Six Hot Single Dads. Lynne Marshall
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again drawn to a photo of the kiss. Good God, he was sexy. Just looking at the picture made his sexiness resonate in her body, followed by a flood of rejection, sadness and even anger—feelings that did not play well together.
“Hold on a second. Was there not a major love connection last night? Because it sure as hell looked like it.”
“Let’s just say the connection fizzled.” Her voice wobbled, betraying her intention to not let anyone know how much this bothered her.
Grace sat forward. “Are you okay? Do you want to tell me what happened?”
Ashley shook her head. “I really don’t want to rehash it. I’m glad that last night was good for business, but it’s going to take me some serious time to heal from it. Being rejected by Marcus Chambers is not fun.”
“He rejected you?”
“Is that so hard to believe? You know how he feels about me. Last night was just the final nail in the coffin. At this point, all I want is to finish my apartment and avoid him until the day he moves back to England.”
“And when is that?”
She cleared her throat. “I think he has a five-year work visa.”
“Ashley, this is silly. I’m sure that whatever happened last night was a misunderstanding.”
“No way. This is a dead subject. Time to get whatever mileage we can out of last night and move on.”
“Uh, yeah, about that. The higher-ups were emphatic with me this morning. They want more of you and Marcus. They want more of this.” She leaned forward and tapped one of the newspapers.
Ashley knew she’d heard Grace correctly. She just wasn’t happy about it. She and Marcus had to stay away from each other. Better to leave grumpy dogs lie, especially ones who had no qualms about turning down a woman after she’d taken off her designer gown. “You’re just going to have to tell them no. Marcus hates me.”
“There’s no way we’ll get the network to buy that. That kiss was convincing.” Grace pointed at Ashley’s desk. “Look at you two. I’d do anything for a man to kiss me like that, especially if I knew he looked like he does under that suit.”
“What is it with you and his abs?” Ashley couldn’t stand to look at the photos anymore. It hurt too much. She collected the stack of papers, got up from her chair and plopped them down in Grace’s lap. “Marcus Chambers and I are done. Kaput. End of story.”
“I didn’t want to have to tell you this, but the network is not happy you left the party early. If the papers hadn’t come out this morning, you could’ve been in serious hot water.”
“Oh please. I just...” I just wanted to be alone with him. “I had a headache.”
“Liar. I saw the look on your face when you two walked off the dance floor.” Grace sat back in her chair. “What if I told you my job is hanging in the balance?”
“They can’t fire you over this. I won’t let them.”
“I’m talking about a promotion. They’re considering me for head of network publicity. Becky Jensen is leaving at the beginning of June.”
“Head of the department? For the whole network?”
Grace nodded. “The whole shebang.”
Grace had come from similarly humble beginnings, and they always had each other’s back. She lived in a postage stamp of an apartment with her sister and had student debt up to her eyeballs. A promotion like that would be a boon for Grace, and well-deserved. She worked as hard as Ashley, maybe even harder.
The guilt wasn’t merely crushing, it was suffocating. Ashley couldn’t take money out of someone else’s mouth, let alone the mouth of a good friend. “I don’t know how I can convince him to say yes.”
Grace crossed her legs, pulling on her long auburn locks, seeming deep in thought. “You both have to eat, don’t you? Just go out to dinner with the man. Remind him how much good it’ll do for Chambers Gin.”
Ashley sighed, slumping back in her chair. “One dinner?” Why did the task seem so Herculean? Oh, right. Because Marcus had made it clear last night. He couldn’t be around her.
“After that, it’s your call. We’ll just let all the world wonder what you two are doing up in that lovely high-rise apartment building. You do live across the hall from each other, after all. The proximity is nothing but sheer temptation.”
Given Ashley’s current level of sexual frustration, she couldn’t argue, even though she was certain Marcus didn’t see it that way at all. “Fine. I’ll ask him. But I’m not promising anything.”
Grace stood up and clutched the stack of newspapers to her chest, smiling wide, victorious. “Where are you watching the premiere tonight? Do you want to come over?”
Ashley shook her head. “Are you kidding me? The last thing I want to do is watch myself on television.”
* * *
Marcus couldn’t stand to look at the newspapers. Except that he couldn’t stand not to look at them, either. He’d removed all copies from his personal office, save one tucked away in the bottom-right desk drawer. There’d been more than one moment during the day when he had to see it. See her. See them. Last night had really happened. He’d kissed Ashley. He’d touched her. He’d kissed her and touched her and the entire world had shifted, exactly as he’d feared.
Marcus stepped into Joanna’s office just as she hung up the phone. He had to catch up with her. They’d both been working nonstop all day. He nearly collapsed in the chair opposite her desk. The ripple effect of kissing Ashley was rife with bizarre good fortune. New orders and inquiries had left everyone in the office scrambling to keep up.
“That was Dad,” Joanna said. “He’s right chuffed, Marcus. I haven’t heard him so excited in I don’t know how long.”
He’d had rumblings of this, but only Joanna had spoken directly to their father. It seemed that the kiss heard round the world had taken no time reaching across the pond. “More orders?”
“They’ve gone through the roof. And it’s not just for No. 9. Orders for the original are more than triple what they were for April of last year. All from one day. We’re bumping up UK production, and I think we need to take a long, hard look at doing the same in the US.”
He would indeed need to speak to their production manager about bringing the new distillery up to peak production. It was a scary proposition, seeing as it hadn’t been tested at full capacity.
“Dad asked whether there will be any signage linking Chambers and Manhattan Matchmaker. I guess several of the distributors are wondering about it.”
Bloody hell. A vision of a cardboard cutout of Ashley holding a bottle of Chambers gin materialized in his head. He could see Joanna wanting to put one out in the reception area. As if it wasn’t difficult enough to live across the hall from Ashley, he’d have to walk past that every day. Plus, that was not the image of Chambers Gin his family had worked at cultivating for more than a century. He and Joanna had been working their fingers to the bone to make the US venture a success, but even a big break like the publicity of last night needed to be contained. This would get out of hand in little time if he didn’t put a stop to it. “There’s not going to be any signage. Last night was a one-time thing, and that was that. There is no link between us and her show.”
A cheeky smile crossed Joanna’s face. She held up one of that morning’s newspapers. “We could always just laminate this. From the look of this photograph, I’d say that Chambers gin and Manhattan Matchmaker are about as linked as can be.”
A familiarly unsettling mix of embarrassment and excitement returned. “That kiss was for the cameras. And that’s all it was. It will not be happening again.” Except that the cameras were a convenient excuse. Something else was behind it, and