to her.
All at once, he remembered his manners and rose to his feet, palm outstretched toward the love seat near the window that overlooked the ballpark, his favorite spot in the whole stadium as long as there wasn’t a game in progress. Then it was the dugout until the bitter end.
Most general managers sat in an air-conditioned luxury box, but his players were slugging it out on the field, and in August, it wasn’t unusual for the temperature to hit 110. The senior McLaughlin had regularly hit the trenches alongside his employees. Logan could do the same.
Instead of taking the offered seat, Trinity slid a steamy once-over all the way down his body. “You’re wearing a suit. What was it you said about those?”
I’d rather go naked.
The unspoken quote hung in the air between them, dissolving into a dense awareness that answered one lingering question on his mind since that kiss—whether or not he misremembered how deeply she’d gotten under his skin with all her innuendo.
He’d recalled it perfectly.
“I’m being a grown-up today,” he croaked and cleared his throat.
“Oh, yeah, I once thought about being one of those for Halloween.” She shrugged with a smile that he felt in his gut. “By the way, I like you in a suit.”
“What can I do for you, Ms. Forrester?”
The sooner he got her out of his office, the sooner he could get back to work. Or take a cold shower. The last thing he should do was give her an advantage, or she’d railroad him into doing her bidding before he’d fully surfaced from being whacked upside the head by all the pheromones.