With good reason. Her father was one of the owners of the Heat. Her uncle owned their sister team, the South Carolina Charleston Bucks. The McNead brothers were famous for getting their way, or more accurately, infamous.
And they were baseball royalty.
Or had been until Samantha’s brother Jeremy-her PR equivalent at the Bucks-had stepped over the ethics line, the moral line, and several other lines as well, and brought the wrath of the press down on the McNeads. It hadn’t gone over well, and damage control was required.
“So they’re willing to pimp out their princess when it suits them.”
“It’s an entire month.”
The reminder made her stomach quiver. An entire month of being his girlfriend. “We’re grown-ups.”
“Really?” His stark green gaze was more genuine curiosity than sarcasm. “Because we’ve not spent more than two minutes together without snarling at each other.”
“Well, except for the elevator,” he said.
Also true, and her stomach executed a double gainer with a twist as the memory flew back, hot and sexy, resurrected by nothing more than the sound of his voice and the sudden sleepy look in his eyes.
It’d happened last season. The Heat had just lost, bad. The press had been ruthless, and her father had been pissed at her for somehow not being Super Woman. She’d been in desperate need of some alone time.
What she’d gotten instead was stuck in an elevator on the way to her hotel room with Wade and a couple little bottles of airplane Scotch, and her pity party for one had turned into a naked party for two. The erotic, alcohol- tinged memories came to her in slow-mo and as always,
If she could just erase from her memory banks the picture of Wade taking her straight to heaven in under five minutes she would, but the pictures in her brain seemed to only strengthen with time instead of lessen. She darted a quick glance at their driver, who was currently sipping a seventy-two-ounce DQ soda and rocking his head to the radio as he beat the steering wheel like a drum. “I don’t want to discuss that night.”
Wade shrugged. No skin off his nose. Hell, he’d probably had lots of nights like that since. She concentrated on the view. Not a hardship. Santa Barbara wasn’t called the American Riviera for nothing, and she watched as they passed four-thousand-foot peaks covered in unique and beautiful chaparral and sandstone outcrops. “So we’re good?” she asked quietly.
Wade smiled. It was his professional smile, the one that could melt a woman’s panties at fifty paces and make men wish that they had half his athletic prowess, and it was a charmer. She knew its potency, braced herself for it, and
“
He stretched some more, straightening his arms above him, briefly exposing a flash of washboard abs between the hem of his shirt and the waistband of his jeans. Jeans that were faded at all the stress points. He had some very fine stress points…
She saw more men in a day than the average woman dreamed of. Many of those men-if she was in the clubhouse before a game-in various stages of nakedness, leaving her utterly immune to tantalizing glimpses of male skin.
Which didn’t explain why her mouth went dry.
“Maybe we should kiss on it,” Wade suggested. “Seal the deal.”
Her tummy quivered, a fact she firmly ignored. “What? No!”
“Spoilsport.”
He’d probably have fallen over if she’d said yes, which she absolutely wouldn’t do. Even if he was the kiss master.
Which he was…
His leg was touching hers again. He was hogging the backseat, albeit unintentionally. He was a big guy and he needed space. He also smelled good. He looked good, too, which really didn’t seem fair at all. But he was here, not pitching a diva fit, and she owed him for that. “Thank you,” she said. “For agreeing to this.”
“You’re welcome.”
Well, that seemed surprisingly genuine, and she had to wonder if maybe she’d anticipated trouble with him simply because of their past. Maybe… maybe deep down he really was a good guy.
It was possible.
Maybe they could laugh about this, her having to keep up the pretense of being his lover, when they’d already done the deed.
That could possibly be fun. Maybe.
Sort of.
And maybe they could even become friends. It would be nice-
“You packing any Scotch today?” he asked, looking around the limo. “Should I be bracing myself for you to tear my clothes off again?”
With a sigh, she leaned back and closed her eyes. She could safely check both fun and friends off the list.
Chapter 2
Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.
Wade didn’t have a problem playing dress up with the sexy, tough-as-nails Samantha McNead. Hell, he’d been playing dress up in one form or another since birth, using bravado, sheer grit, and a good amount of bullshit to get to where he was today. His life was a virtual Mr. Cinderella story.
Sometimes he still pinched himself.
So this pretend shit, whatever he and Sam were expected to do this weekend? Right up his alley, baby. But he knew it wasn’t up Sam’s.
Her shoulders were back, spine stiff, the tension rolling off her in waves. She was usually wound a little tight but today she seemed to be setting new records for herself. She wore her shoulder-length blond hair up in some complicated knot thing that had to be giving her a headache. The fitted jacket of her business suit gave her the professionalism he knew she needed on her job. The narrow skirt aimed to do the same thing, but instead emphasized the greatest legs on this side of the Continental Divide. If they were less than a country mile, he’d eat his shorts. And her heels. Christ, those sexy heels. He had no idea how she could walk in them, but damn, he loved them.
She glanced over and caught him staring. With a sound that said she found his perusal unsettling, she crossed her legs away from him, bare skin sliding on bare skin.
His cell phone buzzed, interrupting the thought. Sam waved, gesturing that he should answer it, looking relieved to have him occupied.
“So,” Pace said without a greeting when Wade opened his phone. “Is the rumor correct? Are you and Sam playing nice for an entire month?”
“Partially correct,” Wade said.
