From Enemies To Expecting. Kat Cantrell
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It would not kill him to compliment her dress. Her hair. Her punctuality. Something.
“You look like you should be spread across the floor of a Mexican restaurant,” he said bluntly, with a once-over that totally contradicted his words. His gaze was more I want to rip that dress off you than I want to eat tacos.
Her hackles rose as she glanced down at her mosaic tile dress that nipped in so far at the waist it was almost two pieces. The large cutouts left her waist and hips bare, which meant when they danced, his palms would be on her bare skin. Something more along the lines of thank you would be highly appropriate here.
Was his vision impaired? She looked good. It wasn’t arrogance. It was a fact, because she paid attention to details. If there was anything she knew how to market, it was herself.
“Well, don’t hold back, honey. Tell me how you really feel about a dress that took me all day to find and set me back six grand.”
“It’s a little...risqué for a charity fund-raiser, don’t you think?” His faint scowl told her he’d already decided the answer was yes.
“Considering Kendall Jenner wore the same dress with a different color scheme to the Met Gala, no,” she countered and willed her temper back, because they hadn’t even left yet. An argument now wouldn’t benefit anyone, since there were no cameras around, never mind that she’d been trying to provoke him.
“I don’t know who that is, but odds are good she’ll never be dating me. You are. Maybe you could find a wrap?”
Hands on her bare hips, she contemplated her fake boyfriend, who was about to learn exactly how little that role entitled him to. “What’s that supposed to mean? I’m not allowed to be myself because I’m dating the world’s biggest Goody Two-shoes?”
His scowl grew some teeth. “Clearly we need to establish some guidelines to this...relationship. Partnership. Whatever it is. Ground rules are obviously a must.”
Yeah, that was a day late and a dollar short. Honestly, she’d been a little surprised he’d agreed to this idea with no parameters.
She clapped enthusiastically. “Yay! I love rules.”
Rules were going to go over about as well as the notion of a wrap. She was not putting a single thread on top of this Versace masterpiece, and he could eat his rule book. Though she was a little curious what rules he might throw down.
So she could break them all.
“Lose the sarcasm or this is going to be a very long night.”
Her brows arched involuntarily. “That was always going to be true, and I’d rather lose the dress than the sarcasm.”
“That can be arranged.” The heat dialed up a notch as his gaze strayed to the straps around her neck that held the dress on her body.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
More’s the pity. There was no way he’d actually strip her out of this dress simply to get his way.
Was there?
“Rule number one. Never dare me, Trinity,” he said with so much wicked in his voice that she nearly pushed him on it, strictly to find out how good he was at undressing a woman in formal wear.
All at once, flashes of an ad campaign spilled into her head. A man sliding a dress off a woman and the woman stopping him before he reveals her scar. Cut to a shot of Formula-47 that would be called...
The rest blurred, sliding away before she could visualize the ending. But it was a start. And more than she’d had in a long time.
Holy hell. Where had that come from? Better yet, could she get more of it if she told Logan to get lost so she could work?
Torn, she eyed him and swore. She’d agreed to do this fake relationship deal, and as she’d been telling herself all week, he had a stake, too. They had places to go and people to let photograph them. Lots of fake kissing to engage in—which she would deny to her grave she looked forward to.
She tapped her temple. “I dare say even I can remember that rule.”
Seemed like a dare was pretty close to how she’d gotten him to kiss her the first time.
“Good. We can discuss the rest of the rules on the way. Grab your wrap so we can go.”
“Counterproposal. You remember that this is a partnership and I don’t answer to you,” she shot back. “The whole point is to get eyes on us. This dress is guaranteed to be on a hundred fashion blogs by morning, and to be honest, your love life could use spicing up.”
She’d done her homework on Logan McLaughlin, and the mice he normally dated barely registered a blip in the social media sphere. Photographs of him with a woman on his arm were rare in the first place, but the few she’d found—please. Either he liked invisible, unassuming women or his vision really was impaired.
He crossed his arms. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She almost grinned at his echo of her earlier comment, but only because things were starting to get interesting. Finally. “It means you’re boring, darling. One of your players is dating a supermodel who posed for Playboy, and he gets more love in the press than anyone else on your team. Take a lesson.”
“I’m aware.” Logan’s back teeth ground together. “I’ve asked him stop seeing her. It’s distasteful.”
“Oh, honey.” She shook her head. That spine needed unstarching in the worst way, and she definitely had a lot of ideas on how to accomplish that. “Thank God you’ve hooked up with me. Now you listen. We’re going to go to this charity deal, I’m not going to wear a wrap and we’re going to sizzle. That’s the only rule you need.”
* * *
Logan regretted getting a limo the moment Trinity Forrester spilled into the interior. If he’d driven his own car, he could have occupied himself with the steering wheel. The lack of a place to put his hands hadn’t been a factor on the way over. Now? There was entirely too much female skin right there within touching distance.
And God above, the will it took to stop himself from reaching out was monumental.
She smelled both divine and like the kind of sin that would put a man on his knees in a confessional before dawn. The paradox was driving him insane. And they hadn’t even pulled away from the curb yet.
A butterfly tattoo flashed at her wrist. It had been covered before, and he was not happy about how much he liked it. He watched as she arranged her long skirt to let her sexy shoes peek out. The heels, of course, resembled ice picks, and only tiny straps held them to her feet, making him wonder how they actually stayed on.
Even her toes were sexy.
“Rules,” he growled because he needed some. “Are—”
“Made to be broken?” she filled in sweetly.
The limo shuttled toward what promised to be a very long evening fraught with frustration and tension, most of it sexual, followed by a morning explaining to everyone he knew that he had not, in fact, lost his mind when he’d selected his companion for the evening.
“Rules are necessary so I—we—don’t forget what we’re doing here.” Though he suspected she wasn’t dealing with issues in that respect the same way he was. “Without rules, the world descends into chaos.”
“Maybe your world does. Mine just gets more interesting.”
“Case in point. The most important rule we need to establish is that behind closed doors, we’re not a couple. Only in public. And it’s not real.”
The cockeyed gaze she shot him was further enhanced by her swirly makeup. Less Cleopatra today and more Picasso. It was very distracting.
“I kind of thought all that was a given.”
“Well,